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• Best way to store a large amount of game objects and update the ones onscreen

  - by user3002473

  Good afternoon guys! I'm a young beginner game developer working on my first large scale game project and I've run into a situation where I'm not quite sure what the best solution may be (if there is a lone solution). The question may be vague (if anyone can think of a better title after having read the question, please edit it) or broad but I'm not quite sure what to do and I thought it would help just to discuss the problem with people more educated in the field. Before we get started, here are some of the questions I've looked at for help in the past: Best way to keep track of game objects Elegant way to simulate large amounts of entities within a game world What is the most efficient container to store dynamic game objects in? I've also read articles about different data structures commonly used in games to store game objects such as this one about slot maps, but none of them are really what I'm looking for. Also, if it helps at all I'm using Python 3 to design the game. It has to be Python 3, if I could I would use C++ or Unityscript or something else, but I'm restricted to having to use Python 3. My game will be a form of side scroller shooter game. In said game the player will traverse large rooms with large amounts of enemies and other game objects to update (think some of the larger areas in Cave Story or Iji). The player obviously can't see the entire room all at once, so there is a viewport that follows the player around and renders only a selection of the room and the game objects that it contains. This is not a foreign concept. The part that's getting me confused has to do with how certain game objects are updated. Some of them are to be updated constantly, regardless of whether or not they can be seen. Other objects however are only to be updated when they are onscreen (for example, an enemy would only be updated to react to the player when it is onscreen or when it is in a certain range of the screen). Another problem is that game objects have to be easily referable by other game objects; something that happens in the player's update() method may affect another object in the world. Collision detection in games is always a serious problem. I need a way of containing the game objects such that it minimizes the number of cases when testing for collisions against one another. The final problem is that of creating and destroying game objects. I think this problem is pretty self explanatory. To store the game objects then I've considered a number of different methods. The original method I had was to simply store all the objects in a hash table by an id. This method was simple, and decently fast as it allows all the objects to be looked up in O(1) complexity, and also allows them to be deleted fairly easily. Hash collisions would not be a major problem; I wasn't originally planning on using computer generated ids to store the game objects I was going to rely on them all using ids given to them by the game designer (such names would be strings like 'Player' or 'EnemyWeapon4'), and even if I did use computer generated ids, if I used a decent hashing algorithm then the chances of collisions would be around 1 in 4 billion. The problem with using a hash table however is that it is inefficient in checking to see what objects are in range of the viewport. Considering the fact that certain game objects move (as well as the viewport itself), the only solution I could think of in order to only update objects that are in the viewport would be to iterate through every object in the hash table and check if it is in the viewport or not, updating only the ones that are in the valid area. This would be incredibly slow in scenarios where the amount of game objects exceeds 500, or even 200. The second solution was to store everything in a 2-d list. The world is partitioned up into cells (a tilemap essentially), where each cell or tile is the same size and is square. Each cell would contain a list of the game objects that are currently occupying it (each game object would be inserted into a cell depending on the center of the object's collision mask). A 2-d list would allow me to take the top-left and bottom-right corners of the viewport and easily grab a rectangular area of the grid containing only the cells containing entities that are in valid range to be updated. This method also solves the problem of collision detection; when I take an entity I can find the cell that it is currently in, then check only against entities in it's cell and the 8 cells around it. One problem with this system however is that it prohibits easy lookup of game objects. One solution I had would be to simultaneously keep a hash table that would contain all the positions of the objects in the 2-d list indexed by the id of said object. The major problem with a 2-d list is that it would need to be rebuilt every single game frame (along with the hash table of object positions), which may be a serious detriment to game speed. Both systems have ups and downs and seem to solve some of each other's problems, however using them both together doesn't seem like the best solution either. If anyone has any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, comments, opinions or solutions on new data structures or better implementations of the existing data structures I have in mind, please post, any and all criticism and help is welcome. Thanks in advance! EDIT: Please don't close the question because it has a bad title, I'm just bad with names!

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• Why do I get unknown printer error 0xFA on my EPSON Workforce WF-3540 under Ubuntu 12.10?

  - by potofcoffee

  I recently bought an EPSON Workforce WF-3540, which I'm using under Ubuntu 12.10 with the official driver provided by EPSON. I am often printing batches of about a hundred pages, duplex. When I'm doing this, after about 20 pages, I regularly get an error message on the printer screen, telling me the printer encountered unknown error 0xFA, forcing me to turn the printer off and back on. I talked to EPSON about the problem, but they claim they're not supporting Linux and tell me to ask the Linux community about the problem (and possibly another driver?). So this is what I'm doing here... any ideas? Unfortunately, the documentation does not contain any information pertaining to error code 0xFA and the support hotline wasn't able to give me further information, either. BTW, the problem hasn't happened, so far, when I'm printing smaller batches or not using duplex. Whenever the problem happens, there's a page in the printer that's already been printed on one side, so I'm suspecting the problem's connected with the duplexer.

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• Choppy/unresponsive keyboard and mouse pointer until suspend

  - by Stefan Thyberg

  I had a problem where my mouse and keyboard would be choppy, the mouse pointer would work at 1-2 fps and the keyboard would keep missing letters as I was typing them. Since they were both USB I suspected there was a problem there immediately. Whenever I got this problem I would suspend the computer and start it again and the problem would be gone. The problem started appearing when I plugged the mouse and keyboard directly into the computer rather than the USB hub in the screen. I'm using a Logitech UltraX Flat and a Razer Lachesis, but I'm not sure if that matters.

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• Choppy/unresponsive keyboard and mouse pointer until suspend

  - by Stefan Thyberg

  I had a problem where my mouse and keyboard would be choppy. The mouse pointer would work at "1-2 fps" and the keyboard would keep missing letters as i was typing them. Since both are USB-Devices, i suspected a problem there immediately, so whenever i got this problem, i would suspend the computer and start it again, for the problem to be gone. The problem started appearing when I plugged the mouse and keyboard directly into the computer rather than the USB-Hub in the screen. I'm using a Logitech UltraX Flat and a Razer Lachesis, on a Dell Latitude E6510.

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• What Counts for A DBA - Logic

  - by drsql

  "There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who will always wonder why there are only two items in my list and those who will figured it out the first time they saw this very old joke."  Those readers who will give up immediately and get frustrated with me for not explaining it to them are not likely going to be great technical professionals of any sort, much less a programmer or administrator who will be constantly dealing with the common failures that make up a DBA's day.  Many of these people will stare at this like a dog staring at a traffic signal and still have no more idea of how to decipher the riddle. Without explanation they will give up, call the joke "stupid" and, feeling quite superior, walk away indignantly to their job likely flipping patties of meat-by-product. As a data professional or any programmer who has strayed  to this very data-oriented blog, you would, if you are worth your weight in air, either have recognized immediately what was going on, or felt a bit ignorant.  Your friends are chuckling over the joke, but why is it funny? Unfortunately you left your smartphone at home on the dresser because you were up late last night programming and were running late to work (again), so you will either have to fake a laugh or figure it out.  Digging through the joke, you figure out that the word "two" is the most important part, since initially the joke mentioned 10. Hmm, why did they spell out two, but not ten? Maybe 10 could be interpreted a different way?  As a DBA, this sort of logic comes into play every day, and sometimes it doesn't involve nerdy riddles or Star Wars folklore.  When you turn on your computer and get the dreaded blue screen of death, you don't immediately cry to the help desk and sit on your thumbs and whine about not being able to work. Do that and your co-workers will question your nerd-hood; I know I certainly would. You figure out the problem, and when you have it narrowed down, you call the help desk and tell them what the problem is, usually having to explain that yes, you did in fact try to reboot before calling.  Of course, sometimes humility does come in to play when you reach the end of your abilities, but the ‘end of abilities’ is not something any of us recognize readily. It is handy to have the ability to use logic to solve uncommon problems: It becomes especially useful when you are trying to solve a data-related problem such as a query performance issue, and the way that you approach things will tell your coworkers a great deal about your abilities.  The novice is likely to immediately take the approach of  trying to add more indexes or blaming the hardware. As you become more and more experienced, it becomes increasingly obvious that performance issues are a very complex topic. A query may be slow for a myriad of reasons, from concurrency issues, a poor query plan because of a parameter value (like parameter sniffing,) poor coding standards, or just because it is a complex query that is going to be slow sometimes. Some queries that you will deal with may have twenty joins and hundreds of search criteria, and it can take a lot of thought to determine what is going on.  You can usually figure out the problem to almost any query by using basic knowledge of how joins and queries work, together with the help of such things as the query plan, profiler or monitoring tools.  It is not unlikely that it can take a full day’s work to understand some queries, breaking them down into smaller queries to find a very tiny problem. Not every time will you actually find the problem, and it is part of the process to occasionally admit that the problem is random, and everything works fine now.  Sometimes, it is necessary to realize that a problem is outside of your current knowledge, and admit temporary defeat: You can, at least, narrow down the source of the problem by looking logically at all of the possible solutions. By doing this, you can satisfy your curiosity and learn more about what the actual problem was. For example, in the joke, had you never been exposed to the concept of binary numbers, there is no way you could have known that binary - 10 = decimal - 2, but you could have logically come to the conclusion that 10 must not mean ten in the context of the joke, and at that point you are that much closer to getting the joke and at least won't feel so ignorant.

