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  • Changing Element Value in Existing XML File Using DOM

    - by rylic38
    Hi All, I am trying to find examples of how to change an existing xml files Element Value. Using the following xml example: <book> <title>My Book</title> <author>John Smith</author> </book> If I wanted to replace the author element value 'John Smith' with 'Jim Johnson' in a Python script using DOM, how would I go about doing so? I've tried to look for examples on this, but have failed in doing so. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Rylic

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  • Populating PDF fields in .NET without a API, such as iTextSharp

    - by Kristjan Oddsson
    class mineTest { string pdfTemplate = @"c:\us.pdf"; public mineTest(Customer c, string output) { StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(pdfTemplate); StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(output); string content = sr.ReadToEnd(); content.Replace("(Customer name)/DA(/Verdana 10 Tf 0 g)/FT/Tx/Type/Annot/MK<<>>/V()/AP<</N 13 0 R>>>>", "(Customer name)/DA(/Verdana 10 Tf 0 g)/FT/Tx/Type/Annot/MK<<>>/V(John Johnson)/AP<</N 13 0 R>>>>"); sw.Write(content); sw.Close(); sr.Close(); } } Why does the above code fail at producing a valid PDF?

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  • Which operating systems book should I go for?

    - by pecker
    Hi, I'm in a confusion. For our course (1 year ago) I used Stallings. I read it. It was fine. But I don't own any operating system's book. I want to buy a book on operating systems. I'm confused!! which one to pick? Modern Operating Systems (3rd Edition) ~ Andrew S. Tanenbaum (Author) Operating System Concepts ~ Abraham Silberschatz , Peter B. Galvin, Greg Gagne Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles (6th Edition) ~ William Stallings I've plans of getting into development of realworld operating systems : Linux, Unix & Windows Driver Development. I know that for each of these there are specific books available. But I feel one should have a basic book on the shelf. So, which one to go for?

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  • how to match a regulas expresion like (%i1) in python pexpect

    - by mike
    I want to use maxima from python using pexpect, whenever maxima starts it will print a bunch of stuff of this form: $ maxima Maxima 5.27.0 http://maxima.sourceforge.net using Lisp SBCL 1.0.57-1.fc17 Distributed under the GNU Public License. See the file COPYING. Dedicated to the memory of William Schelter. The function bug_report() provides bug reporting information. (%i1) i would like to start up pexpect like so: import pexpect cmd = 'maxima' child = pexpect.spawn(cmd) child.expect (' match all that stuff up to and including (%i1)') child.sendline ('integrate(sin(x),x)') chil.expect( match (%o1 ) ) print child.before how do i match the starting banner up to the prompt (%i1)? and so on, also maxima increments the (%i1)'s by one as the session goes along, so the next expect would be: child.expect ('match (%i2)') child.sendline ('integrate(sin(x),x)') chil.expect( match (%o2 ) ) print child.before how do i match the (incrementing) integers?

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  • Dynamic typed language example using ANTLR

    - by wvd
    Hey all, I'm looking for some ANTLR examples, I tried googling a bit but I found certain things which didn't fit my requirments. I found the Mantra project, but it's statically typed and is 'too' big for me at this moment, then I found 'pie' as interpreter, which is dynamically typed, which what I want, but it uses a syntax-directed interpreter. I'm looking for a pretty small language which is dynamically typed and uses AST's if possible. It doesn't need to be advanced, if it would have classes I would already be very happy. Thanks, William van Doorn

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  • Writing a search engine

    - by wvd
    Hello all, The title might be a bit misleading, but I couldn't figure out a better title. I'm writing a simple search engine which will search on several sites for the specific domain. To be concrete: I'm writing a search engine for hardstyle livesets/aftermovies/tracks. To do I will search on the sites who provide livesets, tracks, and such. The problem here is speed, I need to pass the search query to 5-7 sites, get the results and then use my own algorithm to display the results in a sorted order. I could just "multithread" it, but it's easier said then done so I have a few questions. What would be the best solution to this problem? Should I just multithread/process this application, so I'm going to get a bit of speed-up? Are there any other solutions or I am doing something really wrong? Thanks, William van Doorn

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  • Streaming audio (YouTube)

