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• Un balance del XXI Congreso de la Comunidad de Usuarios de Oracle

  - by Fabian Gradolph

  La XXI edición del Congreso de CUORE (Comunidad de Usuarios de Oracle) se clausuró el miércoles pasado tras dos intensos días de conferencias, talleres, reuniones y mesas redondas. Los más de 600 asistentes son una buena muestra del gran interés que despiertan las propuestas tecnológicas de Oracle entre nuestros clientes. Big Data y el sector utilities fueron dos de los grandes protagonistas del Congreso. El evento fue inaugurado por Félix del Barrio (en la segunda foto por la izquierda), director general de Oracle en España. Una buena parte del evento, la mañana del martes, estuvo dedicada a Big Data. Con Andrew Sutherland, Vicepresidente Senior de Tecnología de Oracle en EMEA, haciendo la presentación principal, para dar paso después a sesiones específicas sobre las tecnologías necesarias en las diferentes fases de los proyectos Big Data (obtener los datos, organizarlos, analizarlos y, finalmente, tomar las decisiones de negocio correspondientes). No nos vamos a entretener explicando qué es Big Data, un tema que ya hemos tratado previamente en este blog (aquí y aquí), pero sí hay que llamar la atención sobre un tema que Andrew Sutherland puso sobre la mesa en una reunión con periodistas: los proyectos relacionados con los Big Data tienen sentido pleno si nos sirven para modificar procesos y modelos de negocio, de forma que incrementemos la eficacia de la organización. Si nuestra organización está basada en procesos rígidos e inmutables (lo que tiene que ver esencialmente con el tipo de aplicaciones que estén implementadas), el aprovechamiento de los Big Data será limitado. En otras palabras, Big Data es un impulsor del cambio en las organizaciones. Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Los retos a los que se enfrenta un sector como el energético ocuparon el segundo día del Congreso. Las tendencias de la industria como las Redes Inteligentes, el Smart Metering, la entrada de nuevos actores y distribuidores en el mercado, la atomización de las operadoras y las inversiones congeladas son el panorama que se dibuja para las compañías del sector utilities . Además de los grandes eventos (Big Data y Oracle Utilities Day), las dos jornadas del Congreso sirvieron para que aquellos partners de Oracle que lo desearan recibieran la certificación gratuita de sus profesionales en diversas jornadas de examen. Adicionalmente, se desarrollaron sesiones paralelas sobre tecnologías y visiones estratégicas, demostraciones de producto y casos de éxito. En resumen, el balance del XXI Congreso de CUORE es muy positivo para Oracle, para nuestros clientes y para nuestros partners. Os esperamos a todos el próximo año.

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• Mejores prácticas de Recursos Humanos: Cross Company Mentoring

  - by Fabian Gradolph

  Una de las cosas positivas de trabajar en una gran organización como Oracle es la posibilidad de participar en iniciativas de gran alcance que normalmente no están disponibles en muchas empresas. Ayer se presentó, junto con American Express y CocaCola, la tercera edición del programa Cross Company Mentoring, una iniciativa en la que las tres empresas colaboran facilitando mentores (profesionales experimentados) para promover el desarrollo profesional de individuos de talento en las tres empresas. La originalidad del programa estriba en que los mentores colaboran con el desarrollo de los profesionales de las otras empresas participantes y no sólo con los propios. La presentación inicial fue realizada por Alfredo García-Valverde, presidente de American Express en España. Posteriormente, Julia B. López, de American Express, y Rosa María Arias, de Oracle (en ese orden en la foto), han detallado en qué consiste la iniciativa, además de hacer balance de la edición anterior. Aunque este programa -complementario de los que ya funcionan en las tres empresas- está disponible para hombres y mujeres, hay que destacar que buena parte de su razón de ser está en potenciar el papel de mujeres profesionales de talento en las compañías. En términos generales, todas las grandes organizaciones se encuentran con un problema similar en el desarrollo del talento femenino. Independientemente del número de mujeres que formen parte de la plantilla de la empresa, lo cierto es que su número decrece de forma drástica cuando hablamos de los puestos directivos. La ruptura de ese "techo de cristal" es una prioridad para las empresas, tanto por motivos de simple justicia social, como por aprovechar al máximo todo el potencial del talento que ya existe dentro de las organizaciones, evitando que el talento femenino se "pierda" por no poder facilitar las oportunidades adecuadas para su desarrollo. La iniciativa de Cross Company Mentoring tiene unos objetivos bien definidos. En primer lugar, desarrollar el talento con un método innovador que permite conocer las mejores prácticas en otras empresas y aprovechar el talento externo. Adicionalmente, como ha señalado Julia López, es un método que nos fuerza a salir de la zona de confort, de las prácticas tradicionalmente aceptadas dentro de cada organización y que difícilmente se ponen en cuestión. El segundo objetivo es que el Mentee, el máximo beneficiario del programa, aprenda de la experiencia de profesionales de gran trayectoria para desarrollar sus propias soluciones en los retos que le plantee su carrera profesional. El programa que se ha presentado ahora, la tercera edición, arrancará en el próximo mes y estará vigente hasta finales de año. Seguro que tendrá tanto éxito como en las dos ediciones anteriores.