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• Are IE9 really good ?

  - by anirudha

  IE9 started a campaign for kill IE6 from the core because they know that IE6 is a big trouble or  problem for them for promote 9 version of IE. so they started a campaign for killing IE6. next time they kill IE 7 , 8,9 whenever they found this old version have a big problem for them to promote next version of IE.   Why they not make a update system who automatically update the browser and tell user to restart and update goes installed in the user system. well IE9 should learn from all other that they have very well design auto-update system who never give user in trouble that your browser goes old. Chrome and Firefox both update themselves and say user restart to enjoy another good version. in IE6 a big problem is that updates. no one sure that they installed new version of IE6 without any hassles and update goes install without any problem because they really know or care about “you need this to install this and this for this” so they thing “why I update IE whenever I am unsure that my browser goes update and I have no problem again” so they do nothing because their work done with no problem because common person used high profile application who work even in IE6. so they do nothing.    IE6 countdown website have designed a banner for warn or force user to upgrade to next version of IE. well there is no good reason for put the banner on website some of reason are:-   Windows 7 comes with pre-installed IE8 and Vista comes with upgrade version them IE6 so that is sure that you force a user who have Windows XP [luna] and if they want to upgrade IE then they can get IE8 not version 9 because IE9 is design for Windows 7 or Vista Service pack 2. so What is the use of update when user still have a outdate version too because IE8 is old version and not have any capability of HTML5 so forcing user by using the banner have no sense. I am not know why they all listed on website put the banner on their own website. it’s good that you offer user what they want instead of giving them a outdate version of IE again. My means to give a user list of browser they can try to enhance their browser experience instead of only IE.   IE9 build upon WPF and they spent more time on using WPF in IE instead of making user experience browser.  many thing is designed wrongly in IE first thing is tabs. the tabs in chrome are bigger and easily to move and same in Firefox even not have smooth tabbing. IE have same tabbing as chrome have but leak a point that it’s too small. if you really  want to move then sometime they create a problem that they going elsewhere from the current instance of IE.   Chrome have a big buttons, tabs and menu to enhance browser experience and Firefox have a good feature that you can make them bigger or small. you can put the icon for add-ons on the toolbar for easily use but IE have no relation with customization so we never can thinking about that.   When chrome provide lot’s of extensions and a  webstore for browser application and same feature in Firefox can be seen then there is no plugin in IE. really you can see their IE addons Website where no plugin listed for web development. even in the category or tag. as a response from many blog there is new for developer that new version of IE9 developer tool. well IE9 have three new tabs a blogger tell on their blog. when I trying them I found many thing but I still unable to edit the Css from the HTML tab and no plugin I found I can get to enhance IE9 web development. something more other provide never IE9 give me like personas , customization , browser extension or any other they used to tell a small thing customization  .   IE9 still have some problem with JavaScript that when I use Firefox and chrome and logout in both then my cookie is deleted but in IE it’s not done. it’s show me that IE9 still have different from other not for good thing even some bad thing too. When I trying to read a article that is written in Hindi using Unicode font I found that they show many thing misspelled. there is three Sha in Hindi but they all goes wrong in IE. the misprint thing is not that the writing  for the articles goes wrong. it’s problem or browser to rendering a font. the Firefox and chrome not give me this problem even opera render the font in italic style by decrease the font-size but all those work perfect.   in Pwn2Own the apple’s safari  and IE9 both are hacked. this is a awesome news for whose who thing that  open-source is lose in  Security and close-source is highly-secured software. well this is not a good parameter for talking about software. it’s should depend how much application tested and used. because more testing and more use of application make them better.   I  appreciate IE to making their new version 9 and good luck for them. there is a another matter that I personally found nothing on them.

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• How can I my video card work on Ubuntu 12.04?

  - by Cyriak Burton

  I've recently installed Ubuntu 12.04 on my desktop computer. In order to install Ubuntu, I had to unplug my video card because It was giving me problems, didn't allow me to install Ubuntu. So I unplug it, installed Ubuntu anyway, everything worked as charm, but now and I need to plug it again, but it doesn't work. Here some photos of the problem: Screenshot of the problem #1 Screenshot of the problem #2 Appear that screen and nothing else... I didn't install any driver (I'm kinda noob), in Windows 7 all worked fine, so the problem is with Ubuntu, compatibility problem I guess. Video Card: Zotac GeForce GT 240 O.S.: Ubuntu 12.04 (w/GNOME 3.2) Memory: 2 Gb HDD: 110 Gb Processor: Intel Pentium D 2.80 Ghz PLEASE HELP!!!

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• libstdc++-6.dll not found. [migrated]

  - by Molmasepic

  I have been working on a project(a game to be specific) and I feel that I should start over with different libraries. So when doing this I reinstalled Code::Blocks and setup my new libraries and includes. But as of now Im having a problem starting u[ my new project to test if all of the includes work. This problem is: libstdc++-6.dll was not found. At first i wondered if I could just find this file online, but its nowhere to be found(or at least the many places I have searched...) Soon after, I tried loading up my old project, and the same problem happened again(wierd... ._.) I was thinking its maybe my compiler, so I used my older compiler and it did the same thing! At this moment I held the problem off for tomorrow(which is today) So my question is: If anyone else had this problem, how would you solve it? Im using Code::Blocks with MinGW as the compiler on Windows Vista 32 bit.

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• Managed servers getting down regularly by Node Manager. WAD?

  - by csoto

  Recently I have been working on a service request where several instances were running, and several technologies were being used, including SOA, BAM, BPEL and others. At a first glance, this may seem to be a Node Manager problem. But on this situation, the problem was at JMS - Persistent Store level. Node Manager can automatically restart Managed Servers that have the "failed" health state, or have shut down unexpectedly due to a system crash or reboot. As a matter of fact, from the provided log files it was clear that the instance was becoming unhealthy because of a persist6ent Store problem. So finally, the problem here was not with Node Manager as it was working as designed, and the restart was being caused by the Persistent Store. After this Persistent Store problem was fixed, everuthing went fine. This particular issue that I worked was on an Exalogic machine, but note that this may happen on any hardware running Weblogic.

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• Plugged in, not charging Windows 7 solution

  I recently had the popular problem of Windows 7 battery manager malfunctioning and not charging my battery when plugged in.  The battery was fine, the power supply was fine, and the motherboard was fine (I have enough laptops with the same specs in the Headspring office, and I was able to swap out parts to isolate the problem). I also searched for this problem online, and many folks are having this problem with all makes of laptop computers.  I found the steps that solved my problem here...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.

