Search Results

Search found 10602 results on 425 pages for 'media queries'.

Page 325/425 | < Previous Page | 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332  | Next Page >

• Quick run through of the WP7 Developer Tools January 2011

  - by mbcrump

  In case you haven’t heard the latest WP7 Developers Tool update was released yesterday and contains a few goodies. First you need to go and grab the bits here. You can install them in any order, but I installed the WindowsPhoneDeveloperResources_en-US_Patch1.msp first. Then the VS10-KB2486994-x86.exe. They install silently. In other words, you would need to check Programs and Features and look in Installed Updates to see if they installed successfully. Like the screenshot below: Once you get them installed you can try out a few new features. Like Copy and Paste. Just fire up your application and put a TextBox on it and Select the Text and you will have the option highlighted in red above the text. Once you select it you will have the option to paste it. (see red rectangle below). Another feature is the Windows Phone Capability Detection Tool – This tool detects the phone capabilities used by your application. This will prevent you from submitting an app to the marketplace that says it uses x feature but really does not. How do you use it? Well navigate out to either directory: %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Tools\CapDetect %ProgramFiles (x86)%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Tools\CapDetect and run the following command: CapabilityDetection.exe Rules.xml YOURWP7XAPFILEOUTPUTDIRECTORY So, in my example you will see my app only requires the ID_CAP_MICROPHONE. Let’s see what the WmAppManifest.xml says in our WP7 Project: Whoa! That’s a lot of extra stuff we don’t need. We can delete unused capabilities safely now. Some of the other fixes are: (Copied straight from Microsoft) Fixes a text selection bug in pivot and panorama controls. In applications that have pivot or panorama controls that contain text boxes, users can unintentionally change panes when trying to copy text. To prevent this problem, open your application, recompile it, and then resubmit it to the Windows Phone Marketplace. Windows Phone Connect Tool – Allows you to connect your phone to a PC when Zune® software is not running and debug applications that use media APIs. For more information, see How to: Use the Connect Tool. Updated Bing Maps Silverlight Control – Includes improvements to gesture performance when using Bing™ Maps Silverlight® Control. Windows Phone Developer Tools Fix allowing deployment of XAP files over 64 MB in size to physical phone devices for testing and debugging. That’s pretty much it. Thanks again for reading my blog!  Subscribe to my feed CodeProject

  Read the article

• HDMI sound gone, can't figure out how to turn it back on

  - by Oli

  I have had an Acer Revo box as a media centre for a while. I recently installed Ubuntu Server (10.10) on it and polished it up with nodm (one of the most simple ways to launch an X session) and installed boxee. It's been working fine for over a month. It's just running ALSA. I've had problems with PulseAudio/Boxee/HDMI before so I wanted to keep it simple. And that worked. It pushed both PCM and digital (AAC and various Dolby codecs) over HDMI perfectly. But I restarted it the other day after mucking around with some nfs configuration and now there isn't any sound. The hardware is an ION chipset. Nvidia 9400M graphics with Nvidia MCP79/7A audio. One thing I have noticed is there doesn't appear to be any sign of a IEC958 device. A traditional fix in the past for fresh installs has been to load alsamixer, find the IEC device and toggle its mute but I can't. I'm certain this used to represent the HDMI output. It just doesn't seem to exist any more unless I run sudo alsa-utils restart while boxee is running, when I see it in an error message: * Shutting down ALSA... [ OK ] * Setting up ALSA... * warning: 'alsactl restore' failed with error message 'alsactl: set_control:1388: Cannot write control '2:0:0:IEC958 Playback Default:0' : Operation not permitted'... ...done. When nodm (and thus boxee) aren't running, I don't see this error but alsamixer still doesn't show the IEC channel. aplay -l gives: card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: ALC662 rev1 Analog [ALC662 rev1 Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0] Subdevices: 0/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 Its section in lshw reads: *-multimedia description: Audio device product: MCP79 High Definition Audio vendor: nVidia Corporation physical id: 8 bus info: pci@0000:00:08.0 version: b1 width: 32 bits clock: 66MHz capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=HDA Intel latency=0 maxlatency=5 mingnt=2 resources: irq:22 memory:fae78000-fae7bfff I was running on the stock PAE kernel but now it's running on 2.6.37.1. I upgraded to see if that fixed things; it didn't. I'm considering a reinstall but I hate doing that because a) there's a bit of custom configuration in getting X and Boxee to start on boot and b) I don't know what the problem is. If I reinstall this time, I'll end up doing that every time the sound breaks. I love Ubuntu but I don't want to install it once a month. Is there any way to forcibly reset all alsa settings and restart from scratch (without doing a reinstall)? Any other tips? If you need more information, just ask.

  Read the article

• Customer Experience and BPM – From Efficiency to Engagement

  - by Ajay Khanna

  Over the last few years, focus of BPM has been mainly to improve the businesses efficiency. To create more efficient processes, to remove bottlenecks, to automate processes. That still holds true and why not? Isn’t BPM all about continuous improvement? BPM facilitates and requires business and IT collaboration. But business also requires working with customer. Do we not want to get close to and collaborate with our customers? This is where Social BPM takes BPM a step further. It not only allows people within an organization to collaborate to design exceptional processes, not only lets them collaborate on resolving a case but also let them engage with the customers. Engaging with customer means, first of all, connecting with them on their terms and turf. Take a new account opening process. Can a customer call you and initiate the process? Can a customer email you, or go to the website and initiate the process? Can they tweet you and initiate the process? Can they check the status of process via any channel they like? Can they take a picture of damaged package delivery and kick-off a returns process from their mobile device, with GIS data? Yes, these are various aspects to consider during process design if the goal is better customer experience and engagement. Of course, we want to be efficient and agile, but the focus here needs to be the customer. Now when the customer is tweeting about your products, posting on Facebook and Yelp about their experience with your company (and your process), you need to seek out that information. You need to gather and analyze the customer’s feedback on the social media and use that information to improve the processes and products. This is an excellent source of product and process ideation. So BPM is no longer only about improving back-office process efficiency, it is moving into a new and exciting phase of improving frontline customer facing processes, customer experience and engagement. Let me know how you think BPM can enhance customer experience.