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• Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Rueda de prensa de Mark Hurd: pilares de la estrategia de Oracle

  - by Fabian Gradolph

  Estamos en la segunda jornada de OpenWorld 2012. La sesión ha comenzado con la presentación de Mark Hurd, quien después de su intervención, ha ofrecido una rueda de prensa multitudinaria. Es probable que más de 80 o 90 periodistas estuviesen presentes en la sala. El presidente de Oracle nos ha presentado una muy buena síntesis sobre la estrategia de la compañía, que básicamente está basada en cuatro pilares. He aquí un breve resumen: 1. Ofrecer los mejores productos y soluciones en cada una de las capas tecnológicas. Es decir, los mejores productos de almacenamiento de información, los mejores servidores, la mejor base de datos… todos ellos basados en estándares de la industria, lo que favorece la interoperabilidad con los productos de otros fabricantes, si esa es la elección del cliente. 2. Integrar los productos desde la fase de diseño y desarrollo para ofrecer a los clientes soluciones que proporcionen un rendimiento extremo. Los mayores exponentes de esta estrategia son los Engineered Systems (sistemas de ingeniería conjunta), que incluyen productos estrella como Exadata, Exalogic, o Exalitycs. Al combinar las mejores capacidades de los productos Oracle e integrarlos verticalmente, se consiguen los siguientes beneficios. Rendimiento extremo de las soluciones tecnológicas. Por ejemplo, la última versión de Exadata, presentada ahora, ofrece una velocidad hasta 100 veces mayor que la anterior. Reducción de costes. Los sistemas integrados permiten reducir la necesidad de espacio, el tiempo de instalación e integración y los costes de mantenimiento. Su mayor rendimiento también se traduce en una menor necesidad de inversión en infraestructura. Simplificación de la gestión y el mantenimiento. Al integrar diferentes tipos de soluciones en una sola, también se simplifica la contratación de sistemas de soporte, centralizándolos en un único proveedor. 3. 3. Una propuesta completa para entornos cloud. La propuesta de Oracle incluye una cloud pública (Oracle Public Cloud), infraestructura para clouds privadas e infraestructura para sistemas híbridos. Así, la compañía ofrece Aplicaciones como Servicio (AaaS), Plataforma como servicio (PaaS) e infraestructura como servicio (IaaS). Al mismo tiempo, facilita soluciones para que las empresas construyan sus propias infraestructuras cloud. La ventaja de la propuesta de Oracle es que se utiliza la misma tecnología para la cloud pública o la privada, de forma que los clientes tengan facilidad para escoger qué aplicaciones mantendrán en un sistema público, cuáles en un sistema privado, etc. La máxima interoperabilidad permite, además, trasnferir aplicaciones de unas modalidades a otras sin problemas. 4. Aplicaciones sectoriales. Oracle está apostando fuertemente por el desarrollo de aplicaciones específicas para los diferentes sectores de actividad. Así, Oracle proporciona soluciones concretas para Banca y Finanzas, Distribución, Logística, Sector Público, Telecomunicaciones y un largo etcétera. Tras sus palabras preliminares hubo una interesante ronda de preguntas. No es posible hacer un resumen de todas ellas, pero me quedo con un mensaje que Mark ha repetido en un par de ocasiones: Oracle quiere seguir creciendo en todos los mercados en los que opera y se trata de una estrategia para crecer. Así lo esperamos todos.

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• Motores tecnológicos para el crecimiento económico

  - by Fabian Gradolph

  Oracle ha participado hoy en el IV Curso de Verano AMETIC-UPM. La presentación a corrido a cargo de José Manuel Peláez, director de Preventa de Tecnología de Oracle Ibérica, quien ha hecho una completa revisión de cuáles son los impulsores actuales de la innvovación y del desarrollo en el entorno de las tecnologías, haciendo honor al título del curso:  Las TIC en el nuevo entorno socio-económico: Motores de la recuperación económica y el empleo. Peláez, en su presentación "De la tecnología a la innovación: impulsores de la actividad económica",  ha comenzado destacando la importancia estratégica que hoy en día tienen las tecnologías para cualquier modelo de negocio. No se trata ya de hacer frente a la crisis económica, que también, sino sobre todo de hacer frente a los desafíos presentes y futuros de las empresas. En este sentido, es esencial hacer frente a un reto: el alto coste que tiene para las organizaciones la complejidad de sus sistemas tecnológicos. Hay un ejemplo que Oracle utiliza con frecuencia. Si un coche se comprase del mismo modo en que las empresas adquieren los sistemas de información, compraríamos por un lado la carrocería, por otro lado el motor, las ventanas, el cambio de marchas, etc... y luego pasaríamos un tiempo muy interesante montándolo todo en casa. La pregunta clave es: ¿por qué no adquirir los sistemas de información ya preparados para funcionar, al igual que compramos un coche?. El sector TI, con Oracle a la cabeza, está dando uina respuesta adecuada con los sistemas de ingenería conjunta. Se trata de sistemas de hardware y software diseñados y concebidos de forma integrada que reducen considerablemente el tiempo necesario para la implementación, los costes de integración y los costes de energía y mantenimiento. La clave de esta forma de adquirir la tecnología, según ha explicado Peláez, es que al reducir la complejidad y los costes asociados, se están liberando recursos que pueden dedicarse a otras necesidades. Según los datos de Gartner, de la cantidad de recursos invertidos por las empresas en TI, el 63% se dedica a tareas de puro funcionamiento, es decir, a mantener el negocio en marcha. La parte de presupuesto que se dedica a crecimiento del negocio es el 21%, mientras que sólo un 16% se dedica a transformación, es decir, a innovación. Sólo mediante la utilización de tecnologías más eficientes -como los sistemas de ingeniería conjunta-, que lleven aparejados menores costes, es viable reducir ese 63% y dedicar más recursos al crecimiento y la innovación. Ahora bien, una vez liberados los recursos económicos, ¿hacia dónde habría que dirigir las inversiones en tecnología?. José Manuel Peláez ha destacado algunas áreas esenciales como son Big Data, Cloud Computing, los retos de la movilidad y la necesidad de mejorar la experiencia de los clientes, entre otros. Cada uno de estos aspectos lleva aparejados nuevos retos empresariales, pero sólo las empresas que sean capaces de integrarlos en su ADN e incorporarlos al corazón de su estrategia de negocio, podrán diferenciarse en el panorama competitivo del siglo XXI. Desde estas páginas los iremos desgranando poco a poco.

