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• Initial Look: Storing SQL Compact Data on a Windows Phone 7 Series

  - by Nikita Polyakov

  Ok, the title is misleading – I’ll admit it, but there is a way to store your data in Windows Phone 7 Series. Windows Phone 7 Silverlight solutions have what is called Isolated Storage. [XNA has content storage as well] At this time there is no port of SQL Compact engine for Silverlight Isolated Storage. There is no wind of such intention. [That was a question way before WP7 was even rumored to have Silverlight.] There a few options: 1. Microsoft recommends you “simply” use client-server or cloud approach here. But this is not an option for Offline. 2. Use the new Offline/CacheMode with Sync Framework as shown in the Building Offline Web Apps Using Microsoft Sync Framework MIX10 presentation see 19:10 for Silverlight portion [go to 22:10 mark to see the app]. 3. Use XlmSerializer to dumb your objects to a XML file into the Isolated Storage. Good for small data. 4. Experiment with C#SQLite for Silverlight that has been shown to work in WP7 emulator, read more. 5. Roll your own file format and read/write from it. Think good ol’ CSV. Good for when you want 1million row table ;)   Is Microsoft aware of this possible limitation? Yes. What are they doing about it? I don’t know. See #1 and #2 above as the official guidance for now. What should you do about it? Don’t be too quick to dismiss WP7 because you think you’ll “need” SQL Compact. As lot of us will be playing with these possible solutions, I will be sure to update you on further discoveries. Remember that the tools [even the emulator] released at MIX are CTP grade and might not have all the features. Stay up to date: Watch the @wp7dev account if you are on Twitter. And watch the Windows Phone Dev Website and Blog. More information and detail is sure to come about WP7 Dev, as Windows Phone is planned to launch “Holidays” 2010. [For example Office will be discussed in June from the latest news, June is TechEd 2010 timeframe btw]

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• Mathematica Programming Language&ndash;An Introduction

  - by JoshReuben

  The Mathematica http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/ programming model consists of a kernel computation engine (or grid of such engines) and a front-end of notebook instances that communicate with the kernel throughout a session. The programming model of Mathematica is incredibly rich & powerful – besides numeric calculations, it supports symbols (eg Pi, I, E) and control flow logic.   obviously I could use this as a simple calculator: 5 * 10 --> 50 but this language is much more than that!   for example, I could use control flow logic & setup a simple infinite loop: x=1; While [x>0, x=x,x+1] Different brackets have different purposes: square brackets for function arguments:  Cos[x] round brackets for grouping: (1+2)*3 curly brackets for lists: {1,2,3,4} The power of Mathematica (as opposed to say Matlab) is that it gives exact symbolic answers instead of a rounded numeric approximation (unless you request it):   Mathematica lets you define scoped variables (symbols): a=1; b=2; c=a+b --> 5 these variables can contain symbolic values – you can think of these as partially computed functions:   use Clear[x] or Remove[x] to zero or dereference a variable.   To compute a numerical approximation to n significant digits (default n=6), use N[x,n] or the //N prefix: Pi //N -->3.14159 N[Pi,50] --> 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751 The kernel uses % to reference the lastcalculation result, %% the 2nd last, %%% the 3rd last etc –> clearer statements: eg instead of: Sqrt[Pi+Sqrt[Sqrt[Pi+Sqrt[Pi]]] do: Sqrt[Pi]; Sqrt[Pi+%]; Sqrt[Pi+%] The help system supports wildcards, so I can search for functions like so: ?Inv* Mathematica supports some very powerful programming constructs and a rich function library that allow you to do things that you would have to write allot of code for in a language like C++.   the Factor function – factorization: Factor[x^3 – 6*x^2 +11x – 6] --> (-3+x) (-2+x) (-1+x)   the Solve function – find the roots of an equation: Solve[x^3 – 2x + 1 == 0] -->   the Expand function – express (1+x)^10 in polynomial form: Expand[(1+x)^10] --> 1+10x+45x^2+120x^3+210x^4+252x^5+210x^6+120x^7+45x^8+10x^9+x^10 the Prime function – what is the 1000th prime? Prime[1000] -->7919 Mathematica also has some powerful graphics capabilities:   the Plot function – plot the graph of y=Sin x in a single period: Plot[Sin[x], {x,0,2*Pi}] you can also plot 3D surfaces of functions using Plot3D function

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• July, the 31 Days of SQL Server DMO’s – Day 24 (sys.dm_db_index_operational_stats)

  - by Tamarick Hill

  The sys.dm_db_index_operational_stats Dynamic Management Function returns information about the IO, locking, and access methods for the indexes that you currently have on your SQL Server Instance. This function takes four input parameters which are (1) database_id, (2) object_id, (3) index_id, and (4) partition_number. Let’s have a look at the results from this function against our AdventureWorks2012 database. This function returns a ton of columns, so not only will I not attempt to describe each of the columns, I wont even attempt to display all of them here. My query below will give you a subset of the columns returned from this function. SELECT database_id, object_id, index_id, partition_number, leaf_insert_count, leaf_delete_count, leaf_update_count, leaf_ghost_count, nonleaf_insert_count, nonleaf_delete_count, nonleaf_update_count, range_scan_count, forwarded_fetch_count, row_lock_count, row_lock_wait_count, page_lock_count, page_lock_wait_count, Index_lock_promotion_attempt_count, index_lock_promotion_count, page_compression_attempt_count, page_compression_success_count FROM sys.dm_db_index_operational_stats(db_id('AdventureWorks2012'), NULL, NULL, NULL) The first four columns in the result set represent the values that we passed in as our input parameters. If you use NULL’s as I did, then you will see results for every index on your system. I specified a database_id so my result set only shows those records pertaining to my AdventureWorks2012 database. The next columns in the result set provide you with information on how may inserts, deletes, or updates that have taken place on your leaf and nonleaf index levels. The nonleaf levels would refer to the intermediate and root index levels. In the middle of these you see a leaf_ghost_count column, which represents the number of records that have been logically deleted and marked as “ghosted”  and are waiting on the background ghost cleanup process to physically remove them. The range_scan_count column represents the number of range or table scans that have been performed against an index. The forwarded_fetch_count column represents the number of rows that were returned from a forwarding row pointer. The row_lock_count and row_lock_wait_count represent the number of row locks that have been requested for an index and the number of times SQL has had to wait on a row lock respectively. The page_lock_count and page_lock_wait_count represent the number of page locks that have been requested for an index and the number of times SQL has had to wait on a page lock respectively. The index_lock_promotion_attempt_count represents the number of times the database engine has attempted to promote a lock to the index level. The index_lock_promotion_count column displays how many times that index lock promotion was successful. Lastly the page_compression_attempt_count and page_compression_success_count represents how many times a page was attempted to be compressed and how many times the attempt was successful. As you can see there is a ton of information returned from this DMV. The DMV we reviewed on yesterday (sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats) provided you with good information on when and how indexes have been used, but this DMF takes an even deeper dive into these statistics. If you are interested in performing a very detailed analysis on the operational stats of your indexes, this is not only a good place to start, but more than likely the best place. For more information on this Dynamic Management Function, please see the below Books Online link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174281.aspx Follow me on Twitter @PrimeTimeDBA

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• SQL SERVER – Identify Numbers of Non Clustered Index on Tables for Entire Database

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the script which will give you numbers of non clustered indexes on any table in entire database. SELECT COUNT(i.TYPE) NoOfIndex, [schema_name] = s.name, table_name = o.name FROM sys.indexes i INNER JOIN sys.objects o ON i.[object_id] = o.[object_id] INNER JOIN sys.schemas s ON o.[schema_id] = s.[schema_id] WHERE o.TYPE IN ('U') AND i.TYPE = 2 GROUP BY s.name, o.name ORDER BY schema_name, table_name Here is the small story behind why this script was needed. I recently went to meet my friend in his office and he introduced me to his colleague in office as someone who is an expert in SQL Server Indexing. I politely said I am yet learning about Indexing and have a long way to go. My friend’s colleague right away said – he had a suggestion for me with related to Index. According to him he was looking for a script which will count all the non clustered on all the tables in the database and he was not able to find that on SQLAuthority.com. I was a bit surprised as I really do not remember all the details about what I have written so far. I quickly pull up my phone and tried to look for the script on my custom search engine and he was correct. I never wrote a script which will count all the non clustered indexes on tables in the whole database. Excessive indexing is not recommended in general. If you have too many indexes it will definitely negatively affect your performance. The above query will quickly give you details of numbers of indexes on tables on your entire database. You can quickly glance and use the numbers as reference. Please note that the number of the index is not a indication of bad indexes. There is a lot of wisdom I can write here but that is not the scope of this blog post. There are many different rules with Indexes and many different scenarios. For example – a table which is heap (no clustered index) is often not recommended on OLTP workload (here is the blog post to identify them), drop unused indexes with careful observation (here is the script for it), identify missing indexes and after careful testing add them (here is the script for it). Even though I have given few links here it is just the tip of the iceberg. If you follow only above four advices your ship may still sink. Those who wants to learn the subject in depth can watch the videos here after logging in. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Three Puzzling Questions – Need Your Answer

