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• Listen to Local FM Radio in Windows 7 Media Center

  - by DigitalGeekery

  If you have a supported tuner card and connected FM antenna, you can listen to your favorite local over-the-air FM stations in Windows 7 Media Center. Before the FM radio option will be available in Windows Media Center, you’ll need to have a TV or Radio tuner card installed and configured. If you have a TV tuner card installed, you may already have a Radio tuner as well. Many TV tuner cards also have built in FM tuners. Open Windows Media Center, scroll the “Music” and over to “Radio.” Click on “FM Radio.”   The radio will turn on and you’ll see the current station number listed in the white box. Just below are standard “Seek” and “Tune” buttons, as well as “Preset” options. Tuning works just like a typical FM radio. Click on the (-) or (+) buttons to “Tune” or “Seek” up and down the dial. If you already know the frequency of the station, enter the numbers using the numeric keypad on the remote control or keyboard. To save the current station you’re listening to as a preset, click on the “Save as Preset” button. Type in a custom name for your preset station and click “Save.”   Once you set your presets, they will also be available on the main FM Radio screen. The transport controls at the bottom of the screen also allow you to control Volume, Pause, Play, Skip back, and Skip forward. Fast Forward and Rewind, however, are not supported.   This is a nice option if you’d like to listen to your local FM favorites on your computer, especially if those stations aren’t available online. If you don’t have an FM tuner and want to listen to thousands of online radio streams, check out our article on RadioTime in WMC. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Listen to Over 100,000 Radio Stations in Windows Media CenterListen To XM Radio with Windows Media Center in Windows 7Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Schedule Updates for Windows Media CenterIntegrate Hulu Desktop and Windows Media Center in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional The Growth of Citibank Quickly Switch between Tabs in IE Windows Media Player 12: Tweak Video & Sound with Playback Enhancements Own a cell phone, or does a cell phone own you? Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier

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• Java Cloud Service Integration using Web Service Data Control

  - by Jani Rautiainen

  Java Cloud Service (JCS) provides a platform to develop and deploy business applications in the cloud. In Fusion Applications Cloud deployments customers do not have the option to deploy custom applications developed with JDeveloper to ensure the integrity and supportability of the hosted application service. Instead the custom applications can be deployed to the JCS and integrated to the Fusion Application Cloud instance.This series of articles will go through the features of JCS, provide end-to-end examples on how to develop and deploy applications on JCS and how to integrate them with the Fusion Applications instance.In this article a custom application integrating with Fusion Application using Web Service Data Control will be implemented. 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 EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} Pre-requisites Access to Cloud instance In order to deploy the application access to a JCS instance is needed, a free trial JCS instance can be obtained from Oracle Cloud site. To register you will need a credit card even if the credit card will not be charged. To register simply click "Try it" and choose the "Java" option. The confirmation email will contain the connection details. See this video for example of the registration. Once the request is processed you will be assigned 2 service instances; Java and Database. Applications deployed to the JCS must use Oracle Database Cloud Service as their underlying database. So when JCS instance is created a database instance is associated with it using a JDBC data source. The cloud services can be monitored and managed through the web UI. For details refer to Getting Started with Oracle Cloud. JDeveloper JDeveloper contains Cloud specific features related to e.g. connection and deployment. To use these features download the JDeveloper from JDeveloper download site by clicking the “Download JDeveloper 11.1.1.7.1 for ADF deployment on Oracle Cloud” link, this version of JDeveloper will have the JCS integration features that will be used in this article. For versions that do not include the Cloud integration features the Oracle Java Cloud Service SDK or the JCS Java Console can be used for deployment. For details on installing and configuring the JDeveloper refer to the installation guide. For details on SDK refer to Using the Command-Line Interface to Monitor Oracle Java Cloud Service and Using the Command-Line Interface to Manage Oracle Java Cloud Service. Create Application In this example the “JcsWsDemo” application created in the “Java Cloud Service Integration using Web Service Proxy” article is used as the base. Create Web Service Data Control In this example we will use a Web Service Data Control to integrate with Credit Rule Service in Fusion Applications. The data control will be used to query data from Fusion Applications using a web service call and present the data in a table. To generate the data control choose the “Model” project and navigate to "New -> All Technologies -> Business Tier -> Data Controls -> Web Service Data Control" and enter following: Name: CreditRuleServiceDC URL: https://ic-[POD].oracleoutsourcing.com/icCnSetupCreditRulesPublicService/CreditRuleService?WSDL Service: {{http://xmlns.oracle.com/apps/incentiveCompensation/cn/creditSetup/creditRule/creditRuleService/}CreditRuleService On step 2 select the “findRule” operation: Skip step 3 and on step 4 define the credentials to access the service. Do note that in this example these credentials are only used if testing locally, for JCS deployment credentials need to be manually updated on the EAR file: Click “Finish” and the proxy generation is done. Creating UI In order to use the data control we will need to populate complex objects FindCriteria and FindControl. For simplicity in this example we will create logic in a managed bean that populates the objects. Open “JcsWsDemoBean.java” and add the following logic: Map findCriteria; Map findControl; public void setFindCriteria(Map findCriteria) { this.findCriteria = findCriteria; } public Map getFindCriteria() { findCriteria = new HashMap(); findCriteria.put("fetchSize",10); findCriteria.put("fetchStart",0); return findCriteria; } public void setFindControl(Map findControl) { this.findControl = findControl; } public Map getFindControl() { findControl = new HashMap(); return findControl; } Open “JcsWsDemo.jspx”, navigate to “Data Controls -> CreditRuleServiceDC -> findRule(Object, Object) -> result” and drag and drop the “result” node into the “af:form” element in the page: On the “Edit Table Columns” remove all columns except “RuleId” and “Name”: On the “Edit Action Binding” window displayed enter reference to the java class created above by selecting “#{JcsWsDemoBean.findCriteria}”: Also define the value for the “findControl” by selecting “#{JcsWsDemoBean.findControl}”. Deploy to JCS For WS DC the authentication details need to be updated on the connection details before deploying. Open “connections.xml” by navigating “Application Resources -> Descriptors -> ADF META-INF -> connections.xml”: Change the user name and password entry from: <soap username="transportUserName" password="transportPassword" To match the access details for the target environment. Follow the same steps as documented in previous article ”Java Cloud Service ADF Web Application”. Once deployed the application can be accessed with URL: https://java-[identity domain].java.[data center].oraclecloudapps.com/JcsWsDemo-ViewController-context-root/faces/JcsWsDemo.jspx When accessed the first 10 rules in the system are displayed: Summary In this article we learned how to integrate with Fusion Applications using a Web Service Data Control in JCS. In future articles various other integration techniques will be covered. 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• OracleServiceBus+SOA in same server

  - by Manoj Neelapu

  Oracle Service Bus 11gR1 (11.1.1.3) supports running in same JVM as SOA. This tutorial covers on how to do create domain in of SOA+OSB combined to run in single JVM .For this tutorial we will use a flavor  WebLogic installer bundled with both OEPE and coherence components (eg oepe111150_wls1033_win32.exe). WebLogic installer bundled with coherence and OEPE components can be seen in the screen shot.Oracle Service Bus 11gR1 (11.1.1.3) has built-in caching support for Business Services using coherence. Because of this we will have to install coherence before  installing OSB.  To get SOAand OSB running in the same domain, we have to install the SOA and OSB on the above ORACLE_HOME. After installation we should see both the SOA and OSB homes has highlighted in red.We could also see the coherence components which is mandatory for OSB and optional OEPE also installed.                     Now we will execute RCU(ofm_rcu_win_11.1.1.3.0_disk1_1of1) to install the schema for SOA and OSB. New RCU contains OSB tables (WLI_QS_REPORT_DATA , WLI_QS_REPORT_ATTRIBUTE) gets loaded as part of SOAINFRA schema  After this step we will have to create soa+osb domain using config wizard. It is located under $WEBLOGIC_HOME\common\bin\config.* (.cmd or .sh as per your platform) .While creating a domain we will select options for SOA Suite  and Oracle Service Bus Extension-All Domain Topologies.We can also bundle Enterprise Manager in the same installation or in a different server. Here in this case we will use the enterprise manager in the same domain. So we selected the Enterprise Manager component also. There is another option for OSB  Oracle Service Bus Extension-Single server Domain Topology. This topology is for users who want to use OSB in single server configuration. Currently SOA doesn't support single server topology. So this topology cannot be used with SOA domain but can only be used for stand alone OSB installations.We can continue with domain configuration till we reach the below screen. Following steps are mandatory if we want to have the SOA and OSB run in same JVMwe should select Managed Server, Clusters and Machines as shown below   After this selection you should see a screen with two servers One managed server for OSB and one managed for SOA.  Since we would like to have both the servers in one managed server (one JVM) we will have to do one  

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• Speed Up the Help Dialog in Windows and Office