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• Client Side Prediction

  - by user13842

  I have a question regarding Client Side prediction. Ive tried to search topics about my specific problem but couldn't find anything which really answered my problem. Most tutorials and explanations assume that the Client sends messages like "Move my player up by 1 Position", but what if i send messages like "Set my player's velocity to x"? Since it's hard to explain with text, i made a graphic explaining my problem. The main problem is, that the player sets his own velocity, due to Client Side Prediction, earlier than the Server. So if 2 different velocities overlap, the Server would get out of sync. How can i tackle that problem? Thanks a lot. Graphic: http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/6083/clientpred.png (Ignore the 5.5cm)

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• can't open youtube or vimeo

  - by wrt

  I can't open Youtube.com on computer with lubuntu and mint. I see that my flash works properly on other sites. Problem is in for example on youtube (yming.com loading without endless) and vimeo. I tried to use firefox and chromium. I thought that it would be problem with dns (I have dns from DHCP - opendns) so I changed to google dns but it didn't help to solve problem. When I use text browser - Links these site are opening well in text mode. I think that the problem is with flash or java. On other computer with windows connected to the same network these sites are being opened without problem. I am on the point that I don't know what to do next, because I tried to install and uninstall flash several times. I tried Flash-Aid as well.

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• What to Do When Windows Won’t Boot

  - by Chris Hoffman

  You turn on your computer one day and Windows refuses to boot — what do you do? “Windows won’t boot” is a common symptom with a variety of causes, so you’ll need to perform some troubleshooting. Modern versions of Windows are better at recovering from this sort of thing. Where Windows XP might have stopped in its tracks when faced with this problem, modern versions of Windows will try to automatically run Startup Repair. First Things First Be sure to think about changes you’ve made recently — did you recently install a new hardware driver, connect a new hardware component to your computer, or open your computer’s case and do something? It’s possible the hardware driver is buggy, the new hardware is incompatible, or that you accidentally unplugged something while working inside your computer. The Computer Won’t Power On At All If your computer won’t power on at all, ensure it’s plugged into a power outlet and that the power connector isn’t loose. If it’s a desktop PC, ensure the power switch on the back of its case — on the power supply — is set to the On position. If it still won’t power on at all, it’s possible you disconnected a power cable inside its case. If you haven’t been messing around inside the case, it’s possible the power supply is dead. In this case, you’ll have to get your computer’s hardware fixed or get a new computer. Be sure to check your computer monitor — if your computer seems to power on but your screen stays black, ensure your monitor is powered on and that the cable connecting it to your computer’s case is plugged in securely at both ends. The Computer Powers On And Says No Bootable Device If your computer is powering on but you get a black screen that says something like “no bootable device” or another sort of “disk error” message, your computer can’t seem to boot from the hard drive that Windows was installed on. Enter your computer’s BIOS or UEFI firmware setup screen and check its boot order setting, ensuring that it’s set to boot from its hard drive. If the hard drive doesn’t appear in the list at all, it’s possible your hard drive has failed and can no longer be booted from. In this case, you may want to insert Windows installation or recovery media and run the Startup Repair operation. This will attempt to make Windows bootable again. For example, if something overwrote your Windows drive’s boot sector, this will repair the boot sector. If the recovery environment won’t load or doesn’t see your hard drive, you likely have a hardware problem. Be sure to check your BIOS or UEFI’s boot order first if the recovery environment won’t load. You can also attempt to manually fix Windows boot loader problems using the fixmbr and fixboot commands. Modern versions of Windows should be able to fix this problem for you with the Startup Repair wizard, so you shouldn’t actually have to run these commands yourself. Windows Freezes or Crashes During Boot If Windows seems to start booting but fails partway through, you may be facing either a software or hardware problem. If it’s a software problem, you may be able to fix it by performing a Startup Repair operation. If you can’t do this from the boot menu, insert a Windows installation disc or recovery disk and use the startup repair tool from there. If this doesn’t help at all, you may want to reinstall Windows or perform a Refresh or Reset on Windows 8. If the computer encounters errors while attempting to perform startup repair or reinstall Windows, or the reinstall process works properly and you encounter the same errors afterwards, you likely have a hardware problem. Windows Starts and Blue Screens or Freezes If Windows crashes or blue-screens on you every time it boots, you may be facing a hardware or software problem. For example, malware or a buggy driver may be loading at boot and causing the crash, or your computer’s hardware may be malfunctioning. To test this, boot your Windows computer in safe mode. In safe mode, Windows won’t load typical hardware drivers or any software that starts automatically at startup. If the computer is stable in safe mode, try uninstalling any recently installed hardware drivers, performing a system restore, and scanning for malware. If you’re lucky, one of these steps may fix your software problem and allow you to boot Windows normally. If your problem isn’t fixed, try reinstalling Windows or performing a Refresh or Reset on Windows 8. This will reset your computer back to its clean, factory-default state. If you’re still experiencing crashes, your computer likely has a hardware problem. Recover Files When Windows Won’t Boot If you have important files that will be lost and want to back them up before reinstalling Windows, you can use a Windows installer disc or Linux live media to recover the files. These run entirely from a CD, DVD, or USB drive and allow you to copy your files to another external media, such as another USB stick or an external hard drive. If you’re incapable of booting a Windows installer disc or Linux live CD, you may need to go into your BIOS or UEFI and change the boot order setting. If even this doesn’t work — or if you can boot from the devices and your computer freezes or you can’t access your hard drive — you likely have a hardware problem. You can try pulling the computer’s hard drive, inserting it into another computer, and recovering your files that way. Following these steps should fix the vast majority of Windows boot issues — at least the ones that are actually fixable. The dark cloud that always hangs over such issues is the possibility that the hard drive or another component in the computer may be failing. Image Credit: Karl-Ludwig G. Poggemann on Flickr, Tzuhsun Hsu on Flickr     

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• Azure, don't give me multiple VMs, give me one elastic VM

