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  • How can I stop Excel from eating my delicious CSV files and excreting useless data?

    - by atroon
    I have a database which tracks sales of widgets by serial number. Users enter purchaser data and quantity, and scan each widget into a custom client program. They then finalize the order. This all works flawlessly. Some customers want an Excel-compatible spreadsheet of the widgets they have purchased. We generate this with a PHP script which queries the database and outputs the result as a CSV with the store name and associated data. This works perfectly well too. When opened in a text editor such as Notepad or vi, the file looks like this: "Account Number","Store Name","S1","S2","S3","Widget Type","Date" "4173","SpeedyCorp","268435459705526269","","268435459705526269","848 Model Widget","2011-01-17" As you can see, the serial numbers are present (in this case twice, not all secondary serials are the same) and are long strings of numbers. When this file is opened in Excel, the result becomes: Account Number Store Name S1 S2 S3 Widget Type Date 4173 SpeedyCorp 2.68435E+17 2.68435E+17 848 Model Widget 2011-01-17 As you may have observed, the serial numbers are enclosed by double quotes. Excel does not seem to respect text qualifiers in .csv files. When importing these files into Access, we have zero difficulty. When opening them as text, no trouble at all. But Excel, without fail, converts these files into useless garbage. Trying to instruct end users in the art of opening a CSV file with a non-default application is becoming, shall we say, tiresome. Is there hope? Is there a setting I've been unable to find? This seems to be the case with Excel 2003, 2007, and 2010.

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  • Securing NTP: which method to use?

    - by Harry
    Can someone good at NTP configuration please share which method is the best/easiest to implement a secure, tamper-proof version of NTP? Here are some difficulties... I don't have the luxury of having my own stratum 0 time source, so must rely on external time servers. Should I read up on the AutoKey method or should I try to go the MD5 route? Based on what I know about symmetric cryptography, it seems that the MD5 method relies on a pre-agreed set of keys (symmetric cryptography) between the client and the server, and, so, is prone to man-in-the-middle attack. AutoKey, on the other hand, does not appear to work behind a NAT or a masquerading host. Is this still true, by the way? (This reference link is dated 2004, so I'm not sure what is the state of art today.) 4.1 Are public AutoKey-talking time servers available? I browsed through the NTP book by David Mills. The book looks excellent in a way (coming from the NTP creator after all), but the information therein is also overwhelming. I just need to first configure a secure version of NTP and then may be later worry about its architectural and engineering underpinnings. Can someone please wade me through these drowning NTP waters? Don't necessarily need a working config from you, just info on which NTP mode/config to try and may be also a public time server that supports that mode/config. Many thanks, /HS

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  • Detect if 2 HTML fragments have identical hierarchical structure

    - by sergzach
    An example of fragments that have identical hierarchical structure: (1) <div> <span>It's a message</span> </div> (2) <div> <span class='bold'>This is a new text</span> </div> An example of fragments that have different structure: (1) <div> <span><b>It's a message</b></span> </div> (2) <div> <span>This is a new text</span> </div> So, fragments with a similar structure correspond to one hierarchical tree (the same tag names, the same hierarchical structure). How can I detect if 2 elements (html fragments) have the same structure simply with lxml? I have a function that does not work properly for some more difficult case (than the example): def _is_equal( el1, el2 ): # input: 2 elements with possible equal structure and tag names # e.g. root = lxml.html.fromstring( buf ) # el1 = root[ 0 ] # el2 = root[ 1 ] # move from top to bottom, compare elements result = False if el1.tag == el2.tag: # has no children if len( el1 ) == len( el2 ): if len( el1 ) == 0: return True else: # iterate one of them, for example el1 i = 0 for child1 in el1: child2 = el2[ i ] is_equal2 = _is_equal( child1, child2 ) if not is_equal2: return False return True else: return False else: return False The code fails to detect that 2 divs with class='tovar2' have an identical structure: <body> <div class="tovar2"> <h2 class="new"> <a href="http://modnyedeti-krsk.ru/magazin/product/333193003"> ?????? ?/? </a> </h2> <ul class="art"> <li> ???????: <span>1759</span> </li> </ul> <div> <div class="wrap" style="width:180px;"> <div class="new"> <img src="shop_files/new-t.png" alt=""> </div> <a class="highslide" href="http://modnyedeti-krsk.ru/d/459730/d/820.jpg" onclick="return hs.expand(this)"> <img src="shop_files/fr_5.gif" style="background:url(/d/459730/d/548470803_5.jpg) 50% 50% no-repeat scroll;" alt="?????? ?/?" height="160" width="180"> </a> </div> </div> <form action="" onsubmit="return addProductForm(17094601,333193003,3150.00,this,false);"> <ul class="bott "> <li class="price">????:<br> <span> <b> 3 150 </b> ???. </span> </li> <li class="amount">???-??:<br><input class="number" onclick="this.select()" value="1" name="product_amount" type="text"> </li> <li class="buy"><input value="" type="submit"> </li> </ul> </form> </div> <div class="tovar2"> <h2 class="new"> <a href="http://modnyedeti-krsk.ru/magazin/product/333124803">?????? ?/?</a> </h2> <ul class="art"> <li> ???????: <span>1759</span> </li> </ul> <div> <div class="wrap" style="width:180px;"> <div class="new"> <img src="shop_files/new-t.png" alt=""> </div> <a class="highslide" href="http://modnyedeti-krsk.ru/d/459730/d/820.jpg" onclick="return hs.expand(this)"> <img src="shop_files/fr_5.gif" style="background:url(/d/459730/d/548470803_5.jpg) 50% 50% no-repeat scroll;" alt="?????? ?/?" height="160" width="180"> </a> </div> </div> <form action="" onsubmit="return addProductForm(17094601,333124803,3150.00,this,false);"> <ul class="bott "> <li class="price">????:<br> <span> <b>3 150</b> ???. </span> </li> <li class="amount">???-??:<br><input class="number" onclick="this.select()" value="1" name="product_amount" type="text"> </li> <li class="buy"> <input value="" type="submit"> </li> </ul> </form> </div> </body>

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  • Conflicts with file from package mysql-5.0.77

    - by Whiteyq
    I'm trying to install APC (Alternative PHP Cache) on a CentOs dedicated server. I've everything done apart from configuring phpize. Running :yum -y install php-devel gives me the following error file /usr/share/mysql/charsets/Index.xml from install of mysql-libs-5.1.57-1.el5.art.x86_64 conflicts with file from package mysql-5.0.77-4.el5_5.3.i386 etc etc for other languages So, i think the mysql version i have is too old & i more than likely need to upgrade mysql to version 5.1. Im reluctant to do this as a) its a live server (although only 3/4 domains) b) ive read ill read to recompile php if i upgrade To add to this i have plesk installed for managing domains & might need reinstalling/reconfiguring also. sorry for the long intro but its my first post & best to give as much info as possible, so my question is basically Is there any way i can run :yum -y install php-devel to get phpize working to complete installation of APC for the version of mysql i currently have installed? ie 5.0.77

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  • SQL SERVER – Guest Post – Jacob Sebastian – Filestream – Wait Types – Wait Queues – Day 22 of 28

    - by pinaldave
    Jacob Sebastian is a SQL Server MVP, Author, Speaker and Trainer. Jacob is one of the top rated expert community. Jacob wrote the book The Art of XSD – SQL Server XML Schema Collections and wrote the XML Chapter in SQL Server 2008 Bible. See his Blog | Profile. He is currently researching on the subject of Filestream and have submitted this interesting article on the very subject. What is FILESTREAM? FILESTREAM is a new feature introduced in SQL Server 2008 which provides an efficient storage and management option for BLOB data. Many applications that deal with BLOB data today stores them in the file system and stores the path to the file in the relational tables. Storing BLOB data in the file system is more efficient that storing them in the database. However, this brings up a few disadvantages as well. When the BLOB data is stored in the file system, it is hard to ensure transactional consistency between the file system data and relational data. Some applications store the BLOB data within the database to overcome the limitations mentioned earlier. This approach ensures transactional consistency between the relational data and BLOB data, but is very bad in terms of performance. FILESTREAM combines the benefits of both approaches mentioned above without the disadvantages we examined. FILESTREAM stores the BLOB data in the file system (thus takes advantage of the IO Streaming capabilities of NTFS) and ensures transactional consistency between the BLOB data in the file system and the relational data in the database. For more information on the FILESTREAM feature, visit: http://beyondrelational.com/filestream/default.aspx FILESTREAM Wait Types Since this series is on the different SQL Server wait types, let us take a look at the various wait types that are related to the FILESTREAM feature. FS_FC_RWLOCK This wait type is generated by FILESTREAM Garbage Collector. This occurs when Garbage collection is disabled prior to a backup/restore operation or when a garbage collection cycle is being executed. FS_GARBAGE_COLLECTOR_SHUTDOWN This wait type occurs when during the cleanup process of a garbage collection cycle. It indicates that that garbage collector is waiting for the cleanup tasks to be completed. FS_HEADER_RWLOCK This wait type indicates that the process is waiting for obtaining access to the FILESTREAM header file for read or write operation. The FILESTREAM header is a disk file located in the FILESTREAM data container and is named “filestream.hdr”. FS_LOGTRUNC_RWLOCK This wait type indicates that the process is trying to perform a FILESTREAM log truncation related operation. It can be either a log truncate operation or to disable log truncation prior to a backup or restore operation. FSA_FORCE_OWN_XACT This wait type occurs when a FILESTREAM file I/O operation needs to bind to the associated transaction, but the transaction is currently owned by another session. FSAGENT This wait type occurs when a FILESTREAM file I/O operation is waiting for a FILESTREAM agent resource that is being used by another file I/O operation. FSTR_CONFIG_MUTEX This wait type occurs when there is a wait for another FILESTREAM feature reconfiguration to be completed. FSTR_CONFIG_RWLOCK This wait type occurs when there is a wait to serialize access to the FILESTREAM configuration parameters. Waits and Performance System waits has got a direct relationship with the overall performance. In most cases, when waits increase the performance degrades. SQL Server documentation does not say much about how we can reduce these waits. However, following the FILESTREAM best practices will help you to improve the overall performance and reduce the wait types to a good extend. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Filestream