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• Are there any font rendering libraries for games development that support hinting?

  - by Richard Fabian

  I've used angel code's bitmap font generator quite a bit and though it's very good, I wondered if there would be a way of using the hinting information to provide a better readable result by using hinting to provide differing thickness based on size/pixel coverage. I imagine any solution would have to use the distance field tech presented in the valve paper on smoothing fonts while maintaining or reducing asset size. (http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=494612) but I haven't found any demos of it being used with hinting information turned on or included in the field gradients in any way. Another way of looking at this is whether there are any font bitmap generators that will output mipmaps that still maintain their readability in the face of pixel size. I think the lower mip levels would try to guarantee fill and space where it is necessary to maintain readability/topology over maintaining style/form (the point of hinting). In response to "Is there a reason you can't just render the size you want", the problem lies in the fact that font rasterisers currently don't render in 3D, and hinting information would be important in different amounts due to the pixel density being different along different axes, even differing in importance along the length of a string due to the size reducing over distance. For example, I only want horizontal hinting in a texture that is viewed from the side, and only really want vertical hinting in a font that is viewed from below or above. This isn't meant to be a renderer that tries to render a perfect outline as accurately as possible, as hinting distorts the reality of the font, instead this is meant to be a rendering solution for quite static scenes, but scenes that have 3D transformed and warped text layout. In this case the legibility is important, more important than the accuracy of representation of the polygon shape.

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• Sector bancario, un reto de transformación tecnológica

  - by Fabian Gradolph

  El sector financiero se encuentra en un momento clave. No sólo por la coyuntura económica actual, sino también por cuestiones estructurales y normativas que obligan a las entidades bancarias -normalmente a la cabeza de la innovación tecnológica, por cierto- a seguir dando pasos hacia el futuro, manteniendo la tecnología en el corazón de su estrategia de negocio. Así se ha puesto de manifiesto en el encuentro que se ha celebrado hoy en Madrid: Oracle in Banking, donde expertos de Oracle, clientes de la compañía y analistas han puesto sobre la mesa algunos de los desafíos a los que se enfrenta el sector e ideas para aprovechar al máximo la tecnología en la resolución de estos desafíos. El evento ha sido todo un éxito, con asistencia masiva de clientes y partners. En la imagen que ilustra este artículo pueden verse, por este orden: una panorámica de la sala, Modesto Villajos, Regional Sales Manager de Oracle, quien ejerció de maestro de ceremonias. Leopoldo Boado, Country Manager de Oracle España, quien realizó la introducción, Alex Kwiatkowski, de IDC, quien expuso los prinicipales desafíos a los que se enfrenta la banca, y Máximo Díez, Senior Director Financial Services de Oracle, que planteó las diferentes estrategias de transformación que pueden emprender los bancos. El evento se completó con intervenciones de clientes de Oracle (Banco Espírito Santo -BES- de Portugal; y BBVA, de España), y presentaciones y demostraciones técnicas.  De particular interés fue la intervención de Alex Kwiatkowski. De acuerdo con su punto de vista hay cuatro áreas esenciales a las que se enfrenta el sector. La primera de ellas es el marco regulatorio. El sector financiero está sometido a una constante presión normativa (probablemente acrecentada en estos tiempos de incertidumbre), no sólo a nivel nacional, sino también a nivel europeo y global. El cumplimiento exquisito de todas estas normas es esencial para el buen funcionamiento del sistema. La segunda área crítica es la necesidad de ofrecer una experiencia de usuario multicanal satisfactoria, de forma que se potencie la retención de clientes. A veces es difícil darnos cuenta, pero hoy en día nuestras interacciones con el banco han alcanzado una gran diversidad de canales (sucursal, ATM, Internet, banca telefónica, banca móvil...). Esto supone un permanente desafío tecnológico y de procesos para las entidades financieras. El tercer elemento crítico es el del incremento de la eficiencia de las operaciones, manteniendo los costes bajo control o incluso reduciéndolos aún más. Por último, las entidades bancarias tienen ante sí el reto de encontrar nuevas fuentes de ingresos, de forma que el foco deje de estar únicamente en la reducción de costes y la minimización de riesgos. Lo cierto es que en la actualidad, la atención principal se centra en estos dos puntos, pero como mencionó Alex Kwiatkowski "los CIO`s de los bancos se van a plantar en la mesa del CEO con la necesidad de realizar renovaciones completas de los sistemas de core banking y la necesidad de invertir en el desarrollo de nuevos canales". Máximo Díez también enfatizó esta necesidad en su presentación. Los bancos tienen la obligación de econtrar nuevas fórmulas para impulsar el crecimiento, pero la implementación de estrategias en este sentido presenta fuertes desafíos a causa de las limitaciones de los sistemas IT existentes. No hay duda de que se presenta un futuro muy interesante en el ámbito tecnológico para el sector financiero. Lo que Oracle puede hacer y ofrece a las entidades financieras puede encontrarse en este enlace: Financial Services.

