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• Insurers Pushed to Transform Their Business

  - by Calvin Glenn

  Everyone in the P&C industry has heard it “We can’t do it.” “Nobody wants to do it.” “We can’t afford to do it.”  Unfortunately, what they’re referencing are the reasons many insurers are still trying to maintain their business processing on legacy policy administration systems, attempting to bide time until there is no other recourse but to give in, bite the bullet, and take on the monumental task of replacing an entire policy administration system (PAS). Just the thought of that project sends IT, Business Users and Management reeling. However, is that fear real?  It is a bit daunting when one realizes that a complete policy administration system replacement will touch most every function an insurer manages, from quoting and rating, to underwriting, distribution, and even customer service. With that, everyone has heard at least one horror story around a transformation initiative that has far exceeded budget and the promised implementation / go-live timeline.    But, does it have to be that hard?  Surely, in the age where a person can voice-activate their DVR to record a TV program from a cell phone, there has to be someone somewhere who’s figured out how to simplify this process. To be able to help insurers, of all sizes, transform and grow their business while also delivering on their overall objectives of providing speed to market, straight-through-processing for applications, quoting, underwriting, and simplified product development. Maybe we’re looking too hard and the answer is simple and straight-forward. Why replace the entire machine when all it really needs is a new part…a single enterprise rating system? This core, modular piece of the policy administration system is the foundation of product development and rate management that enables insurers to provide the right product at the right price to the right customer through the best channels at any given moment in time. The real benefit of a single enterprise rating system is the ability to deliver enhanced business capabilities, such as improved product management, streamlined underwriting, and speed to market. With these benefits, carriers have accomplished a portion of their overall transformation goal. Furthermore, lessons learned from the rating project can be applied to the bigger, down-the-road PAS project to support the successful completion of the overall transformation endeavor. At the recent Oracle OpenWorld Conference in San Francisco, information was shared with attendees about a recent “go-live” project from an Oracle Insurance Tier 1 insurer who did what is proposed above…replaced just the rating portion of their legacy policy administration system with Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting.  This change provided the insurer greater flexibility to set rates that better reflect risk while enabling the company to support its market segment strategy. Using the Oracle Insurance Insbridge enterprise rating solution, the insurer was able to reduce processing time for agents and underwriters, gained the ability to support proprietary rating models and improved pricing accuracy.      There is mounting pressure on P&C insurers to produce growth and show net profitability in the midst of modest overall industry growth, large weather-related losses and intensifying competition for market share.  Insurers are also being asked to improve customer service, offer a differentiated value proposition and simplify insurance processes.  While the demands are many there is an easy answer…invest in and update the most mission critical application in your arsenal, the single enterprise rating system. Download the Podcast to listen to “Stand-Alone Rating Engine - Leading Force Behind Core Transformation Projects in the P&C Market,” a podcast originally recorded in October 2013. Related Resources: White Paper: Stand-Alone Rating Engine: Leading Force Behind Core Transformation Projects in the P&C Market Webcast On Demand: Stand-Alone Rating Engine and Core Transformation for P&C Insurers Don’t forget to keep up with us year-round: Facebook: www.facebook.com/oracleinsurance Twitter: www.twitter.com/oracleinsurance YouTube: www.youtube.com/oracleinsurance

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• Ask HTG: How Can I Check the Age of My Windows Installation?

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Curious about when you installed Windows and how long you’ve been chugging along without a system refresh? Read on as we show you a simple way to see how long-in-the-tooth your Windows installation is. Dear How-To Geek, It feels like it has been forever since I installed Windows 7 and I’m starting to wonder if some of the performance issues I’m experiencing have something to do with how long ago it was installed. It isn’t crashing or anything horrible, mind you, it just feels slower than it used to and I’m wondering if I should reinstall it to wipe the slate clean. Is there a simple way to determine the original installation date of Windows on its host machine? Sincerely, Worried in Windows Although you only intended to ask one question, you actually asked two. Your direct question is an easy one to answer (how to check the Windows installation date). The indirect question is, however, a little trickier (if you need to reinstall Windows to get a performance boost). Let’s start off with the easy one: how to check your installation date. Windows includes a handy little application just for the purposes of pulling up system information like the installation date, among other things. Open the Start Menu and type cmd in the run box (or, alternatively, press WinKey+R to pull up the run dialog and enter the same command). At the command prompt, type systeminfo.exe Give the application a moment to run; it takes around 15-20 seconds to gather all the data. You’ll most likely need to scroll back up in the console window to find the section at the top that lists operating system stats. What you care about is Original Install Date: We’ve been running the machine we tested the command on since August 23 2009. For the curious, that’s one month and a day after the initial public release of Windows 7 (after we were done playing with early test releases and spent a month mucking around in the guts of Windows 7 to report on features and flaws, we ran a new clean installation and kept on trucking). Now, you might be asking yourself: Why haven’t they reinstalled Windows in all that time? Haven’t things slowed down? Haven’t they upgraded hardware? The truth of the matter is, in most cases there’s no need to completely wipe your computer and start from scratch to resolve issues with Windows and, if you don’t bog your system down with unnecessary and poorly written software, things keep humming along. In fact, we even migrated this machine from a traditional mechanical hard drive to a newer solid-state drive back in 2011. Even though we’ve tested piles of software since then, the machine is still rather clean because 99% of that testing happened in a virtual machine. That’s not just a trick for technology bloggers, either, virtualizing is a handy trick for anyone who wants to run a rock solid base OS and avoid the bog-down-and-then-refresh cycle that can plague a heavily used machine. So while it might be the case that you’ve been running Windows 7 for years and heavy software installation and use has bogged your system down to the point a refresh is in order, we’d strongly suggest reading over the following How-To Geek guides to see if you can’t wrangle the machine into shape without a total wipe (and, if you can’t, at least you’ll be in a better position to keep the refreshed machine light and zippy): HTG Explains: Do You Really Need to Regularly Reinstall Windows? PC Cleaning Apps are a Scam: Here’s Why (and How to Speed Up Your PC) The Best Tips for Speeding Up Your Windows PC Beginner Geek: How to Reinstall Windows on Your Computer Everything You Need to Know About Refreshing and Resetting Your Windows 8 PC Armed with a little knowledge, you too can keep a computer humming along until the next iteration of Windows comes along (and beyond) without the hassle of reinstalling Windows and all your apps.         