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  • Systems Solutions at COLLABORATE12

    - by ferhat
    Want to connect with fellow Oracle users and learn more about how to maximize your Oracle software environments with Oracle Systems?   Pack your bags for Las Vegas!   COLLABORATE 12  is right around the corner! COLLABORATE 12 Conference will be held at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV 22-26 April, 2012. This is an event designed and delivered by users just like you with sessions, interactive panel discussions and hands-on learning opportunities packed with first-hand experiences, case studies and practical “how-to” content.. This year’s event includes a number of educational sessions and demos for users interested in learning from the experts how to use Oracle Optimized Solutions to get the most out of their Oracle Technology and Application software. Oracle Optimized Solutions are proven blueprints that eliminate integration guesswork by combing best in class hardware and software components to deliver complete system architectures that are fully tested, and include documented best practices that reduce integration risks and deliver better application performance.  And because they are highly flexible by design,  Oracle Optimized Solutions   can be implemented as an end-to-end solution or easily adapted into existing environments. Follow Oracle Infrared at Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn  to catch the latest news, developments, announcements, and inside views from  Oracle Optimized Solutions. Please come by our Exhibition Booth #1273 to see the demos and meet 1-1 with the experts behind a number of  Oracle Optimized Solutions  including those for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft HCM, Oracle WebCenter, and Oracle Database.  Exhibitor Showcase Booth #1273 DAY TIME TITLE Monday  April 23 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Welcome Reception in the Exhibitor Showcase Tuesday  April 24 10:15 am - 4:00 pm Exhibitor Showcase Open 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Dedicated Exhibitor Showcase Time 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm Exhibitor Showcase Happy Hour Wednesday  April 25 10:30 am - 3:00 pm Exhibitor Showcase Open 2:15 pm -3:00 pm Afternoon Break in Exhibitor Showcase  There are also a number of deep dive, educational sessions covering deployment best practices using Oracle’s engineered systems and best-in-class hardware, operating system and virtualization technologies.  Education Sessions DAY TIME TITLE LOCATION Monday  April 23 9:45 am - 10:45 am Architecting and Implementing Backup and Recovery Solutions Surf E Tuesday  April 24 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Oracle's High Performance Systems for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Mandalay Bay GH 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm Virtualization Boot Camp: What's New with Oracle VM Server for x86 Mandalay Bay C 9:30 am - 10:30 am Oracle on Oracle VM - Expert Panel Mandalay Bay L Wednesday  April 25 9:30 am - 10:30 am Cloud Computing Directions: Part II Understanding Oracle's Cloud Directions South Seas E  And don’t forget the keynotes and software roadmap sessions! Keynotes and Roadmap Sessions DAY TIME TITLE LOCATION Sunday  April 22 3:20 pm – 4:20 pm Oracle’s Cloud Computing Strategy Breakers B Monday  April 23 11:00 am – 12:00 pm JD Edwards - Vision, Promises and Execution: IT'S THE WAY WE ROLL and Why it Matters! Mandalay Bay A 11:00 am – 12:00 pm PeopleSoft Executive Update and Roadmap Mandalay Bay J 1:15 pm - 2:15 pm Oracle Database - Engineered for Innovation Mandalay Bay L 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm Oracle E-Business Suite Applications Strategy and General Manager Update Mandalay Bay D Tuesday  April 24 9:15 am - 10:15 am IT at Oracle: The Art of IT Transformation to Enable Business Growth Mandalay Bay Ballroom H

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  • links for 2011-01-13

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Webcast: Oracle WebCenter Suite: Giving Users a Modern Experience Speakers: Vince Casarez (VP Enterprise 2.0 Product Management, Oracle),  Erin Smith (Consulting Practice Manager – Portals, Oracle), Robert Wessa (Consulting Technical Director – Enterprise 2.0 Infrastructure, Oracle)  (tags: oracle otn webcenter webcast enterprise2.0) Oracle & StickyMinds.com Webcast: Load Testing Techniques for Enterprise Applications Mughees Minhas, Senior Director of Product Management, Oracle Server Technologies, answers your questions about the latest techniques for effectively and efficiently testing enterprise application performance. Thursday, January 20, 2011. 10am PT / 1pm ET. (tags: oracle otn stickymings webcast) Bay Area Coherence Special Interest Group (BACSIG) Jan 20, 5:30pm - 8:00pm PT. Presentations: Coherence 3.6 Clustering Features (Rob Lee), Efficient Management and Update of Coherence Clusters to Reduce Down Time ( Rao Bhethanabotla), How To Build a Coherence Practice (Christer Fahlgren). (tags: oracle, otn coherence bacsig) Podcast Show Notes: William Ulrich and Neal McWhorter on Business Architecture (ArchBeat) A four-part interview with the authors of  "Business Architecture: The Art and Practice of Business Transformation"  (tags: oracle otn podcast businessarchitecture) John Brunswick: Overlapping Social Networks in your Enterprise? Strategies to Understand and Govern "Overall it is important to consider if tacit knowledge being captured by the social systems is able to be retained and somehow summarized into an overall organizational directory." - John Brunswick (tags: oracle otn enterprise2.0 socialnetworking) Coherence - How to develop a custom push replication publisher (Middlewarepedia) Cosmin Todur describes "a way of developing a custom push replication publisher that publishes data to a database via JDBC."  (tags: oracle coherence grid) Aino Andriessen: Oracle Diagnostics Logging (ODL) for application development "Logging is a very important aspect of application development as it offers run-time access to the behaviour and data of the application. It’s important for debugging purposes but also to investigate exception situations on production." -- Aino Andriessen (tags: oracle odl java jdeveloper weblogic) Security issues when upgrading a Web Catalog from 10g to 11g Oracle BI By Bakboord "I blogged about upgrading from Oracle BI EE 10g to Oracle BI EE 11g R1 earlier. Although this is a very straight forward process, you could end up with some security issues." -- Daan Bakboord (tags: oracle businessintelligence obiee) Angelo Santagata: SOA Composite Sensors : Good Practice "A good best practice is that for any composites you create, consider publishing a composite sensor value using a primary key of some sort , e.g. orderId, that way if you need to manipulate/query composites you can easily look up the instanceId using the sensorid." - Angelo Santagata (tags: oracle soa sca) Javier Ductor: WebCenter Spaces 11g PS2 Task Flow Customization "Previously, I wrote about Spaces Template Customization. In order to adapt Spaces to customers prototype, it was necessary to change template and skin, as well as the members task flow. In this entry, I describe how to customize this task flow." - Javier Ductor (tags: oracle otn enterprise2.0 webcenter) RonBatra's blog: Cloud Computing Series: VI: Industry Directions "When someone says their 'Product/Solution is in the Cloud,' ask them basic questions to seperate the spin from the reality. I would start with 'tell me what that means' and see which way the conversation goes." - Oracle ACE Director Ron Batra (tags: oracle otn oracleace cloud) First JSRs Proposed for Java EE 7 (The Java Source) With the approval of Java SE 7 and Java SE 8 JSRs last month, attention is now shifting towards the Java EE platform. (tags: oracle java jsr javaee)

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  • Adobe Photoshop CS5 vs Photoshop CS5 extended