  - by Matthew Guay

  When you click help, you don’t want to wait for your computer to bring it to you.  Here’s how you can speed up the help dialog in Windows and Office. If you have a slow internet connection, chances are you’ve been frustrated by the Help dialog in Windows and Office trying to download fresh content every time you open them. This can be great if the updated help files contain better content, but sometimes you just want to find what you were looking for without waiting.  Here’s how you can turn off the automatic online help. Use Local Help in Windows Windows 7 and Vista’s help dialog usually tries to load the latest content from the net, but this can take a long time on slow connections. If you’re seeing the above screen a lot, you may want to switch to offline help.  Click the “Online Help” button at the bottom, and select “Get offline Help”. Now your computer will just load the pre-installed help files.  And don’t worry; if there’s a major update to your help files, Windows will download and install it through Windows Update.   Stupid Geek Tip: An easy way to open Windows Help is to click on your desktop or Start Menu and press F1 on your keyboard. Use Local Help in Office This same trick works in Office 2007 and 2010.  We’ve actually had more problems with Office’s help being tardy. Solve this the same way as with Windows help.  Click on the “Connected to Office.com” or “Connected to Office Online” button, depending on your version of Office, and select “Show content only from this computer”. This will automatically change the settings for Help in all of your Office applications. While this may not be a major trick, it can be helpful especially if you have a slow internet connection and want to get things done quickly.  Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How to See the About Dialog and Version Information in Office 2007Speed Up SATA Hard Drives in Windows VistaMake Mouse Navigation Faster in WindowsSpeed up Your Windows Vista Computer with ReadyBoostSet the Speed Dial as the Opera Startup Page TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos

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• Workshops, online content show how Oracle infuses simplicity, mobility, extensibility into user experience

  - by mvaughan

  By Kathy Miedema & Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle has made a huge investment into the user experience of its many different software product families, and recent releases showcase big changes and features that aim to promote end user engagement and efficiency by streamlining navigation and simplifying the user interface. But making Oracle’s enterprise software great-looking and usable doesn’t stop when Oracle products go out the door. The Applications User Experience (UX) team recognizes that our customers may need to customize software to fit their work processes. And that’s why we provide tools such as user experience design patterns to help you maintain the Oracle user experience as you tailor your application to fit your business needs. Often, however, customers may need some context around user experience. How has the Oracle user experience been designed and constructed? Why is a good user experience important for users? How does understanding what goes into the user experience benefit the people who purchase the software for users? There’s a short answer to these questions, and you can read about it on Usable Apps. But truly understanding Oracle’s investment and seeing how it applies across product families occasionally requires a deeper dive into the Oracle user experience, especially if you’re an influencer or decision-maker about Oracle products. To help frame these decisions, the Communications & Outreach team has developed several targeted workshops that explore what Oracle means when it talks about user experience, and provides a roadmap into where the Oracle user experience is going. These workshops require non-disclosure agreements, and have been delivered to Oracle sales folks, Oracle partners, Oracle ACE Directors and ACEs, and a few customers. Some of these audience members have been developers or have a technical background; just as many did not. Here’s a breakdown of the kind of training you can get around the Oracle user experience from the OAUX Communications & Outreach team.For Partners: George Papazzian, Principal, Naviscent with Joyce Ohgi, Oracle Oracle Fusion Applications HCM Pre-Sales Seminar:  In concert with Worldwide Alliances  and  Channels under Applications Partner Enablement Director Jonathan Vinoskey’s guidance, the Applications User Experience team delivers a two-day workshop.  Day one focuses on Oracle Fusion Applications HCM and pre-sales strategy, and Day two focuses on positioning and leveraging Oracle’s investment in the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience.  The next workshops will occur on the following dates: December 4-5, 2013 @ Manchester, UK January 29-30, 2014 @ Reston, Virginia February 2014 @ Guadalajara, Mexico (email: Shannon Whiteman) March 11-12, 2014 @ Dubai, United Arab Emirates April 1-2, 2014 @ Chicago, Illinois Partner Advisory Board: A two-day board meeting in the U.S. and U.K. to discuss four main user experience areas for Oracle Fusion Applications: simplicity, visualization & analytics, mobility, & futures. This event is limited to Oracle Diamond Partners, UX bloggers, and key UX influencers and requires legal documentation.  We will be talking about the Oracle applications UX strategy and roadmap. Partner Implementation Training on User Interface: How to Build Great-Looking, Usable Apps:  In this two-day, hands-on workshop built around Oracle’s Application Development Framework, learn how to build desktop and mobile user interfaces and mobile user interfaces based on Oracle’s experience with Fusion Applications. This workshop is for partners with a technology background who are looking for ways to tailor Fusion Applications using ADF, or have built their own custom solutions using ADF. It includes an introduction to UX design patterns and provides tools to build usability-tested UX designs. Nov 5-6, 2013 @ Redwood Shores, CA, USA January 28-29th, 2014 @ Reston, Virginia, USA February 25-26, 2014 @ Guadalajara, Mexico March 9-10, 2014 @ Dubai, United Arab Emirates To register, contact [email protected] Simplified UI Customization & Extensibility:  Pilot workshop:  We will be reviewing the proposed content for communicating the user experience tool kit available with the next release of Oracle Fusion Applications.  Our core focus will be on what toolkit components our system implementors and independent software vendors will need to respond to customer demand, whether they are extending Fusion Applications, or building custom applications, that will need to leverage the simplified UI. Dec 11th, 2013 @ Reading, UK For information: contact [email protected] Private lab tour and demos: Interested in seeing what’s going on in the Apps UX Labs?  If you are headed to the San Francisco Bay Area, let us know. We can arrange a spin through our usability labs at headquarters. OAUX Expo: This open-house forum gives partners a look at what the UX team is working on, and showcases the next-generation user experiences in a demo environment where attendees can see and touch the applications. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For CustomersAngela Johnston, Gozel Aamoth, Teena Singh, and Yen Chan, Oracle Lab tours: See demos of soon-to-be-released products, and take a spin on usability research equipment such as our eye-tracker. Watch this video to get an idea of what you’ll see. Get our newsletter: Learn about newly released products and see where you can meet us at user group conferences. Participate in a feedback session: Join a focus group or customer feedback session to get an early look at user experience designs for the next generation of software, and provide your thoughts on how well it will work. Join the OUAB: The Oracle Usability Advisory Board meets several times a year to discuss trends in the workforce and provide direction on user experience designs. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For Developers (customers, partners, and consultants): Plinio Arbizu, SP Solutions, Richard Bingham, Oracle, Balaji Kamepalli, EiSTechnoogies, Praveen Pillalamarri, EiSTechnologies How to Build Great-Looking, Usable Apps: This workshop is for attendees with a strong technology background who are looking for ways to tailor customer software using ADF. It includes an introduction to UX design patterns and provides tools to build usability-tested UX designs.  See above for dates and times. UX design patterns web site: Cut the length of your project down by months. Use these patterns to build out the task flow you need to develop for your users. The patterns have already been usability-tested and represent the best practices that the Oracle UX research team has found in its studies. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For Oracle Sales Mike Klein, Jeremy Ashley, Brent White, Oracle Contact your local sales person for more information about the Oracle user experience and the training available from the Applications User Experience Communications & Outreach team. See customer-friendly user experience collateral ranging from the new simplified UI in Oracle Fusion Applications Release 7, to E-Business Suite user experience highlights, to Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards user experience highlights.   Receive access to the same pre-sales and implementation training we provide to partners. For Oracle Sales only: Oracle-only training on the Oracle Fusion Applications UX Innovation Sales Kit.

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• How to Disable the New Geolocation Feature in Google Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  The latest release of Google Chrome has geolocation enabled by default, and if you are worried about privacy or just don’t want websites to prompt you for your location, we’ve got the quick details on how to turn it off. Readers should note that the new Geolocation feature doesn’t give out your details by default, so don’t panic. It’s also only active, at the time of this writing, in the Dev channel builds of Chrome—so if you are using the regular stable build this feature won’t arrive for a while anyway. Note: If you’re a Firefox user, be sure to check out our guide to disabling geolocation in Firefox 3.x. What’s this Geolocation Feature About? Geolocation is a way for your browser to tell a website about your physical location, so you can get results tailored to where you actually are—for example, if you visited Google Maps it can ask you for your location to give you an accurate picture of where you are. To use this feature in Google Maps, you would click on the small white icon to activate the feature. As soon as you have clicked on the small white icon, a thin green toolbar will appear at the top of the webpage, asking to Allow or Deny.   How to Turn Chrome’s Geolocation Off If you want to turn geolocation off you will need to open the “Chrome Options Window”, navigate to the third tab, and click on the “Content settings… ” button. When the “Content Settings Window” opens go to the “Location Tab” and select “Do not allow any site to track my physical location”. Once that is done close out the “Content Settings & Chrome Options Windows”. When you go back to Google Maps and try using the small white icon again this is the message that you will see at the top of the page. Now that is much better! If you are unhappy with geolocation being enabled by default in the latest Dev Channel release then this will help get the problem sorted out nicely. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stupid Geek Tricks: Compare Your Browser’s Memory Usage with Google ChromeHow To Disable Individual Plug-ins in Google ChromeStop YouTube Videos from Automatically Playing in ChromeDisable YouTube Comments while using ChromeHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default Browser TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff

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• You Say You Want a (Customer Experience) Revolution