  - by FransBouma

  Yesterday, Microsoft revealed new major features for Windows Azure (see ScottGu's post). It all looks shiny and great, but after reading most of the material describing the new features, I still find the overall idea behind all of it flawed: why should I care on how much VMs my web app runs? Isn't that a problem to solve for the Windows Azure engineers / software? And what if I need the file system, why can't I simply get a virtual filesystem ? To illustrate my point, let's use a real example: a product website with a customer system/database and next to it a support site with accompanying database. Both are written in .NET, using ASP.NET and use a SQL Server database each. The product website offers files to download by customers, very simple. You have a couple of options to host these websites: Buy a server, place it in a rack at an ISP and run the sites on that server Use 'shared hosting' with an ISP, which means your sites' appdomains are running on the same machine, as well as the files stored, and the databases are hosted in the same server as the other shared databases. Hire a VM, install your OS of choice at an ISP, and host the sites on that VM, basically the same as the first option, except you don't have a physical server At some cloud-vendor, either host the sites 'shared' or in a VM. See above. With all of those options, scalability is a problem, even the cloud-based ones, though not due to the same reasons: The physical server solution has the obvious problem that if you need more power, you need to buy a bigger server or more servers which requires you to add replication and other overhead Shared hosting solutions are almost always capped on memory usage / traffic and database size: if your sites get too big, you have to move out of the shared hosting environment and start over with one of the other solutions The VM solution, be it a VM at an ISP or 'in the cloud' at e.g. Windows Azure or Amazon, in theory allows scaling out by simply instantiating more VMs, however that too introduces the same overhead problems as with the physical servers: suddenly more than 1 instance runs your sites. If a cloud vendor offers its services in the form of VMs, you won't gain much over having a VM at some ISP: the main problems you have to work around are still there: when you spin up more than one VM, your application must be completely stateless at any moment, including the DB sub system, because what's in memory in instance 1 might not be in memory in instance 2. This might sounds trivial but it's not. A lot of the websites out there started rather small: they were perfectly runnable on a single machine with normal memory and CPU power. After all, you don't need a big machine to run a website with even thousands of users a day. Moving these sites to a multi-VM environment will cause a problem: all the in-memory state they use, all the multi-page transitions they use while keeping state across the transition, they can't do that anymore like they did that on a single machine: state is something of the past, you have to store every byte of state in either a DB or in a viewstate or in a cookie somewhere so with the next request, all state information is available through the request, as nothing is kept in-memory. Our example uses a bunch of files in a file system. Using multiple VMs will require that these files move to a cloud storage system which is mounted in each VM so we don't have to store the files on each VM. This might require different file paths, but this change should be minor. What's perhaps less minor is the maintenance procedure in place on the new type of cloud storage used: instead of ftp-ing into a VM, you might have to update the files using different ways / tools. All in all this makes moving an existing website which was written for an environment that's based around a VM (namely .NET with its CLR) overly cumbersome and problematic: it forces you to refactor your website system to be able to be used 'in the cloud', which is caused by the limited way how e.g. Windows Azure offers its cloud services: in blocks of VMs. Offer a scalable, flexible VM which extends with my needs Instead, cloud vendors should offer simply one VM to me. On that VM I run the websites, store my DB and my files. As it's a virtual machine, how this machine is actually ran on physical hardware (e.g. partitioned), I don't care, as that's the problem for the cloud vendor to solve. If I need more resources, e.g. I have more traffic to my server, way more visitors per day, the VM stretches, like I bought a bigger box. This frees me from the problem which comes with multiple VMs: I don't have any refactoring to do at all: I can simply build my website as if it runs on my local hardware server, upload it to the VM offered by the cloud vendor, install it on the VM and I'm done. "But that might require changes to windows!" Yes, but Microsoft is Windows. Windows Azure is their service, they can make whatever change to what they offer to make it look like it's windows. Yet, they're stuck, like Amazon, in thinking in VMs, which forces developers to 'think ahead' and gamble whether they would need to migrate to a cloud with multiple VMs in the future or not. Which comes down to: gamble whether they should invest time in code / architecture which they might never need. (YAGNI anyone?) So the VM we're talking about, is that a low-level VM which runs a guest OS, or is that VM a different kind of VM? The flexible VM: .NET's CLR ? My example websites are ASP.NET based, which means they run inside a .NET appdomain, on the .NET CLR, which is a VM. The only physical OS resource the sites need is the file system, however this too is accessed through .NET. In short: all the websites see is what .NET allows the websites to see, the world as the websites know it is what .NET shows them and lets them access. How the .NET appdomain is run physically, that's the concern of .NET, not mine. This begs the question why Windows Azure doesn't offer virtual appdomains? Or better: .NET environments which look like one machine but could be physically multiple machines. In such an environment, no change has to be made to the websites to migrate them from a local machine or own server to the cloud to get proper scaling: the .NET VM will simply scale with the need: more memory needed, more CPU power needed, it stretches. What it offers to the application running inside the appdomain is simply increasing, but not fragmented: all resources are available to the application: this means that the problem of how to scale is back to where it should be: with the cloud vendor. "Yeah, great, but what about the databases?" The .NET application communicates with the database server through a .NET ADO.NET provider. Where the database is located is not a problem of the appdomain: the ADO.NET provider has to solve that. I.o.w.: we can host the databases in an environment which offers itself as a single resource and is accessible through one connection string without replication overhead on the outside, and use that environment inside the .NET VM as if it was a single DB. But what about memory replication and other problems? This environment isn't simple, at least not for the cloud vendor. But it is simple for the customer who wants to run his sites in that cloud: no work needed. No refactoring needed of existing code. Upload it, run it. Perhaps I'm dreaming and what I described above isn't possible. Yet, I think if cloud vendors don't move into that direction, what they're offering isn't interesting: it doesn't solve a problem at all, it simply offers a way to instantiate more VMs with the guest OS of choice at the cost of me needing to refactor my website code so it can run in the straight jacket form factor dictated by the cloud vendor. Let's not kid ourselves here: most of us developers will never build a website which needs a truck load of VMs to run it: almost all websites created by developers can run on just a few VMs at most. Yet, the most expensive change is right at the start: moving from one to two VMs. As soon as you have refactored your website code to run across multiple VMs, adding another one is just as easy as clicking a mouse button. But that first step, that's the problem here and as it's right there at the beginning of scaling the website, it's particularly strange that cloud vendors refuse to solve that problem and leave it to the developers to solve that. Which makes migrating 'to the cloud' particularly expensive.

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• Sound card / microphone impedance mismatch

  - by axk

  First of all I'm not completely sure this is impedance mismatch, but from what I found on the Internet I believe it is. It seems to be a common problem. The question is not as much about solving the problem as about why it is happening (if I'm right about the cause of the problem, of course). I had this quiet microphone problem with several built in cards and microphones and now with a Creative Audigy SE. There's a microphone boost option which introduces a lot of noise with volume increase, but even this doesn't seem to give loud enough sound in some cases. The mic on my current headphones is very quiet with Audigy SE without the boost but is very loud and low noise with an external Sound Blaster Connect. So the question is have I just been unlucky with my sound cards and microphones or is it a common problem? And if it is a common problem why is it so difficult for the vendors to standardize on the sound card / microphone impedance? Edit: the OS is Windows (XP/7), but I don't believe it is OS-specific.

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• USB ports causing Wireless and Mobile Phone tethering drop out

  - by chrolli

  I have a problem with my USB ports and I can't seem to pinpoint the problem. I'm hoping that I can get some idea as to how to troubleshoot my problem. Problem description: I recently bought a USB Wireless Adapter in order to connect my Desktop PC to the WLAN. The dongle keeps dropping off connection regularly on average once a minute. And the connection is slow. What I've tried: I installed a network scanner to determine signal strength. The PC/adapter combo is getting about 70% signal strength. I have a laptop that has an internal Wireless adapter. I moved the laptop near the location of the PC. The signal strength was above 90%. I installed the USB adapter on the laptop. I placed the laptop near the location of the PC. The signal strength was above 80%. And there is no drop out issue. I've isolated the problem to be on the PC. I used internet tethering on my mobile phone in order to test the USB ports. I get the same problem, themobile phone keeps dropping in and out. I plugged the adapter and phone on all USB ports, and it is still dropping out on all ports. I've isolated the problem to be the Motherboard, USB hub. I updated the BIOS, and USB driver. Still dropping out. I noticed that when I used the mobile phone tethering method, the phone (iphone 5) is guarenteed to drop out and does not appear to charge if I jiggle the the 8-pin connector on the base of the phone. If I push the pin tightly on the phone, the phone starts charging, as soon as I let go, it stops and drops out from the PC. This is strange because this doesn't happen when it is plugged to the powerboard. Which means that the 8 pin connector is fine. I'm not sure what the problem is. I assume that it is to do with the USB ports not supplying enough power which in turn causes the devices to intermittently drop out. The reason I say this is because the USB cable works fine when plugged into a powerboard with enough power supplied to the phone. Only when it is plugged into the USB port on the PC, does it drop out. My motherboard is Asus P8z68-v le. My Wireless adapter is the D-link DWA131. I can't seem to find any settings in the BIOS to increase the south bridge voltage so as to supply more power to the USB ports. Although this problem only occurs when I'm trying to hook up to a device supplying internet connection. My USB HDD, Flash drives, and Mouse and Key are working fine! Any suggestions please?

