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• use Ghostscript to convert pcl to postscript

  - by Bryon

  So I want to use Ghostscript to convert files that are created in pcl format to postscript. That's the gist of my problem. I am simply trying to run it on the command line, but in the final stage it will have to be run on a lp command like lp -d < gs something something GPL Ghostscript 9.00 (2010-09-14) I will be running this on a solaris 10 server but I believe any unix system should work similar. bash-3.00# /usr/local/bin/gs -sDEVICE=pswrite -dLanguageLevel=1 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sOutputFile=output.ps cms-form.pcl GPL Ghostscript 9.00 (2010-09-14) Copyright (C) 2010 Artifex Software, Inc. All rights reserved. This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details. Error: /undefined in &k2G-210z100u0l6d0e63fa0V Operand stack: Execution stack: %interp_exit .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push 1910 1 3 %oparray_pop 1909 1 3 %oparray_pop 1893 1 3 %oparray_pop 1787 1 3 %oparray_pop --nostringval-- %errorexec_pop .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- Dictionary stack: --dict:1154/1684(ro)(G)-- --dict:0/20(G)-- --dict:77/200(L)-- Current allocation mode is local Current file position is 30 GPL Ghostscript 9.00: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

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• Have you dealt with space hardening?

  - by Tim Post

  I am very eager to study best practices when it comes to space hardening. For instance, I've read (though I can't find the article any longer) that some core parts of the Mars rovers did not use dynamic memory allocation, in fact it was forbidden. I've also read that old fashioned core memory may be preferable in space. I was looking at some of the projects associated with the Google Lunar Challenge and wondering what it would feel like to get code on the moon, or even just into space. I know that space hardened boards offer some sanity in such a harsh environment, however I'm wondering (as a C programmer) how I would need to adjust my thinking and code if I was writing something that would run in space? I think the next few years might show more growth in private space companies, I'd really like to at least be somewhat knowledgeable regarding best practices. Can anyone recommend some books, offer links to papers on the topic or (gasp) even a simulator that shows you what happens to a program if radiation, cold or heat bombards a board that sustained damage to its insulation? I think the goal is keeping humans inside of a space craft (as far as fixing or swapping stuff) and avoiding missions to fix things. Furthermore, if the board maintains some critical system, early warnings seem paramount.

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• Unusual heap size limitations in VS2003 C++

  - by Shane MacLaughlin

  I have a C++ app that uses large arrays of data, and have noticed while testing that it is running out of memory, while there is still plenty of memory available. I have reduced the code to a sample test case as follows; void MemTest() { size_t Size = 500*1024*1024; // 512mb if (Size > _HEAP_MAXREQ) TRACE("Invalid Size"); void * mem = malloc(Size); if (mem == NULL) TRACE("allocation failed"); } If I create a new MFC project, include this function, and run it from InitInstance, it works fine in debug mode (memory allocated as expected), yet fails in release mode (malloc returns NULL). Single stepping through release into the C run times, my function gets inlined I get the following // malloc.c void * __cdecl _malloc_base (size_t size) { void *res = _nh_malloc_base(size, _newmode); RTCCALLBACK(_RTC_Allocate_hook, (res, size, 0)); return res; } Calling _nh_malloc_base void * __cdecl _nh_malloc_base (size_t size, int nhFlag) { void * pvReturn; // validate size if (size > _HEAP_MAXREQ) return NULL; ' ' And (size _HEAP_MAXREQ) returns true and hence my memory doesn't get allocated. Putting a watch on size comes back with the exptected 512MB, which suggests the program is linking into a different run-time library with a much smaller _HEAP_MAXREQ. Grepping the VC++ folders for _HEAP_MAXREQ shows the expected 0xFFFFFFE0, so I can't figure out what is happening here. Anyone know of any CRT changes or versions that would cause this problem, or am I missing something way more obvious?

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• PyGTK: Manually render an existing widget at a given Rectangle? (TextView in a custom CellRenderer)

  - by NicDumZ

  Hello! I am trying to draw a TextView into the cell of a TreeView. (Why? I would like to have custom tags on text, so they can be clickable and trigger different actions/popup menus depending on where user clicks). I have been trying to write a customized CellRenderer for this purpose, but so far I failed because I find it extremely difficult to find generic documentation on rendering design in gtk. More than an answer at the specific question (that might be hard/not doable, and I'm not expecting you to do everything for me), I am first looking for documentation on how a widget is rendered, to understand how one is supposed to implement a CellRenderer. Can you share any link that explains, either for gtk or for pygtk, the rendering mechanism? More specifically: size allocation mechanism (should I say protocol?). I understand that a window has a defined size, and then queries its children, saying "my size is w x h, what would be your ideal size, buddy?", and then sometimes shrinks children when all children cant fit together at their ideal sizes. Any specific documentation on that, and on particular on when this happens during rendering? How are rendered "builtin" widgets? What kind of methods do they call on Widget base class? On the parent Window? When? Do they use pango.Layout? can you manually draw a TextView onto a pango.Layout object? This link gives an interesting example showing how you can draw content in a pango.Layout object and use it in a CellRenderer. I guess that I could adapt it if only I understood how TextView widget are rendered. Or perhaps, to put it more simply: given an existing widget instance, how does one render it at a specific gdk.Rectangle? Thanks a lot.