  - by Christie Flanagan

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} rev-o-lu-tion [rev-uh-loo-shuhn] noun 1. a sudden, radical or complete change 2. fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something; a change of paradigm 3. a changeover in use or preference especially in technology <the computer revolution> Lately, I've been hearing an awful lot about the customer experience revolution.  Tonight Oracle will be hosting The Experience Revolution, an evening of exploration and networking with customer experience executives in New York City where Oracle President Mark Hurd will introduce Oracle Customer Experience, a cross-stack suite of customer experience products that includes Oracle WebCenter and a number of other Oracle technologies. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Forrester Customer Experience Forum East also kicks off in New York City where they'll examine how businesses can "reap the full business benefits of the customer experience revolution." So, are we in the midst of a customer experience revolution? As a consumer, I can answer that question with a definitive “yes.” When I bought my very first car, I had a lot of questions. How do I know if I’m paying a fair price? How do I know if this dealer is honest? Why do I have to sit through these good cop, bad cop shenanigans between sales and sales management at the dealership? Why do I feel like I’m doing these people a favor by giving them my business? In the end the whole experience left me feeling deeply unsatisfied. I didn’t feel that I held all that much power over the experience and the only real negotiating trick I had was to walk out, which I did, many times before actually making a purchase. Fast forward to a year ago and I found myself back in the market for a new car. The very first car that I bought had finally kicked the bucket after many years, many repair bills, and much wear and tear. Man, I had loved that car. It was time to move on, but I had a knot in my stomach when I reflected back on my last car purchase experience and dreaded the thought of going through that again. Could that have been the reason why I drove my old car for so long? But as I started the process of researching new cars, I started to feel really confident. I had a wealth of online information that helped me in my search. I went to Edmunds and plugged in some information on my preferences and left with a short list of vehicles. After an afternoon spent test driving the cars my short list, I had determined my favorite – it was a model I didn’t even know about until my research on Edmunds! But I didn’t want to go back to the dealership where I test drove it. They were clearly old school and wanted me to buy the way that they wanted to sell. No thanks! After that I went back online. I figured out exactly what people had paid for this car in my area. I found out what kind of discount others were able to negotiate from an online community forum dedicated to the make and model. I found out how the sales people were being incentivized by the manufacturer that month. I learned which dealers had the best ratings and reviews. This was actually getting exciting. I was feeling really empowered. My next step was to request online quotes from the some of the highest rated dealers but I already knew exactly how much I was going to pay. This was really a test for the dealers. My new mantra was “let he who delivers the best customer experience win.” An inside sales rep from one dealer responded to my quote request within a couple of hours. I told him I had already decided on the make and model and it was just a matter of figuring out who I would buy it from. I also told them that I was really busy and wouldn’t set foot in the dealership unless we had come to terms beforehand. Lastly, I let him know that I’d prefer to work out the details via email. He promised to get back to me shortly with a detailed quote. Over the next few days I received calls from other dealers. One asked me a host of questions that I had already answered in their lengthy online form. Another blamed their website performance issues for their delay in responding to my request. But by then it didn’t really matter because I’d already bought the car days before from the dealer who responded to me first and who was willing to adjust their sales process to accommodate my buying one. So, yes, I really do believe we are in the midst of a customer experience revolution. And every revolution leaves some victorious and other vanquished. Which side do you want to be on when it comes to the customer experience revolution?

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• In Case You Weren’t There: Blogwell NYC

  - by Mike Stiles

  0 0 1 1009 5755 Vitrue 47 13 6751 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA 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-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:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} Your roving reporter roved out to another one of Socialmedia.org’s fantastic Blogwell events, this time in NYC. As Central Park and incredible weather beckoned, some of the biggest brand names in the world gathered to talk about how they’re incorporating social into marketing and CRM, as well as extending social across their entire organizations internally. Below we present a collection of the live tweets from many of the key sessions GE @generalelectricJon Lombardo, Leader of Social Media COE How GE builds and extends emotional connections with consumers around health and reaps the benefits of increased brand equity in the process. GE has a social platform around Healthyimagination to create better health for people. If you and a friend are trying to get healthy together, you’ll do better. Health is inherently. Get health challenges via Facebook and share with friends to achieve goals together. They’re creating an emotional connection around the health context. You don’t influence people at large. Your sphere of real influence is around 5-10 people. They find relevant conversations about health on Twitter and engage sounding like a friend, not a brand. Why would people share on behalf of a brand? Because you tapped into an activity and emotion they’re already having. To create better habits in health, GE gave away inexpensive, relevant gifts related to their goals. Create the context, give the relevant gift, get social acknowledgment for giving it. What you get when you get acknowledgment for your engagement and gift is user generated microcontent. GE got 12,000 unique users engaged and 1400 organic posts with the healthy gift campaign. The Dow Chemical Company @DowChemicalAbby Klanecky, Director of Digital & Social Media Learn how Dow Chemical is finding, training, and empowering their scientists to be their storytellers in social media. There are 1m jobs coming open in science. Only 200k are qualified for them. Dow Chemical wanted to use social to attract and talk to scientists. Dow Chemical decided to use real scientists as their storytellers. Scientists are incredibly passionate, the key ingredient of a great storyteller. Step 1 was getting scientists to focus on a few platforms, blog, Twitter, LinkedIn. Dow Chemical social flow is Core Digital Team - #CMs – ambassadors – advocates. The scientists were trained in social etiquette via practice scenarios. It’s not just about sales. It’s about growing influence and the business. Dow Chemical trained about 100 scientists, 55 are active and there’s a waiting list for the next sessions. In person social training produced faster results and better participation. Sometimes you have to tell pieces of the story instead of selling your execs on the whole vision. Social Media Ethics Briefing: Staying Out of TroubleAndy Sernovitz, CEO @SocialMediaOrg How do we get people to share our message for us? We have to have their trust. The difference between being honest and being sleazy is disclosure. Disclosure does not hurt the effectiveness of your marketing. No one will get mad if you tell them up front you’re a paid spokesperson for a company. It’s a legal requirement by the FTC, it’s the law, to disclose if you’re being paid for an endorsement. Require disclosure and truthfulness in all your social media outreach. Don’t lie to people. Monitor the conversation and correct misstatements. Create social media policies and training programs. If you want to stay safe, never pay cash for social media. Money changes everything. As soon as you pay, it’s not social media, it’s advertising. Disclosure, to the feds, means clear, conspicuous, and understandable to the average reader. This phrase will keep you in the clear, “I work for ___ and this is my personal opinion.” Who are you? Were you paid? Are you giving an honest opinion based on a real experience? You as a brand are responsible for what an agency or employee or contactor does in your behalf. SocialMedia.org makes available a Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit. Socialmedia.org/disclosure. The point is to not ethically mess up and taint social media as happened to e-mail. Not only is the FTC cracking down, so is Google and Facebook. Visa @VisaNewsLucas Mast, Senior Business Leader, Global Corporate Social Media Visa built a mobile studio for the Olympics for execs and athletes. They wanted to do postcard style real time coverage of Visa’s Olympics sponsorships, and on a shoestring. Challenges included Olympic rules, difficulty getting interviews, time zone trouble, and resourcing. Another problem was they got bogged down with their own internal approval processes. Despite all the restrictions, they created and published a variety of and fair amount of content. They amassed 1000+ views of videos posted to the Visa Communication YouTube channel. Less corporate content yields more interest from media outlets and bloggers. They did real world video demos of how their products work in the field vs. an exec doing a demo in a studio. Don’t make exec interview videos dull and corporate. Keep answers short, shoot it in an interesting place, do takes until they’re comfortable and natural. Not everything will work. Not everything will get a retweet. But like the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play. Promoting content is as important as creating it. McGraw-Hill Companies @McGrawHillCosPatrick Durando, Senior Director of Global New Media McGraw-Hill has 26,000 employees. McGraw-Hill created a social intranet called Buzz. Intranets create operational efficiency, help product dev, facilitate crowdsourcing, and breaks down geo silos. Intranets help with talent development, acquisition, retention. They replaced the corporate directory with their own version of LinkedIn. The company intranet has really cut down on the use of email. Long email threats become organized, permanent social discussions. The intranet is particularly useful in HR for researching and getting answers surrounding benefits and policies. Using a profile on your company intranet can establish and promote your internal professional brand. If you’re going to make an intranet, it has to look great, work great, and employees are going have to want to go there. You can’t order them to like it. 