    - by wvd
    Hello all, I'm writing a CLI for a music-media-platform. One of the features is going to be that you can directly play YouTube videos from the CLI. I don't really have an idea to do it but this one sounded the most reasonable: I'm going to use of those sites where you can download music from YouTube, e.g. http://keepvid.com/ - then I directly stream & play this -- but I have one problem. Is there any Python library capable of doing this and if so, do you have any concrete examples? I've been looking but found nothing, even not with gstreamer. Thanks, William van Doorn

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  • programmatically creating property list from json to include an array

    - by Michael Robinson
    [{"memberid":"18", "useridFK":"30", "loginName":"Johnson", "name":"Frank", "age":"23", "place":"School", },] Someone else posted a similar question but without the fact that it was coming from a JSON deserialization. Quinn had some suggestions but it was confused about where to place/replace the following code (if it's correct): NSDictionary *item1 = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjects:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:@" member",[NSNumber numberWithInt:3],nil] forKeys:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"Title",@"View",nil]]; into this: NSData *jsonData = [jsonreturn dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF32BigEndianStringEncoding]; NSError *error = nil; NSDictionary * dict = [[CJSONDeserializer deserializer] deserializeAsDictionary:jsonData error:&error]; if (dict) { rowsArray = [dict objectForKey:@"member"]; [rowsArray retain]; } My Array.plist needs to look like the following: Root: Dictionary V Rows: Array V Item 0: Dictionary Title: String 18 V Children Array V Item 0 Dictionary Title String 30 etc. Thanks in advance. Every tutorial on JSON only shows a simple array being returned, never a 2-D..It's driving me crazy trying to figure this out.

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  • ASP.NET: Unable to validate data.

    - by SoloBold
    What is the cause of this exception in ASP.NET? Obviously it is a viewstate exception, but I can't reproduce the error on the page that is throwing the exception (a simple two TextBox form with a button and navigation links). FWIW, I'm not running a web farm. Exception Error Message: Unable to validate data. Error Source: System.Web Error Target Site: Byte[] GetDecodedData(Byte[], Byte[], Int32, Int32, Int32 ByRef) Post Data VIEWSTATE: /wEPDwULLTE4NTUyODcyMTFkZF96FHxDUAHIY3NOAMRJYZ+CKsnB EVENTVALIDATION: /wEWBAK+8ZzHAgKOhZRcApDF79ECAoLch4YMeQ2ayv/Gi76znHooiRyBFrWtwyg= Exception Stack Trace at System.Web.UI.ViewStateException.ThrowError(Exception inner, String persistedState, String errorPageMessage, Boolean macValidationError) at System.Web.UI.ObjectStateFormatter.Deserialize(String inputString) at System.Web.UI.ObjectStateFormatter.System.Web.UI.IStateFormatter.Deserialize(String serializedState) at System.Web.UI.Util.DeserializeWithAssert(IStateFormatter formatter, String serializedState) at System.Web.UI.HiddenFieldPageStatePersister.Load() at System.Web.UI.Page.LoadPageStateFromPersistenceMedium() at System.Web.UI.Page.LoadAllState() at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest() at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestWithNoAssert(HttpContext context) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) at ASP.default_aspx.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) ~ William Riley-Land

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  • ANTLR - Embedding Java code, evaluate before or after?

    - by wvd
    Hello all, I'm writing a simple scripting language on top of Java/JVM, where you can also embed Java code using the {} brackets. The problem is, how do I parse this in the grammar? I have two options: 1] Allow everything to be in it, such as: [a-z|a-Z|0-9|_|$], and go on 2] Get an extra java grammar and use that grammar to parse that small code (is it actually possible and efficient?) Since option 2] is basically a double-check since when evaluating java code it's also being checked. Now my last question is -- is way that can dynamically execute java code also with objects which have been created at runtime? Thanks, William van Doorn

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  • Video editing language

    - by wvd
    Hi folks, My next project will be all about language tools, parsing and such. Because of that reason I've decided to write a simple language which can be used for video editing. So instead of those desktop applications (Sony vegas, Adobe Premiere, ..) it's basically a language where you define the effects and all and it will generate a video for you. Since I've got no experience in this kind of business I need some help. The goal of the project is to create a simple language which is able to do some basic things (such as text fading in, etc). I am looking for articles/projects/blogs/whatever related with this which could help me writing this language. (Note that I don't need articles about language parsing since I'm pretty familar with that, just the video editing part). Thanks, William v. Doorn

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  • Accessing a JavaScript object property names with a "-" in it

    - by Anil kumar
    I have a requirement to read JSON data in my application. Problem is that the JSON data that I am getting from the service includes "-" and when I am trying to read it, I am getting "Uncaught ReferenceError: person is not defined ". e.g. I have below JSON object- var JSONObject ={ "name-person":"John Johnson", "street":"Oslo West 16", "age":33, "phone":"555 1234567"}; when I am writing below console log statement I am getting "Uncaught ReferenceError: person is not defined " error console.log(JSONObject.name-person); Can someone please help me how to read such data which includes "-" in it? I do not have control on the service and the DB so to modify source data is not in my hand.