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• Repeat row headers after Page Break

  - by klaus.fabian

  The lead developer of the FO engine send me by chance an email about a REALLY nice feature I did not know about. Did you ever encounter a long table with merged cells, where the merged cell went on to the next page? While column headers are by default repeated on the next page, row headers are not. Tables with group-left column and pivot tables are prime examples where this problem occurs. I have seen reports where merged cells could go over multiple pages and you would need to back to find the row header on previous pages. The BI Publisher RTF templates have a special tag you can added to a merged cell to repeat the contents after each page break. You just need to add the following (wordy) tag to the next merged table cell: true Example: 2nd page of report before adding the tag 2nd page of report after adding the tag. Thought you might want to know. Klaus

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• What does your Python development workbench look like?

  - by Fabian Fagerholm

  First, a scene-setter to this question: Several questions on this site have to do with selection and comparison of Python IDEs. (The top one currently is What IDE to use for Python). In the answers you can see that many Python programmers use simple text editors, many use sophisticated text editors, and many use a variety of what I would call "actual" integrated development environments – a single program in which all development is done: managing project files, interfacing with a version control system, writing code, refactoring code, making build configurations, writing and executing tests, "drawing" GUIs, and so on. Through its GUI, an IDE supports different kinds of workflows to accomplish different tasks during the journey of writing a program or making changes to an existing one. The exact features vary, but a good IDE has sensible workflows and automates things to let the programmer concentrate on the creative parts of writing software. The non-IDE way of writing large programs relies on a collection of tools that are typically single-purpose; they do "one thing well" as per the Unix philosophy. This "non-integrated development environment" can be thought of as a workbench, supported by the OS and generic interaction through a text or graphical shell. The programmer creates workflows in their mind (or in a wiki?), automates parts and builds a personal workbench, often gradually and as experience accumulates. The learning curve is often steeper than with an IDE, but those who have taken the time to do this can often claim deeper understanding of their tools. (Whether they are better programmers is not part of this question.) With advanced editor-platforms like Emacs, the pieces can be integrated into a whole, while with simpler editors like gedit or TextMate, the shell/terminal is typically the "command center" to drive the workbench. Sometimes people extend an existing IDE to suit their needs. What does your Python development workbench look like? What workflows have you developed and how do they work? For the first question, please give the main "driving" program – the one that you use to control the rest (Emacs, shell, etc.) the "small tools" -- the programs you reach for when doing different tasks For the second question, please describe what the goal of the workflow is (eg. "set up a new project" or "doing initial code design" or "adding a feature" or "executing tests") what steps are in the workflow and what commands you run for each step (eg. in the shell or in Emacs) Also, please describe the context of your work: do you write small one-off scripts, do you do web development (with what framework?), do you write data-munching applications (what kind of data and for what purpose), do you do scientific computing, desktop apps, or something else? Note: A good answer addresses the perspectives above – it doesn't just list a bunch of tools. It will typically be a long answer, not a short one, and will take some thinking to produce; maybe even observing yourself working.

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• Procedural landscape generation but not just fractals

  - by Richard Fabian

  In large procedural landscape games, the land seems dull, but that's probably because the real world is largely dull, with only limited places where the scenery is dramatic or tactical. Looking at world generation from this point of view, a landscape generator for a game needs to not follow the rules of landscaping, but instead some rules married to the expectations of the gamer. For example, there could be a choke point / route generator that creates hills ravines, rivers and mountains between cities, rather than cities plotted on the land based on the resources or conditions generated by the mountains and rainfall patterns. Is there any existing work being done like this? Start with cities or population centres and then add in terrain afterwards?

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• Python or C server hosting for indie development

  - by Richard Fabian

  I've written a lot of the game, but it's singleplayer. Now we want to join up and play together. I want to host it like an MMO, but haven't got any personal ability to host (no static IPs or direct access to a reasonable router that will allow me to port forward) so I wondered if there were any free / very cheap hosting solutions for people developing games that need to develop their MMO side. In my case it's a world server for a 2D game where the world map can be changed by the players. So, GAE sounds expensive, as there would be quite a few updates per second (I heard they bill for data updates but not for download, but can't find refernce to billing anywhere on the FAQs) I'd prefer to be able to write the server in python as that's what the game is written in (with pygame), but C is fine, and maybe even better as it might prompt me to write some more performant world generator code ;)

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• XNA and C# vs the 360's in order processor

  - by Richard Fabian

  Having read this rant, I feel that they're probably right (seeing as the Xenon and the CELL BE are both highly sensitive to branchy and cache ignorant code), but I've heard that people are making games fine with C# too. So, is it true that it's impossible to do anything professional with XNA, or was the poster just missing what makes XNA the killer API for game development? By professional, I don't mean in the sense that you can make money from it, but more in the sense that the more professional games have phsyics models and animation systems that seem outside the reach of a language with such definite barriers to the intrinsics. If I wanted to write a collision system or fluid dynamics engine for my game, I don't feel like C# offers me the chance to do that as the runtime code generator and the lack of intrinsics gets in the way of performance. However, many people seem to be fine working within these constraints, making their successful games but seemingly avoiding any of the problems by omission. I've not noticed any XNA games do anything complex other than what's already provided by the libraries, or handled by shaders. Is this avoidance of the more complex game dynamics because of teh limitations of C#, or just people concentrating on getting it done? In all honesty, I can't believe that AI war can maintain that many units of AI without some data oriented approach, or some dirty C# hacks to make it run better than the standard approach, and I guess that's partly my question too, how have people hacked C# so it's able to do what games coders do naturally with C++?