    - by Edward
    Adobe Photoshop has been an industry standard for most web designers & photographers worldwide. Photoshop CS5 has made photography editing much more refined and the composition process has become much easier than ever before.  To study the advantage of Photoshop CS5 extended over Photoshop CS5 we have written this comparison article, with both a Designer’s & Photographer’s perspective. Hopefully it shall help you in your buying/upgrade decision. Photoshop CS5 Photoshop CS5 has refining feature with powerful photography tools. It made editing process easy as fewer steps are involved to remove noise, add grain, create vignettes, correct lens distortions, sharpen, and create HDR images. It has quick image correction and color and tone control for professional purpose. Intelligent image editing and enhancement , extraordinary advanced compositing has made it a better tool than earlier versions for photographers. It allows users to accelerate workflow with fast performance on 64-bit Windows® and Mac hardware systems and smoother interactions due to more GPU-accelerated features. It also boasts of a state-of-the-art processing with Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 6 and helps to maximize creative impact. It provides for tremendous precision and freedom. It allows user to easily select intricate image elements, such as hair and create realistic painting effects. It also allows to remove any image element and see the space fill in almost magically. It has easy access to core editing and streamlined work flow and flexible work ambience. It has creative tools and contents. Photoshop CS5 Extended Photoshop CS5 extended is quite innovative and has incorporated 3D elements to 2D artwork directly within digital imaging application, which enables user to do an easy on-ramp to 3D image creation. It also provides for 3D editing. It has intelligent image editing and enhancement. It offers advance composing and has extraordinary painting and drawing toolset. It provides for video and animation designing. It helps to work with specialized images for architecture, manufacturing, engineering, science, and medicine. Where CS5 extended scores over CS5 CS5 extended has many features, which were not included in CS5. These features make it score more over CS5. These features are: Technology for creating 3D extrusion 3D material library and picker Field depth for 3D 3D merging and scene composition improvements 3D workflow improvement Customization of 3D features Image based light source Shadow catcher for shadow creation Enhanced ray tracer Context sensitive widgets, which allows easy control of objects, lights and cameras. Overlays for materials and mesh boundaries Photoshop CS5 extended is far better than CS5 as it incorporates all the features of CS5 and have more advanced features. It allows 3D creation and editing and has other advanced tools to make it better. Redefining the Image-Editing Experience  : A Photographer’s point of View Photoshop CS5 delivers amazing features and creative options so even new users can perform advanced image manipulations and compositions. Breath taking image intelligence behind Content-Aware Fill magically removes any image detail or object, examines the surroundings and seamlessly fills in the space left behind. Lighting, tone and noise of the surrounding area can be matched. New Refine Edge makes nearly-impossible image selections possible. Masking was never easier, the toughest types of edges, such as hair and foliage seem easier to fix. To sum up following are few advantages of CS5 extended over previous versions 64-bit processing Content Aware Fill Refine Edge, “makes nearly-impossible image selections impossible” HDR Pro, including ghost artifact removal and HDR toning, which gives the look of HDR with a single exposure New brush options Improved image management with enhanced Adobe Bridge Lens corrections Improved black-and-white conversions Puppet Warp: Precisely reposition or warp any image element Adobe Camera Raw 6 Upgrade Buy Online Pricing and Availability Adobe Photoshop CS5 and CS5 Extended are available through Adobe Authorized Resellers & the Adobe Store. Estimated street price for Adobe Photoshop CS5 is US$699 and US$999 for Photoshop CS5 Extended. Upgrade pricing and volume licensing are also available. Related posts:10 Free Alternatives for Adobe Photoshop Software Web based Alternatives to Photoshop 15 Useful Adobe Illustrator Tutorials For Designers

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  • It’s the thought that counts…

    - by Tony Davis
    I recently finished editing a book called Tribal SQL, and it was a fantastic experience. It’s a community-sourced book written by first-timers. Fifteen previously unpublished authors contributed one chapter each, with the seemingly simple remit to write about “what makes them passionate about working with SQL Server, something that all SQL Server DBAs and developers really need to know”. Sure, some of the writing skills were a bit rusty as one would expect from busy people, but the ideas and energy were sheer nectar. Any seasoned editor can deal easily with the problem of fixing the output of untrained writers. We can handle with the occasional technical error too, which is why we have technical reviewers. The editor’s real job is to hone the clarity and flow of ideas, making the author’s knowledge and experience accessible to as many others as possible. What the writer needs to bring, on the other hand, is enthusiasm, attention to detail, common sense, and a sense of the person behind the writing. If any of these are missing, no editor can fix it. We can see these essential characteristics in many of the more seasoned and widely-published writers about SQL. To illustrate what I mean by enthusiasm, or passion, take a look at the work of Laerte Junior or Fabiano Amorim. Both authors have English as a second language, but their energy, enthusiasm, sheer immersion in a technology and thirst to know more, drives them, with a little editorial help, to produce articles of far more practical value than one can find in the “manuals”. There’s the attention to detail of the likes of Jonathan Kehayias, or Paul Randal. Read their work and one begins to understand the knowledge coupled with incredible rigor, the willingness to bend and test every piece of advice offered to make sure it’s correct, that marks out the very best technical writing. There’s the common sense of someone like Louis Davidson. All writers, including Louis, like to stretch the grey matter of their readers, but some of the most valuable writing is that which takes a complicated idea, or distils years of experience, and expresses it in a way that sounds like simple common sense. There’s personality and humor. Contrary to what you may have been told, they can and do mix well with technical writing, as long as they don’t become a distraction. Read someone like Rodney Landrum, or Phil Factor, for numerous examples of articles that teach hard technical lessons but also make you smile at least twice along the way. Writing well is not easy and it takes a certain bravery to expose your ideas and knowledge for dissection by others, but it doesn’t mean that writing should be the preserve only of those trained in the art, or best left to the MVPs. I believe that Tribal SQL is testament to the fact that if you have passion for what you do, and really know your topic then, with a little editorial help, you can write, and people will learn from what you have to say. You can read a sample chapter, by Mark Rasmussen, in this issue of Simple-Talk and I hope you’ll consider checking out the book (if you needed any further encouragement, it’s also for a good cause, Computers4Africa). Cheers, Tony  

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  • Gnome Shell Theme Problem on Ubuntu 11.10

    - by Khurram Majeed
    I am trying to install ANewStart GNOME shell themes on Ubuntu 11.10. I have installed gnome shell extension for themes: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/gnome3 sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extensions-user-theme I got the instructions from here ANewStart GNOME Shell Theme + AwOken Icons Theme = Pure Art. But when I go to "Advanced Settings - Shell Extensions" its empty... There is nothing. Also there is a orange triangle sign next to Shell Theme drop down in Advanced Settings - Theme. When I try to run the gnome-tweak-tool from terminal I get following error: imresh@imresh-laptop:~$ gnome-tweak-tool CRITICAL: Error parsing schema org.gnome.shell (/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/org.gnome.shell.gschema.xml) Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gsettings.py", line 45, in __init__ summary = key.getElementsByTagName("summary")[0].childNodes[0].data IndexError: list index out of range WARNING : Error detecting shell Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_shell_extensions.py", line 145, in __init__ shell = GnomeShellFactory().get_shell() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/utils.py", line 38, in getinstance instances[cls] = cls() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gshellwrapper.py", line 123, in __init__ v = map(int,proxy.version.split(".")) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gshellwrapper.py", line 46, in version return json.loads(self.execute_js('const Config = imports.misc.config; Config.PACKAGE_VERSION')) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gshellwrapper.py", line 39, in execute_js result, output = self.proxy.Eval('(s)', js) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/Gio.py", line 148, in __call__ kwargs.get('flags', 0), kwargs.get('timeout', -1), None) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/types.py", line 43, in function return info.invoke(*args, **kwargs) GError: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.gnome.Shell was not provided by any .service files WARNING : Shell not running Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_shell.py", line 57, in __init__ self._shell = GnomeShellFactory().get_shell() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/utils.py", line 38, in getinstance instances[cls] = cls() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gshellwrapper.py", line 123, in __init__ v = map(int,proxy.version.split(".")) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gshellwrapper.py", line 46, in version return json.loads(self.execute_js('const Config = imports.misc.config; Config.PACKAGE_VERSION')) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gshellwrapper.py", line 39, in execute_js result, output = self.proxy.Eval('(s)', js) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/Gio.py", line 148, in __call__ kwargs.get('flags', 0), kwargs.get('timeout', -1), None) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/types.py", line 43, in function return info.invoke(*args, **kwargs) GError: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.gnome.Shell was not provided by any .service files WARNING : Could not list shell extensions Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_shell.py", line 62, in __init__ extensions = self._shell.list_extensions() AttributeError: ShellThemeTweak instance has no attribute '_shell' (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed (gnome-tweak-tool:5323): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_preferred_height_for_width: assertion `width >= 0' failed Please help me in fixing this. I have also restarted the computer many times it does not make a difference.