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• Mac OSX: new folder doesn't appear in Finder

  - by rxt

  Many times I have the following problem. I create a new folder, but it doesn't appear in the Finder. Right now I have this problem with a folder created in Eclipse. After a while it appears, but I cannot tell when. I can see the folder in the terminal. A similar problem happens when I rename a folder or file. Then I have to move out of the parent folder, open another folder, go back, and most of the time it's there. I'm using 10.8 Mountain Lion now, but this is not a problem of this release. I have this problem for several years now. Maybe I'm the only one with this problem? Is there a way to get this working normally?

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• Client can't reach my production webserver. It's their ISP's fault, but now what?

  - by MikeN

  I have a customer in Michigan who can't access my production SaaS webserver that is hosted on Slicehost. All other companies across the US/Canada/Europe have no problem reaching the site. This problem is occuring intermittantly, and Slicehost customer service says it's a problem with the client's ISP. I got the IP address of my client, and ping'ing that IP address from my PROD server fails, but ping'ing the IP address from my dev box or our seperate blog server (also hosted on slicehost) works. How do I debug a problem like this? I asked the client to reach out to their local ISP and ask about this problem. A traceroute shows that the packets are getting stopped on a Comcast Michigan node which is the client's ISP. Is there anything I can do additionally to fix this problem for my client?

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• New folder doesn't appear in Finder

  - by rxt

  Many times I have the following problem. I create a new folder, but it doesn't appear in the Finder. Right now I have this problem with a folder created in Eclipse. After a while it appears, but I cannot tell when. I can see the folder in the terminal. A similar problem happens when I rename a folder or file. Then I have to move out of the parent folder, open another folder, go back, and most of the time it's there. (Finally the new folder appeared after creating another folder in the finder itself.) I'm using 10.8 Mountain Lion now, but this is not a problem of this release. I have this problem for several years now. Maybe I'm the only one with this problem? Is there a way to get this working normally?

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• Nginx Tornado Combination Causing 502 Bad Gateway Errors

  - by PlaidFan

  We are facing a problem with inconsistent 502 errors and tracking down the reasons has been a very frustrating exercise. We can reproduce the problem by sending several simultaneous requests quickly. The problem is that several is only in the range of 10 to 20 within a 5 seconds (not a typo). So clearly this type of load should be handled easily. We really like the Nginx + Tornado approach but are considering going to a more traditional (e.g. threading) approach because this problem has been very difficult to solve. I was wondering if you a) know how to fix this issue and b) how we can tracked down the culprit(s). The log files simply identify there being a connection refused. We have the same problem as this post: How do I debug a HTTP 502 error? But there is no answer provided on how to solve the problem so I'm hoping you can help because this may be a common issue with this type of setup. Thanks in advance, Paul

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• IE9 Error: There was a pr?blem sending the command to the program

  - by HK1

  I'm working on a new/fresh Windows 7 32bit machine that now has IE9 installed. The user is using the Dell Stardock application as his primary "desktop" (all his links there). When we place an internet link there and click on it we get the following error message: There was a problem sending the command to the program. To me this indicates that IE9 is having trouble going to the website we want to go to, which should get passed as a parameter to the browser when it opens. I don't think this is a StarDock/ObjectDock problem because we also have some other problems with internet links. For example, we cannot move an internet link from the Desktop to the Quick Launch on the task bar. When we do try, it forces us to put the link with the IE icon as part of the IE menu instead of allowing us to have a shortcut there as it's own entry. I should mention however, that links on the desktop and in the taskbar do work as we expect them too (without showing the above error message). It appears that this problem started after installing Windows Updates. Since we installed a whole bunch of updates at once I have no idea which one caused the problem. I did have Google Chrome installed but I uninstalled it since the user wants to use IE. The problem started before I uninstalled Chrome. I also reset the browser settings on IE9. It didn't help. Next I uninstalled IE9 which took me back to IE8. This actually did resolve the problem but the problem came back as soon as I installed IE9 again. We have Verizon Internet Security installed. It's actually a McAfee product rebranded to look like Verizon. I'm not real crazy over this software but the customer has a subscription so we're not planning to change it. I have no reason to believe that this is causing the problem and yet I know that security software is often to blame for strange issues. I've looked at the registry settings for the following keys and everything appears to be ok for every single one of them: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.htm HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.html HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\command HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\ddeexec\Application HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\https\shell\open\command HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\https\shell\open\ddeexec\Application HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\open\command HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Microsoft.Website\Shell\Open\Command Edit1: I've found two potential solutions but I won't be able to try them until tomorrow. One is to disable the "Windows Font Cache" service. Another is to clear IE cache and browsing history. I won't be able to try out either solution until tomorrow since this is a remote client's machine. I see there are lots of other suggestions online but if you take the time to read them through you'll see that the other suggestions didn't fix the problem.

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• Oracle WebCenter Partner Program