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• SQL Authority News – Presenting at SQL Bangalore on May 3, 2014 – Performing an Effective Presentation

  - by Pinal Dave

  SQL Bangalore is a wonderful community and we always have a great response when we present on technology. It is SQL User Group and we discuss everything SQL there. This month we have SQL Server 2014 theme and we are going to have a community launch on this subject. We have the best of the best speakers presenting on SQL Server 2014 technology. Looking at the whole line of celebrity speakers, I have decided not to present on SQL Server. I will be presenting on the performance tuning subject, but with the twist of soft skills. I will be presenting on “Performing an Effective Presentation“. Trust me, you do not want to miss this presentation, I will be presenting on how to present effectively when presenting SQL Server topics. What this session will NOT have I personally believe that we all are good presenters most of the time. We can all easily call out if someone is bad presenter. There is no point talking about basics like bigger bullet points, talk loudly, talk with confidence, use better analogies etc. In simple words – this is not going to some philosophy session and boring notes. What this session will have Well, this session will tell stories of my life. It will tell how we can present about technology and SQL Server with the help of stories and personal experience. I am going to tell stories about two legends  who have inspired me. Right after that we will be doing two exercises together where we will learn quickly and effectively, how to become better speaker – instantly! There is no video recording of this session. If you want to get resources from this session, please sign up my newsletter at http://bit.ly/sqllearn Here are few of the slides from this presentation: Here is the details about the event and location Venue:Microsoft Corporation, Signature Building,Embassy Golf Links Business Park, Intermediate Ring Road, Domlur, Bangalore – 560071 The agenda is amazing – we have top line SQL Speakers. Everyone is welcome and don’t forget to get your friend along for this event. Loads to learn and tons to share !!! Keynote (20 mins) by Anupam Tiwari – Business Program Manager – GTSC Backup Enhancements with SQL Server 2014 by Amit Banerjee – PFE Microsoft Performance Enhancements with SQL Server 2014 by Sourabh Agarwal - PFE Microsoft LUNCH BREAK Performing an effective Presentation by Pinal Dave – Community Member (SQLAuthority.com) InMemory Enhancements with SQL Server 2014 by Balmukund Lakhani – Support Escalation Engg. Microsoft Some more lesser known enhancements with SQL Server 2014 by Vinod Kumar – Technical Architect Microsoft MTC Power Packed – Power BI with SQL Server by Kane Conway – Support Escalation Engg. Microsoft I am very big fan of Amit, Balmukund and Vinod – I have always watched their session and this time, I am going to once again attend their session without missing a single min. They are SQL legends, I am going to be there and learn when they are sharing their knowledge.  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL

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• Why Is Hibernation Still Used?

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  With the increased prevalence of fast solid-state hard drives, why do we still have system hibernation? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Moses wants to know why he should use hibernate on a desktop machine: I’ve never quite understood the original purpose of the Hibernation power state in Windows. I understand how it works, what processes take place, and what happens when you boot back up from Hibernate, but I’ve never truly understood why it’s used. With today’s technology, most notably with SSDs, RAM and CPUs becoming faster and faster, a cold boot on a clean/efficient Windows installation can be pretty fast (for some people, mere seconds from pushing the power button). Standby is even faster, sometimes instantaneous. Even SATA drives from 5-6 years ago can accomplish these fast boot times. Hibernation seems pointless to me [on desktop computers] when modern technology is considered, but perhaps there are applications that I’m not considering. What was the original purpose behind hibernation, and why do people still use it? Quite a few people use hibernate, so what is Moses missing in the big picture? The Answer SuperUser contributor Vignesh4304 writes: Normally hibernate mode saves your computer’s memory, this includes for example open documents and running applications, to your hard disk and shuts down the computer, it uses zero power. Once the computer is powered back on, it will resume everything where you left off. You can use this mode if you won’t be using the laptop/desktop for an extended period of time, and you don’t want to close your documents. Simple Usage And Purpose: Save electric power and resuming of documents. In simple terms this comment serves nice e.g (i.e. you will sleep but your memories are still present). Why it’s used: Let me describe one sample scenario. Imagine your battery is low on power in your laptop, and you are working on important projects on your machine. You can switch to hibernate mode – it will result your documents being saved, and when you power on, the actual state of application gets restored. Its main usage is like an emergency shutdown with an auto-resume of your documents. MagicAndre1981 highlights the reason we use hibernate everyday: Because it saves the status of all running programs. I leave all my programs open and can resume working the next day very easily. Doing a real boot would require to start all programs again, load all the same files into those programs, get to the same place that I was at before, and put all my windows in exactly the same place. Hibernating saves a lot of work pulling these things back up again. It’s not unusual to find computers around the office here that have been hibernated day in and day out for months without an actual full system shutdown and restart. It’s enormously convenient to freeze your work space at the exact moment you stopped working and to turn right around and resume there the next morning. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.     

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• Reducing Deadlocks - not a DBA issue ?