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• IDC Analyst Report Touts Oracle–Accenture Strategic Initiative

  - by kristin.jellison

  Hi there, partners! Oracle Engineered Systems have been getting some love lately, and we want to share it with you! The market intelligence and advisory firm IDC recently released a report lauding Oracle and Accenture’s strategic initiative to route the performance and flexibility of Oracle Engineered Systems to clients. The report, "Oracle and Accenture Strategic Alliance Places Big Bet on Engineered Systems,” by Steve White, reflects a largely positive analysis of the relationship. White notes that the alliance is “one of the largest in the industry.” Under the relationship, Accenture has incorporated Oracle Engineered Systems—including Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, Oracle SuperCluster, and Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine—into its leading datacenter transformation consulting services. Together, the two companies have also created bespoke platforms, such as the Accenture Foundation Platform for Oracle, which helps clients accelerate deployments on Oracle Fusion Middleware, running Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud and Oracle Exadata Database Machine. Oracle Engineered Systems deliver a single, engineered platform—including server to storage and networking. This makes it easier and cheaper for Accenture clients around the world to prepare their datacenters for managing, processing and analyzing the massive amounts of data they (rightly) anticipate seeing in the next decade. The new solutions can help reduce the effort and cost to migrate any vendor database to an Oracle Engineered Systems platform, which can lower the cost of ownership by up to 50 percent. For its part, Accenture has built a team of 300 consultants to implement and increase the flexibility and stability of client datacenters. This move further expands one of the fastest-growing full-service Oracle Enterprise solutions. Over 52,000 Accenture consultants are qualified to implement, upgrade and outsource the Oracle product suite. Accenture is a Diamond-level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN). For Oracle Partners, this update should give you at least two things to walk away with. First, this initiative is showing signs of success. As Marty Cole, group chief executive for Accenture’s Technology growth platform, put it, “We are seeing an increasing number of clients recognizing the value of consolidating their databases and taking advantage of the cost and performance benefits delivered by these solutions.” The pipeline is there—and not just for Accenture. Use this example to show your clients that investments in Oracle Engineered Systems are on the rise. Second, recognize that Oracle Engineered Systems represent one of the biggest platforms for growth that Oracle has to offer partners. As part of the agreement, Accenture is able to provide: Platform Readiness Assessments Platform Implementation App Rationalization Database Rationalization Managed Services These are all enablement opportunities you can offer customers under Oracle’s partner programs —to continue building the value of their investments, and the value of your relationship with Oracle. Take a read through the IDC report. To learn more about the partnership, see this press release. Happy selling! The OPN Communications Team

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• Culture Shmulture?

  - by steve.diamond

  I've been thinking about "Customer Experience Management" lately. Here at Oracle, we arguably have the most complete suite of applications for managing the customer experience across and in the context of multiple channels -- from marketing to loyalty to contact center to self-service to analytics offerings, and more. And stay tuned, because in coming months let's just say we'll have even more to talk about on this front. But that said............ Last weekend my wife and I stayed at one of the premiere hotel chains on the planet. I won't name them, but we all know the short list. It could have been the St. Regis or the Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons or Hyatt Park or....This stay, at this particular hotel, was simply outstanding. Within a chain known for providing "above and beyond" levels of service, this particular hotel, under this particular manager, exceeded expectations on so many fronts. For example, at the Spa we mentioned to the two attendants that my wife is seven months pregnant and that we had previously had a lot of trouble conceiving. We then went to our room. Ten minutes later we heard a knock at the door and received a plate of chocolate covered strawberries with a heartfelt note and an inspiring quote, signed by the two spa attendees. The following day we arranged to have a bellhop drive us to the beach. Although they had a pre-arranged beach shuttle service with time limits, etc., he greeted us by saying, "I'm yours for the day until 4 p.m. Whatever you want to do is fine by me, as long as it's legal!" The morning that we left we arranged to have a taxi drive us to the airport--a nearly 40 mile drive. What showed up was a private coach complete with navy blue suited driver dude. And we were charged the taxi fare price. And there were many other awesome exchanges I won't mention here, although I did email the GM of this hotel two nights ago and expressed our effusive praise and gratitude. I'd submit that this hotel chain would have a definitive advantage using even more Oracle software to manage and optimize its customer interactions (yes, they are a customer). But WITHOUT the culture--that management team--and that instillation of aligned values across all employees of exemplifying 'the golden rule,' I wonder how much technology really matters in providing a distinctively positive and memorable customer experience. Lest you think I'm alone in these pontifications, have you read Paul Greenberg's blog lately? Have you seen one of his most recent posts? Now this SPECIFIC post is NOT about customer service per se. But it is about people. So yes, please think long and hard about the technology you seek to deploy. But never forget who will be interacting with your systems, and your customers.

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• SSIS Reporting Pack update

  - by jamiet

  Its been a while since I last posted anything in regard to SSIS Reporting Pack, the most recent release being on 27th May 2012, so here is a short update. There is still lots of work to do on SSIS Reporting Pack; lots more features to add, lots of performance work to be done, and a few bug fixes too. I have also been (fairly) hard at work on a framework to be used in conjunction with SSIS 2012 that I refer to as the Restart Framework (currently residing at http://ssisrestartframework.codeplex.com/). There is still much work to be done on the Restart Framework (not least some useful documentation on how to use it) which is why I haven’t mentioned it publicly before now although I am actively checking in changes. One thing I am considering is amalgamating the two projects into one; this would mean I could build a suite of reports that both work against the SSIS Catalog (what you currently know as “SSIS Reporting Pack”) and also against this Restart Framework thing. No decision has been made as yet though. There have been a number of bug reports and feature suggestions for SSIS Reporting Pack added to the Issue Tracker. Thank you to everyone that has submitted something, rest assured I am not going to ignore them forever; my time is at a premium right now unfortunately due to … well … life… so working on these items isn’t near the top of my priority list. Lastly, I am actively using SSIS Reporting Pack in a production environment right now and I’m happy to report that it is proving to be very useful. One of the reports that I have put a lot of time into is execution executable duration.rdl and its proving very adept at easily identifying bottlenecks in our SSIS 2012 executions: The report allows you to browse through the hierarchy of executables in each execution and each bar represents the duration of each executable in relation to all the other executables; longer bars being a good indication of where problems might lie. The colour of the bar indicates whether it was successful or not (green=success). Hovering over a bar brings up a tooltip showing more information about that executable. Clicking on a bar allows you to compare this particular instance of the executable against other executions. Please do let me know if you are using SSIS Reporting Pack. I would like to hear any anecdotes you might have, good or bad. @Jamiet

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• Partner Blog Series: PwC Perspectives - "Is It Time for an Upgrade?"

  - by Tanu Sood

  Is your organization debating their next step with regard to Identity Management? While all the stakeholders are well aware that the one-size-fits-all doesn’t apply to identity management, just as true is the fact that no two identity management implementations are alike. Oracle’s recent release of Identity Governance Suite 11g Release 2 has innovative features such as a customizable user interface, shopping cart style request catalog and more. However, only a close look at the use cases can help you determine if and when an upgrade to the latest R2 release makes sense for your organization. This post will describe a few of the situations that PwC has helped our clients work through. “Should I be considering an upgrade?” If your organization has an existing identity management implementation, the questions below are a good start to assessing your current solution to see if you need to begin planning for an upgrade: Does the current solution scale and meet your projected identity management needs? Does the current solution have a customer-friendly user interface? Are you completely meeting your compliance objectives? Are you still using spreadsheets? Does the current solution have the features you need? Is your total cost of ownership in line with well-performing similar sized companies in your industry? Can your organization support your existing Identity solution? Is your current product based solution well positioned to support your organization's tactical and strategic direction? Existing Oracle IDM Customers: Several existing Oracle clients are looking to move to R2 in 2013. If your organization is on Sun Identity Manager (SIM) or Oracle Identity Manager (OIM) and if your current assessment suggests that you need to upgrade, you should strongly consider OIM 11gR2. Oracle provides upgrade paths to Oracle Identity Manager 11gR2 from SIM 7.x / 8.x as well as Oracle Identity Manager 10g / 11gR1. The following are some of the considerations for migration: Check the end of product support (for Sun or legacy OIM) schedule There are several new features available in R2 (including common Helpdesk scenarios, profiling of disconnected applications, increased scalability, custom connectors, browser-based UI configurations, portability of configurations during future upgrades, etc) Cost of ownership (for SIM customers)\ Customizations that need to be maintained during the upgrade Time/Cost to migrate now vs. waiting for next version If you are already on an older version of Oracle Identity Manager and actively maintaining your support contract with Oracle, you might be eligible for a free upgrade to OIM 11gR2. Check with your Oracle sales rep for more details. Existing IDM infrastructure in place: In the past year and half, we have seen a surge in IDM upgrades from non-Oracle infrastructure to Oracle. If your organization is looking to improve the end-user experience related to identity management functions, the shopping cart style access request model and browser based personalization features may come in handy. Additionally, organizations that have a large number of applications that include ecommerce, LDAP stores, databases, UNIX systems, mainframes as well as a high frequency of user identity changes and access requests will value the high scalability of the OIM reconciliation and provisioning engine. Furthermore, we have seen our clients like OIM's out of the box (OOB) support for multiple authoritative sources. For organizations looking to integrate applications that do not have an exposed API, the Generic Technology Connector framework supported by OIM will be helpful in quickly generating custom connector using OOB wizard. Similarly, organizations in need of not only flexible on-boarding of disconnected applications but also strict access management to these applications using approval flows will find the flexible disconnected application profiling feature an extremely useful tool that provides a high degree of time savings. Organizations looking to develop custom connectors for home grown or industry specific applications will likewise find that the Identity Connector Framework support in OIM allows them to build and test a custom connector independently before integrating it with OIM. Lastly, most of our clients considering an upgrade to OIM 11gR2 have also expressed interest in the browser based configuration feature that allows an administrator to quickly customize the user interface without adding any custom code. Better yet, code customizations, if any, made to the product are portable across the future upgrades which, is viewed as a big time and money saver by most of our clients. Below are some upgrade methodologies we adopt based on client priorities and the scale of implementation. For illustration purposes, we have assumed that the client is currently on Oracle Waveset (formerly Sun Identity Manager).   Integrated Deployment: The integrated deployment is typically where a client wants to split the implementation to where their current IDM is continuing to handle the front end workflows and OIM takes over the back office operations incrementally. Once all the back office operations are moved completely to OIM, the front end workflows are migrated to OIM. Parallel Deployment: This deployment is typically done where there can be a distinct line drawn between which functionality the platforms are supporting. For example the current IDM implementation is handling the password reset functionality while OIM takes over the access provisioning and RBAC functions. Cutover Deployment: A cutover deployment is typically recommended where a client has smaller less complex implementations and it makes sense to leverage the migration tools to move them over immediately. What does this mean for YOU? There are many variables to consider when making upgrade decisions. For most customers, there is no ‘easy’ button. Organizations looking to upgrade or considering a new vendor should start by doing a mapping of their requirements with product features. The recommended approach is to take stock of both the short term and long term objectives, understand product features, future roadmap, maturity and level of commitment from the R&D and build the implementation plan accordingly. As we said, in the beginning, there is no one-size-fits-all with Identity Management. So, arm yourself with the knowledge, engage in industry discussions, bring in business stakeholders and start building your implementation roadmap. In the next post we will discuss the best practices on R2 implementations. We will be covering the Do's and Don't's and share our thoughts on making implementations successful. Meet the Writers: Dharma Padala is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has been implementing medium to large scale Identity Management solutions across multiple industries including utility, health care, entertainment, retail and financial sectors.   Dharma has 14 years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which he has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past 8 years. Scott MacDonald is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has consulted for several clients across multiple industries including financial services, health care, automotive and retail.   Scott has 10 years of experience in delivering Identity Management solutions. John Misczak is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has experience implementing multiple Identity and Access Management solutions, specializing in Oracle Identity Manager and Business Process Engineering Language (BPEL). Praveen Krishna is a Manager in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  Over the last decade Praveen has helped clients plan, architect and implement Oracle identity solutions across diverse industries.  His experience includes delivering security across diverse topics like network, infrastructure, application and data where he brings a holistic point of view to problem solving. Jenny (Xiao) Zhang is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  She has consulted across multiple industries including financial services, entertainment and retail. Jenny has three years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which she has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past one and a half years.