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• Prolog singleton variables in Python

  - by Rubens

  I'm working on a little set of scripts in python, and I came to this: line = "a b c d e f g" a, b, c, d, e, f, g = line.split() I'm quite aware of the fact that these are decisions taken during implementation, but shouldn't (or does) python offer something like: _, _, var_needed, _, _, another_var_needed, _ = line.split() as well as Prolog does offer, in order to exclude the famous singleton variables. I'm not sure, but wouldn't it avoid unnecessary allocation? Or creating references to the result of the split call does not count up as overhead? EDIT: Sorry, my point here is: in Prolog, as far as I'm concerned, in an expression like: test(L, N) :- test(L, 0, N). test([], N, N). test([_|T], M, N) :- V is M + 1, test(T, V, N). The variable represented by _ is not accessible, for what I suppose the reference to the value that does exist in the list [_|T] is not even created. But, in Python, if I use _, I can use the last value assigned to _, and also, I do suppose the assignment occurs for each of the variables _ -- which may be considered an overhead. My question here is if shouldn't there be (or if there is) a syntax to avoid such unnecessary attributions.

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• How to efficiently resize an array of values, without boxing, used within a Dictionary<string, float[]>

  - by makerofthings7

  In the code below, Pages is defined as public SortedDictionary<DateTime, float[]> Pages { get; set; } I am trying to dynamically increase the size of this array. Can anyone tell how to increase the sized of the innermost float[]? var tt = currentContainer.Pages[dateTime]; Array.Resize<float>(ref tt, currentContainer.Pages.Count + 1); Fail 1 I tried the following code and get index out of range exception SortedDictionary<DateTime, float[]> Pages = new SortedDictionary<DateTime,float[]>(); float[] xx = new float[1]; xx[0] = 1; DateTime tempTime = DateTime.UtcNow; Pages.Add(tempTime, xx); var tt = Pages[tempTime]; Array.Resize<float>(ref tt, Pages.Count + 1); Pages[tempTime][1] = 2; Fail 2 The following gives a compile time error (property, index, or dynamic member can't be used as a ref value) SortedDictionary<DateTime, float[]> Pages = new SortedDictionary<DateTime,float[]>(); float[] xx = new float[1]; xx[0] = 1; DateTime tempTime = DateTime.UtcNow; Pages.Add(tempTime, xx); var tt = Pages[tempTime]; // The line below is different from Fail 1 above ... compile time error Array.Resize<float>(ref Pages[tempTime], Pages.Count + 1); Pages[tempTime][1] = 2; Question What is the most performant answer to resize this array? Would the answer change if it's likely that the final size will be 100-200 floats or 700-900 floats? What if I change my allocation size from +1 to +128? .. or larger?

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• Understanding REST through an example

  - by grifaton

  My only real exposure to the ideas of REST has been through Ruby on Rails' RESTful routing. This has suited me well for the kind of CRUD-based applications I have built with Rails, but consequently my understanding of RESTfulness is somewhat limited. Let's say we have a finite collection of Items, each of which has a unique ID, and a number of properties, such as colour, shape, and size (which might be undefined for some Items). Items can be used by a client for a period of time, but each Item can only be used by one client at once. Access to Items is regulated by a server. Clients can request the temporary use of certain items from a server. Usually, clients will only be interested in getting access to a number of Items with particular properties, rather than getting access to specific Items. When a client requests use of a number of Items, the server responds with a list of IDs corresponding to the request, or with a response that says that the requested Items are not currently available or do not exist. A client can make the following kinds of request: Tell me how many green triangle Items there are (in total/available). Give me use of 200 large red Items. I have finished with Items 21, 23, 23. Add 100 new red square Items. Delete 50 small green Items. Modify all big yellow pentagon Items to be blue. The toy example above is like a resource allocation problem I have had to deal with recently. How should I go about thinking about it RESTfully?