  - by steveh99999

   As a DBA, I'm involved on an almost daily basis troubleshooting 'SQL Server' performance issues. Often, this troubleshooting soon veers away from a 'its a SQL Server issue' to instead become a wider application/database design/coding issue.One common perception with SQL Server is that deadlocking is an application design issue - and is fixed by recoding...  I see this reinforced by MCP-type questions/scenarios where the answer to prevent deadlocking is simply to change the order in code in which tables are accessed....Whilst this is correct, I do think this has led to a situation where many 'operational' or 'production support' DBAs, when faced with a deadlock, are happy to throw the issue over to developers without analysing the issue further....A couple of 'war stories' on deadlocks which I think are interesting :- Case One , I had an issue recently on a third-party application that I support on SQL 2008.  This particular third-party application has an unusual support agreement where the customer is allowed to change the index design on the third-party provided database.  However, we are not allowed to alter application code or modify table structure..This third-party application is also known to encounter occasional deadlocks – indeed, I have documentation from the vendor that up to 50 deadlocks per day is not unusual !So, as a DBA I have to support an application which in my opinion has too many deadlocks - but, I cannot influence the design of the tables or stored procedures for the application. This should be the classic - blame the third-party developers scenario, and hope this issue gets addressed in a future application release - ie we could wait years for this to be resolved and implemented in our production environment...But, as DBAs  can change the index layout, is there anything I could do still to reduce the deadlocks in the application ?I initially used SQL traceflag 1222 to write deadlock detection output to the SQL Errorlog – using this I was able to identify one table heavily involved in the deadlocks.When I examined the table definition, I was surprised to see it was a heap – ie no clustered index existed on the table.Using SQL profiler to see locking behaviour and plan for the query involved in the deadlock, I was able to confirm a table scan was being performed.By creating an appropriate clustered index - it was possible to produce a more efficient plan and locking behaviour.So, less locks, held for less time = less possibility of deadlocks. I'm still unhappy about the overall number of deadlocks on this system - but that's something to be discussed further with the vendor.Case Two,  a system which hadn't changed for months suddenly started seeing deadlocks on a regular basis. I love the 'nothing's changed' scenario, as it gives me the opportunity to appear wise and say 'nothings changed on this system, except the data'.. This particular deadlock occurred on a table which had been growing rapidly. By using DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS - the DBA team were able to see that the deadlocks seemed to be occurring shortly after auto-update stats had regenerated the table statistics using it's default sampling behaviour.As a quick fix, we were able to schedule a nightly UPDATE STATISTICS WITH FULLSCAN on the table involved in the deadlock - thus, greatly reducing the potential for stats to be updated via auto_update_stats, consequently reducing the potential for a bad plan to be generated based on an unrepresentative sample of the data. This reduced the possibility of a deadlock occurring.  Not a perfect solution by any means, but quick, easy to implement, and needed no application code changes. This fix gave us some 'breathing space'  to properly fix the code during the next scheduled application release.   The moral of this post - don't dismiss deadlocks as issues that can only be fixed by developers...

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• Good DBAs Do Baselines

  - by Louis Davidson

  One morning, you wake up and feel funny. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but something isn’t quite right. What now? Unless you happen to be a hypochondriac, you likely drag yourself out of bed, get on with the day and gather more “evidence”. You check your symptoms over the next few days; do you feel the same, better, worse? If better, then great, it was some temporal issue, perhaps caused by an allergic reaction to some suspiciously spicy chicken. If the same or worse then you go to the doctor for some health advice, but armed with some data to share, and having ruled out certain possible causes that are fixed with a bit of rest and perhaps an antacid. Whether you realize it or not, in comparing how you feel one day to the next, you have taken baseline measurements. In much the same way, a DBA uses baselines to gauge the gauge health of their database servers. Of course, while SQL Server is very willing to share data regarding its health and activities, it has almost no idea of the difference between good and bad. Over time, experienced DBAs develop “mental” baselines with which they can gauge the health of their servers almost as easily as their own body. They accumulate knowledge of the daily, natural state of each part of their database system, and so know instinctively when one of their databases “feels funny”. Equally, they know when an “issue” is just a passing tremor. They see their SQL Server with all of its four CPU cores running close 100% and don’t panic anymore. Why? It’s 5PM and every day the same thing occurs when the end-of-day reports, which are very CPU intensive, are running. Equally, they know when they need to respond in earnest when it is the first time they have heard about an issue, even if it has been happening every day. Nevertheless, no DBA can retain mental baselines for every characteristic of their systems, so we need to collect physical baselines too. In my experience, surprisingly few DBAs do this very well. Part of the problem is that SQL Server provides a lot of instrumentation. If you look, you will find an almost overwhelming amount of data regarding user activity on your SQL Server instances, and use and abuse of the available CPU, I/O and memory. It seems like a huge task even to work out which data you need to collect, let alone start collecting it on a regular basis, managing its storage over time, and performing detailed comparative analysis. However, without baselines, though, it is very difficult to pinpoint what ails a server, just by looking at a single snapshot of the data, or to spot retrospectively what caused the problem by examining aggregated data for the server, collected over many months. It isn’t as hard as you think to get started. You’ve probably already established some troubleshooting queries of the type SELECT Value FROM SomeSystemTableOrView. Capturing a set of baseline values for such a query can be as easy as changing it as follows: INSERT into BaseLine.SomeSystemTable (value, captureTime) SELECT Value, SYSDATETIME() FROM SomeSystemTableOrView; Of course, there are monitoring tools that will collect and manage this baseline data for you, automatically, and allow you to perform comparison of metrics over different periods. However, to get yourself started and to prove to yourself (or perhaps the person who writes the checks for tools) the value of baselines, stick something similar to the above query into an agent job, running every hour or so, and you are on your way with no excuses! Then, the next time you investigate a slow server, and see x open transactions, y users logged in, and z rows added per hour in the Orders table, compare to your baselines and see immediately what, if anything, has changed!

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• Migrating a WebLogic Domain from a 32 to a 64 bit JVM/Architecture