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• Compute directional light frustum from view furstum points and light direction

  - by Fabian

  I'm working on a friends engine project and my task is to construct a new frustum from the light direction that overlaps the view frustum and possible shadow casters. The project already has a function that creates a frustum for this but its way to big and includes way to many casters (shadows) which can't be seen in the view frustum. Now the only parameter of this function are the normalized light direction vector and a view class which lets me extract the 8 view frustum points in world space. I don't have any additional infos about the scene. I have read some of the related Questions here but non seem to fit very well to my problem as they often just point to cascaded shadow maps. Sadly i can't use DX or openGl functions directly because this engine has a dedicated math library. From what i've read so far the steps are: Transform view frustum points into light space and find min/max x and y values (or sometimes minima and maxima of all three axis) and create a AABB using the min/max vectors. But what comes after this step? How do i transform this new AABB back to world space? What i've done so far: CVector3 Points[8], MinLight = CVector3(FLT_MAX), MaxLight = CVector3(FLT_MAX); for(int i = 0; i<8;++i){ Points[i] = Points[i] * WorldToShadowMapMatrix; MinLight = Math::Min(Points[i],MinLight); MaxLight = Math::Max(Points[i],MaxLight); } AABox box(MinLight,MaxLight); I don't think this is the right way to do it. The near plain probably has to extend into the direction of the light source to include potentional shadow casters. I've read the Microsoft article about cascaded shadow maps http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee416307%28v=vs.85%29.aspx which also includes some sample code. But they seem to use the scenes AABB to determine the near and far plane which I can't since i cant access this information from the funtion I'm working in. Could you guys please link some example code which shows the calculation of such frustum? Thanks in advance! Additional questio: is there a way to construct a WorldToFrustum matrix that represents the above transformation?

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• Procedural world generation oriented on gameplay features

  - by Richard Fabian

  In large procedural landscape games, the land seems dull, but that's probably because the real world is largely dull, with only limited places where the scenery is dramatic or tactical. Looking at world generation from this point of view, a landscape generator for a game needs to not follow the rules of landscaping, but instead some rules married to the expectations of the gamer. For example, there could be a choke point / route generator that creates hills ravines, rivers and mountains between cities, rather than cities plotted on the land based on the resources or conditions generated by the mountains and rainfall patterns. Is there any existing work being done like this? Start with cities or population centres and then add in terrain afterwards?

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• Detect collision from a particular side

  - by Fabián

  I'm making a platform sidescrolling game. All I want to do is to detect if my character is on the floor: function OnCollisionStay (col : Collision){ if(col.gameObject.tag == "Floor"){ onFloor = true; } else {onFloor = false;} } function OnCollisionExit (col : Collision){ onFloor = false; } But I know this isn't the accurate way. If I hit a cube with a "floor" tag, in the air (no matter if with the character's feet or head) I would be able to jump. Is there a way to use the same box collision to detect if I'm touching something from a specific side?

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• Procedural world generation oriented on gameplay features

  - by Richard Fabian

  In large procedural landscape games, the land seems dull, but that's probably because the real world is largely dull, with only limited places where the scenery is dramatic or tactical. Looking at world generation from this point of view, a landscape generator for a game (that is, not for the sake of scenery, but for the sake of gameplay) needs to not follow the rules of landscaping, but instead some rules married to the expectations of the gamer. For example, there could be a choke point / route generator that creates hills ravines, rivers and mountains between cities, rather than the natural way cities arise, scattered on the land based on resources or conditions generated by the mountains and rainfall patterns. Is there any existing work being done like this? Start with cities or population centres and then add in terrain afterwards? The reason I'm asking is that I'd previously pondered taking existing maps from fantasy fiction (my own and others), putting the information into the system as a base point, and then generating a good world to play in from it. This seems covered by existing technology, that is, where the designer puts in all the necessary information such as the city populations, resources, biomes, road networks and rivers, then allows the PCG fill in the gaps. But now I'm wondering if it may be possible to have a content generator generate also the overall design. Generate the cities and population centres, balancing them so that there is a natural seeming need of commerce, then generate the positions and connectivity, then from the type of city produce the list of necessary resources that must be nearby, and only then, maybe given some rules on how to make the journey between cities both believable and interesting, generate the final content including the roads, the choke points, the bridges and tunnels, ferries and the terrain including the biomes and coastline necessary. If this has been done before, I'd like to know, and would like to know what went wrong, and what went right.

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• Sanity checks vs file sizes

  - by Richard Fabian

  In your game assets do you make room for explicit sanity checks, or do you have some generally expected bounds which you assert? I've been thinking about how we compress data and thought that it's much better to have the former, and less of the latter. If your data can exceed your normal valid ranges, but if it does it's an error, then surely that implies you're not compressing the data well enough? What do you do to find out if your data is compressed as far as it can be, and what do you use to ensure your data isn't corrupted and ensure it's an official release? EDIT I'm not interested in sanity checking the file size, but instead, how you manage your sanity checks and whether you arrange the excess size caused by the opportunity to do sanity checks by using explicit extra data, or through allowing the data enough file space (data member size) to be out of valid range and thus able to be checked merely by looking at the asset in memory after loading.