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  • Is Sphinx better than LaTex in writing manuals/books?

    - by Masi
    Only a few people recommended to use Sphinx at the beginning of the year. Sphinx has developed rather fast recently. I noted today that Sage has made a change from direct editing with LaTex to Sphinx. This is evident in William Stein's answer on 2nd April about Sage's tutorial The tutorial is not a latex document anymore. It's an entirely different Sphinx document that can output pdf. It suggests me that Sphinx may be at a level such that it is suitable for me. Is Sphinx better than LaTex in writing manuals/books?

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  • mysql LAST_INSERT_ID() used with multiple records INSERT statement

    - by bogdan
    Hello, If i insert multiple records with a loop that executes a single record insert, the last insert id returned is, as expected, the last one... but if i do a multiple records insert statement: INSERT INTO people (name,age) VALUES('William',25),('Bart',15),('Mary',12); let's say the three above are the first records inserted in the table...after the insert statement i expected last insert id to return 3, but it returned 1...the first insert id for the statement in question... So can someone please confirm if this is the normal behavior of LAST_INSERT_ID() in the context of multiple records INSERT statements...so i can base my code on it thanks :)

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  • Why is writing a compiler in a functional language so efficient and easier?

    - by wvd
    Hello all, I've been thinking of this question very long, but really couldn't find the answer on Google as well a similar question on Stackoverflow. If there is a duplicate, I'm sorry for that. A lot of people seem to say that writing compilers and other language tools in functional languages such as OCaml and Haskell is much more efficient and easier then writing them in imperative languages. Is this true? And if so -- why is so efficient and easy to write them in functional languages instead of in an imperative language, like C? Also -- isn't a language tool in a functional language slower then in some low-level language like C? Thanks in advance, William v. Doorn

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  • Why is writing a compiler in a functional language easier?

    - by wvd
    Hello all, I've been thinking of this question very long, but really couldn't find the answer on Google as well a similar question on Stackoverflow. If there is a duplicate, I'm sorry for that. A lot of people seem to say that writing compilers and other language tools in functional languages such as OCaml and Haskell is much more efficient and easier then writing them in imperative languages. Is this true? And if so -- why is it so efficient and easy to write them in functional languages instead of in an imperative language, like C? Also -- isn't a language tool in a functional language slower then in some low-level language like C? Thanks in advance, William v. Doorn

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  • specify parent window in Windows Resource Script file(*.rc)

    - by welemon
    Hi, I'm looking for a method to specify parent window in *.rc file. In *.rc file, it contains the layout and controls of a dialog. Any new control added into it, will automatically become a child window of Dialog itself. But I want to add a custom draw window into dialog, and some other controls which has that "custom draw window" as parent window, not dialog itself. I know I can use ::CreateWindow(...) API to dynamic create a window in code, and specify the custom draw window as parent HWND. But we already has child controls layout in *.rc file, I just want to reuse them, without create HWND again. Thanks, William L.

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  • PHP SimpleXML, how to set attributes ?

    - by Jahmaica
    Hi, if you've got something like, <hello id="1" name="myName1"> <anotherTag title="Hello"> </anotherTag> </hello> <hello id="2" name="myName2"> <anotherTag title="Hi"> </anotherTag> </hello> How to change the attributes of, for example, hello id 2, to name="William" ? Or the title hi to hello ? Thanks a lot for your atention, H'

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  • JQuery Facebook like Tag feature

    - by Tech
    Hi, Does anyone know of a very basic tag JQuery script? (Facebook like tag feature) All I want to do is when I type @ in a text box for it to search an AJAX search, it then brings back a display name i.e. "Bob Johnson" and an associated Id and stores the Id in a comma delimited list. So an example would be the following .... [TextArea] [Name 1] [Name 2] [Name 3] The thing is it also needs to remove this entry (Id) once the tag gets removed, also it needs to load into a DIV which has a scrollbar so that the list doesn't get to big. If anyone know's how/if this is possible that would be great. Thanks.