  - by adejuanc

  Currently on 32 bit OS which presents a physical constraint when trying to allocate memory. By limit, a 32 bit OS, will not be able to allocate more than 3 GB on a Linux environment, or 2 GB for Windows environment (not considering Physical Address Extension (PAE) implementation, which can increase the maximum allocatable memory). When this limit is reached, a migration to a 64 bit architecture is recommended. Below are the steps on how to install a 64 WebLogic Server version, along with a 64 Bit JVM and then how to migrate the domain to this new environment. Weblogic Server Version: WebLogic Server Version: 10.3.4.0 OS: Linux adejuan-cl.cl.oracle.com 2.6.18-194.el5 #1 SMP Mon Jan 01 22:10:29 EDT 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux JVM:java version "1.6.0_22" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_22-b04) Oracle JRockit(R) (build R28.1.1-13-139783-1.6.0_22-20101206-0136-linux-x86_64, compiled mode) To create migration template: 1. Execute $<WLS_HOME>/wlserver_10.3/common/bin/config_builder.sh 2. Create Domain Template. 3. Select Domain to migrate. 4. Enter the name of template and other info. Click next. 5. Using Add Button, Select libraries you want to add under lib folder. copy jdbc data sources you would like to have under config/jdbc folder. If you want to have log4j configuration, copy log4j.xml under domain_root folder. 6. Select data base for the domain and click next. 7. Enter Admin Server Name and port numbers. Click next. 8. Enter username and password. Click next. Select No if you don want to add users/groups/roles 9. Click next until reach button create. This will create a jar file that is needed for the next action plan. To install and migrate domain to 64 bit architecture. 1. Install JVM Jrockit R28.1.1.13 on environment. (uncompress zip folder on a known location) 2. Go to JRockit_Home/bin and execute $ java -d64 -jar wls1034_generic.jar 3. When prompt, select JRockit JVM in browse menu, and wait for installation to finish. 4. Go to <WLS_HOME>/wlserver_10.3/common/bin and execute $ ./config.sh 5. Select Create a new Weblogic domain 6. Select Base this domain on an existing template and select browse. 7. Select jar file created on previous action plan. 8. Select Name of domain. Maintain in most cases. 9. Select user name and password. Maintain in most cases. 10. Select Jrockit SDK 1.6.0_22 and click next. 11. Confirm all JMS/JDBC/security configuration. 12. On select Optional Configuration, reconfigure if necessary. 13. Check on Configuration summary for all domain configuration. 14. Click on create, to finish up domain import. Note: Always when installing a 64 bit WLS, it's necessary to install first the 64 JVM and then run the generic installer with the -d64 bit option. If this is not performed, the installation will be the 32 default version. For more information, please refer: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13188_01/jrockit/docs50/dev_faq.html#pae

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• Feynman's inbox

  - by user12607414

  Here is Richard Feynman writing on the ease of criticizing theories, and the difficulty of forming them: The problem is not just to say something might be wrong, but to replace it by something — and that is not so easy. As soon as any really definite idea is substituted it becomes almost immediately apparent that it does not work. The second difficulty is that there is an infinite number of possibilities of these simple types. It is something like this. You are sitting working very hard, you have worked for a long time trying to open a safe. Then some Joe comes along who knows nothing about what you are doing, except that you are trying to open the safe. He says ‘Why don’t you try the combination 10:20:30?’ Because you are busy, you have tried a lot of things, maybe you have already tried 10:20:30. Maybe you know already that the middle number is 32 not 20. Maybe you know as a matter of fact that it is a five digit combination… So please do not send me any letters trying to tell me how the thing is going to work. I read them — I always read them to make sure that I have not already thought of what is suggested — but it takes too long to answer them, because they are usually in the class ‘try 10:20:30’. (“Seeking New Laws”, page 161 in The Character of Physical Law.) As a sometime designer (and longtime critic) of widely used computer systems, I have seen similar difficulties appear when anyone undertakes to publicly design a piece of software that may be used by many thousands of customers. (I have been on both sides of the fence, of course.) The design possibilities are endless, but the deep design problems are usually hidden beneath a mass of superfluous detail. The sheer numbers can be daunting. Even if only one customer out of a thousand feels a need to express a passionately held idea, it can take a long time to read all the mail. And it is a fact of life that many of those strong suggestions are only weakly supported by reason or evidence. Opinions are plentiful, but substantive research is time-consuming, and hence rare. A related phenomenon commonly seen with software is bike-shedding, where interlocutors focus on surface details like naming and syntax… or (come to think of it) like lock combinations. On the other hand, software is easier than quantum physics, and the population of people able to make substantial suggestions about software systems is several orders of magnitude bigger than Feynman’s circle of colleagues. My own work would be poorer without contributions — sometimes unsolicited, sometimes passionately urged on me — from the open source community. If a Nobel prize winner thought it was worthwhile to read his mail on the faint chance of learning a good idea, I am certainly not going to throw mine away. (In case anyone is still reading this, and is wondering what provoked a meditation on the quality of one’s inbox contents, I’ll simply point out that the volume has been very high, for many months, on the Lambda-Dev mailing list, where the next version of the Java language is being discussed. Bravo to those of my colleagues who are surfing that wave.) I started this note thinking there was an odd parallel between the life of the physicist and that of a software designer. On second thought, I’ll bet that is the story for anybody who works in public on something requiring special training. (And that would be pretty much anything worth doing.) In any case, Feynman saw it clearly and said it well.

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• Comparing Apples and Pairs

  - by Tony Davis

  A recent study, High Costs and Negative Value of Pair Programming, by Capers Jones, pulls no punches in its assessment of the costs-to- benefits ratio of pair programming, two programmers working together, at a single computer, rather than separately. He implies that pair programming is a method rushed into production on a wave of enthusiasm for Agile or Extreme Programming, without any real regard for its effectiveness. Despite admitting that his data represented a far from complete study of the economics of pair programming, his conclusions were stark: it was 2.5 times more expensive, resulted in a 15% drop in productivity, and offered no significant quality benefits. The author provides a more scientific analysis than Jon Evans’ Pair Programming Considered Harmful, but the theme is the same. In terms of upfront-coding costs, pair programming is surely more expensive. The claim of productivity loss is dubious and contested by other studies. The third claim, though, did surprise me. The author’s data suggests that if both the pair and the individual programmers employ static code analysis and testing, then there is no measurable difference in the resulting code quality, in terms of defects per function point. In other words, pair programming incurs a massive extra cost for no tangible return in investment. There were, inevitably, many criticisms of his data and his conclusions, a few of which are persuasive. Firstly, that the driver/observer model of pair programming, on which the study bases its findings, is far from the most effective. For example, many find Ping-Pong pairing, based on use of test-driven development, far more productive. Secondly, that it doesn’t distinguish between “expert” and “novice” pair programmers– that is, independently of other programming skills, how skilled was an individual at pair programming. Thirdly, that his measure of quality is too narrow. This point rings true, certainly at Red Gate, where developers don’t pair program all the time, but use the method in short bursts, while tackling a tricky problem and needing a fresh perspective on the best approach, or more in-depth knowledge in a particular domain. All of them argue that pair programming, and collective code ownership, offers significant rewards, if not in terms of immediate “bug reduction”, then in removing the likelihood of single points of failure, and improving the overall quality and longer-term adaptability/maintainability of the design. There is also a massive learning benefit for both participants. One developer told me how he once worked in the same team over consecutive summers, the first time with no pair programming and the second time pair-programming two-thirds of the time, and described the increased rate of learning the second time as “phenomenal”. There are a great many theories on how we should develop software (Scrum, XP, Lean, etc.), but woefully little scientific research in their effectiveness. For a group that spends so much time crunching other people’s data, I wonder if developers spend enough time crunching data about themselves. Capers Jones’ data may be incomplete, but should cause a pause for thought, especially for any large IT departments, supporting commerce and industry, who are considering pair programming. It certainly shouldn’t discourage teams from exploring new ways of developing software, as long as they also think about how to gather hard data to gauge their effectiveness.