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  • Who Makes a Good Product Owner

    - by Robert May
    In general, the best product owners are those that care passionately about the customer of the product.  Note that I didn’t say about the product itself.  Actually, people that only care about the product, generally do not make good product owners.  Products only matter in relationship to their customers.  If a product doesn’t provide value to the customer, then the product has no value, no matter what a person might think of the product, and no matter what cool technologies exist inside of the product. A good product owner is also a good negotiator.  They recognize that many different priorities exist inside of a corporation, but that there can be only one list that developers work from.  A good product owner recognizes that its their job to help others around them prioritize (perhaps with a Product Council), but also understand that they alone have the final say about priorities and are willing to make the tough decisions required.  Deciding the priority between two perfectly valid stories is very difficult, especially when the stories are from two different departments! A good product owner is deeply interested in helping the team be successful.  They don’t seek to control the team, but instead seek to understand what the team can do and then work with the team to get the best product possible for the Customer.  A good product owner is never denigrating to team members, ever.  They recognize that such behavior would damage the trust that needs to be present between team members and product owners and will avoid it at all costs. In general, technical people (i.e. former or current developers) make poor product owners.  In their minds, they can’t separate implementation details from user functionality, so their stories end up sounding like implementation details.  For example, “The user enters their username on the password screen” is something that a technical product owner would write.  The proper wording for that story is “A user supplies the system with their credentials.”  Because technical people think different from the rest of the population, they are generally not a good fit. A good product owner is also a good writer.  Writing good stories demands good writing.  The art of persuasion, descriptiveness and just general good grammar are all required.  A good Product Owner must also be well spoken, since most of what will be conveyed will be conveyed with the spoken word, not just written word. A good product owner is a “People Person.”  They like talking to people and are very patient.  They don’t mind having questions repeated or fielding many questions, because they want to make sure that the ideas they’re conveying are properly understood so the customer gets the best product possible.  They are happy to answer any questions a team member may have and invite feedback and criticism of designs and stories, since they want a good product.  They really have little ego that gets in the way of building a great product. All of these qualities can be hard to find, but if you look close enough, you’ll find the right person in your organization.  Product owners can be found anywhere, not just in upper management.  Some of the best product owners are those that are very close to the customer.  In fact, check your customer support staff.  I’d bet that several great product owners are lurking there. Final note about what makes a good product owner.  You’re probably NOT going to find a good product owner in a manager, especially if they consider themselves a “Manager.”  Product owners don’t manage anything but the backlog, so be especially careful if the person you’re selecting for Product Owner is a manager. Up Next, “Messing with the Team.” Technorati Tags: Scrum,Product Owner

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  • Speeding up procedural texture generation

    - by FalconNL
    Recently I've begun working on a game that takes place in a procedurally generated solar system. After a bit of a learning curve (having neither worked with Scala, OpenGL 2 ES or Libgdx before), I have a basic tech demo going where you spin around a single procedurally textured planet: The problem I'm running into is the performance of the texture generation. A quick overview of what I'm doing: a planet is a cube that has been deformed to a sphere. To each side, a n x n (e.g. 256 x 256) texture is applied, which are bundled in one 8n x n texture that is sent to the fragment shader. The last two spaces are not used, they're only there to make sure the width is a power of 2. The texture is currently generated on the CPU, using the updated 2012 version of the simplex noise algorithm linked to in the paper 'Simplex noise demystified'. The scene I'm using to test the algorithm contains two spheres: the planet and the background. Both use a greyscale texture consisting of six octaves of 3D simplex noise, so for example if we choose 128x128 as the texture size there are 128 x 128 x 6 x 2 x 6 = about 1.2 million calls to the noise function. The closest you will get to the planet is about what's shown in the screenshot and since the game's target resolution is 1280x720 that means I'd prefer to use 512x512 textures. Combine that with the fact the actual textures will of course be more complicated than basic noise (There will be a day and night texture, blended in the fragment shader based on sunlight, and a specular mask. I need noise for continents, terrain color variation, clouds, city lights, etc.) and we're looking at something like 512 x 512 x 6 x 3 x 15 = 70 million noise calls for the planet alone. In the final game, there will be activities when traveling between planets, so a wait of 5 or 10 seconds, possibly 20, would be acceptable since I can calculate the texture in the background while traveling, though obviously the faster the better. Getting back to our test scene, performance on my PC isn't too terrible, though still too slow considering the final result is going to be about 60 times worse: 128x128 : 0.1s 256x256 : 0.4s 512x512 : 1.7s This is after I moved all performance-critical code to Java, since trying to do so in Scala was a lot worse. Running this on my phone (a Samsung Galaxy S3), however, produces a more problematic result: 128x128 : 2s 256x256 : 7s 512x512 : 29s Already far too long, and that's not even factoring in the fact that it'll be minutes instead of seconds in the final version. Clearly something needs to be done. Personally, I see a few potential avenues, though I'm not particularly keen on any of them yet: Don't precalculate the textures, but let the fragment shader calculate everything. Probably not feasible, because at one point I had the background as a fullscreen quad with a pixel shader and I got about 1 fps on my phone. Use the GPU to render the texture once, store it and use the stored texture from then on. Upside: might be faster than doing it on the CPU since the GPU is supposed to be faster at floating point calculations. Downside: effects that cannot (easily) be expressed as functions of simplex noise (e.g. gas planet vortices, moon craters, etc.) are a lot more difficult to code in GLSL than in Scala/Java. Calculate a large amount of noise textures and ship them with the application. I'd like to avoid this if at all possible. Lower the resolution. Buys me a 4x performance gain, which isn't really enough plus I lose a lot of quality. Find a faster noise algorithm. If anyone has one I'm all ears, but simplex is already supposed to be faster than perlin. Adopt a pixel art style, allowing for lower resolution textures and fewer noise octaves. While I originally envisioned the game in this style, I've come to prefer the realistic approach. I'm doing something wrong and the performance should already be one or two orders of magnitude better. If this is the case, please let me know. If anyone has any suggestions, tips, workarounds, or other comments regarding this problem I'd love to hear them.

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  • Tablet design guide, Endeca patterns now available

    - by JuergenKress
    UX Direct, an Oracle program that offers consultants, partners, and customers the same scientifically proven and reusable user experience best practices that Oracle uses to build Oracle Applications, recently added links to a new design guide for creating tablet-based solutions for enterprise applications, and to the recently published Endeca User Interface Design Pattern Library. The tablet design guide is available from the UX Direct Home page. Tap the button under “Latest patterns & tools” for “Oracle Applications UX Tablet Guide.” It provides basic help for designers, developers, and project managers trying to approach tablet design and testing from an enterprise point of view. To hear what developers are saying about it, follow the links from this post on the User Experience Assistance blog. The newly released Endeca User Interface Design Pattern Library is also available from the UX Direct Home page and from a post on the User Experience Assistance blog. It describes principled ways to solve common user interface (UI) design problems related to search, faceted navigation, and discovery. The link between Simplified UI and Oracle UX strategy, plus content you can share on the cloud, ADf, tailoring, and more Simplified User Interface in Oracle Fusion Applications Fronts Oracle Cloud Offerings This new article on Simplified UI has just been posted on Usable Apps. Learn about the three themes - simplicity, mobility, and extensibility – that Simplified UI embodies. These same principles are guiding the development of the next generation of the Oracle user experience. Oracle's Applications User Experience Strategy: One Cloud User Experience, with Optimized UIs Where and How You Want This podcast from Misha Vaughan, Director, User Experience, is now available on the Oracle University Knowledge Center. It is available for partners and Oracle employees at this iLearning Link. Oracle Partner Builds User Experience That Hits Right Note for New Employees This new article on the Usable Apps website explores the experience of consultants at IntraSee as they implement a PeopleSoft onboarding process for Invesco, a global asset management company. The Feng Shui of Fusion This article in Oracle Scene is from Grant Ronald, Director of Product Management, on the Tools of Fusion: Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle ADF. Hands-On Workshop with Fusion Applications and ADF UX Desktop Design Patterns This post on the Voice of User Experience, or VoX, blog from Misha Vaughan describes a new kind of workshop for partners and a handful of internal Oracle sales folks on extending Oracle Fusion Applications and building custom applications with Application Development Framework (ADF) while maintaining the Oracle user experience. To learn more about the content that was delivered during this three-day workshop, visit the Usable Apps blog. Recent posts from a new blog series take a look at several of the topics discussed during the workshop. Applications User Experience Fundamentals Visual Design for any Enterprise User Interface / Art School in a Box Wireframing / Blueprinting Usable Applications Concepts. Tailoring videos This blog post from Richard Bingham, Applications Architect, on the Fusion Applications Developer Relations blog provides links to several videos that show many customization and development tasks using the Oracle Fusion Applications platform. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: UX,Architecture,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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  • regarding the Windows Phone 7 series, XNA and Visual Basic