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  • AWS ECS API - ItemLookup - Get item's (EAN) SalesRank by BrowseNode

    - by Lysender
    I'm using amazon japan, using ItemLookup. We already have the EAN numbers (used as ItemId). It was working well until we need to modify the SalesRank. The previous SalesRank returned is for the whole SearchIndex, ex: Books, Music, etc. What we want is to get the SalesRank for a specific BrowseNode. I don't know but it seems that it is not implemented on Amazon US. For example: http: // www . amazon . com / Slackware-Essentials-Cantrell-Johnson-Lumens/dp/1571763384/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276142663&sr=1-1 The book above only shows the SalesRank (Bestsellers Rank) but on Japan Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.jp/Slackware-Linux-Dummies/dp/0764506897/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=english-books&qid=1276142708&sr=1-4 It shows SalesRank for other three different BrowseNodes. We need to get the SalesRank for a specific BrowseNode for a given ItemId or by any other means. Any ideas guys? TIA

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  • links for 2010-04-28

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Guido Schmutz: Oracle BPM11g available! Oracle ACE Director Guido Schmutz shares his impressions after attending a hands-on workshop conducted by Masons of SOA member Clemens Utschig-Utschig. (tags: oracle otn oracleace bpm soa soasuite) Elena Zannoni : 2010 Collaboration Summit Impressions Elena Zannoni has collected her thoughts on #C10 and shares them in this great blog post. (tags: oracle otn linux architecture collaborate2010) Hajo Normann: BPMN 2.0 in Oracle BPM Suite: The future of BPM starts now "The BPM Studio sets itself apart from pure play BPMN 2.0 tools by being seamlessly integrated inside a holistic SOA / BPM toolset: BPMN models are placed in SCA-Composites in SOA Suite 11g. This allows to abstract away the complexities of SOA integration aspects from business process aspects. For UIs in BPMN tasks, you have the richness of ADF 11g based Frontends." -- Oracle ACE Director and Masons of SOA member Hajo Normann (tags: oracle otn oracleace bpm soa sca) Brain Dirking: AIIM Best Practice Awards to Two Oracle Customers Brian Dirking's great write-up of the AIIM Awards Banquet, at which the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Charles Town Police Department were among the winners of the 2010 Carl E. Nelson Best Practices Awards. (tags: oracle otn aiim bpm ecm enterprise2.0) Mark Wilcox: Upcoming Directory Services Live Webcast - Improve Time-to-Market and Reduce Cost with Oracle Directory Services Live Webcast: Improve Time-to-Market and Reduce Cost with Oracle Directory Services Event Date: Thursday, May 27, 2010 Event Time: 10:00 AM Pacific Standard Time / 1:00 Eastern Standard Time (tags: oracle otn webcast security identitymanagement) Celine Beck: Introducing AutoVue Document Print Service Celine Beck offers a detailed overview of Oracle AutoVue. (tags: oracle otn enatarch visualization printing) Vikas Jain: What's new in OWSM 11gR1 PS2 (11.1.1.3.0) ? Vikas Jain shares links to resources relevant to the recently releases patch set for Oracle Web Services Manager 11gR1. (tags: oracle otn soa webservices oswm) @theovanarem: Oracle SOA Suite 11g Release 1 Patch Set 2 Theo Van Arem shares links to several resources relevant to the release of the latest patch set for Oracle SOA Suite 11g. (tags: oracle otn soa soasuite middleware) @vambenepe: Analyzing the VMforce announcement "The new thing is that force.com now supports an additional runtime, in addition to Apex. That new runtime uses the Java language, with the constraint that it is used via the Spring framework. Which is familiar territory to many developers. That’s it." -- William Vambenepe (tags: oracle otn cloud paas)

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  • BI Publisher - Hottest Show in Vegas