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• Add a non-Google Tasks List to Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  Most people rely on a task list to help them remember what they need to do but not everyone wants one that is tied to a Google account. If you have been wanting an independent tasks list then join us as we look at the Tasks extension for Google Chrome. Tasks in Action As soon as you have finished installing the extension you are ready to start adding new tasks to your list. Enter your task into the “Text Area” and press “Enter” to add the task to the list. Note: Your tasks list will be retained (in the order you set) when you close and then reopen your browser. In just moments you can have your task list ready to go. Notice that there is also a “numerical indicator” attached to the “Toolbar Button” so that you will always know how many tasks you have left to complete. You can use the “drag and drop” function to rearrange your list into a more proper order if needed. When you are finished with a task all that you will need to do is click on the “Checkmark” to remove it from the list. If you need to make a new entry similar to an existing one simply right click and the text is automatically pasted into the “Text Area”. Make any desired changes and press “Enter” to add your new task to the list. Prefer to skip using the drop-down window? Click on “Tasks” at the top to open your list in a new tab instead. The tasks list looked very nice in our new tab. Being able to use the style that best suits your needs makes this a very convenient extension. Conclusion The Tasks extension is a perfect fit for anyone who needs a tasks list available but does not want to be tied down with an online account. Quick, simple and best of all hassle free. Links Download the Tasks extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Turn Chrome’s New Tab Page into a Google Tasks PageAccess Google Tasks in Chrome the Easy WayHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default BrowserAdd a To-Do List to Chrome’s New Tab PageAccess Remember The Milk in Google Chrome the Easy Way TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Test Drive Mobile Phones Online With TryPhone Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day, 3/23/10 New Stinger from McAfee Helps Remove ‘FakeAlert’ Threats Google Apps Marketplace: Tools & Services For Google Apps Users Get News Quick and Precise With Newser Scan for Viruses in Ubuntu using ClamAV

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• Convert DVDs and ISO Files to MKV with MakeMKV

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Looking for a quick and easy way to convert your DVDs or ISOs to MKV files? Today we take a look at the MakeMKV Beta which gets the job done very well. Installing and Using MakeMKV Download and install MakeMKV (See download link below) If converting a DVD, place it into your optical drive. When you open MakeMKV you will be greeted by it’s minimalistic interface. Click on the DVD to hard drive button to open the DVD, or the folder icon on the top menu to browse for an ISO file.   MakeMKV will open the disc or file. Once the disc or file is opened, you’ll see the titles listed in the window on the left. Double-click on the titles to expand the tree structure.   Remove any title or tracks you don’t want to convert by unselecting the check box to the left. On the right side of the window, click the folder icon to select browse for your file output directory. When ready, click the MakeMkv button to begin the conversion process.   Conversion will proceed.   When the conversion is finished. Click OK. That’s all there is to it! Your MKV file is ready to play. Conclusion MakeMKV is currently still in beta and during the beta phase it will rip both DVD and Blu-ray for free. However, the DVD ripping functionality will always remain free. After 30 days if you want to continue ripping Blu-ray discs, you’ll need to purchase a license. DVD rips are very quick…typically around 15-20 minutes depending on the length of the movie. MakeMKV is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and will rip and convert DVDs to MKV files. Not all media players natively support MKV playback, so if you’re having trouble playing MKV files, try downloading VLC Media player, or the latest version of the DivX codec. Download MakeMKV Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Rip DVDs with VLCEasily Change Audio File Formats with XRECODEHow To Convert Video Files to MP3 with VLCConvert PDF Files to Word Documents and Other FormatsConvert DVD to MP4 / H.264 with HD Decrypter and Handbrake TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi LocPDF is a Visual PDF Search Tool Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar

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• 14+ WordPress Portfolio Themes

  - by Edward

  There are various portfolio themes for WordPress out there, with this collection we are trying to help you choose the best one. These themes can be used to create any type of personal, photography, art or corporate portfolio. Display 3 in 1 Display 3 in 1 – Business & Portfolio WordPress Theme. Features a fantastic 3D Image slideshow that can be controlled from your backend with a custom tool. The Theme has a huge wordpress custom backend (8 additional Admin Pages) that make customization of the Theme easy for those who dont know much about coding or wordpress. Price: $40 View Demo Download DeepFocus Tempting features such as automatic separation of blog and portfolio content by template, publishing of most important information on homepage, styles to choose from and many more such features. It also provides for page templates for blog, portfolio, blog archive, tags etc. It has the best feature that helps you to manage everything from one place. Price: $39 (Package includes more than 55 themes) View Demo Download SimplePress Simple, yet awesome. One of the best portfolio theme. Price: $39 (Package includes more than 55 themes) View Demo Download Graphix Graphix is one of best word press portfolio themes. It is most suited to aspiring designers, developers, artists and photographers who’d like a framework theme, which has a great-looking portfolio with a feature-rich blog. It has theme option page, 5-color style, SEO option, featured content blocks, drop down multi-level menu, social profile link custom widgets, custom post, custom page template etc. Price: $69 Single & $149 Developer Package View Demo Download Bizznizz It boasts of many features such as custom homepage, custom post types, custom widgets, portfolio templates, alternative styles and many more. View Demo Download Showtime Ultimate WordPress Theme for you to create your web portfolio, It has 3 different styles for you to choose from. Price: $40 View Demo Download Montana WP Horizontal Portfolio Theme Montana Theme – WP Horizontal Portfolio Theme, best suited for creative studios to showcase design, photography, illustration, paintings and art. Price: $30 View Demo Download OverALL OverALL Premium WordPress Blog & Portfolio Theme, is low priced & has amazing tons of features. Price: $17 View Demo Download Habitat Habitat – Blog and Portfolio Theme. Unique Portfolio Sorting/Filtering with a custom jQuery script (each entry supports multiple images or a video) Multiple Featured Images for each post to generate individual Slideshows per Post, or the option to directly embed video content from youtube, vimeo, hulu etc. Price: $35 View Demo Download Fresh Folio Fresh Folio from WooThemes, can be used as both portfolio and a premium WordPress theme. The theme is a remix of the Fresh News Theme and Proud Folio Theme which combines all the best elements of the respective blog and portfolio style themes. View Demo Download Fresh Folio Features: Can be used to create an impressive portfolio. 7 diverse theme styles to choose from (default, blue, red, grunge light, grunge floral, antique, blue creamer, nightlife) The template will automatically (visually) separate your blog & portfolio content, making this an amazing theme for aspiring designers, developers, artists, photographers etc. Unique page templates types for the portfolio, blog, blog archives, tags & search results. Integrated Theme Options (for WordPress) to tweak the layout, colour scheme etc. for the theme Optional Automatic Image Resize, which is used to dynamically create the thumbnails and featured images Includes Widget enabled Sidebars. eGallery eGallery is a theme made to transform your wordpress blog into a fully functional online portfolio. Theme is perfectly designed to emphasize the artwork you choose to showcase. The design has been greatly enhanced using javascript, and is easy to implement. Price: $39 (Package includes more than 55 themes) View Demo Download ProudFolio ProudFolio is a portfolio premium WordPress theme from Woo Themes. The theme is for designers, developers, artists and photographers who would like a showcase theme which would depict as a portfolio and also serves a purpose of blog. ProudFolio puts a strong emphasis on the portfolio pieces, allowing for decent-sized thumbnails, huge fullscreen views via Lightbox, and full details on the single page. The theme file also contains a choice of three different background images and color schemes. Price: $70 Single $150 Developer License View Demo Download Features: The template will automatically (visually) separate your blog & portfolio content. An unique homepage layout, which publishes only the most important information; Unique page templates for the portfolio, blog, blog archives, tags & search results. Integrated Theme Options (for WordPress) to tweak the layout, colour scheme etc. for the theme; Built-in video panel, which you can use to publish any web-based Flash videos; Automatic Image Resize, which is used to dynamically create the thumbnails and featured images; Custom Page Templates for Archives, Sitemap & Image Gallery; Built-in Gravatar Support for Authors & Comments; Integrated Banner Management script to display randomized banner ads of your choice site-wide; Pretty drop down navigation everywhere; and Widget Enabled Sidebars. Porftolio WordPress Theme A FREE wordpress theme designed for web portfolios and (for now) just for web portfolios. It is coming with an Administrative Panel from where you can edit the head quote text, you can edit all theme colors, font families, font sizes and you can fill a curriculum vitae and display it into a special page. Theme demo and download can be found here Viz | Biz Viz | Biz is a premium WordPress photo gallery and portfolio theme designed specifically for photographers, graphic designers and web designers who want to display their creative work online, market their services, as well as have a typical text blog, using the power and flexibility of WordPress. It is priced for $79.95. Theme Features: Premium quality portfolio template Custom logo uploader to replace the standard graphic with your own unique look from the WP Dashboard Integrated blog component (front images are custom fields and thumbnails, but you can also have a typical blog) Four tabbed feature areas (About Me, Services, Recent Posts, and Tags) Two home page feature photos (You choose which photos to feature using a WP category) Manage your online portfolio through the WordPress CMS Crop two sizes of your work: One for the front page thumbnails and another full size version and upload to WP Search engine optimized. Related posts:14 WordPress Photo Blog & Portfolio Themes 6 PhotoBlog Portfolio WordPress Themes Professional WordPress Business Themes