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• C++ and Dependency Injection in unit testing

  - by lhumongous

  Suppose I have a C++ class like so: class A { public: A() { } void SetNewB( const B& _b ) { m_B = _b; } private: B m_B; } In order to unit test something like this, I would have to break A's dependency on B. Since class A holds onto an actual object and not a pointer, I would have to refactor this code to take a pointer. Additionally, I would need to create a parent interface class for B so I can pass in my own fake of B when I test SetNewB. In this case, doesn't unit testing with dependency injection further complicate the existing code? If I make B a pointer, I'm now introducing heap allocation, and some piece of code is now responsible for cleaning it up (unless I use ref counted pointers). Additionally, if B is a rather trivial class with only a couple of member variables and functions, why introduce a whole new interface for it instead of just testing with an instance of B? I suppose you could make the argument that it would be easier to refactor A by using an interface. But are there some cases where two classes might need to be tightly coupled?

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• Freeing of allocated memory in Solaris/Linux

  - by user355159

  Hi, I have written a small program and compiled it under Solaris/Linux platform to measure the performance of applying this code to my application. The program is written in such a way, initially using sbrk(0) system call, i have taken base address of the heap region. After that i have allocated an 1.5GB of memory using malloc system call, Then i used memcpy system call to copy 1.5GB of content to the allocated memory area. Then, I freed the allocated memory. After freeing, i used again sbrk(0) system call to view the heap size. This is where i little confused. In solaris, eventhough, i freed the memory allocated (of nearly 1.5GB) the heap size of the process is huge. But i run the same application in linux, after freeing, i found that the heap size of the process is equal to the size of the heap memory before allocation of 1.5GB. I know Solaris does not frees memory immediately, but i don't know how to tune the solaris kernel to immediately free the memory after free() system call. Also, please explain why the same problem does not comes under Linux? Can anyone help me out of this? Thanks, Santhosh.

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• Why does reusing arrays increase performance so significantly in c#?

  - by Willem

  In my code, I perform a large number of tasks, each requiring a large array of memory to temporarily store data. I have about 500 tasks. At the beginning of each task, I allocate memory for an array : double[] tempDoubleArray = new double[M]; M is a large number depending on the precise task, typically around 2000000. Now, I do some complex calculations to fill the array, and in the end I use the array to determine the result of this task. After that, the tempDoubleArray goes out of scope. Profiling reveals that the calls to construct the arrays are time consuming. So, I decide to try and reuse the array, by making it static and reusing it. It requires some additional juggling to figure out the minimum size of the array, requiring an extra pass through all tasks, but it works. Now, the program is much faster (from 80 sec to 22 sec for execution of all tasks). double[] tempDoubleArray = staticDoubleArray; However, I'm a bit in the dark of why precisely this works so well. Id say that in the original code, when the tempDoubleArray goes out of scope, it can be collected, so allocating a new array should not be that hard right? I ask this because understanding why it works might help me figuring out other ways to achieve the same effect, and because I would like to know in what cases allocation gives performance issues.

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• How to determine 2D unsigned short pointers array length in c++

  - by tuman

  Hello, I am finding it difficult to determine the length of the columns in a 2D unsigned short pointer array. I have done memory allocation correctly as far as I know. and can print them correctly. plz see the following code segment: int number_of_array_index_required_for_pointer_abc=3; char A[3][16]; strcpy(A[0],"Hello"); strcpy(A[1],"World"); strcpy(A[2],"Tumanicko"); cout<<number_of_array_index_required_for_pointer_abc*sizeof(unsigned short)<<endl; unsigned short ** pqr=(unsigned short **)malloc(number_of_array_index_required_for_pointer_abc*sizeof(unsigned short)); for(int i=0;i<number_of_array_index_required_for_pointer_abc;i++) { int ajira = strlen(A[i])*sizeof(unsigned short); cout<<i<<" = "<<ajira<<endl; pqr[i]=(unsigned short *)malloc(ajira); cout<<"alocated pqr[i]= "<<sizeof pqr<<endl; int j=0; for(j=0;j<strlen(A[i]);j++) { pqr[i][j]=(unsigned short)A[i][j]; } pqr[i][j]='\0'; } for(int i=0;i<number_of_array_index_required_for_pointer_abc;i++) { //ln= (sizeof pqr[i])/(sizeof pqr[0]); //cout<<"Size of pqr["<<i<<"]= "<<ln<<endl; // I want to know the size of the columns i.e. pqr[i]'s length instead of finding '\0' for(int k=0;(char)pqr[i][k]!='\0';k++) cout<<(char)pqr[i][k]; cout<<endl; }

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• How string accepting interface should look like?