    - by Chris Williams
    as long as we're talking about VB... I figured I would share this as well. Hi everyone, I'm about to express a sentiment that might ruffle a few feathers, but I think most of you know me well enough to know I love like accept VB for what it is and that what I'm about to say is with good intentions. (The rest of you, who don't know me, please take my word for it.) The world is full of VB developers, I was one of them for a long time. I think it's safe to assume that none of us are ignorant people who require handholding. We're working professionals, making a living by using our skills as developers. I'm also willing to bet that quite a few of us are fluent in C# as well as VB. It may not be your preferred language, but many of you can do it and you prove that nearly every day. Honestly, I don't know ANY developers or consultants that have only known ONE language ever. So it pains me greatly when I see the word "CAN'T" being tossed around like a crutch... as in "we CAN'T develop for the windows phone or we CAN'T develop XNA games." At MIX, Microsoft hath decreed that C# is the language of choice for developing for the Windows Phone 7. I think it's a safe bet that you won't see VB support if it isn't there already. (Just like XNA... which is up to version 4.0 by now.)  So what? (Yeah... I said it.) I think everyone here can agree that actual coding is only one part of software design and development. There is nothing stopping ANY of you from beginning the process of designing your killer phone app, writing up specs, requirements, doing UI design, workflow, mockups, storyboards, art, etc.... None of these things are language dependent. IF by the time you've got that stuff out of the way, and there's still no VB support, then start doing some rapid prototyping of your app in C# (I know, I know... heresy!)  You still have to spend time learning how the phone does things, what UI tricks do what, what paradigms make sense, how to use to accelerometer and the tilt and the multitouch functionality. I can guarantee you that time spent doing this is a great investment, no matter WHAT extension your code files have. Eventually, you may have a working prototype. IF by this time, there's STILL no VB support... fret not, you've made significant progress on your app. You've designed it, prototyped it, figured out how to use the phone specific features... so you might as well finish it and pat yourself on the back for learning something new... and possibly being first to market with your new app. I'll be happy to argue any and all of these points online or off with anyone who cares to do so, but there is one undeniable point that you simply can't argue:  Your potential customers do not care AT ALL what programming language you used to write the app they are about to purchase. They care that it works. If your biggest concern is being first to market, than stop complaining and get busy because you're running out of time and the 3000+ people who were at MIX certainly aren't waiting for you. They've already started working on their apps.

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  • UPK Hands-on Labs at OHUG

    - by Karen Rihs
    Going to OHUG, June 18-22? Be sure to attend one or more UPK hands-on labs! Choose from Basic, Advanced, What's New, and Prebuilt Content!   Oracle User Productivity Kit 11.1 Workshop – Basic Stephen Armbruster, Oracle Corporation June 19, 2012, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. June 20, 2012, 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. The User Productivity Kit (UPK) is a comprehensive, cost-effective, customizable solution that helps your organization quickly create the critical documentation, training, and support materials needed to drive project team and user productivity throughout the lifecycle of your software. The User Productivity Kit provides system process documentation, user acceptance test scripts, comprehensive instructor-led training materials, web-based training materials, role-based performance support, and complete documentation. Also provided is the UPK Developer, which serves as a single-source development and customization tool to enable rapid content creation and customization. The User Productivity Kit delivers: Business process documentation for fit-gap analysis - providing time and cost savings that jump-start your implementation or upgrade User Acceptance test scripts to help test applications prior to go-live State-of-the-art instructional design tools to rapidly build and tailor documentation, instructor-led training materials, and web-based training to fit organizational needs Live-application performance support with transactional and procedural information to maximize user efficiency. By registering for this hands-on UPK workshop, participants will use UPK to build an application job aid and simulation that can be used as performance support for the application. But hurry, space is limited! Oracle User Productivity Kit 11.1 Workshop – Advanced Stephen Armbruster, Oracle Corporation June 20, 2012, 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. This special workshop is for those already familiar with UPK and will cover advanced concepts. In this workshop, you will gain an in-depth knowledge of working with the UPK Developer. Following this workshop, you will be able to: Create publishing categories Add a logo to a publishing project Publish using the newly created category Configure your own library view Manage topic history in a multi-user environment Oracle User Productivity Kit 11.1 Workshop – What’s NEW! Stephen Armbruster, Oracle Corporation June 19, 2012, 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. June 21, 2012, 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. This special workshop is for those already familiar with UPK and will focus on the new features included in the latest version 11.1. In this workshop, you will review most of the new features included in the UPK Developer. Oracle User Productivity Kit 11.1 Workshop – Prebuilt Content Stephen Armbruster, Oracle Corporation June 19, 2012, 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. June 21, 2012, 2:15 – 3:15 p.m. This special workshop is for those already familiar with UPK and will focus on the latest version 11.1. At the end of this workshop, you will be able to demonstrate how to: Import prebuilt content Modify content frames Add a decision frame Translate a topic into Spanish Stephen Armbruster is a principal sales consultant, specializing in HCM and UPK applications for Oracle over the past twelve years. In addition to his current role, he serves as an ambassador for the Fusion User Experience (UX) team and is tasked with evangelizing the UX for end users across all Oracle brands (Fusion, PSFT, JDE, and EBS).  He is also a trusted advisor to Oracle’s Product Management teams related to Learning Management Systems (LMS). Prior to joining Oracle, he was an instructor as well as an instructional technologist working in the medical diagnostics, high tech, and information management industries. As an expert in both LMS and UPK, he regularly speaks at Oracle conferences including Oracle OpenWorld and OHUG on topics that span using Oracle solutions to accomplish employee training, certification, and user adoption. His presentations are both entertaining and engaging.

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  • Improve Playback Using Enhancements in Windows Media Player 12

    - by DigitalGeekery
    Are you looking for ways to improve the playback of your media in Windows Media Player 12? We’ll show you how to do that by using the enhancements in WMP 12. If you are in Library mode, you’ll need to click the icon at the lower right to switch to Now Playing mode. Right-click anywhere in Media Player while in Now Playing mode, select Enhancements, and select any of the available options.   You can switch between the individual enhancements by clicking the right and left buttons at the top left.   Crossfading and Auto Volume Leveling The Auto Volume Leveling setting is just a simple toggle on and off. If your MP3 or WMA files have volume leveling information values.   You can automatically add volume leveling information values to all files you add to your library by switching to Library view, going to Tools > Options, and selecting Add volume leveling information values for new files on the Library tab. Click OK when finished.   Crossfading will gradually decrease the volume of the song that is ending (fade out) and increase volume of the song that is beginning. Click Turn on Crossfading and then click and drag the slider left or right change the amount of overlap between tracks. Graphic Equalizer The graphic equalizer is toggled on and off by clicking Turn on / Turn off at the top left. You can select pre-defined equalizer settings by music genre by clicking the Default list. The radio buttons on the left allow you to move the sliders individually, in a loose group or a tight group. You can always return to the default settings by clicking Reset. Play Speed Settings Choose a pre-defined settings by clicking Slow, Normal, or Fast. Uncheck the Snap slider to common speeds the move the slider right and left to your desired speed. If nothing else, these settings provide a little fun and amusement. Quiet Mode Quiet mode will level out any sharp volume highs and lows within a single track. Simply toggle the setting on or off and select whether you prefer Medium difference or Little difference by selecting one of the radio buttons. SRS WOW effects SRS WOW effects enhance low-frequency and stereo sound performance. Click Turn on to enable the TruBass and WOW Effect sliders. You can also optimize for your speaker type. Click to switch between Regular, Large, and Headphones. Video Settings Video Settings allow you to adjust the Hue, Brightness, Saturation, and Contrast.   You can also adjust the zoom settings by clicking Select video zoom settings.   Dolby Digital Settings Choose between Normal, Night, and Theater settings to adjust the audio for Dolby Digital content. This setting will only effect media with Dolby Digital sound. Looking for more ways to improve your media experience in WMP 12? Check out how to update metadata and cover art and how to share media with other Windows 7 computers on your home network. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add FilesInstall and Use the VLC Media Player on Ubuntu LinuxHow To Rip a Music CD in Windows 7 Media CenterStream Media from Windows 7 to XP with VLC Media PlayerInstalling Windows Media Player Plugin for Firefox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Check these Awesome Chrome Add-ons iFixit Offers Gadget Repair Manuals Online Vista style sidebar for Windows 7 Create Nice Charts With These Web Based Tools Track Daily Goals With 42Goals Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor

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  • AppKata - Enter the next level of programming exercises