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• Hey You! Stop Using the Apply Button and Just Click OK! [Geek Rants]

  - by The Geek

  As a computer geek, I often find myself helping people, and watching them change settings on their PC… and they almost always click the Apply button, and then the OK button. Why? Whenever you encounter a dialog box in Windows, there are the standard OK, Cancel, Apply buttons—but you don’t actually have to click the Apply button first. The OK button does the same thing, saves the settings, and then closes the dialog box… saving you an extra click. Don’t believe me? Try it out for yourself. Only the worst possible application won’t behave that way, and you probably don’t want to use that type of application to begin with. The only exception to this rule is a multiple tab dialog box, on a badly written application. Sometimes… your settings on one tab won’t stick unless you click Apply. Note that in this particular case, you can make changes in any one of the tabs, and they will carry through without having to click Apply, because this dialog window is well written. We’re just using the screenshot as an example of a multiple tab setting interface. So now that you know better, you can tell us… do you always use the Apply button first? Have you ever found an instance where it behaves differently? Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Got Awesome Skills? Why Not Write for How-To Geek?Customize Your Windows Vista Logon ScreenUse Outlook Rules to Prevent "Oh No!" After Sending EmailsGot Awesome Geek Skills? The How-To Geek is Looking for WritersQuick Firefox UI Tweaks TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Recycle ! Find That Elusive Icon with FindIcons Looking for Good Windows Media Player 12 Plug-ins? Find Out the Celebrity You Resemble With FaceDouble Whoa ! Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems

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• SOA+OSB in same JVM

  - by Manoj Neelapu

  Oracle Service Bus 11gR1 (11.1.1.3) supports running in same JVM as SOA. This tutorial covers on how to do create domain in of SOA+OSB combined to run in single JVM . For this tutorial we will use a flavor  WebLogic installer bundled with both OEPE and coherence components (eg oepe111150_wls1033_win32.exe). WebLogic installer bundled with coherence and OEPE components can be seen in the screen shot.Oracle Service Bus 11gR1 (11.1.1.3) has built-in caching support for Business Services using coherence. Because of this we will have to install coherence before  installing OSB.  To get soa and osb running in the same domain, we have to install the SOA and OSB on the above ORACLE_HOME. After installation we should see both the SOA and OSB homes has highlighted in red.We could also see the coherence components which is mandatory for OSB and optional OEPE also installed.Now we will execute RCU(ofm_rcu_win_11.1.1.3.0_disk1_1of1) to install the schema for SOA and OSB. New RCU contains OSB tables (WLI_QS_REPORT_DATA , WLI_QS_REPORT_ATTRIBUTE) gets loaded as part of SOAINFRA schema After this step we will have to create soa+osb domain using config wizard. It is located under $WEBLOGIC_HOME\common\bin\config.* (.cmd or .sh as per your platform) .While creating a domain we will select options for SOA Suite  and Oracle Service Bus Extension-All Domain Topologies.There is another option for OSB  Oracle Service Bus Extension-Single server Domain Topology. This topology is for users who want to use OSB in single server configuration. Currently SOA doesn't support single server topology. So this topology cannot be used with SOA domain but can only be used for stand alone OSB installations.We can continue with domain configuration till we reach the below screen. Following steps are mandatory if we want to have the SOA and OSB run in same JVMwe should select Managed Server, Clusters and Machines as shown below After this selection you should see a screen with two servers One managed server for OSB and one managed for SOA. Since we would like to have both the servers in one managed server (one JVM) we will have to do one important step here. We have to delete either of the servers and rename the other server with deleted server name.eg delete osb_server1 and rename the soa_server1 to osb_server1 or we can also delete soa_server1 and rename the osb_server1 to soa_server1After this steps proceed as as-usual . If we observe created domain we see only one managed server which contains components for both SOA and OSB ($DOMAIN_HOME/startManagedWebLogic_readme.txt). 

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• Case Management API by Koen van Dijk

  - by JuergenKress

  Case Management is a new addition to Oracle BPM in release 11.1.1.1.7 (PS6). This new release contains the Case Management engine, see blog Léon at  http://leonsmiers.blogspot.nl/ for more details.  However, currently this release does not contain a case portal. The case management API's, just like the already existing Oracle BPM API's, help in developing a portal page with relative ease. This blog will use some real life examples from the EURent casemanagement application and portal application developed by Oracle. The Oracle BPM Case Management API is a Java Based API that enables developers to programmatically access the new Case Management functionalities. It is an elaborate API that can access all the functionalities of Oracle Case Management. I will describe two of those functionalities in this blog: retrieving case data as DOM (http://www.w3.org/DOM/) and attaching a document to a case. Libraries First of all when creating a Case Management project you will need to attach the following libraries: These contain all the classes that are in the Case Management API. Service client To do anything with the BPM CaseManagement API in general it is necessary to create a CaseManagementServiceClient Object. The Case Management service client is the central piece of the Case Management API. It can be used to retrieve two different types of services. The first is the case stream service and the case service. The case stream service contains functionality to upload and download documents to and from a case. The second one is the CaseService. This service contains all the other functionality acting upon a case including but not limited to: Read the complete article here. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Technorati Tags: ACM API,adaptive Case Management,BPM,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Big Data Matters with ODI12c