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  In competitive marketplaces, your company needs to quickly respond to changes and new trends, in order to open opportunities and build long-term growth. Oracle has a variety of next-generation services, solutions and resources that will leverage the differentiators in your offerings. Name your partnering needs: Oracle has the answer. This week we’d like to focus on Partners and the value your organization can gain from working with the Oracle PartnerNetwork. The Oracle PartnerNetwork will empower your company with exceptional resources to distinguish your offerings from the competition, seize opportunities, and increase your sales. We’re happy to welcome Christine Kungl, and Brian Buzzell, from Oracle’s World Wide Alliances & Channels (WWA&C) WebCenter Partner Enablement team, as today’s guests on the Oracle WebCenter blog. Q: What is the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN)?A: Christine: Oracle’s PartnerNetwork (OPN) is a collaborative partnership which allows registered companies specific added value resources to help differentiate themselves from their competition. Through OPN programs it provides companies the ability to seize and target opportunities, educate and train their teams, and leverage unparalleled opportunity given Oracle’s large market footprint. OPN’s multi-level programs are targeted at different levels allowing companies to grow and evolve with Oracle based on their business needs.  As part of their OPN memberships partners are encouraged to become OPN Specialized allowing those partners additional differentiation in Oracle’s Partner Network Community.  Q: What is an OPN Specialization and what resources are available for Specialized Partners?A: Brian: Oracle wanted a better way for our partners to differentiate their special skills and expertise, as well a more effective way to communicate that difference to customers.  Oracle’s expanding product portfolio demanded that we be able to identify partners with significant product knowledge—those who had made an investment in Oracle and a continuing commitment to deliver Oracle solutions. And with more than 30,000 Oracle partners around the world, Oracle needed a way for our customers to choose the right partner for their business. So how did Oracle meet this need? With the new partner program:  Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized. In this new program, Oracle partners are: Specialized :  Differentiating themselves from the competition with expertise that set them apart Recognized:  Being acknowledged for investing in becoming Oracle experts in specialized areas. Preferred :  Connecting with potential customers who are seeking  value-added solutions for their business OPN Specialized provides all partners with educational opportunities, training, and tools specially designed to build competency and grow business.  Partners can serve their customers better through key resources:OPN Specialized Knowledge Zones – Located on the updated and enhanced OPN portal— provide a single point of entry for all education and training information for Oracle partners. Enablement 2.0 Resources —Enablement 2.0 helps Oracle partners build their competencies and skills through a variety of educational opportunities and expanded training choices. These resources include: Enablement 2.0 “Boot camps” provide three-tiered learning levels that help jump-start partner training The role-based training covers Oracle’s application and technology products and offers a combination of classroom lectures, hands-on lab exercises, and case studies. Enablement 2.0 Interactive guided learning paths (GLPs) with recommendations on how to achieve specialization Upgraded partner solution kits Enhanced, specialized business centers available 24/7 around the globe on the OPN portal OPN Competency Center—Tracking ProgressThe OPN Competency Center keeps track as a partner applies for and achieves specialization in selected areas. You start with an assessment that compares your organization’s current skills and experience with the requirements for specialization in the area you have chosen. The OPN Competency Center then provides a roadmap that itemizes the skills and the knowledge you need to earn specialized status. In summary, OPN Specialization not only includes key training resources but a way to track and show progression for your partner organization. Q: What is are the OPN Membership Levels and what are the benefits?A:  Christine: The base OPN membership levels are: Remarketer: At the Remarketer level, retailers can choose to resell select Oracle products with the backing of authorized, regionally located, value-added distributors (VADs). The Remarketer level has no fees and no partner agreement with Oracle, but does offer online training and sales tools through the OPN portal.Program Details: RemarketerSilver Level: The Silver level is for Oracle partners who are focused on reselling and developing business with products ordered through the Oracle 1-Click Ordering Program. The Silver level provides a cost-effective, yet scalable way for partners to start an OPN Specialized membership and offers a substantial set of benefits that lets partners increase their competitive positioning. Program Details: SilverGold Level: Gold-level partners have the ability to specialize, helping them grow their business and create differentiation in the marketplace. Oracle partners at the Gold level can develop, sell, or implement the full stack of Oracle solutions and can apply to resell Oracle Applications.Program Details: GoldPlatinum Level: The Platinum level is for Oracle partners who want the highest level of benefits and are committed to reaching a minimum of five specializations. Platinum partners are recognized for their expertise in a broad range of products and technology, and receive dedicated support from Oracle.Program Details: PlatinumIn addition we recently introduced a new level:Diamond Level: This level is the most prestigious level of OPN Specialized. It allows companies to differentiate further because of their focused depth and breadth of their expertise. Program Details: DiamondSo as you can see there are various levels cost effective ways that Partners can get assistance, differentiation through OPN membership. Q: What role does the Oracle's World Wide Alliances & Channels (WWA&C), Partner Enablement teams and the WebCenter Community play?  A: Brian: Oracle’s WWA&C teams are responsible for manage relationships, educating their teams, creating go-to-market solutions and fostering communities for Oracle partners worldwide.  The WebCenter Partner Enablement Middleware Team is tasked to create, manage and distribute Specialization resources for the WebCenter Partner community. Q: What WebCenter Specializations are currently available?A: Christine:  As of now here are the following WebCenter Specializations and their availability: Oracle WebCenter Portal Specialization (Oracle WebCenter Portal): Available NowThe Oracle WebCenter Specialization provides insight into the following products: WebCenter Services, WebCenter Spaces, and WebLogic Portal.Oracle WebCenter Specialized Partners can efficiently use Oracle WebCenter products to create social applications, enterprise portals, communities, composite applications, and Internet or intranet Web sites on a standards-based, service-oriented architecture (SOA). The suite combines the development of rich internet applications; a multi-channel portal framework; and a suite of horizontal WebCenter applications, which provide content, presence, and social networking capabilities to create a highly interactive user experience. Oracle WebCenter Content Specialization: Available NowThe Oracle WebCenter Content Specialization provides insight into the following products; Universal Content Management, WebCenter Records Management, WebCenter Imaging, WebCenter Distributed Capture, and WebCenter Capture.Oracle WebCenter Content Specialized Partners can efficiently build content-rich business applications, reuse content, and integrate hundreds of content services with other business applications. This allows our customers to decrease costs, automate processes, reduce resource bottlenecks, share content effectively, minimize the number of lost documents, and better manage risk. Oracle WebCenter Sites Specialization: Available Q1 2012Oracle WebCenter Sites is part of the broader Oracle WebCenter platform that provides organizations with a complete customer experience management solution.  Partners that align with the new Oracle WebCenter Sites platform allow their customers organizations to: Leverage customer information from all channels and systems Manage interactions across all channels Unify commerce, merchandising, marketing, and service across all channels Provide personalized, choreographed consumer journeys across all channels Integrate order orchestration, supply chain management and order fulfillment Q: What criteria does the Partner organization need to achieve Specialization? What about individual Sales, PreSales & Implementation Specialist/Technical consultants?A: Brian: Each Oracle WebCenter Specialization has unique Business Criteria that must be met in order to achieve that Specialization.  This includes a unique number of transactions (co-sell, re-sell, and referral), customer references and then unique number of specialists as part of a partner team (Sales, Pre-Sales, Implementation, and Support).   Each WebCenter Specialization provides training resources (GLPs, BootCamps, Assessments and Exams for individuals on a partner’s staff to fulfill those requirements.  That criterion can be found for each Specialization on the Specialize tab for each WebCenter Knowledge Zone.  Here are the sample criteria, recommended courses, exams for the WebCenter Portal Specialization: WebCenter Portal Specialization Criteria Q: Do you have any suggestions on the best way for partners to get started if they would like to know more?A: Christine:   The best way to start is for partners is look at their business and core Oracle team focus and then look to become specialized in one or more areas.  Once you have selected the Specializations that are right for your business, you need to follow the first 3 key steps described below. The fourth step outlines the additional process to follow if you meet the criteria to be Advanced Specialized. Note that Step 4 may not be done without first following Steps 1-3.1. Join the Knowledge Zone(s) where you want to achieve Specialized status Go to the Knowledge Zone lick on the "Why Partner" tab Click on the "Join Knowledge Zone" link 2. Meet the Specialization criteria - Define and implement plans in your organization to achieve the competency and business criteria targets of the Specialization. (Note: Worldwide OPN members at the Gold, Platinum, or Diamond level and their Associates at the Gold, Platinum, or Diamond level may count their collective resources to meet the business and competency criteria required for specialization in this area.) 3. Apply for Specialization – when you have met the business and competency criteria required, inform Oracle by completing the following steps: Click on the "Specialize" tab in the Knowledge Zone Click on the "Apply Now" button Complete the online application form Oracle will validate the information provided, and once approved, you will receive notification from Oracle of your awarded Specialized status. Need more information? Access our Step by Step Guide (PDF) 4. Apply for Advanced Specialization (Optional) – If your company has on staff 50 unique Certified Implementation Specialists in your company's approved Specialization's product set, let Oracle know by following these steps: Ensure that you have 50 or more unique individuals that are Certified Implementation Specialists in the specific Specialization awarded to your company If you are pooling resources from another Associate or Worldwide entity, ensure you know that company’s name and country Have your Oracle PRM Administrator complete the online Advanced Specialization Application Oracle will validate the information provided, and once approved, you will receive notification from Oracle of your awarded Advanced Specialized status. There are additional resources on OPN as well as the broader WebCenter Community: v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; 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-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Keyboard locking up in Visual Studio 2010

  - by Jim Wang

  One of the initiatives I’m involved with on the ASP.NET and Visual Studio teams is the Tactical Test Team (TTT), which is a group of testers who dedicate a portion of their time to roaming around and testing different parts of the product.  What this generally translates to is a day and a bit a week helping out with areas of the product that have been flagged as risky, or tackling problems that span both ASP.NET and Visual Studio.  There is also a separate component of this effort outside of TTT which is to help with customer scenarios and design. I enjoy being on TTT because it allows me the opportunity to look at the entire product and gain expertise in a wide range of areas.  This week, I’m looking at Visual Studio 2010 performance problems, and this gem with the keyboard in Visual Studio locking up ended up catching my attention. First of all, here’s a link to one of the many Connect bugs describing the problem: Microsoft Connect I like this problem because it really highlights the challenges of reproducing customer bugs.  There aren’t any clear steps provided here, and I don’t know a lot about your environment: not just the basics like our OS version, but also what third party plug-ins or antivirus software you might be running that might contribute to the problem.  In this case, my gut tells me that there is more than one bug here, just by the sheer volume of reports.  Here’s another thread where users talk about it: Microsoft Connect The volume and different configurations are staggering.  From a customer perspective, this is a very clear cut case of basic functionality not working in the product, but from our perspective, it’s hard to find something reproducible: even customers don’t quite agree on what causes the problem (installing ReSharper seems to cause a problem…or does it?). So this then, is the start of a QA investigation. If anybody has isolated repro steps (just comment on this post) that they can provide this will immensely help us nail down the issue(s), but I’ll be doing a multi-part series on my progress and methodologies as I look into the problem.