  Read the article

• Function Folding in #PowerQuery

  - by Darren Gosbell

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/darrengosbell/archive/2014/05/16/function-folding-in-powerquery.aspxLooking at a typical Power Query query you will noticed that it's made up of a number of small steps. As an example take a look at the query I did in my previous post about joining a fact table to a slowly changing dimension. It was roughly built up of the following steps: Get all records from the fact table Get all records from the dimension table do an outer join between these two tables on the business key (resulting in an increase in the row count as there are multiple records in the dimension table for each business key) Filter out the excess rows introduced in step 3 remove extra columns that are not required in the final result set. If Power Query was to execute a query like this literally, following the same steps in the same order it would not be overly efficient. Particularly if your two source tables were quite large. However Power Query has a feature called function folding where it can take a number of these small steps and push them down to the data source. The degree of function folding that can be performed depends on the data source, As you might expect, relational data sources like SQL Server, Oracle and Teradata support folding, but so do some of the other sources like OData, Exchange and Active Directory. To explore how this works I took the data from my previous post and loaded it into a SQL database. Then I converted my Power Query expression to source it's data from that database. Below is the resulting Power Query which I edited by hand so that the whole thing can be shown in a single expression: let     SqlSource = Sql.Database("localhost", "PowerQueryTest"),     BU = SqlSource{[Schema="dbo",Item="BU"]}[Data],     Fact = SqlSource{[Schema="dbo",Item="fact"]}[Data],     Source = Table.NestedJoin(Fact,{"BU_Code"},BU,{"BU_Code"},"NewColumn"),     LeftJoin = Table.ExpandTableColumn(Source, "NewColumn"                                   , {"BU_Key", "StartDate", "EndDate"}                                   , {"BU_Key", "StartDate", "EndDate"}),     BetweenFilter = Table.SelectRows(LeftJoin, each (([Date] >= [StartDate]) and ([Date] <= [EndDate])) ),     RemovedColumns = Table.RemoveColumns(BetweenFilter,{"StartDate", "EndDate"}) in     RemovedColumns If the above query was run step by step in a literal fashion you would expect it to run two queries against the SQL database doing "SELECT * …" from both tables. However a profiler trace shows just the following single SQL query: select [_].[BU_Code],     [_].[Date],     [_].[Amount],     [_].[BU_Key] from (     select [$Outer].[BU_Code],         [$Outer].[Date],         [$Outer].[Amount],         [$Inner].[BU_Key],         [$Inner].[StartDate],         [$Inner].[EndDate]     from [dbo].[fact] as [$Outer]     left outer join     (         select [_].[BU_Key] as [BU_Key],             [_].[BU_Code] as [BU_Code2],             [_].[BU_Name] as [BU_Name],             [_].[StartDate] as [StartDate],             [_].[EndDate] as [EndDate]         from [dbo].[BU] as [_]     ) as [$Inner] on ([$Outer].[BU_Code] = [$Inner].[BU_Code2] or [$Outer].[BU_Code] is null and [$Inner].[BU_Code2] is null) ) as [_] where [_].[Date] >= [_].[StartDate] and [_].[Date] <= [_].[EndDate] The resulting query is a little strange, you can probably tell that it was generated programmatically. But if you look closely you'll notice that every single part of the Power Query formula has been pushed down to SQL Server. Power Query itself ends up just constructing the query and passing the results back to Excel, it does not do any of the data transformation steps itself. So now you can feel a bit more comfortable showing Power Query to your less technical Colleagues knowing that the tool will do it's best fold all the  small steps in Power Query down the most efficient query that it can against the source systems.

  Read the article

• TouchDevelop: The Fast Path to Windows 8 and Phone Apps

  - by Clint Edmonson

  Are you looking for a little extra cash for the upcoming holidays? Then you might be interested in creating some cool apps to sell in the Windows Store. Or maybe you’re simply curious and want to try your hand at developing for Windows 8 and Windows Phone. In either case, the newly released TouchDevelop Web App is for you. TouchDevelop Web App is a development environment to create apps on your tablet or smartphone, without requiring a separate PC. Scripts written by using TouchDevelop can access data, media, and sensors on the phone, tablet, and PC. The script can interact with cloud services, including storage, computing, and social networks. TouchDevelop lets you quickly create fun games and useful tools, turning your scripts into true Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps. A year ago, Microsoft Research released TouchDevelop for Windows Phone, which is being used by enthusiasts, students, and researchers to program their phones in fun, inventive, and interesting ways. These scripts are available at TouchDevelop for anyone to download and use. Ever since we released TouchDevelop, we’ve been eyeing the tablet form factor and working on a version for the browser. Now, with the release of TouchDevelop Web App, the wait is over: the tablet version is ready, so go play around with it. All TouchDevelop scripts that are developed on the smartphone can be downloaded to the tablet and run (if hardware allows). Any script that is developed on the tablet can also be accessed on the phone. And scripts can be converted to Windows Phone or Windows 8 apps and submitted to the Windows Phone Store or Windows Store, respectively. TouchDevelop Web App’s editor and programming language have been designed for tablet devices with touchscreens, but you can also use a keyboard and a mouse. So grab your web-enabled device and give the TouchDevelop Web App a try. It’s fun and easy, and could even put a little cash in your holiday-depleted wallet. Or at least give you bragging rights at family get-togethers. Are you interested in further tips on Windows 8 development?  Sign up for the 30 to launch program which will help you build a Windows Store application in 30 days.  You will receive a tip per day for 30 days, along with potential free design consultations and technical support from a Windows 8 expert. As always, stay tuned to my twitter feed for Windows 8, Windows Azure and other Microsoft announcements, updates, and links: @clinted

  Read the article

• Help with Collision of spawned object(postion fixed) with objects that there are translating on screen

  - by Amrutha

  Hey guys I am creating a game using Corona SDK and so coding it in Lua. So there are 2 separate functions, To translate the hit objects and change their color when they are tapped The link below is the code I am using to for the first function http://developer.anscamobile.com/sample-code/fishies Spawn objects that will hit the translating objects on collision. Alos on collision the spawned object disappears and the translating object bears a color(indicating the collision). In addition the size of this spawned object is dependent on i/p volume level. The function I have written is as follows: --VOICE INPUT CODE local r = media.newRecording() r:startRecording() r:startTuner() --local function newBar() -- local bar = display.newLine( 0, 0, 1, 0 ) -- bar:setColor( 0, 55, 100, 20 ) -- bar.width = 5 -- bar.y=400 -- bar.x=20 -- return bar --end local c1 = display.newImage("str-minion-small.png") c1.isVisible=false local c2 = display.newImage("str-minion-mid.png") c2.isVisible=false local c3 = display.newImage("str-minion-big.png") c3.isVisible=false --SPAWNING local function spawnDisk( event ) local phase = event.phase local volumeBar = display.newLine( 0, 0, 1, 0 ) volumeBar.y = 400 volumeBar.x = 20 --volumeBar.isVisible=false local v = 20*math.log(r:getTunerVolume()) local MINTHRESH = 30 local LEFTMARGIN = 20 local v2 = MINTHRESH + math.max (v, -MINTHRESH) v2 = (display.contentWidth - 1 * LEFTMARGIN ) * v2 / MINTHRESH volumeBar.xScale = math.max ( 20, v2 ) local l = volumeBar.xScale local cnt1 = 0 local cnt2 = 0 local cnt3 = 0 local ONE =1 local val = event.numTaps --local px=event.x --local py=event.y if "ended" == phase then --audio.play( popSound ) --myLabel.isVisible = false if l > 50 and l <=150 then --c1:setFillColor(10,105,0) --c1.isVisible=false c1.x=math.random( 10, 450 ) c1.y=math.random( 10, 300 ) physics.addBody( c1, { density=1, radius=10.0 } ) c1.isVisible=true cnt1= cnt1+ ONE return c1 elseif l > 100 and l <=250 then --c2:setFillColor(200,10,0) c2.x=math.random( 10, 450 ) c2.y=math.random( 10, 300 ) physics.addBody( c2, { density=2, radius=9000.0 } ) c2.isVisible=true cnt2= cnt2+ ONE return c2 elseif l >=250 then c3.x=math.random( 40, 450 ) c3.y=math.random( 40, 300 ) physics.addBody( c3, { density=2, radius=7000.0 , bounce=0.0 } ) c3.isVisible=true cnt3= cnt3+ ONE return c3 end end end buzzR:addEventListener( "touch", spawnDisk ) -- touch the screen to create disks Now both functions work fine independently but there is no collision happening. Its almost as if the translating object and the spawn object are on different layers. The translating object passes through the spawn object freely. Can anyone please tell me how to resolve this problem. And how can I get them to collide. Its my first attempt at game development, that too for a mobile platform so would appreciate all help. Also if I have not been specific do let me know. I'll try to frame the query better :). Thanks in advance.