  - by Madhu Nair

  contributed by Mike Eisterer On October 17th, 2013, Oracle announced the release of Oracle Data Integrator 12c (ODI12c).  This release signifies improvements to Oracle’s Data Integration portfolio of solutions, particularly Big Data integration. Why Big Data = Big Business Organizations are gaining greater insights and actionability through increased storage, processing and analytical benefits offered by Big Data solutions.  New technologies and frameworks like HDFS, NoSQL, Hive and MapReduce support these benefits now. As further data is collected, analytical requirements increase and the complexity of managing transformations and aggregations of data compounds and organizations are in need for scalable Data Integration solutions. ODI12c provides enterprise solutions for the movement, translation and transformation of information and data heterogeneously and in Big Data Environments through: The ability for existing ODI and SQL developers to leverage new Big Data technologies. A metadata focused approach for cataloging, defining and reusing Big Data technologies, mappings and process executions. Integration between many heterogeneous environments and technologies such as HDFS and Hive. Generation of Hive Query Language. Working with Big Data using Knowledge Modules  ODI12c provides developers with the ability to define sources and targets and visually develop mappings to effect the movement and transformation of data.  As the mappings are created, ODI12c leverages a rich library of prebuilt integrations, known as Knowledge Modules (KMs).  These KMs are contextual to the technologies and platforms to be integrated.  Steps and actions needed to manage the data integration are pre-built and configured within the KMs.  The Oracle Data Integrator Application Adapter for Hadoop provides a series of KMs, specifically designed to integrate with Big Data Technologies.  The Big Data KMs include: Check Knowledge Module Reverse Engineer Knowledge Module Hive Transform Knowledge Module Hive Control Append Knowledge Module File to Hive (LOAD DATA) Knowledge Module File-Hive to Oracle (OLH-OSCH) Knowledge Module  Nothing to beat an Example: To demonstrate the use of the KMs which are part of the ODI Application Adapter for Hadoop, a mapping may be defined to move data between files and Hive targets.  The mapping is defined by dragging the source and target into the mapping, performing the attribute (column) mapping (see Figure 1) and then selecting the KM which will govern the process.  In this mapping example, movie data is being moved from an HDFS source into a Hive table.  Some of the attributes, such as “CUSTID to custid”, have been mapped over. Figure 1  Defining the Mapping Before the proper KM can be assigned to define the technology for the mapping, it needs to be added to the ODI project.  The Big Data KMs have been made available to the project through the KM import process.   Generally, this is done prior to defining the mapping. Figure 2  Importing the Big Data Knowledge Modules Following the import, the KMs are available in the Designer Navigator. 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 EN-US ZH-TW X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Figure 3  The Project View in Designer, Showing Installed IKMs Once the KM is imported, it may be assigned to the mapping target.  This is done by selecting the Physical View of the mapping and examining the Properties of the Target.  In this case MOVIAPP_LOG_STAGE is the target of our mapping. Figure 4  Physical View of the Mapping and Assigning the Big Data Knowledge Module to the Target Alternative KMs may have been selected as well, providing flexibility and abstracting the logical mapping from the physical implementation.  Our mapping may be applied to other technologies as well. The mapping is now complete and is ready to run.  We will see more in a future blog about running a mapping to load Hive. To complete the quick ODI for Big Data Overview, let us take a closer look at what the IKM File to Hive is doing for us.  ODI provides differentiated capabilities by defining the process and steps which normally would have to be manually developed, tested and implemented into the KM.  As shown in figure 5, the KM is preparing the Hive session, managing the Hive tables, performing the initial load from HDFS and then performing the insert into Hive.  HDFS and Hive options are selected graphically, as shown in the properties in Figure 4. Figure 5  Process and Steps Managed by the KM What’s Next Big Data being the shape shifting business challenge it is is fast evolving into the deciding factor between market leaders and others. Now that an introduction to ODI and Big Data has been provided, look for additional blogs coming soon using the Knowledge Modules which make up the Oracle Data Integrator Application Adapter for Hadoop: Importing Big Data Metadata into ODI, Testing Data Stores and Loading Hive Targets Generating Transformations using Hive Query language Loading Oracle from Hadoop Sources For more information now, please visit the Oracle Data Integrator Application Adapter for Hadoop web site, http://www.oracle.com/us/products/middleware/data-integration/hadoop/overview/index.html Do not forget to tune in to the ODI12c Executive Launch webcast on the 12th to hear more about ODI12c and GG12c. Normal 0 false false false EN-US ZH-TW X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}

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• ObjectStorageHelper<T> now available for Windows 8 RTM

  - by jamiet

  In October 2011 I wrote a blog post entitled ObjectStorageHelper<T> – A WinRT utility for Windows 8 where I introduced a little utility class called ObjectStorageHelper<T> that I had been working on while noodling around on the Developer Preview of Windows 8. ObjectStorageHelper<T> makes it easy for anyone building apps for Windows 8 to save data to files. How easy? As easy as this: var myPoco = new Poco() { IntProp = 1, StringProp = "one" }; var objectStorageHelper = new ObjectStorageHelper<Poco>(StorageType.Local); await objectStorageHelper.SaveAsync(myPoco); Compare that to the plumbing code that you would have to write otherwise: var Obj = new Poco() { IntProp = 1, StringProp = "one" }; StorageFile file = null; StorageFolder folder = GetFolder(storageType); file = await folder.CreateFileAsync(FileName(Obj), CreationCollisionOption.ReplaceExisting); IRandomAccessStream writeStream = await file.OpenAsync(FileAccessMode.ReadWrite); using (Stream outStream = Task.Run(() => writeStream.AsStreamForWrite()).Result) {     serializer.Serialize(outStream, Obj);     await outStream.FlushAsync(); } and you can see how ObjectStorageHelper<T> can help save a Windows 8 developer quite a few headaches. ObjectStorageHelper<T> simply requires you to pass it an object to be saved, tell it where to save it (Roaming, Local or Temporary), and you’re done. Retrieving an object from storage is equally as simple: var objectStorageHelper = new ObjectStorageHelper<Poco>(StorageType.Local); var myPoco = await objectStorageHelper.LoadAsync(); Please check the homepage for the project at http://winrtstoragehelper.codeplex.com/ for (much) more info. A number of people have used and tested ObjectStorageHelper<T> since those early days and one of those folks in particular, David Burela, was good enough to report a couple of bugs: Saving Asynchronously Save fails when class is in another project As a result of David’s bug reports and some more extensive testing on my side I have overhauled the initial code that I wrote last October and am confident that it is now much more robust and ready for primetime (check the commit history if you’re interested). The source code (which, again, you can find on Codeplex at http://winrtstoragehelper.codeplex.com/) includes a suite of unit tests to test all of the basic use cases (if you can think of any more please let me know). If you use this in any of your Windows 8 projects then please let me know. I love getting feedback and I’d also love to know if this is actually being used anywhere. @Jamiet

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• REMINDER: ATG Live Webcast Nov. 15: Best Practices for Using EBS SDK for Java with Oracle ADF

  - by Bill Sawyer

  Thursday, November 15th is your chance to join Sara Woodhull and Juan Camilo Ruiz as they discuss  Best Practices for Using EBS SDK for Java with Oracle ADF. You can find the complete event details at ATG Live Webcast: Best Practices for Using EBS SDK for Java with Oracle ADF Date:               Thursday, November 15, 2012Time:              8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Pacific Standard TimePresenters:   Sara Woodhull, Principal Product Manager, E-Business Suite ATG                         Juan Camilo Ruiz, Principal Product Manager, ADF Webcast Registration Link (Preregistration is optional but encouraged) To hear the audio feed:    Domestic Participant Dial-In Number:           877-697-8128    International Participant Dial-In Number:      706-634-9568    Additional International Dial-In Numbers Link:    Dial-In Passcode:                                              103192To see the presentation:    The Direct Access Web Conference details are:    Website URL: https://ouweb.webex.com    Meeting Number:  591862924 If you miss the webcast, or you have missed any webcast, don't worry -- we'll post links to the recording as soon as it's available from Oracle University.  You can monitor this blog for pointers to the replay. And, you can find our archive of our past webcasts and training here. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email Bill Sawyer (Senior Manager, Applications Technology Curriculum) at BilldotSawyer-AT-Oracle-DOT-com.

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• WNA Configuration in OAM 11g

  - by P Patra

  Pre-Requisite: Kerberos authentication scheme has to exist. This is usually pre-configured OAM authentication scheme. It should have Authentication Level - "2", Challenge Method - "WNA", Challenge Direct URL - "/oam/server" and Authentication Module- "Kerberos". The default authentication scheme name is "KerberosScheme", this name can be changed. The DNS name has to be resolvable on the OAM Server. The DNS name with referrals to AD have to be resolvable on OAM Server. Ensure nslookup work for the referrals. Pre-Install: AD team to produce keytab file on the AD server by running ktpass command. Provide OAM Hostname to AD Team. Receive from AD team the following: Keypass file produced when running the ktpass command ktpass username ktpass password Copy the keytab file to convenient location in OAM install tree and rename the file if desired. For instance where oam-policy.xml file resides. i.e. /fa_gai2_d/idm/admin/domains/idm-admin/IDMDomain/config/fmwconfig/keytab.kt Configure WNA Authentication on OAM Server: Create config file krb.config and set the environment variable to the path to this file: KRB_CONFIG=/fa_gai2_d/idm/admin/domains/idm-admin/IDMDomain/config/fmwconfig/krb.conf The variable KRB_CONFIG has to be set in the profile for the user that OAM java container(i.e. Wbelogic Server) runs as, so that this setting is available to the OAM server. i.e. "applmgr" user. In the krb.conf file specify: [libdefaults] default_realm= NOA.ABC.COM dns_lookup_realm= true dns_lookup_kdc= true ticket_lifetime= 24h forwardable= yes [realms] NOA.ABC.COM={ kdc=hub21.noa.abc.com:88 admin_server=hub21.noa.abc.com:749 default_domain=NOA.ABC.COM [domain_realm] .abc.com=ABC.COM abc.com=ABC.COM .noa.abc.com=NOA.ABC.COM noa.abc.com=NOA.ABC.COM Where hub21.noa.abc.com is load balanced DNS VIP name for AD Server and NOA.ABC.COM is the name of the domain. Create authentication policy to WNA protect the resource( i.e. EBSR12) and choose the "KerberosScheme" as authentication scheme. Login to OAM Console => Policy Configuration Tab => Browse Tab => Shared Components => Application Domains => IAM Suite => Authentication Policies => Create Name: ABC WNA Auth Policy Authentication Scheme: KerberosScheme Failure URL: http://hcm.noa.abc.com/cgi-bin/welcome Edit System Configuration for Kerberos System Configuration Tab => Access Manager Settings => expand Authentication Modules => expand Kerberos Authentication Module => double click on Kerberos Edit "Key Tab File" textbox - put in /fa_gai2_d/idm/admin/domains/idm-admin/IDMDomain/config/fmwconfig/keytab.kt Edit "Principal" textbox - put in HTTP/[email protected] Edit "KRB Config File" textbox - put in /fa-gai2_d/idm/admin/domains/idm-admin/IDMDomain/config/fmwconfig/krb.conf Cilck "Apply" In the script setting environment for the WLS server where OAM is deployed set the variable: KRB_CONFIG=/fa_gai2_d/idm/admin/domains/idm-admin/IDMDomain/config/fmwconfig/krb.conf Re-start OAM server and OAM Server Container( Weblogic Server)