  - by pinaldave

  Last week I had asked three questions on my blog. I got very good response to the questions. I am planning to write summary post for each of three questions next week. Before I write summary post and give credit to all the valid answers. I was wondering if I can bring to notice of all of you this week. Why SELECT * throws an error but SELECT COUNT(*) does not This is indeed very interesting question as not quite many realize that this kind of behavior SQL Server demonstrates out of the box. Once you run both the code and read the explanation it totally makes sense why SQL Server is behaving how it is behaving. Also there is connect item is associated with it. Also read the very first comment by Rob Farley it also shares very interesting detail. Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once This puzzle has multiple right answer. I am glad to see many of the correct answer as a comment to this blog post. Statistics are very important and it really helps SQL Server Engine to come up with optimal execution plan. DBA quite often ignore statistics thinking it does not need to be updated, as they are automatically maintained if proper database setting is configured (auto update and auto create). Well, in this question, we have scenario even though auto create and auto update statistics are ON, statistics is not updated. There are multiple solutions but what will be your solution in this case? When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure This question is rather open ended question – there is no right or wrong answer. Everybody developer has always used functions and stored procedures. Here is the chance to justify when to use Stored Procedure and when to use Functions. I want to acknowledge that they can be used interchangeably but there are few reasons when one should not do that. There are few reasons when one is better than other. Let us discuss this here. Your opinion matters. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• CISDI Cloud - Industrial Cloud Computing Platform based on Oracle Products

  - by Wenyu Duan

  In today's era, Cloud Computing is becoming integral to the vision and corporate strategy of leading organizations and is often seen as a key business driver to achieve growth and innovation. Headquartered in Chongqing, China, CISDI Engineering Co., Ltd. is a large state-owned engineering company, offering consulting, engineering design, EPC contracting, and equipment integration services to steel producers all over the world. With over 50 years of experience, CISDI offers quality services for every aspect of production for projects in the metal industry and the company has evolved into a leading international engineering service group with 18 subsidiaries providing complete lifecycle for E&C projects. CISDI group delegation led by Mr. Zhaohui Yu, CEO of CISDI Group, Mr. Zhiyou Li, CEO of CISDI Info, Mr. Qing Peng, CTO of CISDI Info and Mr. Xin Xiao, Head of CISDI Info's R&D joined Oracle OpenWorld 2012 and presented a very impressive cloud initiative case in their session titled “E&C Industry Solution in CISDI Cloud - An Industrial Cloud Computing Platform Based on Oracle Products”. CISDI group plans to expand through three phases in the construction of its cloud computing platform: first, it will relocate its existing technologies to Oracle systems, along with establishing private cloud for CISDI; secondly, it will gradually provide mixed cloud services for its subsidiaries and partners; and finally it plans to launch an industrial cloud with a highly mature, secure and scalable environment providing cloud services for customers in the engineering construction and steel industries, among others. “CISDI Cloud” will become the growth engine for the organization to expand its global reach through online services and achieving the strategic objective of being the preferred choice of E&C companies worldwide. The new cloud computing platform is designed to provide access to the shared computing resources pool in a self-service, dynamic, elastic and measurable way. It’s flexible and scalable grid structure can support elastic expansion and sustainable growth, and can bring significant benefits in speed, agility and efficiency. Further, the platform can greatly cut down deployment and maintenance costs. CISDI delegation highlighted these points as the key reasons why the group decided to have a strategic collaboration with Oracle for building this world class industrial cloud - - Oracle’s strategy: Open, Complete and Integrated - Oracle as the only company who can provide engineered system, with complete product chain of hardware and software - Exadata, Exalogic, EM 12c to provide solid foundation for "CISDI Cloud" The cloud blueprint and advanced architecture for industrial cloud computing platform presented in the session shows how Oracle products and technologies together with industrial applications from CISDI can provide end-end portfolio of E&C industry services in cloud. CISDI group was recognized for business leadership and innovative solutions and was presented with Engineering and Construction Industry Excellence Award during Oracle OpenWorld.

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• July, the 31 Days of SQL Server DMO’s – Day 29 (sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors)

  - by Tamarick Hill

  The sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors Dynamic Management View gives you a look into the data pages that are currently in your SQL Server buffer pool. Just in case you are not familiar with some of the internals to SQL Server and how the engine works, SQL Server only works with objects that are in memory (buffer pool). When an object such as a table needs to be read and it does not exist in the buffer pool, SQL Server will read (copy) the necessary data page(s) from disk into the buffer pool and cache it. Caching takes place so that it can be reused again and prevents the need of expensive physical reads. To better illustrate this DMV, lets query it against our AdventureWorks2012 database and view the result set. SELECT * FROM sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors WHERE database_id = db_id('AdventureWorks2012') The first column returned from this result set is the database_id column which identifies the specific database for a given row. The file_id column represents the file that a particular buffer descriptor belongs to. The page_id column represents the ID for the data page within the buffer. The page_level column represents the index level of the data page. Next we have the allocation_unit_id column which identifies a unique allocation unit. An allocation unit is basically a set of data pages. The page_type column tells us exactly what type of page is in the buffer pool. From my screen shot above you see I have 3 distinct type of Pages in my buffer pool, Index, Data, and IAM pages. Index pages are pages that are used to build the Root and Intermediate levels of a B-Tree. A Data page would represent the actual leaf pages of a clustered index which contain the actual data for the table. Without getting into too much detail, an IAM page is Index Allocation Map page which track GAM (Global Allocation Map) pages which in turn track extents on your system. The row_count column details how many data rows are present on a given page. The free_space_in_bytes tells you how much of a given data page is still available, remember pages are 8K in size. The is_modified signifies whether or not a page has been changed since it has been read into memory, .ie a dirty page. The numa_node column represents the Nonuniform memory access node for the buffer. Lastly is the read_microsec column which tells you how many microseconds it took for a data page to be read (copied) into the buffer pool. This is a great DMV for use when you are tracking down a memory issue or if you just want to have a look at what type of pages are currently in your buffer pool. For more information about this DMV, please see the below Books Online link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173442.aspx Follow me on Twitter @PrimeTimeDBA

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• Understanding Windows 8 Recovery options