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• We have our standards, and we need them

  - by Tony Davis

  The presenter suddenly broke off. He was midway through his section on how to apply to the relational database the Continuous Delivery techniques that allowed for rapid-fire rounds of development and refactoring, while always retaining a “production-ready” state. He sighed deeply and then launched into an astonishing diatribe against Database Administrators, much of his frustration directed toward Oracle DBAs, in particular. In broad strokes, he painted the picture of a brave new deployment philosophy being frustratingly shackled by the relational database, and by especially by the attitudes of the guardians of these databases. DBAs, he said, shunned change and “still favored tools I’d have been embarrassed to use in the ’80′s“. DBAs, Oracle DBAs especially, were more attached to their vendor than to their employer, since the former was the primary source of their career longevity and spectacular remuneration. He contended that someone could produce the best IDE or tool in the world for Oracle DBAs and yet none of them would give a stuff, unless it happened to come from the “mother ship”. I sat blinking in astonishment at the speaker’s vehemence, and glanced around nervously. Nobody in the audience disagreed, and a few nodded in assent. Although the primary target of the outburst was the Oracle DBA, it made me wonder. Are we who work with SQL Server, database professionals or merely SQL Server fanbois? Do DBAs, in general, have an image problem? Is it a good career-move to be seen to be holding onto a particular product by the whites of our knuckles, to the exclusion of all else? If we seek a broad, open-minded, knowledge of our chosen technology, the database, and are blessed with merely mortal powers of learning, then we like standards. Vendors of RDBMSs generally don’t conform to standards by instinct, but by customer demand. Microsoft has made great strides to adopt the international SQL Standards, where possible, thanks to considerable lobbying by the community. The implementation of Window functions is a great example. There is still work to do, though. SQL Server, for example, has an unusable version of the Information Schema. One cast-iron rule of any RDBMS is that we must be able to query the metadata using the same language that we use to query the data, i.e. SQL, and we do this by running queries against the INFORMATION_SCHEMA views. Developers who’ve attempted to apply a standard query that works on MySQL, or some other database, but doesn’t produce the expected results on SQL Server are advised to shun the Standards-based approach in favor of the vendor-specific one, using the catalog views. The argument behind this is sound and well-documented, and of course we all use those catalog views, out of necessity. And yet, as database professionals, committed to supporting the best databases for the business, whatever they are now and in the future, surely our heart should sink somewhat when we advocate a vendor specific approach, to a developer struggling with something as simple as writing a guard clause. And when we read messages on the Microsoft documentation informing us that we shouldn’t rely on INFORMATION_SCHEMA to identify reliably the schema of an object, in SQL Server!

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• iOS 5 New Features vs Android

  - by kerry

  Browsing through the iOS 5 features list, I can’t help but notice a lot of it is catch up. Having owned both an iPhone and an Android for a considerable amount of time, I figured I would jot down my opinions. Notification Center – Completely ripped off from Android but looks good and is a much needed addition iMessage – This is very interesting as most people who would think it’s cool, probably really wouldn’t understand the significance.  Basically, Apple is adding an IM application to iOS.  Now iPhone / iPad users can sit around messaging each other how cool it is like Crackberry users circa 2003.  I guess the only real improvement over MMS is that you can easily setup groups, see when each other are typing, and don’t incur text messaging charges; at the expense of leaving your non-iOS buddies out (who wants to talk to those losers anyways?). Newstand – An app update and not an OS one (Apple typically doesn’t make distinctions).  It all seems like stuff my current Nook stuff will do.  Note: I did look to compare prices but it seems that information is not available without downloading iTunes.  lame. Reminders – TODO lists are ho hum, but the ability to have reminders when you arrive or leave a position is pretty cool. Twitter integration – The fact that the best Apple can come up with is ‘one at a timing’ online service integration is laughable at best. Camera – Can control it from the lock screen.  Now you’ll have tons of pocket lint photos in your iCloud to go along with the wicked shot of that cheetah that just unexpectedly ran by your apartment. Photos – Speaking of iCloud, all of your devices photos will be synced through it.  That’s cool I guess, not sure if Android will do the same. Safari – What?  You haven’t been reading rss feeds on your device this whole time?  Something tells me you aren’t about to start. PC Free – Finely Apple untethers the iPhone.  What took them so long? Game Center – This should be an interesting service.  Attention Apple fanboys immediately forget how they are blatantly copying Microsoft achievements (at least rename them). Wifi Sync – Just couldn’t cut the cord completely could they?  For what it’s worth, the Zune has been doing this for 5 years now. All in all a pretty big update.  Mostly iCloud.  Mostly keeping up the mobile status quo.  As an Android user, I can’t say there is anything I am envious of.