  Read the article

• Cloud Computing: Start with the problem

  - by BuckWoody

  At one point in my life I would build my own computing system for home use. I wanted a particular video card, a certain set of drives, and a lot of memory. Not only could I not find those things in a vendor’s pre-built computer, but those were more expensive – by a lot. As time moved on and the computing industry matured, I actually find that I can buy a vendor’s system as cheaply – and in some cases far more cheaply – than I can build it myself.   This paradigm holds true for almost any product, even clothing and furniture. And it’s also held true for software… Mostly. If you need an office productivity package, you simply buy one or use open-sourced software for that. There’s really no need to write your own Word Processor – it’s kind of been done a thousand times over. Even if you need a full system for customer relationship management or other needs, you simply buy one. But there is no “cloud solution in a box”.  Sure, if you’re after “Software as a Service” – type solutions, like being able to process video (Windows Azure Media Services) or running a Pig or Hive job in Hadoop (Hadoop on Windows Azure) you can simply use one of those, or if you just want to deploy a Virtual Machine (Windows Azure Virtual Machines) you can get that, but if you’re looking for a solution to a problem your organization has, you may need to mix Software, Infrastructure, and perhaps even Platforms (such as Windows Azure Computing) to solve the issue. It’s all about starting from the problem-end first. We’ve become so accustomed to looking for a box of software that will solve the problem, that we often start with the solution and try to fit it to the problem, rather than the other way around.  When I talk with my fellow architects at other companies, one of the hardest things to get them to do is to ignore the technology for a moment and describe what the issues are. It’s interesting to monitor the conversation and watch how many times we deviate from the problem into the solution. So, in your work today, try a little experiment: watch how many times you go after a problem by starting with the solution. Tomorrow, make a conscious effort to reverse that. You might be surprised at the results.

  Read the article

• Help with Collision of spawned object(postion fixed) with objects that there are translating on screen

  - by Amrutha

  Hey guys I am creating a game using Corona SDK and so coding it in Lua. So there are 2 separate functions, To translate the hit objects and change their color when they are tapped The link below is the code I am using to for the first function http://developer.anscamobile.com/sample-code/fishies Spawn objects that will hit the translating objects on collision. Alos on collision the spawned object disappears and the translating object bears a color(indicating the collision). In addition the size of this spawned object is dependent on i/p volume level. The function I have written is as follows, --VOICE INPUT CODE local r = media.newRecording() r:startRecording() r:startTuner() --local function newBar() -- local bar = display.newLine( 0, 0, 1, 0 ) -- bar:setColor( 0, 55, 100, 20 ) -- bar.width = 5 -- bar.y=400 -- bar.x=20 -- return bar --end local c1 = display.newImage("str-minion-small.png") c1.isVisible=false local c2 = display.newImage("str-minion-mid.png") c2.isVisible=false local c3 = display.newImage("str-minion-big.png") c3.isVisible=false --SPAWNING local function spawnDisk( event ) local phase = event.phase local volumeBar = display.newLine( 0, 0, 1, 0 ) volumeBar.y = 400 volumeBar.x = 20 -- volumeBar.isVisible=false local v = 20*math.log(r:getTunerVolume()) local MINTHRESH = 30 local LEFTMARGIN = 20 local v2 = MINTHRESH + math.max (v, -MINTHRESH) v2 = (display.contentWidth - 1 * LEFTMARGIN ) * v2 / MINTHRESH volumeBar.xScale = math.max ( 20, v2 ) local l = volumeBar.xScale local cnt1 = 0 local cnt2 = 0 local cnt3 = 0 local ONE =1 local val = event.numTaps --local px=event.x --local py=event.y if "ended" == phase then --audio.play( popSound ) --myLabel.isVisible = false if l > 50 and l <=150 then -- c1:setFillColor(10,105,0) -- c1.isVisible=false c1.x=math.random( 10, 450 ) c1.y=math.random( 10, 300 ) physics.addBody( c1, { density=1, radius=10.0 } ) c1.isVisible=true cnt1= cnt1+ ONE return c1 elseif l > 100 and l <=250 then --c2:setFillColor(200,10,0) c2.x=math.random( 10, 450 ) c2.y=math.random( 10, 300 ) physics.addBody( c2, { density=2, radius=9000.0 } ) c2.isVisible=true cnt2= cnt2+ ONE return c2 elseif l >=250 then c3.x=math.random( 40, 450 ) c3.y=math.random( 40, 300 ) physics.addBody( c3, { density=2, radius=7000.0 , bounce=0.0 } ) c3.isVisible=true cnt3= cnt3+ ONE return c3 end end end buzzR:addEventListener( "touch", spawnDisk ) -- touch the screen to create disks Now both functions work fine independently but there is no collision happening. Its almost as if the translating object and the spawn object are on different layers. The translating object passes through the spawn object freely. Can anyone please tell me how to resolve this problem. And how can I get them to collide. Its my first attempt at game development, that too for a mobile platform so would appreciate all help. Also if I have not been specific do let me know. I ll try to frame the query better :). Thanks in advance.