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• Rendering text with stb_font results in glitches

  - by Fabian Fritz

  I'm trying to render text with OpenGL and an "inline"-font taken from the stb_fonts The relevant code for initializing the font & rendering: LabelFactory::LabelFactory() { static unsigned char fontpixels [STB_SOMEFONT_BITMAP_HEIGHT][STB_SOMEFONT_BITMAP_WIDTH]; STB_SOMEFONT_CREATE(fontdata, fontpixels, STB_SOMEFONT_BITMAP_HEIGHT); glGenTextures(1, &texture); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture); glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL_MODULATE); glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_ALPHA, STB_SOMEFONT_BITMAP_WIDTH, STB_SOMEFONT_BITMAP_HEIGHT, 0, GL_ALPHA, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, fontdata); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); } void LabelFactory::renderLabel(Label * label) { int x = label->x; int y = label->y; const char * str = label->text; glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture); glEnable(GL_BLEND); glBlendFunc(GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA); glEnable(GL_ALPHA_TEST); glColor4f(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D); glBegin(GL_QUADS); while (*str) { int char_codepoint = *str++; stb_fontchar *cd = &fontdata[char_codepoint - STB_FONT_arial_14_usascii_FIRST_CHAR]; glTexCoord2f(cd->s0, cd->t0); glVertex2i(x + cd->x0, y + cd->y0); glTexCoord2f(cd->s1, cd->t0); glVertex2i(x + cd->x1, y + cd->y0); glTexCoord2f(cd->s1, cd->t1); glVertex2i(x + cd->x1, y + cd->y1); glTexCoord2f(cd->s0, cd->t1); glVertex2i(x + cd->x0, y + cd->y1); x += cd->advance_int; } glEnd(); } However this results in weird glitches I guess I'm doing something wrong with the alpha blending, however I was unable to improve it by changing the parameters. The size and length of the outline of the text that should be shown seems about right (it should read "Test Test Test").

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• ssh -X "Xt error: Can't open display: :0.0"

  - by Fabian

  I'm trying to open xterm on my remote server (Ubuntu Server 10.04) with ssh: ssh -X name@machine xterm but the error returned is: xterm Xt error: Can't open display: :0.0` I googled and tried everything I found. Still getting this error. The DISPLAY-variable should be set automatically, right? Part of sshd_config: X11Forwarding yes X11DisplayOffset 10 PrintMotd no PrintLastLog yes TCPKeepAlive yes Any advice?

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• Most important research article for software development [closed]

  - by Fabian Fagerholm

  Researchers all over the world collectively publish thousands of articles on software development topics every year, hoping to benefit practical software development in the long run. (Of course, some of them only publish to increase their publication count, but hopefully most still aim to advance the field.) But what is really useful for practical software development? Of all the research articles you have read, what do you consider being the most important one for the software development field? What is it about that article that makes it stand out as especially important in your view? Note: I deliberately chose the term "software development", but you can freely interpret it as "programming" or "software engineering", or anything else that fits into the "software development" category.

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• Does a program need to respond straight to the point or politely? [migrated]

  - by Fabian Bigler

  I wonder if it's better if the program responds straight to the point or politely. Consider the following example: The user clicks a button to print something based on a template. However, the template does not exist. Which feedback would you prefer: The template is not defined yet. Please make sure to set the template before you print it out. Make sure to configure the template before printing. The first statement is more polite. The user feels treated well. The second statement is more straight forward and faster understood. What is generally better?

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• Fusion CRM ISV program is gaining weight: Examples of certified add-on's

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  The Fusion CRM ISV program is gaining traction. Please find below few examples of the partners having certified their add-on's to seamlessly work on top of Oracle Fusion CRM. For more information, please contact richard[email protected] ·         Opportunity-to-Quote.  Big Machines now integrates seamlessly to Oracle Fusion CRM, enabling customers with complex products and services and multiple sales channels to streamline the entire opportunity-to-quote process, including product selection, configuration, pricing, quoting, and approval workflows.  Create a custom hyperlink in the Opportunity to invoke Big Machines CPQ application to create a quote and sync up with the Fusion CRM custom quote object using the CRUD operations. The quote can be updated using the custom button in the custom tab in the opportunity details. See: http://www.bigmachines.com/oracle.php  ·         SaaS Billing and Subscription Management.  Is your prospect/customer asking whether top billing partners support Fusion CRM?  Positioning an integrated CRM solution for billing usage and subscription based services?  Need to implement a billable solution on the Oracle Java Cloud Service?  Aria Systems and Zuora have recently engaged with Oracle to deepen their integrations to Fusion CRM and team with Oracle for joint opportunities.  ·         Google Apps, SharePoint, Email-CRM Integrations o   Do your prospects use Google Apps in their business operations?  A “Best of AppExchange” award winner recently completed their integration for Fusion CRM.  CirrusInsight plugs Fusion CRM web services directly into Gmail, allowing you to search existing opportunity or contact, provide account information, and create an interaction such as phone call, appointment, or email against a customer or contact in Fusion CRM directly from Gmail.  o   An EMEA / France based partner, Aryvart provides bi-directional synchronization of appointments and tasks between Google calendar and Oracle Fusion CRM. For customers, it means adopting Oracle Fusion CRM while continuing to use Google calendar for appointments. o   Looking to lower the barrier and expand in SharePoint accounts?  InFact Group (EMEA / France & Germany) provides Microsoft SharePoint Connector for Oracle Fusion CRM. With this solution, you can store documents attached to an opportunity, into Microsoft SharePoint repository. For customers, it means adopting Oracle Fusion CRM while continuing to collaborate across existing content management infrastructure. o   Need to connect to MacMail, GroupWise, or Outlook/Exchange?  Omni Technology is a partner whose Riva CRM Integration recently engaged for support Fusion CRM as a key platform. Migration Tools from competitive CRMs, to Oracle Fusion CRM.  Data Migration Tools from legacy CRMs, to Oracle Fusion CRM.  A partner with the tools and techniques to speed adoption, Conemis provides data integration tools to export data from legacy CRM, and import into Oracle Fusion CRM via WebServices APIs. For customers, it means reducing cost of data migration from legacy CRM system into Oracle Fusion CRM. 