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• I am not satisfied with my career and accomplished nothing in my life. what should I do now [on hold]

  - by user2906155

  After my complete my College education I got chance to work on software programming. I work on few software and now nothing make me feel good. I don't like web-programming. Can't have too much mind to play with other people in team a designer or a senior. it's totally time wasting for me. We do integration without any source code control. copy through pen drive. I write in too many language for web-programming but know nothing about any language specially. I don't like to have a BOSS. I would like to do something on my own. From last 3 year I thing I will got a better job but I am unable to get it. I am not good at Programming nor my English is native. I have a big list for pay then my salary. I have problem with nothing. my atmosphere is about illiterate people. they abuse 24 hours a day. this thing make me sick. people watch CRIME patrol my home (watching rape in TV because it's happen to someone). I do my work from home. I don't like to live in my state. All state is one of the biggest illiterate state of my country. Once I apply for a Job in China and it's look like I can get thing Job but I don't get it. My family doesn't want me to settle anywhere else. I told my family 4 time a day that I can't live in this worst situation. Everyone (including the person who I work for) tell me that you can do it only you have money. Now I really don't know how to make money. My job not allow me to work for anyone. My productivity going down since I don't learn anything new. I thing if this happen to me for next 2 year I don't have any knowledge more then a peon. I hate it. When I was in other city then I see that if I spent 7 days their all my 7 days going better. even I go for travelling in green places then I like it. but all I hate it where I work for. When I work on other city then I see my productivity are improved and I don't hate my work. I listen a song "If you don't your love what are you doing it for". I seriously don' t know what I still live here because this place gave me nothing but depression and trouble. for people I clear that I don't belong to RICH or middle class family. All I got is doing something on my own or help of someone. affording a rental place make my run on footpath. All I save in one month is just 10$ (approximately) (actually I afford some guys's education now). Can a programmer live worst life like this. I really not happy. Today is a festival in India and I don't celebrate it because I really hate myself. I want to do suicide. someone guide me how to start solving this headache

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• Subsonic : Can’t decide which property to consider the Key? foreign key issue.

  - by AJ

  Hi I am trying to select count of rows from a table which has foreign keys of two tables. The C# code threw the error mentioned below. So, I added a primary key column to the table (schema as follows) and regenerated the code. But still the same error is coming. Error : Can't decide which property to consider the Key - you can create one called 'ID' or mark one with SubSonicPrimaryKey attribute sqLite Table schema CREATE TABLE "AlbumDocuments" ("Id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL , "AlbumId" INTEGER NOT NULL CONSTRAINT fk_AlbumId REFERENCES Albums(Id) , "DocumentId" INTEGER NOT NULL CONSTRAINT fk_DocumentId REFERENCES Documents(Id)) C# code int selectAlbumDocumentsCount = new SubSonic.Query.Select() .From<DocSafeDB.DataLayer.AlbumDocumentsTable>() .Where(DocSafeDB.DataLayer.AlbumDocumentsTable.AlbumIdColumn).In(request.AlbumId) .Execute(); Not sure what I should be doing next as I can't do where against primary key because I don;t have that info. So my questions are: How do I select count of rows against foreign key column? Is primary key required in this scenario? I have several things but not sure why its not working. To me it looks like a very normal use case. Please advise. Thanks AJ

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• Asp.Net membership via ASP.NET Website Administrator Tool

  - by luppi

  I created a database with aspnet_regsql, the database was created in sql sever 2008 and not in data folder in my project (do I need to move it to the folder manually?). Next, in Web Site Administration Tool I went to provider section and clicked don Test button. I got an error: Could not establish a connection to the database. If you have not yet created the SQL Server database, exit the Web Site Administration tool, use the aspnet_regsql command-line utility to create and configure the database, and then return to this tool to set the provider. Maybe I need to set something in a web.config, like membership settings or connection strings (or ASP.NET Website Administrator Tool should create those settings for me)? Update: Maybe it happens because I am using SQL server 2008 full and not express? Update 2: After setting membership section and connection string to my aspnetdb database in Web Site Administration Tool I've opened security-Security Setup Wizard-Define Roles (stage 4) I got this error: An error was encountered. Please return to the previous page and try again. The following message may help in diagnosing the problem: Unable to connect to SQL Server database. at System.Web.Administration.WebAdminPage.CallWebAdminHelperMethod(Boolean isMembership, String methodName, Object[] parameters, Type[] paramTypes) at ASP.security_wizard_wizardpermission_ascx.OnInit(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer) at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer) at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer) at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer) at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)

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• JSF 2/Primefaces p:ajax not updating panel after onchange event is fired

  - by Ravi S

  I am really stuck with this for the last 2 days and am struggling to understand how Primefaces updates UI components on the client based on their ID. I have a h:selectOneMenu with a count for the number of panels to be displayed. Each p:panel will contain a panelGrid with numerous form elements. The onchange event on the drop down is fired and I can see the count in the Managed Bean. I do not see panels increasing dynamically on the client side though.i think something is wrong with my p:ajax params, but I don;t fully understand how it works. here is the relevant code: <h:selectOneMenu id="numapps" value="#{mbean.appCount}"> <f:selectItem itemLabel="1" itemValue="1" /> <f:selectItem itemLabel="2" itemValue="2" /> <f:selectItem itemLabel="3" itemValue="3" /> <f:selectItem itemLabel="4" itemValue="4" /> <f:selectItem itemLabel="5" itemValue="5" /> <p:ajax update="appsContainer" event="change" listener="#{mbean.onChangeNumApps()}" /> </h:selectOneMenu> <p:panel id="appsContainer" > <p:panel header="Application" id="appsPane" value="#{mbean.submittedApps}" var="app" multiple="true"> submittedApps is a List containing the panel form elements. Here is my mbean listener: public void onChangeNumApps() { List<Apps> c = new ArrayList<Apps>(); logger.info("on change event fired"); logger.info("new value is "+mbean.getAppCount()); for (int i=0;i < mbean.getAppCount();i++) { c.add(new App()); } mbean.setSubmittedApps(c); } I am mixing p:ajax with h:selectone because i could not get p:selectone working for some reason - possibly due to a CSS collision with my stylesheet??