  - by stuffe

  Background: I am preparing a PC that I am sending to a relative abroad, who has little or no internet access, and next to no sensible options for getting IT support should anything go wrong. As such I am trying to provide a full set of recovery options such that they are able to reinstall the OS with minimum fuss or assistance if required. The PC is a brand new Acer laptop that came with Windows 7 pre-installed (and an associated recovery partition) and a free upgrade to Windows 8. I have installed Windows 8 from scratch performing a format and clean install from media I burned from the official download. The existing Windows 7 recovery partition is still there, and I can still boot from it. I have created recovery DVDs of that in case it is ever lost. Here are my recovery options so far. I can perform a factory reset of Win 7 via the recovery partition I can perform a factory reset of Win 7 via burned recovery DVDs I can re-install Windows 8 cleanly from a DVD All of these are useful, but not what I want, because the first 2 methods use Win 7, and still fill the machine with crapware, and the latter doesn't provide for any post-install customisation and software installation. So, I am looking to see what other options are available to perform a Windows 8 recovery that will be more than a simple install. I am aware that Win8 comes with some useful refresh tools: Refresh your PC - Re-install Win 8 over the top of your existing installation, recovering from any Windows corruption etc. I can run this from my current install, although it says some files are missing that will be provided by me install or recovery media, which seems to be code for stick your install DVD in, and it starts after I do that - unfortunately for this particular laptop you need to specify a particular WIFI driver or the install bombs out part way through with IRQL errors, and this refresh method skips the part where you can load a driver, so it's no use to me. I think I can fix this by creating a custom recovery image using the recimg.exe command but it takes hours to complete so I haven't tried it yet. Reset your PC - Perform a full install and lose all your files. Again it needs my Install media inserting before it will do anything, but then it provides an error (will include later when I recreate it...) Now, these recovery options look useful (in principal, although both are fail for me) but they rely on having a working system to access the tools, which leads me to the last option, of making a Recovery USB drive. I have made a recovery drive, and it should perform loads of useful things, including copying my WIN7 recovery partition to the drive, providing the above refresh and reset options, providing other troubleshooting options and also the ability to restore from a custom image, only none of them seem to work for me. Creating the Recovery Drive - the option to include my recovery partition is greyed out. The partition exists and works fine, why will it not copy it? Refresh - I imagine this would have the same issues as I described before, but this is moot because when I try it says that the "drive where Windows is installed is locked, please unlock the drive and try again" with no info on what that means and how to do it. Restore - Again, probably pointless as I can just use the DVD, but it also errors: "unable to reset your PC. A required drive partition is missing" System Restore - should let me roll back a bad driver etc as per normal in Windows, only it simply says "To use system restore you must specify which windows installation to restore. Restart this computer, select an operating system, and select system restore" ?!?! System Image Recovery - this seems to be offering to restore from a Windows system image, but this is deprecated in Windows 8, although you can still make one if you use the Windows 7 Backup tools, however the resultant file is too large to put on the USB stick as it's FAT formatted, and would be a massive stack of DVDs anyway. So useless. It would be nice it it would work with the custom recovery image you can use with the refresh command, but there seems no option to do this. Automatic Repair - some diagnostics, which seem useless as it happily tells me it can't fix my problem, even though I have none. Command Prompt - yay, this works! What on earth do I want to use it for... Had any of the above worked, it might be useful, but as any form of install still requires you to have the DVD, and any form of custom recovery image also requires you to have either a massive stack of DVDs or an NTFS formatted backup device in addition to the recovery drive, it sort of ruins the point. It doesn't seem rocket science. I want to create a bootable USB drive that I can refresh Windows over an existing install with, perform a clean reinstall to a bare system, or recovery a customised image with existing apps installed. If anyone can point me in a direction that allows me to make a single recovery drive do these all these things, I would appreciate it. I have a 32Gb USB3 thumb drive that I bought for this very purpose, but it's seems to be fighting to let me do anything useful. At this rate I will be making a DriveImageXML recovery stick and dumping the OS with that, which I know works, but isn't so elegant as using the proper tools..

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• Analysis Services Tabular books #ssas #tabular

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

  Many people are looking for books about Analysis Services Tabular. Today there are two books available and they complement each other: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services: The BISM Tabular Model by Marco Russo, Alberto Ferrari and Chris Webb Applied Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services: Tabular Modeling by Teo Lachev The book I wrote with Alberto and Chris is a complete guide to create tabular models and has a good coverage about DAX, including how to use it for enriching a semantic model with calculated columns and measures and how to use it for querying a Tabular model. In my experience, DAX as a query language is a very interesting option for custom analytical applications that requires a fast calculation engine, or simply for standard reports running in Reporting Services and accessing a Tabular model. You can freely preview the table of content and read some excerpts from the book on Safari Books Online. The book is in printing and should be shipped within mid-July, so finally it will be very soon on the shelf of all the people already preordered it! The Teo Lachev’s book, covers the full spectrum of Tabular models provided by Microsoft: starting with self-service BI, you have users creating a model with PowerPivot for Excel, publishing it to PowerPivot for SharePoint and exploring data by using Power View; then, the PowerPivot for Excel model can be imported in a Tabular model and published in Analysis Services, adding more control on the model through row-level security and partitioning, for example. Teo’s book follows a step-by-step approach describing each feature that is very good for a beginner that is new to PowerPivot and/or to BISM Tabular. If you need to get the big picture and to start using the products that are part of the new Microsoft wave of BI products, the Teo’s book is for you. After you read the book from Teo, or if you already have a certain confidence with PowerPivot or BISM Tabular and you want to go deeper about internals, best practices, design patterns in just BISM Tabular, then our book is a suggested read: it contains several chapters about DAX, includes discussions about new opportunities in data model design offered by Tabular models, and also provides examples of optimizations you can obtain in DAX and best practices in data modeling and queries. It might seem strange that an author write a review of a book that might seem to compete with his one, but in reality these two books complement each other and are not alternatives. If you have any doubt, buy both: you will be not disappointed! Moreover, Amazon usually offers you a deal to buy three books, including the Visualizing Data with Microsoft Power View, another good choice for getting all the details about Power View.

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• Package system broken - E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

  - by delha

  After installing some packages and libraries I have an error on Package Manager, I can't run any update because it says: "The package system is broken If you are using third party repositories then disable them, since they are a common source of problems. Now run the following command in a terminal: apt-get install -f " I've tried to do what it says and it returns me: jara@jara-Aspire-5738:~$ sudo apt-get install -f Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: libcaca-dev libopencv2.3-bin nite-dev python-bluez ps-engine libslang2-dev python-sphinx ros-electric-geometry-tutorials ros-electric-geometry-visualization python-matplotlib libzzip-dev ros-electric-orocos-kinematics-dynamics ros-electric-physics-ode libbluetooth-dev libaudiofile-dev libassimp2 libnetpbm10-dev ros-electric-laser-pipeline python-epydoc ros-electric-geometry-experimental libasound2-dev evtest python-matplotlib-data libyaml-dev ros-electric-bullet ros-electric-executive-smach ros-electric-documentation libgl2ps0 libncurses5-dev ros-electric-robot-model texlive-fonts-recommended python-lxml libwxgtk2.8-dev daemontools libxxf86vm-dev libqhull-dev libavahi-client-dev ros-electric-geometry libgl2ps-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev assimp-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libopencv2.3 ros-electric-diagnostics-monitors libsdl1.2-dev libjs-underscore libsdl-image1.2 tipa libusb-dev libtinfo-dev python-tz python-sip libfltk1.1 libesd0 libfreeimage-dev ros-electric-visualization x11proto-xf86vidmode-dev python-docutils libvtk5.6 ros-electric-assimp x11proto-scrnsaver-dev libnetcdf-dev libidn11-dev libeigen3-dev joystick libhdf5-serial-1.8.4 ros-electric-joystick-drivers texlive-fonts-recommended-doc esound-common libesd0-dev tcl8.5-dev ros-electric-multimaster-experimental ros-electric-rx libaudio-dev ros-electric-ros-tutorials libwxbase2.8-dev ros-electric-visualization-common python-sip-dev ros-electric-visualization-tutorials libfltk1.1-dev libpulse-dev libnetpbm10 python-markupsafe openni-dev tk8.5-dev wx2.8-headers freeglut3-dev libavahi-common-dev python-roman python-jinja2 ros-electric-robot-model-visualization libxss-dev libqhull5 libaa1-dev ros-electric-eigen freeglut3 ros-electric-executive-smach-visualization ros-electric-common-tutorials ros-electric-robot-model-tutorials libnetcdf6 libjs-sphinxdoc python-pyparsing libaudiofile0 Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following extra packages will be installed: libcv-dev The following NEW packages will be installed libcv-dev 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 4 not upgraded. 2 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 0 B/3,114 kB of archives. After this operation, 11.1 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y (Reading database ... 261801 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking libcv-dev (from .../libcv-dev_2.1.0-7build1_amd64.deb) ... dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libcv-dev_2.1.0-7build1_amd64.deb (-- unpack): trying to overwrite '/usr/bin/opencv_haartraining', which is also in package libopencv2.3-bin 2.3.1+svn6514+branch23-12~oneiric dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe) Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/libcv-dev_2.1.0-7build1_amd64.deb E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) I've tried everything people recommend on internet like: sudo apt-get clean sudo apt-get autoremove sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get -f install Also I've tried to install the synaptic manager but it doesn't let me install anything.. As you can see nothing works so I'm desperate! I'm using ubuntu 11.10, 64 bits Thanks!!

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• Graphics module: Am I going the right way?