  - by ybungalobill

  Hello, This is a follow up of this question. Suppose I write a C++ interface that accepts or returns a const string. I can use a const char* zero-terminated string: void f(const char* str); // (1) The other way would be to use an std::string: void f(const string& str); // (2) It's also possible to write an overload and accept both: void f(const char* str); // (3) void f(const string& str); Or even a template in conjunction with boost string algorithms: template<class Range> void f(const Range& str); // (4) My thoughts are: (1) is not C++ish and may be less efficient when subsequent operations may need to know the string length. (2) is bad because now f("long very long C string"); invokes a construction of std::string which involves a heap allocation. If f uses that string just to pass it to some low-level interface that expects a C-string (like fopen) then it is just a waste of resources. (3) causes code duplication. Although one f can call the other depending on what is the most efficient implementation. However we can't overload based on return type, like in case of std::exception::what() that returns a const char*. (4) doesn't work with separate compilation and may cause even larger code bloat. Choosing between (1) and (2) based on what's needed by the implementation is, well, leaking an implementation detail to the interface. The question is: what is the preffered way? Is there any single guideline I can follow? What's your experience?

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• Does std::vector change its address? How to avoid

  - by kunigami

  Since vector elements are stored contiguously, I guess it may not have the same address after some push_back's , because the initial allocated space could not suffice. I'm working on a code where I need a reference to an element in a vector, like: int main(){ vector<int> v; v.push_back(1); int *ptr = &v[0]; for(int i=2; i<100; i++) v.push_back(i); cout << *ptr << endl; //? return 0; } But it's not necessarily true that ptr contains a reference to v[0], right? How would be a good way to guarantee it? My first idea would be to use a vector of pointers and dynamic allocation. I'm wondering if there's an easier way to do that? PS.: Actually I'm using a vector of a class instead of int, but I think the issues are the same.

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• Creating UIButtons

  - by Ralphonzo

  During loadView I am creating 20 UIButtons that I would like to change the title text of depending on the state of a UIPageControl. I have a pre-save plist that is loaded into a NSArray called arrChars on the event of the current page changing, I set the buttons titles to their relevant text title from the array. The code that does this is: for (int i = 1; i < (ButtonsPerPage + 1); i++) { UIButton *uButton = (UIButton *)[self.view viewWithTag:i]; if(iPage == 1) { iArrPos = (i - 1); } else { iArrPos = (iPage * ButtonsPerPage) + (i - 1); } [uButton setAlpha:0]; NSLog(@"Trying: %d of %d", iArrPos, [self.arrChars count]); if (iArrPos >= [self.arrChars count]) { [uButton setTitle: @"" forState: UIControlStateNormal]; } else { NSString *value = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:@"%@", [self.arrChars objectAtIndex:iArrPos]]; NSLog(@"%@", value); [uButton setTitle: [[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@", value] forState: UIControlStateNormal]; [value release]; //////Have tried: //////[uButton setTitle: value forState: UIControlStateNormal]; //////Have also tried: //////[uButton setTitle: [self.arrChars objectAtIndex:iArrPos] forState: UIControlStateNormal]; //////Have also also tried: //////[uButton setTitle: [[self.arrChars objectAtIndex:iArrPos] autorelease] forState: UIControlStateNormal]; } [uButton setAlpha:1]; } When setting the Title of a button it does not appear to be autoreleasing the previous title and the allocation goes up and up. What am I doing wrong? I have been told before that tracking things by allocations is a bad way to chase leaks because as far as I can see, the object is not leaking in Instruments but my total living allocations continue to climb until I get a memory warning. If there is a better way to track there I would love to know.

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• why doesnt this program print?

  - by Alex

  What I'm trying to do is to print my two-dimensional array but i'm lost. The first function is running perfect, the problem is the second or maybe the way I'm passing it to the "Print" function. #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #define ROW 2 #define COL 2 //Memory allocation and values input void func(int **arr) { int i, j; arr = (int**)calloc(ROW,sizeof(int*)); for(i=0; i < ROW; i++) arr[i] = (int*)calloc(COL,sizeof(int)); printf("Input: \n"); for(i=0; i<ROW; i++) for(j=0; j<COL; j++) scanf_s("%d", &arr[i][j]); } //This is where the problem begins or maybe it's in the main void print(int **arr) { int i, j; for(i=0; i<ROW; i++) { for(j=0; j<COL; j++) printf("%5d", arr[i][j]); printf("\n"); } } void main() { int *arr; func(&arr); print(&arr); //maybe I'm not passing the arr right ? }

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• when i set property(retain), one "self" = one "retain"?

  - by Walter

  although I'm about to finish my first app, I'm still confused about the very basic memory management..I've read through many posts here and apple document, but I'm still puzzled.. For example..I'm currently doing things like this to add a label programmatically: @property (retain, nonatomic) UILabel *showTime; @sythesize showTime; showTime = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(45, 4, 200, 36)]; [self.showTime setText:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", time]]; [self.showTime setFont:[UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaRoundedLT-Bold" size:23]]; [self.showTime setTextColor:numColor]; self.showTime.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor]; [self addSubview:self.showTime]; [showTime release]; this is my current practice, for UILabel, UIButton, UIImageView, etc... [Alloc init] it without self., coz I know this will retain twice.. but after the allocation, I put back the "self." to set the attributes.. My gut feel tells me I am doing wrong, but it works superficially and I found no memory leak in analyze and instruments.. can anyone give my advice? when I use "self." to set text and set background color, does it retain one automatically? THX so much!