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• Oracle Fusion CRM Implementation Bootcamp for EMEA Systems Integrators - Paris July 24-26th

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  To support partner success and increase win potential with Fusion CRM, we are organizing a unique bootcamp on Fusion CRM intended for Oracle EMEA partners on July 24th to 26th. Join us for this outstanding Bootcamp and learn from Oracle Corporation in-depth know-how on Fusion CRM. The official announcement will be forthcoming, yet we wanted you to determine the appropriate candidate to attend this workshop. Further to this we will send the actual invitation to the selected candidate. Due to the limited number of seats, we will be limiting the number of registrations per SI company and will be selecting the participants. If you are interested to have one or more representatives of your company to attend this bootcamp, please send an email to richard[email protected] by June 18th indicating the name and email address of the participants you would like to nominate, ranked by priority. What will we cover: This Bootcamp presents the fundamental concepts of the Oracle Fusion CRM applications. It introduces you to each functional area of the product, how it is used, and what you need to consider when implementing it for an organization. While we do examine implementation considerations, we do not address the detailed steps of implementation. Instead, we direct you to the relevant resources to learn more. Topics covered: Fusion CRM Introduction Fusion CRM Security Introduction Fusion Functional Setup Manager Introduction Customer Model Introduction Customer Center Introduction Customer Data Management Introduction Marketing & Campaigns Introduction Lead Management Introduction Territory Management Introduction Territory Modeling Introduction with Exercise Opportunity Management Introduction Forecasting Introduction Analytics Introduction CRM For Microsoft Outlook Introduction Customizing with Composers Introduction Roundtable Discussions, and time for hands-on labs (day 2, 3, 4) Next Steps, available resources, ongoing learning path, partner environments, keeping in touch and feedback Bootcamp Goals: Enable a new Fusion CRM implementation team member to: Describe the scope of Oracle Fusion CRM applications Describe the basic security model Describe the customer model Perform common sales and marketing user transactions Access and navigate the Functional Setup Manager Model territories in Fusion CRM using sample business requirements Do necessary planning before implementing the offerings and options Describe the analytics available with the Fusion CRM product Describe the basic page customizations that can be done to meet business requirements Find documentation and other courses to assist in performing setup tasks Expectations: This Bootcamp program should prime the SI organization implementation consultants to attain the basic skills necessary to support a consulting practice in the delivery, scoping, pricing, and planning of your Fusion CRM Implementations. Oracle University will begin to offer additional deep skill training, starting this summer, designed to follow the Introduction Bootcamp. Participants will be expected to participate in labs, exercises, workshops and roundtable discussions with the Oracle Product Managers. Who should attend: This class is designed for your lead CRM Implementation consultants, those who will support your Fusion CRM consulting practice as it grows. These individuals may be members of a centre of excellence, or skills leadership office. The individual who is attending the bootcamp must have prior experience implementing a CRM solution. Intended Audience: Oracle Diamond, Platinum and Gold Level SIs (Top SIs) with specialization in Oracle Applications CRM implementations, with a commitment to achieving Fusion CRM Implementation Specialization. Commitment expressed through an investment in a Center of Excellence/Innovation Center for Fusion CRM Applications. Individuals who will support the implementation practice as it is forming and will deliver Fusion CRM On Premise and Cloud Services implementations. Functional practice leaders, the future Fusion Application Wizards within the SI's organization. This Bootcamp is designed for people who: Will deliver Fusion CRM implementations Have had little or no exposure to Fusion CRM applications Are familiar with at least one other CRM application Have a business analyst level of technical background Prerequisites: Please note, that participants will be asked to take self-service-trainings (video format) and pass the related assessments prior to joining the Bootcamp. Fees: This event is FREE of charge for Oracle partners. When: 24 July – 26 July, 2012 (8:30 - 18:00 each day, including the last day; with recommended but optional evening events on all three days from 18:00 - 20:00 hrs) Where: Paris, France (Location to be defined) Travel: To make your travel hassel free, we kindly suggest you to plan your arrival to Paris on July 23rd and your departure on the 27th. Agenda: The final agenda and registration details will be issued closer to the event date.  