  Read the article

• Impatient Customers Make Flawless Service Mission Critical for Midsize Companies

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  At times, I can be an impatient customer. But I’m not alone. Research by The Social Habit shows that among customers who contact a brand, product, or company through social media for support, 32% expect a response within 30 minutes and 42% expect a response within 60 minutes! 70% of respondents to another study expected their complaints to be addressed within 24 hours, irrespective of how they contacted the company. I was intrigued when I read a recent blog post by David Vap, Group Vice President of Product Development for Oracle Service Cloud. It’s about “Three Secrets to Innovation” in customer service. In David’s words: 1) Focus on making what’s hard simple 2) Solve real problems for real people 3) Don’t just spin a good vision. Do something about it  I believe midsize companies have a leg up in delivering on these three points, mainly because they have no other choice. How can you grow a business without listening to your customers and providing flawless service? Big companies are often weighed down by customer service practices that have been churning in bureaucracy for years or even decades. When the all-in-one printer/fax/scanner I bought my wife for Christmas (call me a romantic) failed after sixty days, I wasted hours of my time navigating the big brand manufacturer’s complex support and contact policies only to be offered a refurbished replacement after I shipped mine back to them. There was not a happy ending. Let's just say my wife still doesn't have a printer.  Young midsize companies need to innovate to grow. Established midsize company brands need to innovate to survive and reach the next level. Midsize Customer Case Study: The Boston Globe The Boston Globe, established in 1872 and the winner of 22 Pulitzer Prizes, is fighting the prevailing decline in the newspaper industry. Businessman John Henry invested in the Globe in 2013 because he, “…believes deeply in the future of this great community, and the Globe should play a vital role in determining that future”. How well the paper executes on its bold new strategy is truly mission critical—a matter of life or death for an industry icon. This customer case study tells how Oracle’s Service Cloud is helping The Boston Globe “do something about” and not just “spin” it’s strategy and vision via improved customer service. For example, Oracle RightNow Chat Cloud Service is now the preferred support channel for its online environments. The average e-mail or phone call can take three to four minutes to complete while the average chat is only 30 to 40 seconds. It’s a great example of one company leveraging technology to make things simpler to solve real problems for real people. Related: Oracle Cloud Service a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Service Solutions For Small And Midsize Teams, Q2 2014

  Read the article

• C++11 Tidbits: Decltype (Part 2, trailing return type)

  - by Paolo Carlini

  Following on from last tidbit showing how the decltype operator essentially queries the type of an expression, the second part of this overview discusses how decltype can be syntactically combined with auto (itself the subject of the March 2010 tidbit). This combination can be used to specify trailing return types, also known informally as "late specified return types". Leaving aside the technical jargon, a simple example from section 8.3.5 of the C++11 standard usefully introduces this month's topic. Let's consider a template function like: template <class T, class U> ??? foo(T t, U u) { return t + u; } The question is: what should replace the question marks? The problem is that we are dealing with a template, thus we don't know at the outset the types of T and U. Even if they were restricted to be arithmetic builtin types, non-trivial rules in C++ relate the type of the sum to the types of T and U. In the past - in the GNU C++ runtime library too - programmers used to address these situations by way of rather ugly tricks involving __typeof__ which now, with decltype, could be rewritten as: template <class T, class U> decltype((*(T*)0) + (*(U*)0)) foo(T t, U u) { return t + u; } Of course the latter is guaranteed to work only for builtin arithmetic types, eg, '0' must make sense. In short: it's a hack. On the other hand, in C++11 you can use auto: template <class T, class U> auto foo(T t, U u) -> decltype(t + u) { return t + u; } This is much better. It's generic and a construct fully supported by the language. Finally, let's see a real-life example directly taken from the C++11 runtime library as implemented in GCC: template<typename _IteratorL, typename _IteratorR> inline auto operator-(const reverse_iterator<_IteratorL>& __x, const reverse_iterator<_IteratorR>& __y) -> decltype(__y.base() - __x.base()) { return __y.base() - __x.base(); } By now it should appear be completely straightforward. The availability of trailing return types in C++11 allowed fixing a real bug in the C++98 implementation of this operator (and many similar ones). In GCC, C++98 mode, this operator is: template<typename _IteratorL, typename _IteratorR> inline typename reverse_iterator<_IteratorL>::difference_type operator-(const reverse_iterator<_IteratorL>& __x, const reverse_iterator<_IteratorR>& __y) { return __y.base() - __x.base(); } This was guaranteed to work well with heterogeneous reverse_iterator types only if difference_type was the same for both types.

  Read the article

• OPN Specialized Partner Activities at Collaborate 2012

  - by Get_Specialized!

  If your a Partner planning to attend the Collaborate 2012 event, April 22-26th in Las Vegas, Oracle Partner Network (OPN) team members attending welcome meeting you onsite. Whether you are interested in being a new Partner, or you are a long standing Partner seeking an update on OPN programs or Partner Specialization, we welcome meeting with you 1 on 1. In fact, we might drop by your booth or session to further recognize you for your OPN Specialization accomplishments! If you are also  participating in Social Media while at the event, let us know that as well. In addition, we are also seeking to meet Partners, while at Collaborate 2012, who may be interested in speaking at Oracle OpenWorld on their OPN Specialization program accomplishments and customer successes. Understanding that Partners can be busy staffing their own booths, we welcome meeting you when the exhibit hall is closed. Or if you want a break away from your booth, we are glad to meet  on the exhibit hall floor Oracle Validated Integration Lounge - OAUG & Quest member Booth 1679. To learn more or to schedule a meeting on site Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} contact us

  Read the article

• I'm a C Programmer, but I can't find a comfortable environment to work in

  - by Jesse Brands

  Hello everyone, Last time I asked a question, I was having issues dealing with Java which I had to do for a course work. I generally use C for my development work - especially personal projects - and I've grown up in what is pretty much a Linux/UNIX world. In this world, it was easy to use C, you had your C compiler (GCC is excellent in that regard) and a wealth of tools such as the command line and vi/emacs/whatever-you-got. However, that was all that I really liked about Linux/UNIX. It really fitted well with the C language; nowadays, I'm somewhat forced into Windows/Mac OS X for most of my work. C seems poorly supported on a mac for starters, there's no GUI API to use and pretty much you get forced into Obj-C. This is not a problem, I like Objective-C, but it's another language I have to learn. Now coming to Windows. Why does everything about Windows Development try to scare me away? It's basically come down to: USE C# AND .NET OR DIE. I don't like C#, I like C, they are fundamentally different. Yet when I make a Windows Forms application in MSVC++ (I know that's not C), I get a main function riddled with weird things I've never heard of before, along with a poor, barely-compliant C/C++ compiler. What am I to do when I just want to program in C, make applications that look and feel like native Windows applications (I am a sucker for aesthetics, and I'm not looking to make something cross-platform. I just want it to work on Windows, and look as native as possible.). C++ is a fine alternative, but it really looks like the only way to make a decent, native feeling Windows application, is to use C#. Am I missing something here? I'd rather not use CYGWIN. Like I said, I want people to install the program, and it should just work out of the box on Windows 7. Program in question involves a Media Player, if anyone is curious what I'm targetting at. Anyone who had the same experiences who can help me out? How can I code something in ANSI C and still have a native feel?