    - by mike.donohue
    Two days down, two to go. Monday was a very busy and rewarding day. Attended "XML Publisher and FSG for Beginners" given by Susan Behn and Alyssa Johnson from Solution Beacon. It was packed, standing room only ... even though it was at 8:00 am. Later in the afternoon, despite being at the same time and in conflict with other Publisher related sessions, Noelle's session, "The Reporting Platform for Applications: Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher" and my session, "Introduction to Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher" were both very well attended. Immediately following our presentations we ran the BI Publisher Hands On Lab which was great fun. The turnout was so large that unfortunately we could not accommodate everyone who came to the lab. There were as many as 5 people huddled around each of the 20 machines. All the the groups completed the 2 main exercises. Some groups even took the product for an off-road test drive. Look at all the fun we had ... For those who could not attend or want the Hands On Lab document: Hands On Lab Oracle BI Publisher Collaborate 2010.pdf Note that these lab instructions assume a specific set up and files that you may not have in your environment. You can download and install a trial license version of BI Publisher from the download page. Highly recommend taking a look at the additional Tutorials available on OTN. Big thanks to Dan Vlamis and Jonathan Clark from Vlamis Software Solutions and to the Oracle BIWA SIG for setting up these machines and getting the time and space to run this lab. It was inspiring to see all of the attendees successfully creating reports. On Tuesday morning we were up early again for a rousing session of BI Publisher Best Practices that was also, very well attended especially considering the 8 am start. Later that morning saw Ben Bruno from STR Software and two of his customers speak on the additional functionality and ROI they have achieved by using Publisher within EBS and AventX to FAX and Email Publisher generated documents. Spent the afternoon staffing the BI Technology demo pod and had a steady flow of people dropping by with questions. Having a great conference so far and looking forward to the rest of it.

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  • Are You In The Know About Knowledge?

    - by [email protected]
    "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it." To me, this simple and elegant quote from the great English author Samuel Johnson is a reflection of Oracle's knowledge base strategy. The knowledge base in the My Oracle Support portal (https://support.oracle.com) hosts nearly a half million documents, including how-to instructions, problem-solution descriptions, code samples, FAQs, critical alerts, technical whitepapers, and so on. AutoVue's footprint in the Oracle knowledge base - although relatively small at just around 400 documents - is a steadily-expanding assortment of valuable info. This information is designed to complement what you have already learned from the AutoVue documentation, or in some cases, to examine topics not yet covered in the documentation. Similar to the documentation, the knowledge base is one of the highest-value self-service avenues, since it delivers answers in real-time and is driven by the topics most relevant to customers. There are many different ways to leverage the AutoVue knowledge content, or what Oracle often refers to as "KM Notes": 1. Knowledge Browser: To browse the knowledge hierarchy, click on the 'Knowledge' tab at the top of the My Oracle Support webpage. In the list of product areas at the left, click on 'More Applications', then on 'Oracle AutoVue'. From here, you can either view the full set of KM Notes under the AutoVue product family (AutoVue, VueLink, Web Services, Document Print Services, etc) by clicking on 'All of Oracle AutoVue', or you can drill down further by clicking on 'Enterprise Visualization'. 2. Search: To execute simple keyword searches, use the Search bar at the top-right of the My Oracle Support webpage: 3. Advanced Search: Beside the same Search bar at the top-right of the My Oracle Support webpage, click on the 'Advanced' link in order to increase your control over the search string as well as the product to search against: 4. In your Dashboard: By clicking on the 'Customize' link at the top-right of the Dashboard page in My Oracle Support, you can drag & drop multiple "Knowledge Articles" widgets onto your dashboard. Then, click on the pencil icon at the top-right of the widget to customize it by product. This allows you to keep an active monitor on the most recently updated KM Notes across any product: 5. During SR Creation: As you submit a new Service Request, after entering the product information, SR title, and SR description, you will be presented with a frame at the left containing KM Note suggestions based on the information entered: Let Oracle know what you think! If you like or dislike an article, or would like to comment on how easy/difficult it was to find the article, click on the "Rate this document" link at the bottom of the KM Note. Similarly, during SR creation if one of the suggested KM Notes resolves your question/issue, you can click the "This article solved my problem" link at the bottom of the page. I hope these approaches improve your ability find knowledge content within the My Oracle Support portal, and I encourage you to continue to build your knowledge to further your success with the AutoVue product family.