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• Adopting Technologies for the Sake of Technologies

  - by shiju

  Unlike other engineering industries, the software engineering industry is really lacking maturity. The lack of maturity can see in different aspects of entire software development life cycle. I think other engineering industries are well organised and structured with common, proven engineering practices. The software engineering industry is greatly a diverse industry with different operating systems, and variety of development platforms, programming languages, frameworks and tools. Now these days, people are going behind the hypes and intellectual thoughts without understanding their core business problems and adopting technologies and practices for the sake of technologies and practices and simply becoming a “poster child” of technologies and practices. Understanding the core business problem and providing best, solid solution with a platform neutral approach, will give you more business values and ROI, instead of blindly adopting technologies and tailor-made your applications for the sake of technologies and practices. People have been simply migrating their solutions in favour of new technologies and different versions of frameworks without any business need. The “Pepsi Challenge” in the Software Development  Pepsi Challenge marketing campaign of the 1980s was a popular and very interesting marketing promotion in which people taste one cup of Pepsi and another cup with Coca Cola. In the taste test, more than 50% of people were preferred Pepsi  over Coca Cola. The success story behind the Pepsi was more sweetness contains in the Pepsi cola. They have simply added more sugar and more people preferred more sweet flavour. You can’t simply identify the better one after sipping one cup of cola based on the sweetness which contains. These things have been happening in the software industry for choosing development frameworks and technologies. People have been simply choosing frameworks based on the initial sugary feeling without understanding its core strengths and weakness. The sugary framework might be more harmful when you develop real-world systems. There is not any silver bullet for solving all kind of problems and frameworks and tools do have strengths and weakness. So it would be better to understand their strength and weakness. And please keep in mind that you have to develop real apps to understand the real capabilities and weakness of a framework. Evaluating a technology based on few blog posts will harm your projects and these bloggers might be lacking real-world experience with the framework. The Problem with Align a Development Practice with Tools Recently I have observed a discussion in a group where one guy asked suggestions for practicing Continuous Delivery (CD) as part of the agile based application engineering. Then the discussion quickly went to using and choosing a Continuous Integration (CI) tool and different people suggested different Continuous Integration (CI) tools for simply practicing Continuous Delivery. If you have worked with core agile engineering practices, you could clearly know that the real essence of agile is neither choosing a tool nor choosing a process. By simply choosing CI tool from a particular vendor will not ensure that you are delivering an evolving software based on customer feedback. You have to understand the real essence of a engineering practice and choose a right tool for practicing it instead of simply focus on a particular tool for a practicing an development practice. If you want to adopt a practice, you need a solid understanding on it with its real essence where tools are just helping us for better automation. Adopting New Technologies for the Sake of Technologies The another problem is that developers have been a tendency to adopt new technologies and simply migrating their existing apps to new technologies. It is okay if your existing system is having problem  with a technology stack or or maintainability challenge with existing solution, and moving to new technology for solving the current problems. We have been adopting new technologies for solving new challenges like solving the scalability challenges when the application or user bases is growing unpredictably. Please keep in mind that all new technologies will become old after working with it for few years. The below Facebook status update of Janakiraman, expresses the attitude of a typical customer. For an example, Node.js is becoming a hottest buzzword in the software industry and many developers are trying to adopt Node.js for their apps. The important thing is that Node.js is a minimalist framework that does some great things for some problems, but it’s not a silver bullet. I have been also working with Node.js which is good for some problems, but really bad for choosing it for all kind of problems. By adopting new technologies for new projects is good if we could get real business values from it because newer framework would solve some existing well known problems and provide better solutions where it can incorporate good solutions for the latest challenges . But adopting a new technology for the sake of new technology is really bad idea. Another example is JavaScript is getting lot of attention so that lot of developers are developing heavy JavaScript centric web apps. First, they will adopt a client-side JavaScript MV* framework from AngularJS, Ember, Backbone etc, and develop a Single Page App(SPA) where they are repeating the mistakes we did in the past with server-side. The mistakes we did in the server-side is transforming to client-side. The problem is that people are just adopting new technologies, but not improving their solutions. I predict that many Single Page App will suck in the future. We need a hybrid approach where we should be able to leverage both server-side and client-side for developing next-generation web apps. The another problem is that if you like a particular framework, use it for all kind of apps. In the past, I know some Silverlight passionate guys were tried to use that framework for all kind of apps including larger line of business apps. And these days developers are migrating their existing Silverlight apps in favour of HTML5 buzzword. So the real question is, what is the business values we are getting from these apps when we are developing it for the sake of a particular technology instead of business need. The another problem is that our solutions consultants are trying to provide unnecessary solutions for the sake of a particular technology or for a hype. For an example, Big Data solutions are great for solving the problem of three Vs : volume, velocity and variety. But trying to put this for every application will make problems. Let’s say, there is a small web site running with limited budget and saying that we need a recommendation engine for the web site with a Hadoop based solution with a 16 node cluster, would be really horrible. If we really need a Hadoop based solution, got for it, but trying to put this for all application would be a big disaster. It would be great if could understand the core business problems first, and later choose a right framework for providing solutions for the actual business problem, instead of trying to provide so many solutions. The Problem with Tied Up to a Platform Vendor Some organizations and teams are tied up with a particular platform vendor where they don’t want to use any product other than their preferred or existing platform vendor. They will accept any product provided by the vendor regardless of its capability. This will lets you some benefits regards with integration and collaboration of different products provided by the same vendor, but it will loose your opportunity to provide better solution for your business problems. For a real world sample scenario, lot of companies have been using SAP for their ERP solutions. When they are thinking about mobility or thinking about developing hybrid mobile apps, they can easily find out a framework from SAP. SAP provides a framework for HTML 5 based UI development named SAPUI5. If you are simply adopting that framework only based for the preference of existing platform vendor, you might be loose different opportunities for providing better solution. Initially you might enjoy the sugary feeling provided by the platform vendor, but you have to think about developing apps which should be capable for solving future challenges. I am not saying that any framework is not good and I believe that all frameworks are good over another one for solving at least one problem. My point is that we should not tied up with any specific platform vendor unless your organization is having resource availability problems. Being Polyglot for Providing Right Solutions The modern software engineering industry is greatly diverse with different tools and platforms. Lot of open source frameworks and new programming languages have been releasing to the developer community, where choosing the right platform without any biased opinion, is really a difficult task. But it would really great if we could develop an attitude with platform neutral mindset and being a polyglot developer for providing better solutions based on the actual business problems. IMHO, we should learn a new programming language and a new framework every year. This will improve the quality of our developer capabilities and also improve the quality of our primary programming language skills. Being polyglot for individual developers and organizational teams will give you greater opportunity to your developer experience and also for your applications. Organizations can analyse their business problem without tied with any technology and later they can provide solutions by choosing different platform and tools. Summary    In this blog post, what I was trying to say that we should not tied up or biased with any development platform, technology, vendor or programming language and we should not adopt technologies and practices for the sake of technologies. If we are adopting a technology or a practice for the sake of it, we are simply becoming a “poster child” of the technology and practice. We should not become a poster child of other people’s intellectual thoughts and theories, instead of it we should become solutions developers and solutions consultants where we should be able to provide better solutions for the business problems. Being a polyglot developer is a good idea for improving your developer skills which lets you provide better solutions for the business problems. The most important thing is that we should become platform neutral developers where our passion should be for providing brilliant solutions. It would be great if we could provide minimalist, pragmatic business solutions. You can follow me on Twitter @shijucv

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• Model View Control Issue: Null Pointer Initialization Question