  Read the article

• OpenWorld in Small Bites

  - by Kathryn Perry

  Fifty thousand attendees -- that's bigger than the cities some of us live in. Monday morning it took 20 minutes to get from Hall D in Moscone North to a conference room in Moscone South -- the crowds were crushing! A great start to a great week! Larry is as big a name as ever on the program schedule and on the Moscone stage. People were packed in Hall D and clustered around every big screen TV. He stayed on script as he laid out Oracle's SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS strategies. Every seat in Chris Leone's Fusion Apps Cloud Overview was filled on Monday morning. Oracle employees who wanted to get in were turned away. And the same thing happened in the repeat session on Wednesday. Our newest suite of apps is hot! Speaking of hot, the weather was made to order. Then it turned very San Francisco-like on Wednesday afternoon. Downright cold for those who trusted SF temps to hold in the 80's. Who did you follow on Twitter during the conference? So many voices, opinions, and convos! Great combo of social media and sharp minds. Be sure to follow @larryellison, @stevenrmiranda, and @Oracle for updates and MyPOVs. Keywords for the Apps customers at the conference were cloud, mobile, and social. Every day, every session, every speaker. Wednesday afternoon, 4 pm at the Four Seasons hotel. A large roomful of analysts and influencers firing questions at a panel of eight Fusion customers. Steve Miranda moderating. Good energy and a great exchange of information and confidence. Word on the street is that OpenWorld has outgrown San Francisco -- but moving it seems unthinkable. The city isn't just a backdrop for an industry conference - it's a headliner right up there with Larry Ellison and Pearl Jam. As you can imagine, electrical outlets were in high demand at every venue. The most popular hotels and bars near Moscone designed their interiors around accessible electrical power strips. People are plenty willing to buy a drink while they grab a charge. Wednesday afternoon, 4 pm at the Four Seasons hotel. A large roomful of analysts and influencers firing questions at a panel of eight Fusion customers. Steve Miranda moderating. Good energy and a great exchange of information and confidence. Treasure Island in the dark. Eddy Vedder has an amazing voice! And Kings of Leon over delivered on people's expectations. It was cold. It was windy. It was very fun. One analyst said it's the best customer appreciation party in the industry. 

  Read the article

• SQL: empty string vs NULL value

  - by Jacek Prucia

  I know this subject is a bit controversial and there are a lot of various articles/opinions floating around the internet. Unfortunatelly, most of them assume the person doesn't know what the difference between NULL and empty string is. So they tell stories about surprising results with joins/aggregates and generally do a bit more advanced SQL lessons. By doing this, they absolutely miss the whole point and are therefore useless for me. So hopefully this question and all answers will move subject a bit forward. Let's suppose I have a table with personal information (name, birth, etc) where one of the columns is an email address with varchar type. We assume that for some reason some people might not want to provide an email address. When inserting such data (without email) into the table, there are two available choices: set cell to NULL or set it to empty string (''). Let's assume that I'm aware of all the technical implications of choosing one solution over another and I can create correct SQL queries for either scenario. The problem is even when both values differ on the technical level, they are exactly the same on logical level. After looking at NULL and '' I came to a single conclusion: I don't know email address of the guy. Also no matter how hard i tried, I was not able to sent an e-mail using either NULL or empty string, so apparently most SMTP servers out there agree with my logic. So i tend to use NULL where i don't know the value and consider empty string a bad thing. After some intense discussions with colleagues i came with two questions: am I right in assuming that using empty string for an unknown value is causing a database to "lie" about the facts? To be more precise: using SQL's idea of what is value and what is not, I might come to conclusion: we have e-mail address, just by finding out it is not null. But then later on, when trying to send e-mail I'll come to contradictory conclusion: no, we don't have e-mail address, that @!#$ Database must have been lying! Is there any logical scenario in which an empty string '' could be such a good carrier of important information (besides value and no value), which would be troublesome/inefficient to store by any other way (like additional column). I've seen many posts claiming that sometimes it's good to use empty string along with real values and NULLs, but so far haven't seen a scenario that would be logical (in terms of SQL/DB design). P.S. Some people will be tempted to answer, that it is just a matter of personal taste. I don't agree. To me it is a design decision with important consequences. So i'd like to see answers where opion about this is backed by some logical and/or technical reasons.

  Read the article

• Sql Table Refactoring Challenge

  Ive been working a bit on cleaning up a large table to make it more efficient.  I pretty much know what I need to do at this point, but I figured Id offer up a challenge for my readers, to see if they can catch everything I have as well as to see if Ive missed anything.  So to that end, I give you my table: CREATE TABLE [dbo].[lq_ActivityLog]( [ID] [bigint] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [PlacementID] [int] NOT NULL, [CreativeID] [int] NOT NULL, [PublisherID] [int] NOT NULL, [CountryCode] [nvarchar](10) NOT NULL, [RequestedZoneID] [int] NOT NULL, [AboveFold] [int] NOT NULL, [Period] [datetime] NOT NULL, [Clicks] [int] NOT NULL, [Impressions] [int] NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_lq_ActivityLog2] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [Period] ASC, [PlacementID] ASC, [CreativeID] ASC, [PublisherID] ASC, [RequestedZoneID] ASC, [AboveFold] ASC, [CountryCode] ASC)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]) ON [PRIMARY] And now some assumptions and additional information: The table has 200,000,000 rows currently PlacementID ranges from 1 to 5000 and should support at least 50,000 CreativeID ranges from 1 to 5000 and should support at least 50,000 PublisherID ranges from 1 to 500 and should support at least 50,000 CountryCode is a 2-character ISO standard (e.g. US) and there is a country table with an integer ID already.  There are < 300 rows. RequestedZoneID ranges from 1 to 100 and should support at least 50,000 AboveFold has values of 1, 0, or 1 only. Period is a date (no time). Clicks range from 0 to 5000. Impressions range from 0 to 5000000. The table is currently write-mostly.  Its primary purpose is to log advertising activity as quickly as possible.  Nothing in the rest of the system reads from it except for batch jobs that pull the data into summary tables. Heres the current information on the database tables size: Design Goals This table has been in use for about 5 years and has performed very well during that time.  The only complaints we have are that it is quite large and also there are occasionally timeouts for queries that reference it, particularly when batch jobs are pulling data from it.  Any changes should be made with an eye toward keeping write performance optimal  while trying to reduce space and improve read performance / eliminate timeouts during read operations. Refactor There are, I suggest to you, some glaringly obvious optimizations that can be made to this table.  And Im sure there are some ninja tweaks known to SQL gurus that would be a big help as well.  Ill post my own suggested changes in a follow-up post for now feel free to comment with your suggestions. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