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• segmentation fault when using pointer to pointer

  - by user3697730

  I had been trying to use a pointer to pointer in a function,but is seems that I am not doing the memory allocation correctly... My code is: #include<stdio.h> #include<math.h> #include<ctype.h> #include<stdlib.h> #include<string.h> struct list{ int data; struct list *next; }; void abc (struct list **l,struct list **l2) { *l2=NULL; l2=(struct list**)malloc( sizeof(struct list*)); (*l)->data=12; printf("%d",(*l)->data); (*l2)->next=*l2; } int main() { struct list *l,*l2; abc(&l,&l2); system("pause"); return(0); } This code compiles,but I cannot run thw program..I get a segmentation fault..What should I do?Any help would be appreciated!

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• Using memset on structures in C++

  - by garry

  Hey guys. I am working on fixing older code for my job. It is currently written in C++. They converted static allocation to dynamic but didn't edit the memsets/memcmp/memcpy. This is my first programming internship so bare with my newbe-like question. The following code is in C, but I want to have it in C++ ( I read that malloc isn't good practice in C++). I have two scenarios: First, we have f created. Then you use &f in order to fill with zero. The second is a pointer *pf. I'm not sure how to set pf to all 0's like the previous example in C++. Could you just do pf = new foo instead of malloc and then call memset(pf, 0, sizeof(foo))? struct foo { ... } f; memset( &f, 0, sizeof(f) ); //or struct foo { ... } *pf; pf = (struct foo*) malloc( sizeof(*pf) ); memset( pf, 0, sizeof(*pf) );

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• Allocating 32-bit integer arrays in 64-bit machines

  - by Shredderroy

  I have a 64-bit i7 machine. Suppose I allocate memory for n 32-bit integers. How many physical registers will actually be used in the allocation: n, or n/2? I tried to write the following simple programme to find out. #include <iostream> #include <cstdlib> using namespace std; int main (int argc, char *argv[]) { int a[4]; cout << &a[0] << "\t" << &a[3] << endl; cin.ignore (1); return 0; } // End main () The output is: 0018FA04 0018FA10 They seem further apart than they should be. Why aren't the addresses 04 and 07? And does this mean that the system is actually allocating four (or more) integers, instead of packing the four 32-bit integers into two 64-bit registers? Thanks in advance for your help.

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• find a duplicate series in SQL

  - by SomeMiscGuy

  I have a table with 3 columns containing a variable number of records based off of the first column which is a foreign key. I am trying to determine if I can detect when there is a duplicate across multiple rows for an entire series declare @finddupseries table ( portid int, asset_id int, allocation float ) ; INSERT INTO @finddupseries SELECT 250, 6, 0.05 UNION ALL SELECT 250, 66, 0.8 UNION ALL SELECT 250, 2, 0.105 UNION ALL SELECT 250, 4, 0.0225 UNION ALL SELECT 250, 5, 0.0225 UNION ALL SELECT 251, 13, 0.6 UNION ALL SELECT 251, 2, 0.3 UNION ALL SELECT 251, 5, 0.1 UNION ALL SELECT 252, 13, 0.8 UNION ALL SELECT 252, 2, 0.15 UNION ALL SELECT 252, 5, 0.05 UNION ALL SELECT 253, 13, 0.4 UNION ALL SELECT 253, 2, 0.45 UNION ALL SELECT 253, 5, 0.15 UNION ALL SELECT 254, 6, 0.05 UNION ALL SELECT 254, 66, 0.8 UNION ALL SELECT 254, 2, 0.105 UNION ALL SELECT 254, 4, 0.0225 UNION ALL SELECT 254, 5, 0.0225 select * from @finddupseries The records for portid 250 and 254 match. Is there any way I can write a query to detect this? edit: yes, the entire series must match. Also, if there was a way to determine which one it DID match would be helpful as the actual table has around 10k records. thanks!

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• Is there a low carbon future for the retail industry?