    - by Ralf Westphal
    Doing CodeKatas is all the rage lately. That´s great since widely accepted exercises are important to further the art. They provide a means of communication across platforms and allow to compare results which is part of any deliberate practice. But CodeKatas suffer from their size. They are intentionally small, so they can be done again and again. Repetition helps to build habit and to dig deeper. Over time ever new nuances of the problem or one´s approach become visible. On the other hand, though, their small size limits the methods, techniques, technologies that can be applied. To improve your TDD skills doing CodeKatas might be enough. But what about other skills? Developing on a software in a team, designing larger pieces of software, iteratively releasing software… all this and more is kinda hard to train using the tiny CodeKata problems. That´s why I´d like to present here another kind of kata I call Application Kata (or just AppKata). AppKatas are larger programming problems. They require the development of “whole” applications, i.e. not just one class or method, but bunches of classes accessible through a user interface. Also AppKata problems always are split into iterations. To get the most out of them, just look at the requirements of one iteration at a time. This way you´re closer to reality where requirements evolve in unexpected ways. So if you´re looking for more of a challenge for your software development skills, check out these AppKatas – or invent your own. AppKatas are platform independent like CodeKatas. Use whatever programming language and IDE you like. Also use whatever approach to software development you like. Just be sensitive to how easy it is to evolve your code across iterations. Reflect on what went well and what not. Compare your solutions with others. Or – for even more challenge – go for the “Coding Carousel” (see below). CSV Viewer An application to view CSV files. Sounds easy, but watch out! Requirements sometimes drastically change if the customer is happy with what you delivered. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5 (to come) Questionnaire If you like GUI programming, this AppKata might be for you. It´s about an app to let people fill out questionnaires. Also this problem might be interestin for you, if you´re into DDD. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Tic Tac Toe For developers who like game programming. Although Tic Tac Toe is a trivial game, this AppKata poses some interesting infrastructure challenges. The GUI, however, stays simple; leave any 3D ambitions at home ;-) Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Iteration 5 (to come) Coding Carousel There are many ways you can do AppKatas. Work on them alone or in a team, pitch several devs against each other in an AppKata contest – or go around in a Coding Carousel. For the Coding Carousel you need at least 3 dev teams (regardless of size). All teams work on the same iteration at the same time. But here´s the trick: After each iteration the teams swap their code. Whatever they did for iteration n will be the basis for changes another team has to apply in iteration n+1. The code is going around the teams like in a carousel. I promise you, that´s gonna be fun! :-)

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  • Oracle Database Upcoming Event dates to know

    - by mandy.ho
    February may be a short month, but it's not short of exciting Oracle events. From information packed "Real Performance Days" to participation in one of the biggest IT Security events - look out for Oracle Database and let us know if you are there with us! Feb 13-18, 2011 - Las Vegas, NV TDWI World Conference Series Join Oracle in highlighting Exadata x2-2 and x2-8, along with Oracle Business Intelligence, Enterprise Performance management and Data Warehousing solutions. Oracle will be presenting a workshop - Oracle Data Integration: Best-of-Breed Solutions for the Enterprise Wednesday, February 16, 2011 7p.m - 9p.m Glen Goodrich, Director of Product Management Christophe Dupupet, Director of Product Management, Data Integration http://events.tdwi.org/events/las-vegas-world-conference-2011/sessions/session-list.aspx Feb 14-17, 2011 - Barcelona, Spain Mobile World Congress MWC is an event where Oracle showcases the near complete breadth and depth of value that our Communications Industry strategy and Hardware and Software Solutions can deliver. Oracle supports Communications Service Providers today and delivers platforms and flexibility primed for the future. Oracle will have a two story Pavilion, along with an Oracle Java and Embedded Solutions Center - App Planet. The Exhibition times are Monday, 14th February 09.00 - 19.00 Tuesday, 15th February 09.00 - 19.00 Wednesday, 16th February 09.00 - 19.00 Thursday, 17th February 09.00 - 16.00 Have questions? Meet with Oracle Sales representatives at the Oracle Café. Open every day from 9am to 17:00pm. http://eventreg.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=109912&src=6973382&src=6973382&Act=4 Feb 14-18, 2011 - San Francisco, CA RSA Conference As the world's most complete, open, integrated business software and hardware systems provider, Oracle can uniquely safeguard your information throughout its entire lifecycle. Learn more by attending these sessions: Cloud Computing: A Brave New World for Security and Privacy (CLD-201) Wednesday, February 16 at 8:30 a.m. Databases Under Attack - Securing Heterogeneous Database Infrastructures (DAS-301) Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 8:30 a.m. Seven Steps to Protecting Databases (DAS-402) Friday, February 18 at 10:10 a.m. RSA Conference Attendees will also have the opportunity to meet with Oracle Security Solution experts, see live product demos and more by visiting booth # 1559. Hours: Monday, February 14, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., Tuesday, February 15, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. - 6:00p.m., Wednesday, February 16, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., and Thursday, February 17, 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. http://eventreg.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=127657&src=6967733&src=6967733&Act=12 Feb 21-25, 2011 - Various Locations IOUG Presents - A Day of Real World Performance with Tom Kyte, Andrew Holdsworth and Graham Wood These Oracle experts will debate, discuss and delineate the best practices for designing hardware architectures, deploying Oracle databases, and developing applications that deliver the fastest possible performance for your business.Topics are covered in a conversational format - with all three chiming in where appropriate. Each presenter has their own screen projector to demonstrate their individual points to the participants. Customers will have the opportunity to get their specific performance/tuning questions answered and learn how to balance all the different environmental requirements for their applications to improve performance. Register today for the following dates and locations • February 21 in San Diego, CA • February 22 in Los Angeles, CA • February 23 in Seattle, WA • February 25 in Phoenix, AZ http://www.ioug.org/tabid/194/Default.aspx Feb 8-24 - Various Oracle Enterprise Cloud Summit This series of full-day events with cloud experts, sharing real-world best practices, reference architectures and more continues during the month of February. Attend the Oracle Enterprise Cloud Summit to learn how to: • Build a state-of-the-art cloud architecture • Leverage your existing IT investments • Optimize your IT management processes Whether you are considering a move to cloud computing or have already adopted a cloud model, this event offers you the insights you need to take full advantage of cloud computing. Check below to see if the event is coming to a city near you. http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/events/cloud-events-214342.html

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  • ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 10 for September 2-8, 2012

    - by Bob Rhubart
    The Top 10 items shared on the OTN Facebook Page for the week of September 2-8, 2012. Adding a runtime LOV for a taskflow parameter in WebCenter | Yannick Ongena Oracle ACE Yannick Ongena illustrates how to customize the parameters tab for a taskflow in WebCenter. Tips on Migrating from AquaLogic .NET Accelerator to WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET | Scott Nelson "It has been a very winding path and this blog entry is intended to share both the lessons learned and relevant approaches that led to those learnings," says Scott Nelson. "Like most journeys of discovery, it was not a direct path, and there are notes to let you know when it is practical to skip a section if you are in a hurry to get from here to there." Free Event: Oracle Technology Network Architect Day – Boston, MA – 9/12/2012 Sure, you could ask a voodoo priestess for help in improving your solution architecture skills. But there's the whole snake thing, and the zombie thing, and other complications. So why not keep it simple and register for Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Boston, MA. There's no magic, just a full day of technical sessions covering Cloud, SOA, Engineered Systems, and more. Registration is free, but seating is limited. You'll curse yourself if you miss this one. Starting and Stopping Fusion Applications the Right Way | Ronaldo Viscuso While the fastartstop tool that ships with Oracle Fusion Applications does most of the work to start/stop/bounce the Fusion Apps environment, it does not do it all. Oracle Fusion Applications A-Team blogger Ronaldo Viscuso's post "aims to explain all tasks involved in starting and stopping a Fusion Apps environment completely." Article Index: Architect Community Column in Oracle Magazine Did you know that Oracle Magazine features a regular column devoted specifically to the architect community? Every issue includes insight and expertise from architects who regularly work with Oracle Technologies. Click here to see a complete list of these articles. Using FMAP and AnalyticsRes in a Oracle BI High Availability Implementation | Art of Business Intelligence "The fmap syntax has been used for a long time in Oracle BI / Siebel Analytics when referencing images inherent in the application as well as custom images," says Oracle ACE Christian Screen. "This syntax is used on Analysis requests an dashboards." Dodeca Customer Feedback - The Rosewood Company | Tim Tow Oracle ACE Director Tim Tow shares anecdotal comments from one of his clients, a company that is deploying Dodeca to replace an aging VBA/Essbase application. Configuring UCM cache to check for external Content Server changes | Martin Deh Oracle WebCenter and ADF A-Team blogger shares the background information and the solution to a recently encountered customer scenario. Attend OTN Architect Day in Los Angeles – by Architects, for Architects – October 25 The OTN Architect Day roadshow stops in Boston next week, then it's on to Los Angeles for another all architecture, all day event on Thursday October 25, 2012 at the Sofitel Los Angeles, 555 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048. Like all Architect Day events, this one is absolutley free, so register now. The Role of Oracle VM Server for SPARC In a Virtualization Strategy New OTN article from Matthias Pfutzner. Thought for the Day "Practicing architects, through eduction, experience and examples, accumulate a considerable body of contextual sense by the time they're entrusted with solving a system-level problem…" — Eberhardt Rechtin (January 16, 1926 – April 14, 2006) Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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  • OEG11gR2 integration with OES11gR2 Authorization with condition