  Read the article

• No GRUB Screen or recovery mode on Boot after 12.04 Upgrade

  - by Nick

  I tried the live boot CD and boot-repair, also loaded the Desktop install CD, and it looks like all partitions check out OK. However, when I try to boot Linux (the only bootable partition on the computer) I get a blank screen. Every so often the screen give me something akin to: Assuming write through cache Asking for cache data failed it appears to start booting, then hangs. Ctrl+Alt+Delete shuts down the machine The last message during boot is "STarting TiMidity++ ALSA midi emulation... [OK]" I used boot-repair to generate a boot info report. One thing looks odd to me- it reports a missing core.img on /dev/sda1. Here is the full info: Boot Info Script 0.61.full + Boot-Repair extra info [Boot-Info August 2nd 2012] ============================= Boot Info Summary: =============================== = Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector 1 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks for (,msdos1)/boot/grub on this drive. = Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb. sda1: __________________________________________ File system: ext4 Boot sector type: Grub2 (v1.99) Boot sector info: Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the boot sector of sda1 and looks at sector 18406911 of the same hard drive for core.img, but core.img can not be found at this location. Operating System: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf /boot/grub/core.img sda2: __________________________________________ File system: Extended Partition Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: sda5: __________________________________________ File system: swap Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: sdb1: __________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows XP: NTFS Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files: ============================ Drive/Partition Info: ============================= Drive: sda _______________________________________ Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System /dev/sda1 * 63 307,339,514 307,339,452 83 Linux /dev/sda2 307,339,515 312,576,704 5,237,190 5 Extended /dev/sda5 307,339,578 312,576,704 5,237,127 82 Linux swap / Solaris Drive: sdb _______________________________________ Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System /dev/sdb1 2,048 625,142,447 625,140,400 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS "blkid" output: ____________________________________ Device UUID TYPE LABEL /dev/loop0 squashfs /dev/sda1 11b4d633-7863-40b2-a6ca-da5f82c3ad0b ext4 /dev/sda5 cb8d65f4-8cf9-4088-b804-e3dea2151033 swap /dev/sdb1 349E7C109E7BC8BE ntfs Personal1 ================================ Mount points: ================================= Device Mount_Point Type Options /dev/sdb1 /media/Personal1 fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions) /dev/sr0 /live/image iso9660 (ro,noatime) ...(a bunch of config file info- let me know if anyone wants to see it!) But usually I just get "Cannot Display This Video Mode", which I know means the video output is not usable by the monitor. I'm looking for a way to get into a recovery mode.I'd really like to avoid wiping the drive. Any thoughts?

  Read the article

• Windows 8 and the future of Silverlight

  - by Laila

  After Steve Ballmer's indiscrete 'MisSpeak' about Windows 8, there has been a lot of speculation about the new operating system. We've now had a few glimpses, such as the demonstration of 'Mosh' at the D9 2011 conference, and the Youtube video, which showed a touch-centric new interface for apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript. This has caused acute anxiety to the programmers who have followed the recommended route of WPF, Silverlight and .NET, but it need not have caused quite so much panic since it was, in fact, just a thin layer to make Windows into an apparently mobile-friendly OS. More worryingly, the press-release from Microsoft was at pains to say that 'Windows 8 apps use the power of HTML5, tapping into the native capabilities of Windows using standard JavaScript and HTML', as if all thought of Silverlight, dominant in WP7, had been jettisoned. Ironically, this brave new 'happening' platform can all be done now in Windows 7 and an iPad, using Adobe Air, so it is hardly cutting-edge; in fact the tile interface had a sort of Retro-Zune Metro UI feel first seen in Media Centre, followed by Windows Phone 7, with any originality leached out of it by the corporate decision-making process. It was kinda weird seeing old Excel running alongside stodgily away amongst all the extreme paragliding videos. The ability to snap and resize concurrent apps might be a novelty on a tablet, but it is hardly so on a PC. It was at that moment that it struck me that here was a spreadsheet application that hadn't even made the leap to the .NET platform. Windows was once again trying to be all things to all men, whereas Apple had carefully separated Mac OS X development from iOS. The acrobatic feat of straddling all mobile and desktop devices with one OS is looking increasingly implausible. There is a world of difference between an operating system that facilitates business procedures and a one that drives a device for playing pop videos and your holiday photos. So where does this leave Silverlight? Pretty much where it was. Windows 8 will support it, and it will continue to be developed, but if these press-releases reflect the thinking within Microsoft, it is no longer seen as the strategic direction. However, Silverlight is still there and there will be a whole new set of developer APIs for building touch-centric apps. Jupiter, for example, is rumoured to involve an App store that provides new, Silverlight based "immersive" applications that are deployed as AppX packages. When the smoke clears, one suspects that the Javascript/HTML5 is merely an alternative development environment for Windows 8 to attract the legions of independent developers outside the .NET culture who are unlikely to ever take a shine to a more serious development environment such as WPF or Silverlight. Cheers, Laila

  Read the article

• Who Are the BI Users in Your Neighborhood?

  - by [email protected]

  By Brian Dayton on March 19, 2010 10:52 PM Forrester's Boris Evelson recently wrote a blog titled "Who are the BI Personas?" that I enjoyed for a number of reasons. It's a quick read, easy to grasp and (refreshingly) focuses on the users of technology VS the technology. As Evelson admits, he meant to keep the reference chart at a high-level because there are too many different permutations and additional sub-categories to make such a chart useful. For me, I wouldn't head into the technical permutations but more the contextual use of BI and the issues that users experience. My thoughts brought up more questions than answers such as: Context: - HOW: With the exception of the "Power User" persona--likely some sort of business or operations analyst? - WHEN: Are they using the information to make real-time decisions on the front lines (a customer service manager or shipping/logistics VP) or are they using this information for cumulative analysis and business planning? Or both? - WHERE: What areas of the business are more or less likely to rely on BI across an organization? Human Resources, Operations, Facilities, Finance--- and why are some more prone to use data-driven analysis than others? Issues: - DELAYS & DRAG ON IT?: One of the persona characteristics Evelson calls out is a reliance on IT. Every persona except for the "Power User" has a heavy reliance on IT for support. What business issues or delays does that cause to users? What is the drag on IT resources who could potentially be creating instead of reporting? - HOW MANY CLICKS: If BI is being used within the context of a transaction (sales manager looking for upsell opportunities as an example) is that person getting the information within the context of that action or transaction? Or are they minimizing screens, logging into another application or reporting tool, running queries, etc.? Who are the BI Users in your neighborhood or line of business? Do Evelson's personas resonate--and do the tools that he calls out (he refers to it as "BI Style") resonate with what your personas have or need? Finally, I'm very interested if BI use is viewed as a bolt-on...or an integrated part of your daily enterprise processes?