  - by user801960

  Recently Oracle published a report in conjunction with The Future Laboratory and a global panel of experts to highlight the issue of energy use in modern industry and the serious need to reduce carbon emissions radically by 2050.  Emissions must be cut by 80-95% below the levels in 1990 – but what can the retail industry do to keep up with this? There are three key aspects to the retail industry where carbon emissions can be cut:  manufacturing, transport and IT.  Manufacturing Naturally, manufacturing is going to be a big area where businesses across all industries will be forced to make considerable savings in carbon emissions as well as other forms of pollution.  Many retailers of all sizes will use third party factories and will have little control over specific environmental impacts from the factory, but retailers can reduce environmental impact at the factories by managing orders more efficiently – better planning for stock requirements means economies of scale both in terms of finance and the environment. The John Lewis Partnership has made detailed commitments to reducing manufacturing and packaging waste on both its own-brand products and products it sources from third party suppliers. It aims to divert 95 percent of its operational waste from landfill by 2013, which is a huge logistics challenge.  The John Lewis Partnership’s website provides a large amount of information on its responsibilities towards the environment. Transport Similarly to manufacturing, tightening up on logistical planning for stock distribution will make savings on carbon emissions from haulage.  More accurate supply and demand analysis will mean less stock re-allocation after initial distribution, and better warehouse management will mean more efficient stock distribution.  UK grocery retailer Morrisons has introduced double-decked trailers to its haulage fleet and adjusted distribution logistics accordingly to reduce the number of kilometers travelled by the fleet.  Morrisons measures route planning efficiency in terms of cases moved per kilometre and has, over the last two years, increased the number of cases per kilometre by 12.7%.  See Morrisons Corporate Responsibility report for more information. IT IT infrastructure is often initially overlooked by businesses when considering environmental efficiency.  Datacentres and web servers often need to run 24/7 to handle both consumer orders and internal logistics, and this both requires a lot of energy and puts out a lot of heat.  Many businesses are lowering environmental impact by reducing IT system fragmentation in their offices, while an increasing number of businesses are outsourcing their datacenters to cloud-based services.  Using centralised datacenters reduces the power usage at smaller offices, while using cloud based services means the datacenters can be based in a more environmentally friendly location.  For example, Facebook is opening a massive datacentre in Sweden – close to the Arctic Circle – to reduce the need for artificial cooling methods.  In addition, moving to a cloud-based solution makes IT services more easily scaleable, reducing redundant IT systems that would still use energy.  In store, the UK’s Carbon Trust reports that on average, lighting accounts for 25% of a retailer’s electricity costs, and for grocery retailers, up to 50% of their electricity bill comes from refrigeration units.  On a smaller scale, retailers can invest in greener technologies in store and in their offices.  The report concludes that widely shared objectives of energy security, reduced emissions and continued economic growth are dependent on the development of a smart grid capable of delivering energy efficiency and demand response, as well as integrating renewable and variable sources of energy. The report is available to download from http://emeapressoffice.oracle.com/imagelibrary/detail.aspx?MediaDetailsID=1766I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the report.   

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• The enterprise vendor con - connecting SSD's using SATA 2 (3Gbits) thus limiting there performance

  - by tonyrogerson

  When comparing SSD against Hard drive performance it really makes me cross when folk think comparing an array of SSD running on 3GBits/sec to hard drives running on 6GBits/second is somehow valid. In a paper from DELL (http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pvaul/en/PowerEdge-PowerVaultH800-CacheCade-final.pdf) on increasing database performance using the DELL PERC H800 with Solid State Drives they compare four SSD drives connected at 3Gbits/sec against ten 10Krpm drives connected at 6Gbits [Tony slaps forehead while shouting DOH!]. It is true in the case of hard drives it probably doesn’t make much difference 3Gbit or 6Gbit because SAS and SATA are both end to end protocols rather than shared bus architecture like SCSI, so the hard drive doesn’t share bandwidth and probably can’t get near the 600MiBytes/second throughput that 6Gbit gives unless you are doing contiguous reads, in my own tests on a single 15Krpm SAS disk using IOMeter (8 worker threads, queue depth of 16 with a stripe size of 64KiB, an 8KiB transfer size on a drive formatted with an allocation size of 8KiB for a 100% sequential read test) I only get 347MiBytes per second sustained throughput at an average latency of 2.87ms per IO equating to 44.5K IOps, ok, if that was 3GBits it would be less – around 280MiBytes per second, oh, but wait a minute [...fingers tap desk] You’ll struggle to find in the commodity space an SSD that doesn’t have the SATA 3 (6GBits) interface, SSD’s are fast not only low latency and high IOps but they also offer a very large sustained transfer rate, consider the OCZ Agility 3 it so happens that in my masters dissertation I did the same test but on a difference box, I got 374MiBytes per second at an average latency of 2.67ms per IO equating to 47.9K IOps – cost of an 240GB Agility 3 is £174.24 (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/240gb-ocz-agility-3-ssd-25-sata-6gb-s-sandforce-2281-read-525mb-s-write-500mb-s-85k-iops), but that same drive set in a box connected with SATA 2 (3Gbits) would only yield around 280MiBytes per second thus losing almost 100MiBytes per second throughput and a ton of IOps too. So why the hell are “enterprise” vendors still only connecting SSD’s at 3GBits? Well, my conspiracy states that they have no interest in you moving to SSD because they’ll lose so much money, the argument that they use SATA 2 doesn’t wash, SATA 3 has been out for some time now and all the commodity stuff you buy uses it now. Consider the cost, not in terms of price per GB but price per IOps, SSD absolutely thrash Hard Drives on that, it was true that the opposite was also true that Hard Drives thrashed SSD’s on price per GB, but is that true now, I’m not so sure – a 300GByte 2.5” 15Krpm SAS drive costs £329.76 ex VAT (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/300gb-seagate-st9300653ss-savvio-15k3-25-hdd-sas-6gb-s-15000rpm-64mb-cache-27ms) which equates to £1.09 per GB compared to a 480GB OCZ Agility 3 costing £422.10 ex VAT (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/480gb-ocz-agility-3-ssd-25-sata-6gb-s-sandforce-2281-read-525mb-s-write-410mb-s-30k-iops) which equates to £0.88 per GB. Ok, I compared an “enterprise” hard drive with a “commodity” SSD, ok, so things get a little more complicated here, most “enterprise” SSD’s are SLC and most commodity are MLC, SLC gives more performance and wear, I’ll talk about that another day. For now though, don’t get sucked in by vendor marketing, SATA 2 (3Gbit) just doesn’t cut it, SSD need 6Gbit to breath and even that SSD’s are pushing. Alas, SSD’s are connected using SATA so all the controllers I’ve seen thus far from HP and DELL only do SATA 2 – deliberate? Well, I’ll let you decide on that one.