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• Customer Interaction Group (NL) becomes the first Oracle EMEA partner that Achieves OPN Specialization for Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Oracle Recognizes Customer Interaction Group for Expertise in Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Customer Interaction Group, specialists in customer contact and a Gold level member of Oracle® PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced it has achieved OPN Specialized status for Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service. To achieve OPN Specialized status, Oracle partners are required to meet a stringent set of requirements that are based on the needs and priorities of the customer and partner community. By achieving a Specialized distinction, Customer Interaction Group has been recognized by Oracle for its expertise in delivering services specifically around Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service through competency development, business results and proven success.   “As valued Oracle partner it is very important to us to achieve this specialization. With this recognition we guarantee our customers professionalism in each project, from advisory tasks to complex implementations. This allows Customer Interaction Group not only a deepening realization towards optimizing customer interaction, but also to service delivery through various media channels. As a result, our customers are able to service their customers on a higher level” says Hanjo Huizing, CEO of Customer Interaction Group. “Oracle congratulates The Customer Interaction Group with becoming specialized Oracle RightNow partner. Oracle’s Specialization Program is a trusted status and brand, which allows our most experienced and committed partners to differentiate themselves in the marketplace and gain a competitive edge by spotlighting their strengths and special skills” said Richard Lefebvre, head of the Oracle EMEA CRM&CX Partner Community. In today’s competitive markets, successful businesses can successfully stand out by offering their customers good customer service combined with excellent accessibility. Our mission is to help businesses configure and optimize the full range of customer contact. We have the knowledge, experience and tools to develop practical and innovative solutions for customer interaction processes. Our customers as fonq.nl (web department store) and CitizenM (hotels) are working successfully with Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service. They both serve their customers not only in The Netherlands but also in a lot of countries in Europe. Our focus is on the delivery of excellent customer service at a lower cost. Our objective is to increase return on customer contact and to give customers a positive experience. About Customer Interaction Group Customer Interaction Group specializes in delivering and optimizing customer interaction solutions for voice, web, and social interactions. Armed with the knowledge, experience and solutions, they provide solutions and consulting services to companies seeking to deliver superior customer experiences. The core method and approach of Customer Interaction Group is to translate business problems and processes into practical interaction solutions. Based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, The Customer Interaction Group serves customers all over Europe. Follow us on Twitter @CustIntGroup, Facebook.com/custintgroup, linkedin.com/company/customer-interaction-group or visit our website www.custintgroup.com About Oracle PartnerNetwork Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized is the latest version of Oracle's partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialized offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle's growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specializations. Specializations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success. To find out more visit http://www.oracle.com/partners.

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• October in Review

  - by Richard Bingham

  With OpenWorld over October was time to get back to serious work for everyone, including the Fusion Applications Developer Relations team. Don't forget the OpenWorld content is still available, including presentation downloads, for a limited period of time so be sure to grab anything you found useful or take another scan for anything you might have missed. Of all the announcements, the continued evolution of the Oracle Cloud services for extending and integrating with Fusion Applications is increasing in popularity, and certainly the Cloud Marketplace is something we're becoming involved in. More details to follow. Fusion Concepts Last week Vik from our team started the new "Fusion Concepts" series of articles, providing those new to Fusion Applications an explanation of the architectural basics, with the aim to reduce the learning curve and lay the platform for more efficient and effective development. The series begun with an insightful first post on the different schemas that exist in the Fusion Applications database. Look out for upcoming posts on multi-lingual entities, profile options, look-ups and more. New Learning Resources Our YouTube channel continued to expand with more 'how to' videos on using page composer, extending the Simplified UI (aka FUSE), and integrating BI reports and analytics. Also the Oracle Learning Library is now well established as a central resource for knowledge, now with thousands of tutorials, videos, and documents. Of particular note are the great new extensibility-related videos added by the CRM Product Management team, including more on the ever-expanding capabilities of Application Composer. To see some examples of these search using keyword 'customization' or the product 'Sales Cloud'. Finally on learning resources, as Oliver mentioned the Oracle Press book on Fusion Application Customization and Extensibility is now available for pre-order on Amazon (due out 1st Jan). Out And About October also saw us attend the annual Apps Conference held by the UK Oracle User Group in London. Interestingly there was an Applications Transformation stream of sessions and content that included Fusion Applications with all the latest in the Oracle Applications evolution, as always focused around the three tenets of social, mobile, and cloud. Read more in Richard's post-event write up. Other teams around Oracle have also been busy. Angelo from the Platform Technical Services group has done quite a bit of work using web services with Fusion SaaS and has published many interesting findings on his blog. It's definitely recommended reading if you are working on any related integration projects. The middleware-for-applications group has built a new tool called "AppAdvantage" offering an online assessment of your use of Fusion Middleware technologies with Oracle Applications. As the popularity of integrating cloud applications with on-premises systems continued to grow, leveraging existing middleware technologies (and licenses) to support the integration solution is likely to be of paramount importance. Similarly the "Build Enterprise Application Extensions with Ease" section of the related webpage has AppsUX director Killan Evers speaking about customization using the composer tools. Both are useful resources for those just getting started with a move to Fusion Applications. The Oracle A-Team, specialists in middleware technical architecture, always publish superb content via their 'chronicles' site, now with a substantial amount specifically related to Fusion Applications. Click on the Fusion Applications menu on the top right of their homepage to see more. Last month of particular note was an article on customizing the timeout pop-up message that shows to inactive users, providing design-time insight and easy-to-follow steps. Finally if you're looking at using Oracle Middleware and Cloud to tailor and extend your applications then you may also be interested in this new blog post on the roadmap for Oracle SOA and the latest on-demand Cloud Development webcast.

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• HP Jetdirect 175x and HP Officejet K7103 printsharing

  - by Richard

  I have managed to get this setup working , but it is very unreliable and either the printserver or the printer seem to crash and wont respond after 1 or 2 prints, although I am able to still access the web config of the 175x. I had a similar problem with a linksys wireless print server with the same problem and assumed that a HP print server would do the job better...grrrr!! Anybody any ideas what to do next? It is not possible to flash the printserver, nor the printer as far as I know, so I assume I have some iffy settings in the print server config somewhre. All our users are W7 or Vista BTW. Cheers Richard

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