  - by Paul

  I'm trying to write the graphics module of my engine. That is, this part of the code only provides an interface through which to load images, fonts, etc and draw them on the screen. It is also a wrapper for the library I'm using (SDL in this case). Here are the interfaces for my Image, Font and GraphicsRenderer classes. Please tell me if I'm going the right way. Image class Image { public: Image(); Image(const Image& other); Image(const char* file); ~Image(); bool load(const char* file); void free(); bool isLoaded() const; Image& operator=(const Image& other); private: friend class GraphicsRenderer; void* data_; }; Font class Font { public: Font(); Font(const Font& other); Font(const char* file, int ptsize); ~Font(); void load(const char* file, int ptsize); void free(); bool isLoaded() const; Font& operator=(const Font& other); private: friend class GraphicsRenderer; void* data_; }; GrapphicsRenderer class GraphicsRenderer { public: static GraphicsRenderer* Instance(); void blitImage(const Image& img, int x, int y); void blitText(const char* string, const Font& font, int x, int y); void render(); protected: GraphicsRenderer(); GraphicsRenderer(const GraphicsRenderer& other); GraphicsRenderer& operator=(const GraphicsRenderer& other); ~GraphicsRenderer(); private: void* screen_; bool initialize(); void finalize(); };

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• Can you Trust Search?

  - by David Dorf

  An awful lot of referrals to e-commerce sites come from web searches. Retailers rely on search engine optimization (SEO) to correctly position their website so they can be found. Search on "blue jeans" and the results are determined by a semi-secret algorithm -- in my case Levi.com, Banana Republic, and ShopStyle show up. The NY Times recently uncovered a situation where JCPenney, via third-parties hired to help with SEO, was caught manipulating search results so they were erroneously higher in page rankings. No doubt this helped drive additional sales during this part Christmas. The article, The Dirty Little Secrets of Search, is well worth reading. My friend Ron Kleinman started an interesting discussion at the ARTS Linkedin forum. He posed the question: The ability of a single company to "punish" any retailer (by significantly impacting their on-line sales volume) who does not play by their rules ... is this a good thing or a bad thing? Clearly JCP was in the wrong and needed to be punished, but should that decision lie with Google alone? Don't get me wrong -- I'm certainly not advocating we create a Department of Search where bureaucrats think of ways to spend money, but Google wields an awful lot of power in this situation, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Now Google is incorporating more social aspects into their search results. For example, when Google knows its me (i.e. I'm logged in when using Google) search results will be influenced by my Twitter network. In an effort to increase relevance, the blogs and re-tweeted articles from my network will be higher in the search results than they otherwise would be. So in the case of product searches, things discussed in my network will rise to the top. Continuing my blue jean example, if someone in my network had been discussing Macy's perhaps they would now be higher in the result set. soapbox: I already have lots of spammers posting bogus comments to this blog in an effort to create additional links to their sites and thus increase their search ranking. Should I expect a similar situation in Twitter and eventually Facebook? Now retailers need to expand their SEO efforts to incorporate social media as well, but do us all a favor and please don't cheat.

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• ath9k driver does not weak up

  - by shantanu

  I know this is common question but i found no suitable answer, so i am asking this again. I installed ubuntu 11.10. I found the bug for ath9k, so set first network boot from BIOS menu. That's worked. I have upgraded to 12.04 yesterday. Now ath9k is creating problem again. First network boot is still enable. ath9k works at start. But failed(connect again and again) after couple of minutes. dmesg show error that it can not weak up in 500us. So i tried #compat-wireless-3.5.1-1. But result is same. I have also added #nohwcrypt=1 option in /etc/modeprob.d/ath9k.conf. Still no luck. I tried #rmmod and then modprobe sudo modprobe ath9k nohwcrypt=1 dmesg shows me error: [ 400.690086] ath9k: Driver unloaded [ 406.214329] ath9k 0000:06:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002) [ 406.214348] ath9k 0000:06:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17 [ 406.214368] ath9k 0000:06:00.0: setting latency timer to 64 [ 406.428517] ath9k 0000:06:00.0: Failed to initialize device [ 406.428852] ath9k 0000:06:00.0: PCI INT A disabled [ 406.428887] ath9k: probe of 0000:06:00.0 failed with error -5 dmesg error when driver fail: 355.023521] ath: Chip reset failed [ 355.023524] ath: Unable to reset channel, reset status -22 [ 355.023556] ath: Unable to set channel [ 355.088569] ath: Failed to stop TX DMA, queues=0x10f! [ 355.122708] ath: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms AR_CR=0xffffffff AR_DIAG_SW=0xffffffff DMADBG_7=0xffffffff [ 355.122714] ath: Could not stop RX, we could be confusing the DMA engine when we start RX up [ 355.263962] ath: Chip reset failed [ 355.263966] ath: Unable to reset channel (2437 MHz), reset status -22 [ 358.996063] ath: Failed to wakeup in 500us [ 364.004182] ath: Failed to wakeup in 500us I can not install fresh ubuntu because i have lots of application installed. System : Acer Aspire 4250 AMD dual core 1.6GHZ Atheros Communications Inc. AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01) EDITED Now i am in serious problem. No wifi device is not showing in ifconfig or lshw commands. Only ether-net interface shows. I tried (FN + WIFI) several times to enable the device but nothing helps. Now I have installed fresh ubuntu 12.04. Please help lshw -c network: *-network description: Ethernet interface product: 82566DC Gigabit Network Connection vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 19 bus info: pci@0000:00:19.0 logical name: eth0 version: 02 serial: 00:19:d1:7a:8e:f9 size: 100Mbit/s capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=2.0.0-k duplex=full firmware=1.1-0 ip=192.168.1.114 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s resources: irq:45 memory:90300000-9031ffff memory:90324000-90324fff ioport:20c0(size=32) rfkill command does not show anything but no error.

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• If Nvidia Shield can stream a game via WiFi (~150-300Mbps), where is the 1-10Gbps wired streaming?

  - by Enigma

  Facts: It is surprising and uncharacteristic that a wireless game streaming solution is the *first to hit the market when a 1000mbps+ Ethernet connection would accomplish the same feat with roughly 6x the available bandwidth. 150-300mbps WiFi is in no way superior to a 1000mbps+ LAN connection aside from well wireless mobility. Throughout time, (since the internet was created) wired services have **always come first yet in this particular case, the opposite seems to be true. We had wired internet first, wired audio streaming, and wired video streaming all before their wireless counterparts. Why? Largely because the wireless bandwidth was and is inferior. Even today despite being significantly better and capable of a lot more, it is still inferior to a wired connection. Situation: Chief among these is that NVIDIA’s Shield handheld game console will be getting a microconsole-like mode, dubbed “Shield Console Mode”, that will allow the handheld to be converted into a more traditional TV-connected console. In console mode Shield can be controlled with a Bluetooth controller, and in accordance with the higher resolution of TVs will accept 1080p game streaming from a suitably equipped PC, versus 720p in handheld mode. With that said 1080p streaming will require additional bandwidth, and while 720p can be done over WiFi NVIDIA will be requiring a hardline GigE connection for 1080p streaming (note that Shield doesn’t have Ethernet, so this is presumably being done over USB). Streaming aside, in console mode Shield will also support its traditional local gaming/application functionality. - http://www.anandtech.com/show/7435/nvidia-consolidates-game-streaming-tech-under-gamestream-brand-announces-shield-console-mode ^ This is not acceptable to me for a number of reasons not to mention the ridiculousness of having a little screen+controller unit sitting there while using a secondary controller and screen instead. That kind of redundant absurdity exemplifies how wrong of a solution that is. They need a second product for this solution without the screen or controller for it to make sense... at which point your just buying a little computer that does what most other larger computers do better. While this secondary project will provide a wired connection, it still shouldn't be necessary to purchase a Shield to have this benefit. Not only this but Intel's WiDi claims game streaming support as well - wirelessly. Where is the wired streaming? All that is required, by my understanding, is the ability to decode H.264 video compression and transmit control/feedback so by any logical comparison, one (Nvidia especially) should have no difficulty in creating an application for PC's (win32/64 environment) that does the exact same thing their android app does. I have 2 video cards capable of streaming (encoding) H.264 so by right they must be capable of decoding it I would think. I should be able to stream to my second desktop or my laptop both of which by hardware comparison are superior to the Shield. I haven't found anything stating plans to allow non-shield owners to do this. Can a third party create this software or does it hinge on some limitation that only Nvidia can overcome? Reiteration of questions: Is there a technical reason (non marketing) for why Nvidia opted to bottleneck the streaming service with a wireless connection limiting the resolution to 720p and introducing intermittent video choppiness when on a wired connection one could achieve, presumably, 1080p with significantly less or zero choppiness? Is there anything limiting developers from creating a PC/Desktop application emulating the same H.264 decoding functionality that circumvents the need to get an Nvidia Shield altogether? (It is not a matter of being too cheap to support Nvidia - I have many Nvidia cards that aren't being used. One should not have to purchase specialty hardware when = hardware already exists) Same questions go for Intel Widi also. I am just utterly perplexed that there are wireless live streaming solution and yet no wired. How on earth can wireless be the goto transmission medium? Is there another solution that takes advantage of H.264 video compression allowing live streaming over a wired connection? (*) - Perhaps this isn't the first but afaik it is the first complete package. (**) - I cant back that up with hard evidence/links but someone probably could. Edit: Maybe this will be the solution I am looking for but I still find it hard to believe that they would be the first and after wireless solutions already exist. In-home Streaming You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV! - http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/