    - by pgoutin
    Introduction This OES use-case has been defined originally by Subbu Devulapalli (http://accessmanagement.wordpress.com/).  Based on this OES museum use-case, I have developed the OEG11gR2 policy able to deal with the OES authorization with condition. From an OEG point of view, the way to deal with OES condition is to provide with the OES request some Environmental / Context Attributes.   Museum Use-Case  All painting in the museum have security sensors, an alarm goes off when a person comes too close a painting. The employee designated for maintenance needs to use their ID and disable the alarm before maintenance. You are the Security Administrator for the museum and you have been tasked with creating authorization policies to manage authorization for different paintings. Your first task is to understand how paintings are organized. Asking around, you are surprised to see that there isno formal process in place, so you need to start from scratch. the museum tracks the following attributes for each painting 1. Name of the work 2. Painter 3. Condition (good/poor) 4. Cost You compile the list of paintings  Name of Painting  Painter  Paint Condition  Cost  Mona Lisa  Leonardo da Vinci  Good  100  Magi  Leonardo da Vinci  Poor  40  Starry Night  Vincent Van Gogh  Poor  75  Still Life  Vincent Van Gogh  Good  25 Being a software geek who doesn’t (yet) understand art, you feel that price(or insurance price) of a painting is the most important criteria. So you feel that based on years-of-experience employees can be tasked with maintaining different paintings. You decide that paintings worth over 50 cost should be only handled by employees with over 20 years of experience and employees with less than 10 years of experience should not handle any painting. Lets us start with policy modeling. All paintings have a common set of attributes and actions, so it will be good to have them under a single Resource Type. Based on this resource type we will create the actual resources. So our high level model is: 1) Resource Type: Painting which has action manage and the following four attributes a) Name of the work b) Painter c) Condition (good/poor) d) Cost 2) To keep things simple lets use painting name for Resource name (in real world you will try to use some identifier which is unique, because in future we may end up with more than one painting which has the same name.) 3) Create Resources based on the previous table 4) Create an identity attribute Experience (Integer) 5) Create the following authorization policies a) Allow employees with over 20 years experience to access all paintings b) Allow employees with 10 – 20 years of experience to access painting which cost less than 50 c) Deny access to all paintings for employees with less than 10 year of experience OES Authorization Configuration We do need to create 2 authorization policies with specific conditions a) Allow employees with over 20 years experience to access all paintings b) Allow employees with 10 – 20 years of experience to access painting which cost less than 50 c) Deny access to all paintings for employees with less than 10 year of experience We don’t need an explicit policy for Deny access to all paintings for employees with less than 10 year of experience, because Oracle Entitlements Server will automatically deny if there is no matching policy. OEG Policy The OEG policy looks like the following The 11g Authorization filter configuration is similar to :  The ${PAINTING_NAME} and ${USER_EXPERIENCE} variables are initialized by the "Retrieve from the HTTP header" filters for testing purpose. That's to say, under Service Explorer, we need to provide 2 attributes "Experience" & "Painting" following the OES 11g Authorization filter described above.

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  • Oracle EMEA News Digest - May 2014

    - by Steve Walker
    Systems Oracle introduced a technology preview of an OpenStack® distribution that allows Oracle Linux and Oracle VM users to work with the open source cloud software. This provides customers with additional choices and interoperability while taking advantage of the efficiency, performance, scalability, and security of Oracle Linux and Oracle VM. The distribution is delivered as part of the Oracle Linux and Oracle VM Premier Support offerings, at no additional cost. Oracle plans to work further with the OpenStack community to develop and enhance its enterprise-class capabilities to meet customer demands. Also in the Open Source arena, Oracle announced the general availability of MySQL Fabric. MySQL Fabric provides an integrated system that makes it simpler to manage groups of MySQL databases. It delivers both high availability - via failure detection and failover - and scalability through automated data sharding. Oracle Database, Middleware and Technology The company made two announcements for Oracle Tuxedo, the #1 application server for C, C++, COBOL and Java deployments in private cloud or traditional data center environments. With enhanced management and monitoring features and tighter integration with Oracle technologies, the latest release of Oracle Tuxedo 12c enables organizations to dramatically increase application throughput, while reducing total cost of ownership and time to market for new application development and deployment. Oracle also introduced the latest release of its mainframe application rehosting platform, Oracle Tuxedo ART 12c, to help organizations speed up migration projects and accelerate the adoption of the new environment by current IT staff. It enables organizations to accelerate the rehosting of IBM mainframe applications and greatly enhance management and supportability of the rehosted applications while reducing costs and risk. Applications According to new Oracle studies, B2B and B2C commerce professionals find integrated, omni-channel customer experiences increasingly valuable to their organizations, and are continuing to invest in technologies and digital content strategies to facilitate them. The studies—one for B2B and one for B2C—surveyed e-commerce professionals in business and technology departments from around the world. Although the priorities, success metrics, and technology investments differed between the two groups, customer acquisition and retention emerged as common themes across B2B and B2C. Growing market share and enhancing customer experience are cited as top investment areas for all e-commerce professionals. In product news, Oracle announced the latest release of Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Applications (version 11.1.1.8.1, in case anyone asks). It includes prebuilt connectors between Oracle Procurement and Spend Analytics and Oracle’s JD Edwards. Additionally, a new Oracle Human Resources Analytics module for developing and maintaining a skilled workforce has been introduced. In use at more than 4,000 companies worldwide, Oracle BI Applications support leading enterprise applications, including Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle’s PeopleSoft, Oracle's Siebel CRM, Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne offering high-performing analytics at a lower cost. Industries For the Communications Industry, Oracle has launched a new release of the Oracle Communications Core Session Manager. This gives CSPs a new way to design, deploy and manage complex networking services and embrace next-generation technology, It provides them with an immediate entry point for  network function virtualization (NFV) efforts, allowing them to realize immediate benefits associated with network virtualization – including increased service agility and improved network resource sharing. And for the Utilities Industry, Oracle is releasing solutions with new business features and enhanced technical architecture that help position utilities for success now and into the future. Oracle has provided new releases for its customer information system,  meter data management system, customer self-service solution and mobile workforce management solution.

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  • Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 now Live!

    - by Tarun Arora
    Today was the formal launch event for Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5, a state-of-the-art development solution for building modern applications that span connected devices and continuous services, from the client to the cloud. The event was streamed live from http://visualstudiolaunch.com, S.Somasegar corporate vice president of the Developer Division opened the key note, Jason Zander dived deeper into how to leverage Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 to build modern application. Brian Harry all the awesome features in Visual Studio 2012 to improve the application lifecycle management.   I. Summary of the announcements made today 1. Visual Studio Updates coming this fall –  VS Update will better support agile teams, enable continuous quality, elevate SharePoint development with application lifecycle management (ALM) tools, and expand Visual Studio 2012 Windows development capabilities. It will be available as a community technology preview (CTP) later this month and in final release later this calendar year. A comprehensive list of what will be on offer can be found here. 2. Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop – Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop brings the newest desktop development capabilities in Visual Studio 2012 to Express users, too. You would be excited to know that the express SKU will support Integration with TFS among some of the other cool features I would like to mention Unit Testing, Unit Testing, Code Analysis, dependency management with NuGet a full list and download links can be found here. 3. F# tools for Visual Studio Express 2012 for web –  This F# Tools release adds in F# 3.0 components, such as the F# 3.0 compiler, F# Interactive, IDE support, and new F# features such as type providers and query expressions to your Visual Studio 2012 express for web. More details and download links can be found here. 4. Visual Studio TFS 2012 Power Tools – The TFS 2012 Power tools brings the goodness of Best Practice Analyzer, Process Template Editor, Storyboard Shapes, Team Explorer enhancements, TFPT command line, TFS Server Backups, etc via to your TFS 2012 installation. It can be downloaded right away from here. II. Road shows There will be many more community road shows this month packaged with hours of demos and discussions. The Visual Studio UK Team has just announced that there will be four UK launch events, face to face session including a product group speaker and partner sessions: Edinburgh, 1st October Manchester, 3rd October London, 4th October Reading, 5th October III. Get Started Download Visual Studio 2012 and the additional supporting software's from here. The Visual Studio development team has put together over 60 videos to help you learn about the new Visual Studio 2012 capabilities in more detail, and all of these will be available for watching here. IV. What’s Next A lot more exciting stuff lined up… Windows 8 Anticipated release: Oct. 26 (UPDATED 9/12) Windows Server 2012 Released (UPDATED 9/4) System Center 2012 Released (UPDATED 9/11) SQL Server 2012 Released (UPDATED 4/2) Internet Explorer 10 Anticipated release: Between Q3 2012 and early 2013 (UPDATED 5/3   Office 2013 Anticipated release: Q4 2012 or Q1 2013(UPDATED 9/12) Exchange 2013 Anticipated release: Q4 2012 (UPDATED 7/26) Visual Studio 2012 Released (UPDATED 9/12) Kinect for Windows Released (UPDATED 9/4) Windows Phone "Tango" and 8 "Tango": Released; Anticipated "Windows Phone 8" release: Q4 2012 (UPDATED 9/5) Dynamics ERP Online Anticipated release: September or October 2012 (UPDATED 7/20) Office 365 Anticipated update schedule: "Almost weekly"(UPDATED 9/12) Windows Azure Rumored CTP release: Spring 2012 (UPDATED 9/7) SharePoint 2013 Anticipated release: Q4 2012 (UPDATED 8/21) Enjoy