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• Why Your ERP System Isn't Ready for the Next Evolution of the Enterprise

  - by ken.pulverman

    ERP has been the backbone of enterprise software.  The data held in your ERP system is core of most companies.  Efficiencies gained through the accounting and resource allocation through ERP software have literally saved companies trillions of dollars. Not only does everything seem to be fine with your ERP system, you haven't had to touch it in years.  Why aren't you ready for what comes next? Well judging by the growth rates in the space (Oracle posted only a 3% growth rate, while SAP showed a 12% decline) there hasn't been much modernization going on, just a little replacement activity. If you are like most companies, your ERP system is connected to a proprietary middleware solution that only effectively talks with a handful of other systems you might have acquired from the same vendor.   Connecting your legacy system through proprietary middleware is expensive and brittle and if you are like most companies, you were only willing to pay an SI so much before you said "enough."  So your ERP is working.  It's humming along.  You might not be able to get Order to Promise information when you take orders in your call center, but there are work arounds that work just fine. So what's the problem? The problem is that you built your business around your ERP core, and now there is such pressure to innovate your business processes to keep up that you need a whole new slew of modern apps and you need ERP data to be accessible from everywhere.   Every time you change a sales territory or a comp plan or change a benefits provider your ERP system, literally the economic brain of your business, needs to know what's going on.  And this giant need to access and provide information to your ERP is only growing. What makes matters even more challenging is that apps today come in every flavor under the Sun™.   SaaS, cloud, managed, hybrid, outsourced, composite....and they all have different integration protocols. The only easy way to get ahead of all this is to modernize the way you connect and run your applications.  Unlike the middleware solutions of yesteryear, modern middleware is effectively the operating system of the enterprise.  In the same way that you rely on Apple, Microsoft, and Google to find a video driver for your 23" monitor or to ensure the Word or Keynote runs, modern middleware takes care of intra-application connectivity and process execution.  It effectively allows you to take ERP out of the middle while ensuring connectivity to your vital data for anything you want to do.  The diagram below reflects that change.    In this model, the hegemony of ERP is over.  It too has to become a stealthy modern app to help you quickly adapt to business changes while managing vital information.  And through modern middleware it will connect to everything.  So yes ERP as we've know it is dead, but long live ERP as a connected application member of the modern enterprise. I want to Thank Andrew Zoldan, Group Vice President Oracle Manufacturing Industries Business Unit for introducing me to how some of his biggest customers have benefited by modernizing their applications infrastructure and making ERP a connected application. by John Burke, Group Vice President, Applications Business Unit

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• Organizational characteristics that impact the selection of Development Methodology concepts applied to a project