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• Talking JavaOne with Rock Star Adam Bien

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  Among the most celebrated developers in recent years, especially in the domain of Java EE and JavaFX, is consultant Adam Bien, who, in addition to being a JavaOne Rock Star for Java EE sessions given in 2009 and 20011, is a Java Champion, the winner of Oracle Magazine’s 2011 Top Java Developer of the Year Award, and recently won a 2012 JAX Innovation Award as a top Java Ambassador. Bien will be presenting the following sessions: TUT3907 - Java EE 6/7: The Lean Parts CON3906 - Stress-Testing Java EE 6 Applications Without Stress CON3908 - Building Serious JavaFX 2 Applications CON3896 - Interactive Onstage Java EE Overengineering I spoke with Bien to get his take on Java today. He expressed excitement that the smallest companies and startups are showing increasing interest in Java EE. “This is a very good sign,” said Bien. “Only a few years ago J2EE was mostly used by larger companies -- now it becomes interesting even for one-person shows. Enterprise Java events are also extremely popular. On the Java SE side, I'm really excited about Project Nashorn.” Nashorn is an upcoming JavaScript engine, developed fully in Java by Oracle, and based on the Da Vinci Machine (JSR 292) which is expected to be available for Java 8.   Bien expressed concern about a common misconception regarding Java's mediocre productivity. “The problem is not Java,” explained Bien, “but rather systems built with ancient patterns and approaches. Sometimes it really is ‘Cargo Cult Programming.’ Java SE/EE can be incredibly productive and lean without the unnecessary and hard-to-maintain bloat. The real problems are ‘Ivory Towers’ and not Java’s lack of productivity.” Bien remarked that if there is one thing he wanted Java developers to understand it is that, "Premature optimization is the root of all evil. Or at least of some evil. Modern JVMs and application servers are hard to optimize upfront. It is far easier to write simple code and measure the results continuously. Identify the hotspots first, then optimize.” He advised Java EE developers to, “Rethink everything you know about Enterprise Java. Before you implement anything, ask the question: ‘Why?’ If there is no clear answer -- just don't do it. Most well known best practices are outdated. Focus your efforts on the domain problem and not the technology.” Looking ahead, Bien said, “I would like to see open source application servers running directly on a hypervisor. Packaging the whole runtime in a single file would significantly simplify the deployment and operations.”Check out a recent Java Magazine interview with Bien about his Java EE 6 stress monitoring tool here. Originally published on blogs.oracle.com/javaone.

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• Silverlight Cream for March 14, 2011 -- #1060

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Lazar Nikolov, Rudi Grobler, WindowsPhoneGeek, Jesse Liberty, Pete Brown, Jessica Foster, Chris Rouw, Andy Beaulieu, and Colin Eberhardt. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "A Silverlight Resizable TextBlock (and other resizable things)" Colin Eberhardt WP7: "Retrofitting the Trial API" Jessica Foster Shoutouts: Rudi Grobler has a post up that's not Silverlight, but it's cool stuff you may be interested in: WPF Themes now available on NuGet From SilverlightCream.com: Simulating rain in Silverlight Lazar Nikolov has a cool tutorial up at SilverlightShow... Simulating rain. Nice demo near to top, and source code plus a very nice tutorial on the entire process. Making the ApplicationBar bindable Rudi Grobler has a couple new posts up... first this one on making the WP7 AppBar bindable... he's created 2 simple wrappers that make it possible to bind to a method... with source as usual! All about Splash Screens in WP7 – Creating animated Splash Screen WindowsPhoneGeek's latest is about splash screens in WP7, but he goes one better with animated splash screens. Lots of good information including closing points in more of a FAQ-style listing. Testing Network Availability Jesse Liberty's latest is on testing for network availability in your WP7 app. This should be required reading for anyone building a WP7 app, since you never know when the network is going to be there or not. Lighting up on Windows 7 with Native Extensions for Microsoft Silverlight Pete Brown's latest post is about the Native Extensions for Microsoft Silverlight or NESL library. Pete describes what NESL is, a link to the library, installing it, and tons more information. If you wanna know or try NESL... this looks like the place to start. Retrofitting the Trial API Jessica Foster paused on the way to shipping her WP7 app to add in the trial API code. Check out what she went through to complete that task, as she explains the steps and directions she took. Good description, links, and code. WP7 Insights #2: Creating a Splash Screen in WP7 In the 2nd post in his series on WP7 development, Chris Rouw is discussing a WP7 splash screen. He gives some good external links for references then gets right into discussing his code. Air Hockey for Windows Phone 7 Andy Beaulieu shares a tutorial he wrote for the Expression Toolbox site, using the Physics Helper Library and Farseer Physics Engine -- an Air Hockey game for WP7. A Silverlight Resizable TextBlock (and other resizable things) I think Michael Washington had the best comment about Colin Eberhardt's latest outing: "Another WOW example" ... drop this in the pretty darn cool category: an attached behavior that uses a Thumb control within a popup to adorn any UI element to allow the user to resize it! Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• OpenGL - Cascaded shadow mapping - Texture lookup

  - by Silverlan

  I'm trying to implement cascaded shadow mapping in my engine, but I'm somewhat stuck at the last step. For testing purposes I've made sure all cascades encompass my entire scene. The result is currently this: The different intensity of the cascades is not on purpose, it's actually the problem. This is how I do the texture lookup for the shadow maps inside the fragment shader: layout(std140) uniform CSM { vec4 csmFard; // far distances for each cascade mat4 csmVP[4]; // View-Projection Matrix int numCascades; // Number of cascades to use. In this example it's 4. }; uniform sampler2DArrayShadow csmTextureArray; // The 4 shadow maps in vec4 csmPos[4]; // Vertex position in shadow MVP space float GetShadowCoefficient() { int index = numCascades -1; vec4 shadowCoord; for(int i=0;i<numCascades;i++) { if(gl_FragCoord.z < csmFard[i]) { shadowCoord = csmPos[i]; index = i; break; } } shadowCoord.w = shadowCoord.z; shadowCoord.z = float(index); shadowCoord.x = shadowCoord.x *0.5f +0.5f; shadowCoord.y = shadowCoord.y *0.5f +0.5f; return shadow2DArray(csmTextureArray,shadowCoord).x; } I then use the return value and simply multiply it with the diffuse color. That explains the different intensity of the cascades, since I'm grabbing the depth value directly from the texture. I've tried to do a depth comparison instead, but with limited success: [...] // Same code as above shadowCoord.w = shadowCoord.z; shadowCoord.z = float(index); shadowCoord.x = shadowCoord.x *0.5f +0.5f; shadowCoord.y = shadowCoord.y *0.5f +0.5f; float z = shadow2DArray(csmTextureArray,shadowCoord).x; if(z < shadowCoord.w) return 0.25f; return 1.f; } While this does give me the same shadow value everywhere, it only works for the first cascade, all others are blank: (I colored the cascades because otherwise the transitions wouldn't be visible in this case) What am I missing here?

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• Voxel Face Crawling (Mesh simplification, possibly using greedy)

  - by Tim Winter

  This is in regards to a Minecraft-like terrain engine. I store blocks in chunks (16x256x16 blocks in a chunk). When I generate a chunk, I use multiple procedural techniques to set the terrain and to place objects. While generating, I keep one 1D array for the full chunk (solid or not) and a separate 1D array of solid blocks. After generation, I iterate through the solid blocks checking their neighbors so I only generate block faces that don't have solid neighbors. I store which faces to generate in their own list (that's 6 lists, one per possible face). When rendering a chunk, I render all lists in the camera's current chunk and only the lists facing the camera in all other chunks. Using a 2D atlas with this little shader trick Andrew Russell suggested, I want to merge similar faces together completely. That is, if they are in the same list (same normal), are adjacent to each other, have the same light level, etc. My assumption would be to have each of the 6 lists sorted by the axis they rest on, then by the other two axes (the list for the top of a block would be sorted by it's Y value, then X, then Z). With this alone, I could quite easily merge strips of faces, but I'm looking to merge more than just strips together when possible. I've read up on this greedy meshing algorithm, but I am having a lot of trouble understanding it. To even use it, I would think I'd need to perform a type of flood-fill per sorted list to get the groups of merge-able faces. Then, per group, perform the greedy algorithm. It all sounds awfully expensive if I would ever want dynamic terrain/lighting after initial generation. So, my question: To perform merging of faces as described (ignoring whether it's a bad idea for dynamic terrain/lighting), is there perhaps an algorithm that is simpler to implement? I would also quite happily accept an answer that walks me through the greedy algorithm in a much simpler way (a link or explanation). I don't mind a slight performance decrease if it's easier to implement or even if it's only a little better than just doing strips. I worry that most algorithms focus on triangles rather than quads and using a 2D atlas the way I am, I don't know that I could implement something triangle based with my current skills. PS: I already frustum cull per chunk and as described, I also cull faces between solid blocks. I don't occlusion cull yet and may never.