  Read the article

• USB Drive Warm Boot Issue. Cold boot = Perfect. Warm boot = "No boot sector found on USB device"

  - by Dan

  I'm experiencing a boot/reboot quirk similar to, yet somewhat different from others posted here. I have two Western Digital "Passport" external USB2 drives (160GB and 320GB) with Ubuntu 11.10 installed. The BIOS on my laptop is set to boot USB drives before the internal drive, and it works well. Either drive will cold-boot Ubuntu 11.10 perfectly. However, at times the computer must be restarted (warm boot) to have software updates or other changes take effect. When I warm-boot the computer, the computer goes through its normal shutdown/restart, then the usual BIOS tests, at which time the USB drive is selected momentarily (as normal), and that's when the trouble starts. I get a "No boot sector found on USB device", and the computer proceeds to boot Windows from the internal drive. If I press F12 early during the restart sequence (allows manual selection of the boot sequence), USB is still shown before the internal drive on the sequence list (as it should be). If I highlight "USB" and press ENTER, I still get a "No boot sector..." error message, but the external USB drive then proceeds to boot Ubuntu normally. I have a third external USB drive (Western Digital 160 GB Media Center) that cold-boots and warm-boots perfectly, so I know everything in the computer is set up properly. It also tells me Ubuntu is set up correctly on the drives, as all three drives were done identically, and at the same time. I've tried formatting the Passport drives NTFS and FAT32, but it didn't change anything. If I power-down the computer, then start it up again, it will boot Ubuntu from either of the Passport drives perfectly - every time. It's as if during a warm boot the Passport drives are somehow looking for the boot loader in the wrong location on the drive - yet either drives works when booting from a cold start. Not a show-stopper .. but frustrating. Computer is a Dell XPS M1530, A12 BIOS (latest), but I don't think the computer plays into the issue because one of the three drives works at all times. It's only the two WD Passport models at issue here. Thanks!

  Read the article

• Access Offline or Overloaded Webpages in Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  What do you do when you really want to access a webpage only to find that it is either offline or overloaded from too much traffic? You can get access to the most recent cached version using the Resurrect Pages extension for Firefox. The Problem If you have ever encountered a website that has become overloaded and unavailable due to sudden popularity (i.e. Slashdot, Digg, etc.) then this is the result. No satisfaction to be had here… Resurrect Pages in Action Once you have installed the extension you can add the Toolbar Button if desired…it will give you the easiest access to Resurrect Pages. Or you can wait for a problem to occur when trying to access a particular website and have it appear as shown here. As you can see there is a very nice selection of cache services to choose from, therefore increasing your odds of accessing a copy of that webpage. If you would prefer to have the access attempt open in a new tab or window then you should definitely use the Toolbar Button. Clicking on the Toolbar Button will give you access to the popup window shown here…otherwise the access attempt will happen in the current tab. Here is the result for the website that we wanted to view using the Google Listing. Followed by the Google (text only) Listing. The results with the different services will depend on how recently the webpage was published/set up. View Older Versions of Currently Accessible Websites Just for fun we decided to try the extension out on the How-To Geek website to view an older version of the homepage. Using the Toolbar Button and clicking on The Internet Archive brought up the following page…we decided to try the Nov. 28, 2006 listing. As you can see things have really changed between 2006 and now…Resurrect Pages can be very useful for anyone who is interested in how websites across the web have grown and changed over the years. Conclusion If you encounter a webpage that is offline or overloaded by sudden popularity then the Resurrect Pages extension can help you get access to the information that you need using a cached version. Links Download the Resurrect Pages extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Remove Colors and Background Images in WebpagesGet Last Accessed File Time In Ubuntu LinuxCustomize the Reading Format for Webpages in FirefoxGet Access to 100+ URL Shortening Services in FirefoxAccess Cached Versions of Webpages When a Website is Down TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12 Move the Mouse Pointer With Your Face Movement Using eViacam

  Read the article

• How to handle this unfortunately non hypothetical situation with end-users?

  - by User Smith

  I work in a medium sized company but with a very small IT force. Last year (2011), I wrote an application that is very popular with a large group of end-users. We hit a deadline at the end of last year and some functionality (I will call funcA from now on) was not added into the application that was wanted at the very end. So, this application has been running in live/production since the end of 2011, I might add without issue. Yesterday, a whole group of end-users started complaining that funcA that was never in the application is no longer working. Our priority at this company is that if an application is broken it must be fixed first prior to prioritized projects. I have compared code and queries and there is no difference since 2011, which is proofA. I then was able to get one of the end-users to admit that it never worked proofB, but since then that end-user has went back and said that it was working previously......I believe the horde of end-users has assimilated her. I have also reviewed my notes for this project which has requirements and daily updates regarding the project which specifically states, "funcA not achieved due to time constraints", proofC. I have spoken with many of them and I can see where they could be confused as they are very far from a programming background, but I also know they are intelligent enough to act in a group in order to bypass project prioritization orders in order to get functionality that they want to make their job easier. The worst part is is that now group think is setting in and my boss and the head of IT is actually starting to believe them, even though there is no code or query changes. As far as reviewing the state of the logic it is very cut and dry to the point of if 1 = 1, funcA will not work. So, this is the end of the description of my scenario, but I am trying not to get severally dinged on my performance metrics due to this which would essentially have me moved to fixing a production problem that doesn't exist that will probably take over 1 month. I am looking for direct answers to this question. This question is not for rants, polling, or discussions as this is not the format for StackExchange. Please don't downvote me too terribly it is pretty common on this specific site of stack, I am looking for honest answers to this situation and I couldn't find a forum more appropriate.

  Read the article

• Is there an API for determining congressional districts?

  - by ardavis

  I'm looking to determine the congressional district based on an address my user is providing. This will avoid having the user to look it up themselves. Does an API of this sort exist? Note Through my attempts to find one, I've only come across these: http://www.govtrack.us/developers/api (not sure how to submit an an address or zip code however) The following resources are available in the API ...Bills and resolutions in the U.S. Congress since 1973 (the 93rd Congress). ...A (bill, person) pair indicating cosponsorship, with join and withdrawn dates. ...Members of Congress and U.S. Presidents since the founding of the nation. ...Terms held in office by Members of Congress and U.S. Presidents. Each term corresponds with an election, meaning each term in the House covers two years (one 'Congress'), as President four years, and in the Senate six years (three 'Congresses'). ...Roll call votes in the U.S. Congress since 1789. How people voted is accessed through the Vote_voter API. ...How people voted on roll call votes in the U.S. Congress since 1789. See the Vote API. Filter on the vote field to get the results of a particular vote... http://www.opencongress.org/api (seems to be a way to find congress information, but not districts) This API provides programmers with structured access to all the data on OpenCongress, everything from official bill info to news and blog coverage to user-generated votes on bills and much more... This API defaults to returning XML. All queries can also return JSON... https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/opendems-discuss/CeKyi_aANaE (similar question, no resolution) I've been looking over Open Dems, and seeing what's exposed at this point and what isn't. I work with Democrats Abroad, and am interested in using stuff from the lab for their sites. I quickly looked over the Precinct API, which does both more and less than what I'd need. An ideal resource would be any way of translating addresses into CD at the very least (getting state district data would be good as well), since that would make it easier for DA's membership to make a difference in races like last month's NY26 race... Update I'm looking at the source for the govtrack.us website and the 'doGeoCode' function may be useful. view-source:http://www.govtrack.us/congress/members If no one has any suggestions, I will try to go off of what they are doing.