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  • ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 10 for August 19-26, 2012

    - by Bob Rhubart
    The Top 10 most popular items shared via the OTN ArchBeat Facebook page for the week of August 19-26, 2012. Now Available: Oracle SQL Developer 3.2 (3.2.09.23) The latest release of Oracle SQl Developer includes UI enhancements, 12c database support, and bug fixes. ADF Tutorial Chapter 3: Creating a Master-Detail taskflow | Yannick Ongena Oracle ACE Yannick Ongena continues his ADF tutorial with a chapter devoted to view layer and using the data control to build pages that allow user to update reference data. GlassFish Community Event at JavaOne 2012 Don't miss out on this exclusive GlassFish Community Event on Sunday, September 30th from 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. in Moscone South. Register Now! Part of JavaOne 2012. Oracle BI 11g Book Authors – Podcast #9 | Art of Business Intelligence In this home-grown podcast, authors Christian Screen, Haroun Khan, and Adrian Ward talk about their new book, "Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g: A Hands-On Tutorial," about their sessions at Oracle OpenWorld, and about their ORACLENERD t-shirts. Oracle Service Bus duplicate message check using Coherence | Jan van Zoggel "Giving the fact that every message on our ESB has an unique messageID element in the SOAP header we could store this on disk, database or in memory,"says Jan van Zoggel. "With the help of Oracle Coherence this last option, in memory, is relatively simple." Even simpler with Jan's detailed instructions. Oracle Technology Network Architect Day - Boston - Sept 12 There are easier ways to increase your IT brainpower. Skip the electrodes and register for Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Boston, September 12, 2012. This free event includes 8 technical sessions, panel Q&A, roundtable discussions—and a free lunch. 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. at the Boston Marriott Burlington, One Burlington Mall Road, Burlington, MA 01803. Oracle BPM enable BAM | Peter Paul van de Beek "BAM enables you to make decisions based on real-time information gathered from your running processes," says Peter Paul van de Beek. "With BPMN processes you can use the standard Business Indicators that the BPM Suite offers you and use them to with BAM without much extra effort." Sample Application for Switching Application Module Data Sources | Andrejus Baranovskis A sample application and how-to guide from Oracle ACE Director and ADF expert Andrejus Baranovskis. ORCLville: Some Basic BI Thoughts "If we'd stop to consider what business intelligence really is, many of us might grow a different perspective about how we implement enterprise apps," says Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter. "What if we implemented with an eye to what kind of information we'd like to get from our enterprise apps?" Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.1.20 released |Oracle's Virtualization Blog Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.1.20 was just released at the community and Oracle download sites, reports the Fat Bloke. This is a maintenance release containing bug fixes and stability improvements. Thought for the Day "The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures." — Frederick P. Brooks Source: SoftwareQuotes

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  • Why We Do What We Do. (Part 3 of 5 Part Series on JDE 5G Postponed)

    - by Kem Butller-Oracle
    By Lyle Ekdahl - Oracle JD Edwards Sr. VP General Manager  In the closing of part two of this 5 part blog series, I stated that in the next installment I would explore the expected results of the digital overdrive era and the impact it will have on our economy. While I have full intentions of writing on that topic, I am inspired today to write about something that is top of mind. It’s top of mind because it has come up several times recently conversations with my Oracle’s JD Edwards team members, with customers and our partners, plus I feel passionately about why I do what I do…. It is not what we do but why we do that thing that we do Do you know what you do? For the most part, I bet you could tell me what you do even if your work has changed over the years.  My real question is, “Do you get excited about what you do, and are you fulfilled? Does your work deliver a sense of purpose, a cause to work for, and something to believe in?”  Alright, I guess that was not a single question. So let me just ask, “Why?” Why are you here, right now? Why do you get up in the morning? Why do you go to work? Of course, I can’t answer those questions for you but I can share with you my POV.   For starters, there are several things that drive me. As many of you know by now, I have a somewhat competitive nature but it is not solely the thrill of winning that actually fuels me. Now don’t get me wrong, I do like winning occasionally. However winning is only a potential result of competing and is clearly not guaranteed. So why compete? Why compete in business, and particularly why in this Enterprise Software business?  Here’s why! I am fascinated by creative and building processes. It is about making or producing things, causing something to come into existence. With the right skill, imagination and determination, whether it’s art or invention; the result can deliver value and inspire. In both avocation and vocation I always gravitate towards the create/build processes.  I believe one of the skills necessary for the create/build process is not just the aptitude but also, and especially, the desire and attitude that drives one to gain a deeper understanding. The more I learn about our customers, the more I seek to understand what makes the successful and what difficult issues cause them to struggle. I like to look for the complex, non-commodity process problems where streamlined design and modern technology can provide an easy and simple solution. It is especially gratifying to see our customers use our software to increase their own ability to deliver value to the market. What an incredible network effect! I know many of you share this customer obsession as well as the create/build addiction focused on simple and elegant design. This is what I believe is at the root of our common culture.  Are JD Edwards customers on a whole different than other ERP solutions’ customers? I would argue that for the most part, yes, they are. They selected our software, and our software is different. Why? Because I believe that the create/build process will generally result in solutions that reflect who built it and their culture. And a culture of people focused on why they create/build will attract different customers than one that is based on what is built or how the solution is delivered. In the past I have referred to this idea as character of the customer, and it transcends industry, size and run rate. Now some would argue that JD Edwards has some customers who are characters. But that is for a different post. As I have told you before, the JD Edwards culture is unique, and its resulting economy is valuable and deserving of our best efforts. 

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  • Let Me Show You Something: Instagram, Vine and Snapchat for Brands

    - by Mike Stiles
    While brands are well aware of how much more impactful images are than text-only posts on social channels, today you’re additionally being presented with platform after additional platform for hosting, doctoring and sharing photos and videos.  Can you play in every sandbox? And if you do, can you be brilliant on all of them? As has usually been the case, so far brands are sticking their toes into new platforms while not actually committing to them, or strategizing for them, or resourcing them. TrackMaven found of the 123 F500 companies using Instagram, only 22% of them are active on it. Likewise, research from Simply Measured found brands are indeed jumping in, with the number establishing a presence on Instagram up 55% over the past year. Users want them there…brand engagement has exploded 350%, and over 1/3 of the top brands have at least 10,000 followers. BUT…the top 10 brands are generating 33% of all posts, reaping 83% of all engagement. Things are also growing on Twitter’s Vine, the 6-second looping video app that hit 40 million users in August. The 7th Chamber says 5 tweets a second contain a Vine link. Other studies say branded Vines are 4 times more likely to be shared and seen than rank-and-file branded videos. Why? Users know that even if a video is pure junk, they won’t get robbed of too much of their valuable time. Vine is always upgrading so you can make sure your videos are worth viewers’ time. You can now edit videos, and save & work on several projects concurrently. What you can’t do is upload a finely crafted video into Vine, but you can do that with Instagram. The key to success? Same as with all other content; make it of value. Deliver a laugh or a lesson or both. How-to, behind the scenes peeks, contests, demos, all make sense in the short video format. Or follow Nash Grier’s example, which is to just have fun with and connect to your viewers, earning their trust that your next Vine will be as good as the last. Nash is only 15, has over 1.4 million followers, and adds about 100,000 a week. He broke out when one of his videos was re-Vined by some other kid with 300,000 followers. Make good stuff, get it in front of influencers, and your brand Vines could break out as well. Then there’s Snapchat, the “this photo will self destruct” platform. How can that be of use to brands besides offering coupons that really expire? The jury is out. But with an audience of over 100 million and a valuation of $800 million, media-with-a-time-limit is compelling. Now there’s “Snapchat Stories” that can last 24 hours and be shared to the public at large. You might be able to capitalize on how much more focus gets put on content when there’s a time limit on its availability. The underlying truth to all of this is, these are all tools. Very cool, feature rich tools, but tools. You can give the exact same art kit to 5 different people and you’d get back 5 very different works, ranging from worthless garbage to masterpiece. Brands are being called upon to be still and moving image artists. That’s what your customers are used to seeing, from a variety of sources. Commit to communicating with them accordingly. @mikestiles Photo: stock.xchng

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