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• What do you do when a client requires Rich Text Editing on their website?

  - by George Stocker

  As we all know by now, XSS attacks are dangerous and really easy to pull off. Various frameworks make it easy to encode HTML, like ASP.NET MVC does: <%= Html.Encode("string"); %> But what happens when your client requires that they be able to upload their content directly from a Microsoft Word document? Here's the scenario: People can copy and paste content from Microsoft word into a WYSIWYG editor (in this case tinyMCE), and then that information is posted to a web page. The website is public, but only members of that organization will have access to post information to a webpage. What is the best way to handle this requirement? Currently there is no checking done on what the client posts (since only 'trusted' users can post), but I'm not particularly happy with that and would like to lock it down further in case an account is hacked. The platform in question is ASP.NET MVC. The only conceptual method that I'm aware of that meets these requirements is to whitelist HTML tags and let those pass through. Is there another way? If not, is the best way to let them store it in the Database in any form, but only display it properly encoded and stripped of bad tags? NB: The questions differ in that he only assumes there's one way. I'm also asking the following questions: 1. Is there a better way that doesn't rely on HTML Whitelists? 2. Is there a better way that relies on a different view engine? 3. Is there a WYSIWYG editor that includes the ability to whitelist on the fly? 4. Should I even worry about this since it will only be for 'private posting' (Much in the same way that a private blog allows HTML From the author, but since only he can post, it's not an issue)? Edit #2: If suggesting a WYSIWYG editor, it must be free (as in speech, or as in beer). Update: All of the suggestions thus far revolve around a specific Rich Text Editor to use: Only provide an editor as a suggestion if it allows for sanitization of HTML tags; and it fulfills the requirement of accepting pasted documents from a WYSIWYG Editor like Microsoft Word. There are three methods that I know of: 1. Not allow HTML. 2. Allow HTML, but sanitize it 3. Find a Rich Text Editor that sanitizes and allows HTML. The previous questions remain (1-4 above). Related Question Preventing Cross Site Scripting (XSS)

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• “Play Now” via website vs. download & install

  - by Inside

  I've spent some time looking over the various threads here on GDSE and also on the regular Stackoverflow site, and while I saw a lot of posts and threads regarding various engines that could be used in game development, I haven't seen very much discussion regarding the various platforms that they can be used on. In particular, I'm talking about browser games vs. desktop games. I want to develop a simple 3D networked multiplayer game - roughly on the graphics level of Paper Mario and gameplay with roughly the same level of interaction as a hack & slash action/adventure game - and I'm having a hard time deciding what platform I want to target with it. I have some experience with using C++/Ogre3D and Python/Panda3D (and also some synchronized/networked programming), but I'm wondering if it's worth it to spend the extra time to learn another language and another engine/toolkit just so that the game can be played in a browser window (I'm looking at jMonkeyEngine right now). Is it worth it to go with engines that are less-mature, have less documentation, have fewer features, and smaller communities* just so that a (possibly?) larger audience can be reached? Does it make sense to even go with a web-environment for the kind of game that I want to make? Does anyone have any experiences with decisions like this? (* With the exception of Flash-based engines it seems like most of the other approaches have downsides when compared to what is available for desktop-based environments. I'd go with Flash, but I'm worried that Flash's 3D capabilities aren't mature enough right now to do what I want easily. There's also Unity3D, but I'm not sure how I feel about that at all. It seems highly polished, but requires a plugin to be downloaded for the game to be played -- at that rate I might as well have players download my game.) For simple & short games the Newgrounds approach (go to the site, click "play now", instant gratification) seems to work well. What about for more complex games? Is there a point where the complexity of a game is enough for people to say "OK, I'm going to download and play that"?

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• Post Crosstalk 2012

  - by David Dorf

  This year the Oracle Retail users conference, Crosstalk, had a 20% increase in attendees, which was driven by both new customers and those acquired via Endeca.  As the product assets of Oracle have grown, so has the completeness of the solution set.  This year was marked by the breadth of omni-channel stories. Rose Spicer and her marketing team (see photo on left) always strive for an equal balance of retailer presentations, networking opportunities, and unique experiences -- this year was no exception.  We had 41 different retailers from China, Russia, South Africa, Brazil, Chile, US, Canada and the UK sharing their insights with one another. In all there were 251 executives from 120 iconic brands such as Daphne, Kohl's, Morrisons, Abercrombie & Fitch, Hot Topic, Talbots, Petco, Deckers, Sportmaster, Mr. Price, Falabella, and Disney to name a few. From a product perspective, there were a few new developments from Oracle Retail: Endeca's search engine has been integrated into the ATG commerce platform. The latest Retail Analytics application, Oracle Retail Customer Analytics, is generally available. Oracle Retail previewed a new fully-integrated mobile POS. But the real benefit of attending Crosstalk was hearing about the experiences of retailers and partners.  Here are are a few interesting facts I picked up: At Kohl's, the most popular website accessed by customers within their stores is Facebook.  With all the buzz about showrooming, I was really expecting it to be Amazon. Daphne, a Chinese shoe retailer, is opening 3 new stores per day.  Being located near the factories allows them to have a very agile supply chain as well. Disney Stores have increased sales by 25% at stores upgraded to include Mobile POS.  They continue to lead the pack with excellent customer experiences. Quicksilver reported that 1 in 5 visits to their website comes from a tablet.  More evidence that tablets are replacing traditional PCs in households. By tagging shoes with RFID, Saks is able to ensure all shoe models are on display.  If a model is not being displayed, it has no chance of being sold. Additionally, there were awards, store tours on Michigan Avenue, fireworks at Navy Pier, and the Oracle Retail house band, Bolo313, performing at Solider Field.  Speaking of which, a few retailers got on stage and jammed with band -- possible rival to Rock & Roll Retail? You can always find the latest info from us at the Retail Rack. The next events on tap are the Partner Summit followed by OpenWorld.

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• Cross-platform independent development

  - by Joe Wreschnig

  Some years ago, if you wrote in C and some subset of C++ and used a sufficient number of platform abstractions (via SDL or whatever), you could run on every platform an indie could get on - Linux, Windows, Mac OS of various versions, obscure stuff like BeOS, and the open consoles like the GP2X and post-death Dreamcast. If you got a contract for a closed platform at some point, you could port your game to that platform with "minimal" code changes as well. Today, indie developers must use XNA to get on the Xbox 360 (and upcoming Windows phone); must not use XNA to work anywhere else but Windows; until recently had to use Java on Android; Flash doesn't run on phones, HTML5 doesn't work on IE. Unlike e.g. DirectX vs. OpenGL or Windows vs. Unix, these are changes to the core language you write your code in and can't be papered over without, basically, writing a compiler. You can move some game logic into scripts and include an interpreter - except when you can't, because the iPhone SDK doesn't allow it, and performance suffers because no one allows JIT. So what can you do if you want a really cross-platform portable game, or even just a significant body of engine and logic code? Is this not a problem because the platforms have fundamentally diverged - it's just plain not worthwhile to try to target both an iPhone and the Xbox 360 with any shared code because such a game would be bad? (I find this very unlikely. I can easily see wanting to share a game between a Windows Mobile phone and an Android, or an Xbox 360 and an iPad.) Are interfaces so high-level now that porting time is negligible? (I might believe this for business applications, but not for games with strict performance requirements.) Is this going to become more pronounced in the future? Is the split going to be, somewhat scarily, still down vendor lines? Will we all rely on high-level middleware like Flash or Unity to get anything cross-platform done? tl;dr - Is porting a problem, is it going to be a bigger problem in the future, and if so how do we solve it?