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• How do I deselect grid row when grouping in David Poll's silverlight CollectionPrinter

  - by kpg

  I'm using David Poll's CollectionPrinter and modifications by Fama to perform grouping. I'm using the control to print a datagrid with grouping and it works well if not a little slow. Problem: When the grid is displayed the first row of the grid is selected and the first cell of the row is also selected. I want to either deselect the row or change the datagrid template to make selected rows/cells appear as not selected. I tried to specify a grid template to change the row/cell selection appearance but when I added the default template I got a COM error of all things - anyway I concluded that what I was doing was not compatible with the SLab libraries, or perhaps because the grid was specified in a datatemplate. In any case I abandoned that approach. Since I have the SLab source if I understood it more there may be a way to deselect the row after from that side of things - but I know the SLaB CommectionPrinter does not rely on the data template to be a grid, so I'm not sure how to modify the code to accomplish what I want. Question: How can I prevent the row from being selected or deselect it once it is or change the appearance of the selectd row when using the CollectionPrinter with grouping? Note that the row selection problem may occur without grouping as well, I don;t know, but it definatly does with grouping.

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• Embeddable forum software

  - by Rented

  I am in the planning stages of a specific subject matter community web site, and one feature I feel is required is that of member discussions. However, not in a typical forum style. For example, I don't want the members to have to navigate away from their own "user space" in order to discuss a topic. I think it is best described with an analogous example. Lets say the site is for literature buffs, and each member has a set of pages for keeping notes, progress, questions, etc. on books they are studying/reading. So Joe will have one page for Great Expectations, another for Hamlet, a third for I, Robot, and so forth. Likewise, Jane will have a page for Don Quixote, Lord of the Flies, and also I, Robot. Now, wouldn't it be nice if Joe and Jane could discuss I, Robot from within their own respective pages? Now, at first thought, roll your own seems like the way to go. However, once we start getting into issues such as spam blocking, banning, ratings, pruning, archiving, flooding and so on, well "roll your own" doesn't sound too appealing anymore. Also, I have next to zero experience with forum software. So I'm looking for forum software that has an extensive API or is generally very integration-friendly. I would like to be able to create user groups, topics, permissions, etc. programmatically,as well as the obvious user authentication (most seem open in that respect). The site will most probably be built with Java. Tangler seems like a descent option, but it seems less mature than what I'd prefer.

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• sermyadmin 2.01

  - by lepricon123

  I am able to install sermyadmin 2.0.1 and got everything working. Only user registration is not working. When I register a user the entry goe sin DB etc find but the email is not send to the user. We are using our own smtp server with no authentication. And I am sure there is nothing wrong with the smtp server. I can see that it has received a request from sermyadmin but in the logs Is ee that the FROM adddress is missing. So it is throwing 553 5.1.8 Domain of sender address does not exist. The domain does exist. Here is my resources.xml with all the valid entries. Since I don;t need the smtp authentication which the server is not using, i removed that. <beans xmlns="www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation=" www.springframework.org/schema/beans www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spr...ns-2.0.xsd"> <bean id="mailSender" class="org.springframework.mail.javamail.JavaMailSenderImpl"> <property name="host" value="10.100.22.365" /> </bean> <bean id="mailMessage" class="org.springframework.mail.SimpleMailMessage"> <property name="from" value="[email protected]" /> </bean> </beans>

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• Login URL using authentication information in Django

  - by fuSi0N

  I'm working on a platform for online labs registration for my university. Login View [project views.py] from django.http import HttpResponse, HttpResponseRedirect, Http404 from django.shortcuts import render_to_response from django.template import RequestContext from django.contrib import auth def index(request): return render_to_response('index.html', {}, context_instance = RequestContext(request)) def login(request): if request.method == "POST": post = request.POST.copy() if post.has_key('username') and post.has_key('password'): usr = post['username'] pwd = post['password'] user = auth.authenticate(username=usr, password=pwd) if user is not None and user.is_active: auth.login(request, user) if user.get_profile().is_teacher: return HttpResponseRedirect('/teachers/'+user.username+'/') else: return HttpResponseRedirect('/students/'+user.username+'/') else: return render_to_response('index.html', {'msg': 'You don\'t belong here.'}, context_instance = RequestContext(request) return render_to_response('login.html', {}, context_instance = RequestContext(request)) def logout(request): auth.logout(request) return render_to_response('index.html', {}, context_instance = RequestContext(request)) URLS #========== PROJECT URLS ==========# urlpatterns = patterns('', (r'^media/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve', {'document_root': settings.MEDIA_ROOT }), (r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)), (r'^teachers/', include('diogenis.teachers.urls')), (r'^students/', include('diogenis.students.urls')), (r'^login/', login), (r'^logout/', logout), (r'^$', index), ) #========== TEACHERS APP URLS ==========# urlpatterns = patterns('', (r'^(?P<username>\w{0,50})/', labs), ) The login view basically checks whether the logged in user is_teacher [UserProfile attribute via get_profile()] and redirects the user to his profile. Labs View [teachers app views.py] from django.http import HttpResponse, HttpResponseRedirect, Http404 from django.shortcuts import render_to_response from django.template import RequestContext from django.contrib.auth.decorators import user_passes_test from django.contrib.auth.models import User from accounts.models import * from labs.models import * def user_is_teacher(user): return user.is_authenticated() and user.get_profile().is_teacher @user_passes_test(user_is_teacher, login_url="/login/") def labs(request, username): q1 = User.objects.get(username=username) q2 = u'%s %s' % (q1.last_name, q1.first_name) q2 = Teacher.objects.get(name=q2) results = TeacherToLab.objects.filter(teacher=q2) return render_to_response('teachers/labs.html', {'results': results}, context_instance = RequestContext(request)) I'm using @user_passes_test decorator for checking whether the authenticated user has the permission to use this view [labs view]. The problem I'm having with the current logic is that once Django authenticates a teacher user he has access to all teachers profiles basically by typing the teachers username in the url. Once a teacher finds a co-worker's username he has direct access to his data. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

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• Strange activity stack behavior when using MapActivity