  - by David Dimalanta

  Good morning again. This is David. Please, I need an urgent help regarding control model view where I making a code that uniquely separating into groups: An Activity Java Class to Display the Interface A View and Function Java Class for Drawing Cards and Display it on the Activity Class The problem is that the result returns a Null Pointer Exception. I have initialize for the ID for Text View and Image View. Under this class "draw_deck.java". Please help me. Here's my code for draw_deck.java: package com.bodapps.inbetween.model; import android.content.Context; import android.view.View; import android.widget.ImageView; import android.widget.TextView; import com.bodapps.inbetween.R; public class draw_deck extends View { public TextView count_label; public ImageView draw_card; private int count; public draw_deck(Context context) { super(context); // TODO Auto-generated constructor stub //I have initialized two widgets for ID. I still don't get it why I got forced closed by Null Pointer Exception thing. draw_card = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.IV_Draw_Card); count_label = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.Text_View_Count_Card); } public void draw(int s, int c, String strSuit, String strValue, Pile pile, Context context) { //super(context); //Just printing the card drawn from pile int suit, value = 1; draw_card = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.IV_Draw_Card); count_label = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.Text_View_Count_Card); Card card; if(!pile.isEmpty()) //Setting it to IF statement displays the card one by one. { card = pile.drawFromPile(); //Need to check first if card is null. if (card != null) { //draws an extra if (card != null) { //Get suit of card to print out. suit = card.getSuit(); switch (suit) { case CardInfo.DIAMOND: strSuit = "DIAMOND"; s=0; break; case CardInfo.HEART: strSuit = "HEART"; s=1; break; case CardInfo.SPADE: strSuit = "SPADE"; s=2; break; case CardInfo.CLUB: strSuit = "CLUB"; s=3; break; } //Get value of card to print out. value = card.getValue(); switch (value) { case CardInfo.ACE: strValue = "ACE"; c=0; break; case CardInfo.TWO: c=1; break; case CardInfo.THREE: strValue = "THREE"; c=2; break; case CardInfo.FOUR: strValue = "FOUR"; c=3; break; case CardInfo.FIVE: strValue = "FIVE"; c=4; break; case CardInfo.SIX: strValue = "SIX"; c=4; break; case CardInfo.SEVEN: strValue = "SEVEN"; c=4; break; case CardInfo.EIGHT: strValue = "EIGHT"; c=4; break; case CardInfo.NINE: strValue = "NINE"; c=4; break; case CardInfo.TEN: strValue = "TEN"; c=4; break; case CardInfo.JACK: strValue = "JACK"; c=4; break; case CardInfo.QUEEN: strValue = "QUEEN"; c=4; break; case CardInfo.KING: strValue = "KING"; c=4; break; } } } }// //Below two lines of code, this is where issued the Null Pointer Exception. draw_card.setImageResource(deck[s][c]); count_label.setText(new StringBuilder(strValue).append(" of ").append(strSuit).append(String.valueOf(" " + count++)).toString()); } //Choice of Suits in a Deck public Integer[][] deck = { //Array Group 1 is [0][0] (No. of Cards: 4 - DIAMOND) { R.drawable.card_dummy_1, R.drawable.card_dummy_2, R.drawable.card_dummy_4, R.drawable.card_dummy_5, R.drawable.card_dummy_3 }, //Array Group 2 is [1][0] (No. of Cards: 4 - HEART) { R.drawable.card_dummy_1, R.drawable.card_dummy_2, R.drawable.card_dummy_4, R.drawable.card_dummy_5, R.drawable.card_dummy_3 }, //Array Group 3 is [2][0] (No. of Cards: 4 - SPADE) { R.drawable.card_dummy_1, R.drawable.card_dummy_2, R.drawable.card_dummy_4, R.drawable.card_dummy_5, R.drawable.card_dummy_3 }, //Array Group 4 is [3][0] (No. of Cards: 4 - CLUB) { R.drawable.card_dummy_1, R.drawable.card_dummy_2, R.drawable.card_dummy_4, R.drawable.card_dummy_5, R.drawable.card_dummy_3 }, }; } And this one of the activity class, Player_Mode_2.java: package com.bodapps.inbetween; import java.util.Random; import android.app.Activity; import android.app.Dialog; import android.content.Context; import android.os.Bundle; import android.view.View; import android.view.View.OnClickListener; import android.widget.Button; import android.widget.EditText; import android.widget.ImageView; import android.widget.TextView; import android.widget.Toast; import com.bodapps.inbetween.model.Card; import com.bodapps.inbetween.model.Pile; import com.bodapps.inbetween.model.draw_deck; /* * * Public class for Two-Player mode. * */ public class Player_Mode_2 extends Activity { //Image Views private ImageView draw_card; private ImageView player_1; private ImageView player_2; private ImageView icon; //Buttons private Button set_deck; //Edit Texts private EditText enter_no_of_decks; //text Views private TextView count_label; //Integer Data Types private int no_of_cards, count; private int card_multiplier; //Contexts final Context context = this; //Pile Model public Pile pile; //Card Model public Card card; //create View @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.play_2_player_mode); //-----[ Search for Views ]----- //Initialize for Image View draw_card = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.IV_Draw_Card); player_1 = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.IV_Player_1_Card); player_2 = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.IV_Player_2_Card); //Initialize for Text view or Label count_label = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.Text_View_Count_Card); //-----[ Adding Values ]----- //Integer Values count = 0; no_of_cards = 0; //-----[ Adding Dialog ]----- //Initializing Dialog final Dialog deck_dialog = new Dialog(context); deck_dialog.setContentView(R.layout.dialog); deck_dialog.setTitle("Deck Dialog"); //-----[ Initializing Views for Dialog's Contents ]----- //Initialize for Edit Text enter_no_of_decks = (EditText) deck_dialog.findViewById(R.id.Edit_Text_Set_Number_of_Decks); //Initialize for Button set_deck = (Button) deck_dialog.findViewById(R.id.Button_Deck); //-----[ Setting onClickListener() ]----- //Set Event Listener for Image view draw_card.setOnClickListener(new Draw_Card_Model()); //Set Event Listener for Setting the Deck set_deck.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() { public void onClick(View v) { if(card_multiplier <= 8) { //Use "Integer.parseInt()" method to instantly convert from String to int value. card_multiplier = Integer.parseInt(enter_no_of_decks.getText().toString()); //Shuffling cards... pile = new Pile(card_multiplier); //Multiply no. of decks //Dismiss or close the dialog. deck_dialog.dismiss(); } else { Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Please choose a number from 1 to 8.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); } } }); //Show dialog. deck_dialog.show(); } //Shuffling the Array public void Shuffle_Cards(Integer[][] Shuffle_Deck) { Random random = new Random(); for(int i = Shuffle_Deck[no_of_cards].length - 1; i >=0; i--) { int Index = random.nextInt(i + 1); //Simple Swapping Integer swap = Shuffle_Deck[card_multiplier-1][Index]; Shuffle_Deck[card_multiplier-1][Index] = Shuffle_Deck[card_multiplier-1][i]; Shuffle_Deck[card_multiplier-1][i] = swap; } } //Private Class for Random Card Draw private class Draw_Card_Model implements OnClickListener { public void onClick(View v) { //Just printing the card drawn from pile int suit = 0, value = 0; String strSuit = "", strValue = ""; draw_deck draw = new draw_deck(context); //This line is where issued the Null Pointer Exception. if (count == card_multiplier*52) { // A message shows up when all cards are draw out. Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "All cards have been used up.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); draw_card.setEnabled(false); } else { draw.draw(suit, value, strSuit, strValue, pile, context); count_label.setText(count); //This is where I got force closed error, although "int count" have initialized the number. This was supposed to accept in the setText() method. count++; } } } } Take note that the issues on Null Pointer Exception is the Image View and the Edit Text. I got to test it. Thanks. If you have any info about my question, let me know it frankly.

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