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, November 22, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, November 22, 2011Popular ReleasesDeveloper Team Article System Management: DTASM v1.3: ?? ??? ???? 3 ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? : - ????? ?????? ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ?? . - ??? ?? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ???? ?? ????? , ?????? ????? ????? ?? ??? . - ??? ??????? ??? ??? ???? ?? ????? ????? ????? .VideoLan DotNet for WinForm, WPF & Silverlight 5: VideoLan DotNet for WinForm, WPF, SL5 - 2011.11.22: The new version contains Silverlight 5 library: Vlc.DotNet.Silverlight. A sample could be tested here The new version add and correct many features : Correction : Reinitialize some variables Deprecate : Logging API, since VLC 1.2 (08/20/2011) Add subitem in LocationMedia (for Youtube videos, ...) Update Wpf sample to use Youtube videos Many others correctionsSharePoint 2010 FBA Pack: SharePoint 2010 FBA Pack 1.2.0: Web parts are now fully customizable via html templates (Issue #323) FBA Pack is now completely localizable using resource files. Thank you David Chen for submitting the code as well as Chinese translations of the FBA Pack! The membership request web part now gives the option of having the user enter the password and removing the captcha (Issue # 447) The FBA Pack will now work in a zone that does not have FBA enabled (Another zone must have FBA enabled, and the zone must contain the me...SharePoint 2010 Education Demo Project: Release SharePoint SP1 for Education Solutions: This release includes updates to the Content Packs for SharePoint SP1. All Content Packs have been updated to install successfully under SharePoint SP1SQL Monitor - tracking sql server activities: SQLMon 4.1 alpha 6: 1. improved support for schema 2. added find reference when right click on object list 3. added object rename supportBugNET Issue Tracker: BugNET 0.9.126: First stable release of version 0.9. Upgrades from 0.8 are fully supported and upgrades to future releases will also be supported. This release is now compiled against the .NET 4.0 framework and is a requirement. Because of this the web.config has significantly changed. After upgrading, you will need to configure the authentication settings for user registration and anonymous access again. Please see our installation / upgrade instructions for more details: http://wiki.bugnetproject.c...Anno 2070 Assistant: v0.1.0 (STABLE): Version 0.1.0 Features Production Chains Eco Production Chains (Complete) Tycoon Production Chains (Disabled - Incomplete) Tech Production Chains (Disabled - Incomplete) Supply (Disabled - Incomplete) Calculator (Disabled - Incomplete) Building Layouts Eco Building Layouts (Complete) Tycoon Building Layouts (Disabled - Incomplete) Tech Building Layouts (Disabled - Incomplete) Credits (Complete)Free SharePoint 2010 Sites Templates: SharePoint Server 2010 Sites Templates: here is the list of sites templates to be downloadedVsTortoise - a TortoiseSVN add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio: VsTortoise Build 30 Beta: Note: This release does not work with custom VsTortoise toolbars. These get removed every time when you shutdown Visual Studio. (#7940) Build 30 (beta)New: Support for TortoiseSVN 1.7 added. (the download contains both setups, for TortoiseSVN 1.6 and 1.7) New: OpenModifiedDocumentDialog displays conflicted files now. New: OpenModifiedDocument allows to group items by changelist now. Fix: OpenModifiedDocumentDialog caused Visual Studio 2010 to freeze sometimes. Fix: The installer didn...nopCommerce. Open source shopping cart (ASP.NET MVC): nopcommerce 2.30: Highlight features & improvements: • Performance optimization. • Back in stock notifications. • Product special price support. • Catalog mode (based on customer role) To see the full list of fixes and changes please visit the release notes page (http://www.nopCommerce.com/releasenotes.aspx).WPF Converters: WPF Converters V1.2.0.0: support for enumerations, value types, and reference types in the expression converter's equality operators the expression converter now handles DependencyProperty.UnsetValue as argument values correctly (#4062) StyleCop conformance (more or less)Json.NET: Json.NET 4.0 Release 4: Change - JsonTextReader.Culture is now CultureInfo.InvariantCulture by default Change - KeyValurPairConverter no longer cares about the order of the key and value properties Change - Time zone conversions now use new TimeZoneInfo instead of TimeZone Fix - Fixed boolean values sometimes being capitalized when converting to XML Fix - Fixed error when deserializing ConcurrentDictionary Fix - Fixed serializing some Uris returning the incorrect value Fix - Fixed occasional error when...Media Companion: MC 3.423b Weekly: Ensure .NET 4.0 Full Framework is installed. (Available from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718) Ensure the NFO ID fix is applied when transitioning from versions prior to 3.416b. (Details here) Replaced 'Rebuild' with 'Refresh' throughout entire code. Rebuild will now be known as Refresh. mc_com.exe has been fully updated TV Show Resolutions... Resolved issue #206 - having to hit save twice when updating runtime manually Shrunk cache size and lowered loading times f...Delta Engine: Delta Engine Beta Preview v0.9.1: v0.9.1 beta release with lots of refactoring, fixes, new samples and support for iOS, Android and WP7 (you need a Marketplace account however). If you want a binary release for the games (like v0.9.0), just say so in the Forum or here and we will quickly prepare one. It is just not much different from v0.9.0, so I left it out this time. See http://DeltaEngine.net/Wiki.Roadmap for details.SharpMap - Geospatial Application Framework for the CLR: SharpMap-0.9-AnyCPU-Trunk-2011.11.17: This is a build of SharpMap from the 0.9 development trunk as per 2011-11-17 For most applications the AnyCPU release is the recommended, but in case you need an x86 build that is included to. For some dataproviders (GDAL/OGR, SqLite, PostGis) you need to also referense the SharpMap.Extensions assembly For SqlServer Spatial you need to reference the SharpMap.SqlServerSpatial assemblyAJAX Control Toolkit: November 2011 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - November 2011 Release Version 51116November 2011 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4 - Binary – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 3.5 - Binary – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 3.5 and sample site (Recommended). Notes: - The current version of the AJAX Control Toolkit is not compatible with ASP.NET 2.0. The latest version that is compatible with ASP.NET 2.0 can be found h...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.36: Fix for issue #16908: string literals containing ASP.NET replacement syntax fail if the ASP.NET code contains the same character as the string literal delimiter. Also, we shouldn't be changing the delimiter for those literals or combining them with other literals; the developer may have specifically chosen the delimiter used because of possible content inserted by ASP.NET code. This logic is normally off; turn it on via the -aspnet command-line flag (or the Code.Settings.AllowEmbeddedAspNetBl...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.5.5: Added: Now the DateRanteAttribute accepts complex expressions containing "Now" and "Today" as static minimum and maximum. Menu, MenuFor helpers capable of handling a "currently selected element". The developer can choose between using a standard nested menu based on a standard SimpleMenuItem class or specifying an item template based on a custom class. Added also helpers to build the tree structure containing all data items the menu takes infos from. Improved the pager. Now the developer ...SharpCompress - a fully native C# library for RAR, 7Zip, Zip, Tar, GZip, BZip2: SharpCompress 0.7: Reworked API to be more consistent. See Supported formats table. Added some more helper methods - e.g. OpenEntryStream (RarArchive/RarReader does not support this) Fixed up testsSilverlight Toolkit: Windows Phone Toolkit - Nov 2011 (7.1 SDK): This release is coming soon! What's new ListPicker once again works in a ScrollViewer LongListSelector bug fixes around OutOfRange exceptions, wrong ordering of items, grouping issues, and scrolling events. ItemTuple is now refactored to be the public type LongListSelectorItem to provide users better access to the values in selection changed handlers. PerformanceProgressBar binding fix for IsIndeterminate (item 9767 and others) There is no longer a GestureListener dependency with the C...New ProjectsAndrecorder: Andrecorder???Android???????,???????????????????,????????????????,????????!Android Tree Bulletin: Android bulletin reader in tree format.Bài t?p l?p môn HCI: Name: Ph?n m?m qu?n lý thu h?c phí tru?ng d?i h?c Công Nghi?p Hà N?i Basic Grid Collision sample in XNA: This project shows how to implement a basic grid collision in XNA. The project uses the XNA 4.0 framework and C#Club Manager: Club Manager is a web site for managing sport clubs / teams.Create email with encrypt text implement TEA encryption and Web Service: RahaTEA Mail is an application to send messages in secret. These applications implement TEA encryption and web serviceCRM 2011 Layers: Several .net layers to customize CRM 2011CTEF: China Tomorrow Education Foundation websitedns?????: ??c#???dns?????。????????，???????，??????。EAF: Extensibility Application FrameworkEnergy SBA: In order to compete with large companies for Federal contracts, small business need information. This application seeks to show standard methods of using remote APIs to integrate information into a Metro interface using services provided by the Small Business Administration (SBA)EPiOptimiser - Scan your EPiServer configuration to optimise start up times: EPiScanner scans your EPiServer configuration to optimise start ups by generating a recommended exclude list of assemblies to include in EPiServer framework config. It can be used on command line, as a custom build task or integrated into Visual Studio as an external tool.FreeIDS - Free Intrusion Detection System: Don't want someone to use your computer? Don't want to use a system password? Want to see when someone accessed your computer? Time/Date? FreeIDS is it!FtpServerAdministrator: FtpServerAdministrator makes it easier to administer some ftp server by code, although it can only be used for FileZilla server now. It's developed in C#.GreenPoint Online: Tools and components that help you customize an Office 365 / SharePoint Online Environment.HCC C# Workshop: This project contains the code for the exercises of the HCC C# WorkshopKsigDo - Real time view model syncing across user screens: KsigDo show real time view model syncing across user screens - using ASP.NET, Knockout and SignalR. Real time data syncing across user views *was* hard, especially in web applications. Most of the time, the second user needs to refresh the screen, to see the changes made by first user, or we need to implement some long polling that fetches the data and does the update manually. Now, with SignalR and Knockout, ASP.NET developers can take advantage of view model syncing across users, that...lineseven: ???????????????。Mail Size Labeler for GMail: A small utility that labels large e-mails on your gmail account. This utility scan you gmail account, and adds labels to large e-mail so you can clean your mailbox and free space. The labels this utility adds are: Size 1M-2M Size 2M-5M Size 5M-10M Size 10M-15M Size 15M plus Note: a single e-mail thread may get multiple labels if different e-mails of the thread fit different filters.MathService: Complex digits, standart class extentions etc.MyGameProject: gamesMySQL Connect 2 ASP.NET: Example project to show how to connect MySQL database to ASP.NET web project. IDE: Visual Studio 2010 Pro Programming language: C# Detailed information in the article here: http://epavlov.net/blog/2011/11/13/connect-to-mysql-in-visual-studio/ nl: Nutri Leaf Devomr.event.js: Simple js event injecterPastebin4DotNet: This project is an example of how to consume an API, in this case I consummed the Pastebin API.Pomelo: Pomelo is a website example.QuickDevFrameWork: ????????,??,??,????,ioc ?????postsharp?aopReadable Passphrase Generator: Generates passphrases which are (mostly) grammatically correct but nonsensical. These are easy to remember but difficult to guess (for humans or computers). Developed in C# with a KeePass plugin, console app and public API.Rosyama.ru for Windows Phone 7: ?????????? Windows Phone 7 ??? ???????? ???????? ?? ???? rosyama.ru. ?????????? ??????? ?????????? ? ???????? ????????? ???????. SimpleBatch: As the name suggests, this is a simple batch framework allowing you to define batch jobs in XML format. Thus far, contains a basic selection of processors such as the following; File Email SQL (SQL Server Client) SharePoint Document Library Custom ProcessorSite de Notícias: Projeto de faculdade que consiste na criação de um site de notícias.SPWikiProvisioning: Create update and delete SharePoint wiki pages using feature activation and deactivation handlers.SVN Automated Control With C#: I Created this libaray because I need to control Tortoise SVN automactically with out an interface for my own build server and could not find any resuilts on google to achive this task so I went about creating this libaray which dos most of the task's that I needed. I round that you could control SVN by command line so using that as my basic idear I went about coding the most common commands for SVN most of the commads are done but not all. if you like this libaray then please use it we...TremplinCMS: TremplinCMS is a CMS framework for ASP .NET 4.vlu0206sms: SMSMaker by team0206 developingWCF DataService RequestStream Access on webInvoke HTTP POST: This library provides access to the message body request stream of a WCF Data Service (formerly ADO.NET Data Service), which is not possible with the original WCF Data Service class. You are enabled passing data (e.g. Json, files) via HTTP POST to the request body. It uses the operation context (DbContext) provided by the DataService<T> class to get access to the resquest stream.WebOS: Welcome to join us to build our os projectWp7StarterDantas: Iniciando com Wp7WpfCollaborative3D: WpfCollaborative3DXNA Content Preprocessor: The XNA Content Preprocessor allows you to compile all of your XNA assets outside of your normal XNA project. This means more time building your game or app instead of your content.