  Read the article

• PeopleSoft Grants & the Federal Agency Letter of Credit Draw Changes

  - by Mark Rosenberg

  For decades, most, if not all, US Federal agencies that sponsor research allowed grant recipients to request and receive payments using pooled accounts, commonly known as pooled letter of credit (LOC) draws. This enabled organizations, such as universities and hospitals, fast and efficient access to reimbursement of the expenditures they incurred conducting research across a portfolio of grants. To support this business practice, the PeopleSoft Grants solution has delivered an LOC Draw report to provide the total request amount along with all of the supporting invoice details for reconciliation and audit purposes. Now, in an attempt to provide greater transparency, eliminate fraud, strengthen accountability for grant-related financial transactions, and simplify grant award closeout, many US Federal sponsors are transitioning from the “pooling” letter of credit draw method to requesting on a “grant-by-grant” basis. The National Science Foundation, the second largest issuer of Federal awards, already transitioned to detailed grant draws in 2013. And, in response to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) directive to HHS-supported Agencies, the largest Federal awards sponsor, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will fully transition to the new HHS subaccount draw method. This will require NIH award recipients to request payments based on actual expenses incurred on an award-by-award basis. NIH is expected to fully transition to this new draw method by the end of Federal fiscal year 2015.  (The NIH had planned to fully transition to this new method by the end of fiscal 2014; however, the impact to institutions was deemed to be significant enough that a reprieve was recently granted.) In light of these new Federal draw requirements, we have recently released these new features to aid our customers on both PeopleSoft Grants releases 9.1 and 9.2:1. Federal Award Identification Number on the Proposal and Award Profile 2. Letter of credit fields on contract lines to support award basis draws and comply with Federal close out mandates3. Process to produce both pro forma and final LOC Draw Reports in BI Publisher report format4. Subacccount ID field on the LOC Summary and a new BI Publisher version of the LOC Summary report 5. Added Subaccount Field and contract info to be displayed on the LOC summary page6. Ability to generate by a variety of dimensions pro forma and invoiced draw listings 7. Queries for generation and manipulation of data to upload into sponsor payment request systems and perform payment matching8. Contracts LOC Close Out query to quickly review final balances prior to initiating final draws and preparing Federal Financial Reports prior to close The PeopleSoft Development team actively monitors this and other major Federal changes and continues working closely with the Grants Product Advisory Group of the Higher Education User Group to ensure a clear understanding of what our customers need in order to transition to new approaches for doing business with the Federal government. For more information regarding the enhancements to the PeopleSoft Grants solution, existing customers can login to My Oracle Support and review the Enhancements to Letter of Credit Process (Doc ID 1912692.1) associated with resolution ID 904830. This enhanced LOC functionality is available in both PeopleSoft FSCM 9.1 Bundle #31 and PeopleSoft FSCM 9.2 Update Image 8.

  Read the article

• What could be the best way to generalize data from Facebook and Twitter?

  - by Sjaak van der Heide

  I am not sure if this is the best subsite to ask this question, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't fit on the normal or facebook SO page... I've been asked to make a general API for connecting to several Social Media platforms (at the moment Facebook and Twitter). I have already realised both of them seperately. Meaning I retrieve the data I need from both Facebook and Twitter and hold the data in it's own dataclass. In my case a list of FacebookTimelineItems and a list of TwitterTimelineItems. now the hard part is taking the parts that are used in both (username, id, message and such) and make 1 general class that is eventually passed on to who/whatever sent the call to my API. these are two pics of the data classes I have: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/facebookdata.png/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/204/twitterdata.png/ probably not 100% correct but it gives an idea what it looks like. Now I've been having several idea about how to go about and generalize the two, which is harder then I thought at first. Create an interface (TimelineItem) and let the other classes extend that one. this way I'll always be sure I have a class that contains at least the basic info I need. downside is that deserializing the JSON seems to be a nightmare. Use the two dataclasses I have and combine them into a new class afterwards, then pass that one back to whoever requested it. This would probably work but I get the idea it's not the best way to tackle this problem, and is pretty dodgy IF I get it working. Or, in case of the other two being nearly impossible. Keep the two seperated in the front end, and go sit in the corner crying because I've just figured out you can't lump together facebook and twitter... Note: I don't have to make the front end part (view), I just make sure the Model is nicely filled with data :) I hope I placed this in the right section, if I didn't I apologise and would like to know where I should go with my question. Thanks in advance for any replied/ideas/opinions on this.

  Read the article

• Looking for an ultra portable laptop for Ubuntu

  - by prule

  Hi, I'm in the market for a new laptop, and portability is important since I really only use it when I'm travelling to and from work - primarily for programming. I've been searching high and low for something like this: less than 2kg hopefully Intel i5 (but negotiable) NO dvd drive - just don't need it 4G ram either 7200rpm disk or SSD (ssd preferable) 13 inch screen not too pricey (MacBook Air is about $1700 AUD) available in Australia The Dell Inspiron 13z and Lenovo Edge 13 look close, but I've not found anything that says I'm not going to have a fight with compatibility. The MacBook Air 13 looks like the PERFECT hardware, but I'm afraid it will just be easier to run MacOS than Ubuntu. I want to stay with Ubuntu, but the MacBook Air is only $1700 so I'm in danger of becoming another apple fanboi if I can't find anything competitive. Going through all the sites looking for stuff has been a huge waste of time System 76 doesn't deliver to Australia http://www.linux-laptop.net/ and http://www.linlap.com/ are hard work and not confidence inspiring http://www.vgcomputing.com.au/nsintro.html is hard work again, searching for every laptop they say has excellent compatibility on the web to find out what spec it is http://zareason.com/shop/Strata-Pro-13.html (at $1345 USD) looks interesting, but I've got no idea how much I'll get stung by customs importing Dell Inspiron 13z with i5, 4G, 320 7200rpm disk, ATI Mobility Radeon HD5430 - 1GB, Dell Wireless 1501 802.11b/g/n @ $1200 AUD seems like the only competitor but is it compatible? (Dell support offer no opinion - as far as they are concerned they only have 2 models that are certified for ubuntu) Am I worrying too much about the compatibility? Should I just go with Dell? Or switch to MacOS? (It would be good to have a searchable database that had the full machine specs, and compatibility - I'm thinking about building something... but I don't have much time right now...) Thanks. UPDATE I went with a MacBook Air. The price/weight/power was just right. Everything else was either too pricy (i5) or too heavy, or underpowered (SU7300 1.3GHz). Its a pity, because I didn't really want to leave Ubuntu. I'll still run it on my media center and spare (heavy) laptop.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332  | Next Page >