  Based on my experience, no one really follows a specific methodology exactly as it is formally designed. In fact, the key concepts of a few methodologies are usually combined to form a hybrid methodology for each project based on the current organizational makeup and the project need/requirements to be accomplished. Organizational characteristics that impact the selection of methodology concepts applied to a project. Prior subject knowledge pertaining to a project can be critical when deciding on what methodology or combination of methodologies to apply to a project. For example, if a project is very straight forward, and the development staff has experience in developing  that are similar, then the waterfall method could possibly be the best choice because little to no research is needed  in order to complete the project tasks and there is very little need for changes to occur.  On the other hand, if the development staff has limited subject knowledge or the requirements/specification of the project could possibly change as the project progresses then the use of spiral, iterative, incremental, agile, or any combination would be preferred. The previous methodologies used by an organization typically do not change much from project to project unless the needs of a project dictate differently. For example, if the waterfall method is the preferred development methodology then most projects will be developed by the waterfall method. Depending on the time allotted to a project each day can impact the selection of a development methodology. In one example, if the staff can only devote a few hours a day to a project then the incremental methodology might be ideal because modules can be added to the final project as they are developed. On the other hand, if daily time allocation is not an issue, then a multitude of methodologies could work well for a project. Project characteristics that impact the selection of methodology concepts applied to a project. The type of project being developed can often dictate the type of methodology used for the project. Based on my experience, projects that tend to have a lot of user interaction, follow a more iterative, incremental, or agile approach typically using a prototype that develops into a final project. These methodologies desire back and forth communication between users, clients, and developers to allow for requirements to change and functionality to be enhanced. Conversely, limited interaction applications or automated services can still sometimes get away with using the waterfall or transactional approach. The timeline of a project can also force an organization to prefer a particular methodology over the rest. For instance, if the project must be completed within 24 hours, then there is very little time for discussions back and forth between clients, users and the development team. In this scenario, the waterfall method would be perfect because the only interaction with the client occurs prior to a development project to outline the system requirements, and the development team can quickly move through the software development stages in order to complete the project within the deadline. If the team had more time, then the other methodologies could also be considered because there is more time for client and users to review the project and make changes as they see fit, and/or allow for more time to review the project in order to enhance the business performance and functionality. Sometimes the client and or user involvement can dictate the selection of methodologies applied to a project. One example of this is if a client is highly motivated to get a project completed and desires to play an active part in the development process then the agile development approach would work perfectly with this client because it allows for frequent interaction between clients, users and the development team. The inverse of this situation is a client that just wants to provide the project requirements and only wants to get involved when the project is to be delivered. In this case the waterfall method would work well because there is no room for changes and no back and forth between the users, clients or the development team.

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• Why Your ERP System Isn't Ready for the Next Evolution of the Enterprise

  - by [email protected]

  By ken.pulverman on March 24, 2010 8:51 AM ERP has been the backbone of enterprise software. The data held in your ERP system is core of most companies. Efficiencies gained through the accounting and resource allocation through ERP software have literally saved companies trillions of dollars. Not only does everything seem to be fine with your ERP system, you haven't had to touch it in years. Why aren't you ready for what comes next? Well judging by the growth rates in the space (Oracle posted only a 3% growth rate, while SAP showed a 12% decline) there hasn't been much modernization going on, just a little replacement activity. If you are like most companies, your ERP system is connected to a proprietary middleware solution that only effectively talks with a handful of other systems you might have acquired from the same vendor. Connecting your legacy system through proprietary middleware is expensive and brittle and if you are like most companies, you were only willing to pay an SI so much before you said "enough." So your ERP is working. It's humming along. You might not be able to get Order to Promise information when you take orders in your call center, but there are work arounds that work just fine. So what's the problem? The problem is that you built your business around your ERP core, and now there is such pressure to innovate your business processes to keep up that you need a whole new slew of modern apps and you need ERP data to be accessible from everywhere. Every time you change a sales territory or a comp plan or change a benefits provider your ERP system, literally the economic brain of your business, needs to know what's going on. And this giant need to access and provide information to your ERP is only growing. What makes matters even more challenging is that apps today come in every flavor under the Sun™. SaaS, cloud, managed, hybrid, outsourced, composite....and they all have different integration protocols. The only easy way to get ahead of all this is to modernize the way you connect and run your applications. Unlike the middleware solutions of yesteryear, modern middleware is effectively the operating system of the enterprise. In the same way that you rely on Apple, Microsoft, and Google to find a video driver for your 23" monitor or to ensure that Word or Keynote runs, modern middleware takes care of intra-application connectivity and process execution. It effectively allows you to take ERP out of the middle while ensuring connectivity to your vital data for anything you want to do. The diagram below reflects that change. In this model, the hegemony of ERP is over. It too has to become a stealthy modern app to help you quickly adapt to business changes while managing vital information. And through modern middleware it will connect to everything. So yes ERP as we've know it is dead, but long live ERP as a connected application member of the modern enterprise. I want to Thank Andrew Zoldan, Group Vice President Oracle Manufacturing Industries Business Unit for introducing me to how some of his biggest customers have benefited by modernizing their applications infrastructure and making ERP a connected application. by John Burke, Group Vice President, Applications Business Unit

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