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• AI for a mixed Turn Based + Real Time battle system - Something "Gambit like" the right approach?

  - by Jason L.

  This is maybe a question that's been asked 100 times 1,000 different ways. I apologize for that :) I'm in the process of building the AI for a game I'm working on. The game is a turn based one, in the vein of Final Fantasy but also has a set of things that happen in real time (reactions). I've experimented with FSM, HFSMs, and Behavior Trees. None of them felt "right" to me and all felt either too limiting or too generic / big. The idea I'm toying with now is something like a "Rules engine" that could be likened to the Gambit system from Final Fantasy 12. I would have a set of predefined personalities. Each of these personalities would have a set of conditions it would check on each event (Turn start, time to react, etc). These conditions would be priority ordered, and the first one that returns true would be the action I take. These conditions can also point to a "choice" action, which is just an action that will make a choice based on some Utility function. Sort of a mix of FSM/HFSM and a Utility Function approach. So, a "gambit" with the personality of "Healer" may look something like this: (ON) Ally HP = 0% - Choose "Relife" spell (ON) Ally HP < 50% - Choose Heal spell (ON) Self HP < 65% - Choose Heal spell (ON) Ally Debuff - Choose Debuff Removal spell (ON) Ally Lost Buff - Choose Buff spell Likewise, a "gambit" with the personality of "Agressor" may look like this: (ON) Foe HP < 10% - Choose Attack skill (ON) Foe any - Choose target - Choose Attack skill (ON) Self Lost Buff - Choose Buff spell (ON) Foe HP = 0% - Taunt the player What I like about this approach is it makes sense in my head. It also would be extremely easy to build an "AI Editor" with an approach like this. What I'm worried about is.. would it be too limiting? Would it maybe get too complicated? Does anyone have any experience with AIs in Turn Based games that could maybe provide me some insight into this approach.. or suggest a different approach? Many thanks in advance!!!

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• Poll Results: Foreign Key Constraints

  - by Darren Gosbell

  A few weeks ago I did the following post asking people – if they used foreign key constraints in their star schemas. The poll is still open if you are interested in adding to it, but here is what the chart looks like as of today. (at the bottom of the poll itself there is a link to the live results, unfortunately I cannot link the live results in here as the blogging platform blocks the required javascript)   Interestingly the results are fairly even. Of the 78 respondents, fractionally over half at least aim to start with referential integrity in their star schemas. I did not want to influence the results by sharing my opinion, but my personal preference is to always aim to have foreign key constraints. But at the same time, I am pragmatic about it, I do have projects where for various reasons some constraints are not defined. And I also have other designs that I have inherited, where it would just be too much work to go back and add foreign key constraints. If you are going to implement foreign keys in your star schema, they really need to be there at the start. In fact this poll was was the result of a feature request for BIDSHelper asking for a feature to check for null/missing foreign keys and I am entirely convinced that BIDS is the wrong place for this sort of functionality. BIDS is a design tool, your data needs to be constantly checked for consistency. It's not that I think that it's impossible to get a design working without foreign key constraints, but I like the idea of failing as soon as possible if there is an error and enforcing foreign key constraints lets me "fail early" if there are constancy issues with my data. By far the biggest concern with foreign keys is performance and I suppose I'm curious as to how often people actually measure and quantify this. I worked on a project a number of years ago that had very large data volumes and we did find that foreign key constraints did have a measurable impact, but what we did was to disable the constraints before loading the data, then enabled and checked them afterwards. This saved as time (although not as much as not having constraints at all), but still let us know early in the process if there were any consistency issues. For the people that do not have consistent data, if you have ETL processes that you control that are building your star schema which you also control, then to be blunt you only have yourself to blame. It is the job of the ETL process to make the data consistent. There are techniques for handling situations like missing data as well as  early and late arriving data. Ralph Kimball's book – The Data Warehouse Toolkit goes through some design patterns for handling data consistency. Having foreign key relationships can also help the relational engine to optimize queries as noted in this recent blog post by Boyan Penev

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