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  • links for 2010-04-22

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Barry N. Perkins: Unique Business Value vs. Unique IT "Some solutions may look good today, solving a budget challenge by reducing cost, or solving a specific tactical challenge, but result in highly complex environments, that may be difficult to manage and maintain and limit the future potential of your business. Put differently, some solutions might push today's challenge into the future, resulting in a more complex and expensive solution." -- Barry N. Perkins, VP Oracle Modernization & Oracle Integrated Solutions (tags: oracle otn enterprisearchitecture modernization) Paul Homchick: The Information Driven Value Chain - Part 2 Paul Homchick continues his series with a look "at the way investments have been made in enterprise software in an effort to create and manage value, and how systems are moving from a controlled-process approach design towards gathering and using dynamically using information." (tags: oracle otn enterprisearchitecture) @vambenepe: The battle of the Cloud Frameworks: Application Servers redux? "The battle of the Cloud Frameworks has started," says William Vambenepe, "and it will look a lot like the battle of the Application Servers which played out over the last decade and a half." (tags: oracle otn cloud frameworks appserver) @ORACLENERD: COLLABORATE: Day 4 Wrap Up Oraclenerd feesses up: "The day started out with the realization that I pulled off the best (COLLABORATE - self annointed) prank ever. Twitter was...all atwitter about the fact that Mark Rittman was Oracle's Person of the Year. Of course it wasn't true. If you look at the picture, you'll realize that he's wearing exactly the same clothes in the magazine cover as he is in real life." (tags: collaborate2010 oracleace) Oracle's Hal Stern at Cloud Expo: "We've Moved from 'What' to 'How'" | Cloud Computing Journal "Hal also spoke a bit about building 'a sustainable IT model.' By this, he said he didn't mean the various Green IT and similar efforts that 'are all about data center efficiency. I think the operational model is just as important. Many enterprises are managing a tremendous amount of complexity, and it's hard to make this sustainable.'" -- Cloud News Desk (tags: oracle cloud cloudexpo halstern) @ORACLENERD: COLLABORATE: The Beach Party "Then tiki statues somehow were incorporated into various dances" -- Oracle ACE Chet "oraclenerd" Justice (tags: 0racle otn oracleace collaborate2010 oaug ioug lasvegas) David Andrews: Collaborate Day Two "Collaborate 2010 has focused on helping attendees understand what is already available and how to make more effective use of it. This does not sound exciting but it is extremely valuable. Most customers use only a small fraction of the capability of the products they already own. Helping them understand all the additional things they could be doing without buying anything more is very valuable." -- David Andrews (tags: oracle oaug collaborate2010 ioug)

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  • To Serve Man?

    - by Dave Convery
    Since the announcement of Windows 8 and its 'Metro' interface, the .NET community has wondered if the skills they've spent so long developing might be swept aside,in favour of HTML5 and JavaScript. Mercifully, that only seems to be true of SilverLight (as Simon Cooper points out), but it did leave me thinking how easy it is to impose a technology upon people without directly serving their needs. Case in point: QR codes. Once, probably, benign in purpose, they seem to have become a marketer's tool for determining when someone has engaged with an advert in the real world, with the same certainty as is possible online. Nobody really wants to use QR codes - it's far too much hassle. But advertisers want that data - they want to know that someone actually read their billboard / poster / cereal box, and so this flawed technology is suddenly everywhere, providing little to no value to the people who are actually meant to use it. What about 3D cinema? Profits from the film industry have been steadily increasing throughout the period that digital piracy and mass sharing has been possible, yet the industry cinema chains have forced 3D films upon a broadly uninterested audience, as a way of providing more purpose to going to a cinema, rather than watching it at home. Despite advances in digital projection, 3D cinema is scarcely more immersive to us than were William Castle's hoary old tricks of skeletons on wires and buzzing chairs were to our grandparents. iTunes - originally just a piece of software that catalogued and ripped music for you, but which is now multi-purpose bloatware; a massive, system-hogging behemoth. If it was being built for the people that used it, it would have been split into three or more separate pieces of software long ago. But as bloatware, it serves Apple primarily rather than us, stuffed with Music, Video, Various stores and phone / iPad management all bolted into one. Why? It's because, that way, you're more likely to bump into something you want to buy. You can't even buy a new laptop without finding that a significant chunk of your hard drive has been sold to 'select partners' - advertisers, suppliers of virus-busting software, and endless bloatware-flogging pop-ups that make using a new laptop without reformatting the hard drive like stepping back in time. The product you want is not the one you paid for. This is without even looking at services like Facebook and Klout, who provide a notional service with the intention of slurping up as much data about you as possible (in Klout's case, whether you create an account with them or not). What technologies do you find annoying or intrusive, and who benefits from keeping them around?

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