  - by AndroidDev

  I have the following activity structure in my application A simple "splash screen" activity is started when the application is fired up (let's call it "Splash"). This activity starts the main activity when the user presses a button (I will call it "Main"). Main can in turn start two activities from the menu. The first activity presents a simple form (let's call this one "Form"), the second is a MapActivity that presents a map (it is called "Map"). Main, Form, and Map are declared exactly the same in the manifest: <activity android:name="fully qualified activity class" android:screenOrientation="landscape" android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation" > <intent-filter> <action android:name="android.intent.action.DEFAULT" /> <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" /> </intent-filter> </activity> When Main is active and I start Form and press "back", Main comes up again. Pressing "back" again brings up "Splash". Nothing strange here. Now comes the strange part: when I am in Main, start Map, and press "back", Main comes up as expected. But pressing "back" again just restarts Main. A second press on "back" is needed to bring me back to Splash! So it seems that starting the Map activity somehow results in Main ending up on the activity stack twice while starting the Form activity does not! Both Form and Map are started like this: startActivity(new Intent(this, MyActivity.class)); I don not catch the back key in any activity. Any clues on what is going on or how to debug this?

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• Beginner python - stuck in a loop

  - by Jeremy

  I have two begininer programs, both using the 'while' function, one works correctly, and the other gets me stuck in a loop. The first program is this; num=54 bob = True print('The guess a number Game!') while bob == True: guess = int(input('What is your guess? ')) if guess==num: print('wow! You\'re awesome!') print('but don\'t worry, you still suck') bob = False elif guess>num: print('try a lower number') else: print('close, but too low') print('game over')`` and it gives the predictable output of; The guess a number Game! What is your guess? 12 close, but too low What is your guess? 56 try a lower number What is your guess? 54 wow! You're awesome! but don't worry, you still suck game over However, I also have this program, which doesn't work; #define vars a = int(input('Please insert a number: ')) b = int(input('Please insert a second number: ')) #try a function def func_tim(a,b): bob = True while bob == True: if a == b: print('nice and equal') bob = False elif b > a: print('b is picking on a!') else: print('a is picking on b!') #call a function func_tim(a,b) Which outputs; Please insert a number: 12 Please insert a second number: 14 b is picking on a! b is picking on a! b is picking on a! ...(repeat in a loop).... Can someone please let me know why these programs are different? Thank you!

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• Web Automation Tool

  - by Aaron

  I've realized I need a full-fledged browser automation tool for testing user interactions with our JavaScript widget library. I was using qunit, starting with unit testing and then I unwisely started incorporating more and more functional tests. That was a bad idea: trying to simulate a lot of user actions with JavaScript. The timing issues have gotten out of control and have made the suite too brittle. Now I spend more time fixing the tests, then I do developing. Is it possible to find a browser automation tool that works in: Windows XP: IE6,7,8, FF3 OSX: Safari, FF3 ? I've looked into SeleniumIDE and RC, but there seems to be some IE8 problems. I've also seen some things about Google's WebDriver, which confusingly seems to work with Selenium. Our organziation has licenses for IBM's Rational Functional Tester, but I don' think that will work on the MAC. The idea is to try to run tests on all the browsers our organization supports. Doable? Are my requirements unrealistic? Any recommendations as far as software to try? Thanks!

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• Iterating through String word at a time in Python

  - by AlgoMan

  I have a string buffer of a huge text file. I have to search a given words/phrases in the string buffer. Whats the efficient way to do it ? I tried using re module matches. But As i have a huge text corpus that i have to search through. This is taking large amount of time. Given a Dictionary of words and Phrases. I iterate through the each file, read that into string , search all the words and phrases in the dictionary and increment the count in the dictionary if the keys are found. One small optimization that we thought was to sort the dictionary of phrases/words with the max number of words to lowest. And then compare each word start position from the string buffer and compare the list of words. If one phrase is found, we don search for the other phrases (as it matched the longest phrase ,which is what we want) Can some one suggest how to go about word by word in the string buffer. (Iterate string buffer word by word) ? Also, Is there any other optimization that can be done on this ?

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• A UnicodeDecodeError that occurs with json in python on Windows, but not Mac.

  - by ventolin

  On windows, I have the following problem: >>> string = "Don´t Forget To Breathe" >>> import json,os,codecs >>> f = codecs.open("C:\\temp.txt","w","UTF-8") >>> json.dump(string,f) Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> File "C:\Python26\lib\json\__init__.py", line 180, in dump for chunk in iterable: File "C:\Python26\lib\json\encoder.py", line 294, in _iterencode yield encoder(o) UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode bytes in position 3-5: invalid data (Notice the non-ascii apostrophe in the string.) However, my friend, on his mac (also using python2.6), can run through this like a breeze: > string = "Don´t Forget To Breathe" > import json,os,codecs > f = codecs.open("/tmp/temp.txt","w","UTF-8") > json.dump(string,f) > f.close(); open('/tmp/temp.txt').read() '"Don\\u00b4t Forget To Breathe"' Why is this? I've also tried using UTF-16 and UTF-32 with json and codecs, but to no avail.

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• Problem with saveToFile

  - by zp26

  Hi, I have a problem with a NSData writeToFile. I have implemented the code below but i have an anomaly. When i run my program on the simulator, the new file is created and the informations are stored; when i build the app in my device , the file isn't created. The debug don't give me any error but don/t save anything. Can you help me? Thanks so much and sorry for my english. -(void)saveXML:(NSString*)name:(float)x:(float)y:(float)z{ NSMutableData *data = [NSMutableData data]; NSKeyedArchiver *archiver = [[NSKeyedArchiver alloc] initForWritingWithMutableData:data]; [archiver setOutputFormat:NSPropertyListXMLFormat_v1_0]; [archiver encodeFloat:x forKey:@"x"]; [archiver encodeFloat:y forKey:@"y"]; [archiver encodeFloat:z forKey:@"z"]; [archiver encodeObject:name forKey:@"name"]; [archiver finishEncoding]; BOOL result = [data writeToFile:@"XML Position" atomically:YES]; if(result) [self updateTextView:@"success"]; [archiver release]; }

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