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• Follow the How-To Geek Writers on Twitter

  - by The Geek

  Ever wonder what the How-To Geek writers are up to? If you’re a Twitter user, you can connect with us directly. We’ve also setup a new @howtogeeknews account if you just want to keep up with the latest articles. So if you want just the latest articles… click the image below and then click the Follow button. Otherwise, if you’d like to connect with the rest of us that actually use Twitter, you can follow each of us separately through  the links below. Note: Let’s try to stick to discussion, and leave the tech support questions for our forum. the How-To Geek (that’s me!) -  @howtogeek Matthew Guay – @maguay Trevor Bekolay – @TrevorBekolay Asian Angel – @asian_angel  Andrew Gehman – @andrewgehman Some of the HTG writers are not currently using Twitter… but I’m gonna list their accounts just in case you wanted to follow them. Mark Virtue – @markvirtue Mysticgeek – @mysticgeek  (He’s far too productive to waste time on Twitter!) Enjoy the conversation! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Got Awesome Geek Skills? The How-To Geek is Looking for WritersGot Awesome Skills? Why Not Write for How-To Geek?Integrate Twitter With Microsoft OutlookState of the Geek 2009: Behind the Scenes and Other GeekeryAnnouncing the How-To Geek Blogs TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Download Videos from Hulu Pixels invade Manhattan Convert PDF files to ePub to read on your iPad Hide Your Confidential Files Inside Images Get Wildlife Photography Tips at BBC’s PhotoMasterClasses Mashpedia is a Real-time Encyclopedia

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• Building dynamic OLAP data marts on-the-fly

  - by DrJohn

  At the forthcoming SQLBits conference, I will be presenting a session on how to dynamically build an OLAP data mart on-the-fly. This blog entry is intended to clarify exactly what I mean by an OLAP data mart, why you may need to build them on-the-fly and finally outline the steps needed to build them dynamically. In subsequent blog entries, I will present exactly how to implement some of the techniques involved. What is an OLAP data mart? In data warehousing parlance, a data mart is a subset of the overall corporate data provided to business users to meet specific business needs. Of course, the term does not specify the technology involved, so I coined the term "OLAP data mart" to identify a subset of data which is delivered in the form of an OLAP cube which may be accompanied by the relational database upon which it was built. To clarify, the relational database is specifically create and loaded with the subset of data and then the OLAP cube is built and processed to make the data available to the end-users via standard OLAP client tools. Why build OLAP data marts? Market research companies sell data to their clients to make money. To gain competitive advantage, market research providers like to "add value" to their data by providing systems that enhance analytics, thereby allowing clients to make best use of the data. As such, OLAP cubes have become a standard way of delivering added value to clients. They can be built on-the-fly to hold specific data sets and meet particular needs and then hosted on a secure intranet site for remote access, or shipped to clients' own infrastructure for hosting. Even better, they support a wide range of different tools for analytical purposes, including the ever popular Microsoft Excel. Extension Attributes: The Challenge One of the key challenges in building multiple OLAP data marts based on the same 'template' is handling extension attributes. These are attributes that meet the client's specific reporting needs, but do not form part of the standard template. Now clearly, these extension attributes have to come into the system via additional files and ultimately be added to relational tables so they can end up in the OLAP cube. However, processing these files and filling dynamically altered tables with SSIS is a challenge as SSIS packages tend to break as soon as the database schema changes. There are two approaches to this: (1) dynamically build an SSIS package in memory to match the new database schema using C#, or (2) have the extension attributes provided as name/value pairs so the file's schema does not change and can easily be loaded using SSIS. The problem with the first approach is the complexity of writing an awful lot of complex C# code. The problem of the second approach is that name/value pairs are useless to an OLAP cube; so they have to be pivoted back into a proper relational table somewhere in the data load process WITHOUT breaking SSIS. How this can be done will be part of future blog entry. What is involved in building an OLAP data mart? There are a great many steps involved in building OLAP data marts on-the-fly. The key point is that all the steps must be automated to allow for the production of multiple OLAP data marts per day (i.e. many thousands, each with its own specific data set and attributes). Now most of these steps have a great deal in common with standard data warehouse practices. The key difference is that the databases are all built to order. The only permanent database is the metadata database (shown in orange) which holds all the metadata needed to build everything else (i.e. client orders, configuration information, connection strings, client specific requirements and attributes etc.). The staging database (shown in red) has a short life: it is built, populated and then ripped down as soon as the OLAP Data Mart has been populated. In the diagram below, the OLAP data mart comprises the two blue components: the Data Mart which is a relational database and the OLAP Cube which is an OLAP database implemented using Microsoft Analysis Services (SSAS). The client may receive just the OLAP cube or both components together depending on their reporting requirements.  So, in broad terms the steps required to fulfil a client order are as follows: Step 1: Prepare metadata Create a set of database names unique to the client's order Modify all package connection strings to be used by SSIS to point to new databases and file locations. Step 2: Create relational databases Create the staging and data mart relational databases using dynamic SQL and set the database recovery mode to SIMPLE as we do not need the overhead of logging anything Execute SQL scripts to build all database objects (tables, views, functions and stored procedures) in the two databases Step 3: Load staging database Use SSIS to load all data files into the staging database in a parallel operation Load extension files containing name/value pairs. These will provide client-specific attributes in the OLAP cube. Step 4: Load data mart relational database Load the data from staging into the data mart relational database, again in parallel where possible Allocate surrogate keys and use SSIS to perform surrogate key lookup during the load of fact tables Step 5: Load extension tables & attributes Pivot the extension attributes from their native name/value pairs into proper relational tables Add the extension attributes to the views used by OLAP cube Step 6: Deploy & Process OLAP cube Deploy the OLAP database directly to the server using a C# script task in SSIS Modify the connection string used by the OLAP cube to point to the data mart relational database Modify the cube structure to add the extension attributes to both the data source view and the relevant dimensions Remove any standard attributes that not required Process the OLAP cube Step 7: Backup and drop databases Drop staging database as it is no longer required Backup data mart relational and OLAP database and ship these to the client's infrastructure Drop data mart relational and OLAP database from the build server Mark order complete Start processing the next order, ad infinitum. So my future blog posts and my forthcoming session at the SQLBits conference will all focus on some of the more interesting aspects of building OLAP data marts on-the-fly such as handling the load of extension attributes and how to dynamically alter the structure of an OLAP cube using C#.

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• Summit Time!

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  Boy, how time flies!  I can hardly believe that the 2011 PASS Summit is just one week away.  Maybe it snuck up on me because it’s a few weeks earlier than last year.  Whatever the cause, I am really looking forward to next week.  The PASS Summit is the largest SQL Server conference in the world and a fantastic networking opportunity thrown in for no additional charge.  Here are a few thoughts to help you maximize the week. Networking As Karen Lopez (blog | @DataChick) mentioned in her presentation for the Professional Development Virtual Chapter just a couple of weeks ago, “Don’t wait until you need a new job to start networking.”  You should always be working on your professional network.  Some people, especially technical-minded people, get confused by the term networking.  The first image that used to pop into my head was the image of some guy standing, awkwardly, off to the side of a cocktail party, trying to shmooze those around him.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  If you’re good at that sort of thing, and you can strike up a conversation with some stranger and learn all about them in 5 minutes, and walk away with your next business deal all but approved by the lawyers, then congratulations.  But if you’re not, and most of us are not, I have two suggestions for you.  First, register for Don Gabor’s 2-hour session on Tuesday at the Summit called Networking to Build Business Contacts.  Don is a master at small talk, and at teaching others, and in just those two short hours will help you with important tips about breaking the ice, remembering names, and smooth transitions into and out of conversations.  Then go put that great training to work right away at the Tuesday night Welcome Reception and meet some new people; which is really my second suggestion…just meet a few new people.  You see, “networking” is about meeting new people and being friendly without trying to “work it” to get something out of the relationship at this point.  In fact, Don will tell you that a better way to build the connection with someone is to look for some way that you can help them, not how they can help you. There are a ton of opportunities as long as you follow this one key point: Don’t stay in your hotel!  At the least, get out and go to the free events such as the Tuesday night Welcome Reception, the Wednesday night Exhibitor Reception, and the Thursday night Community Appreciation Party.  All three of these are perfect opportunities to meet other professionals with a similar job or interest as you, and you never know how that may help you out in the future.  Maybe you just meet someone to say HI to at breakfast the next day instead of eating alone.  Or maybe you cross paths several times throughout the Summit and compare notes on different sessions you attended.  And you just might make new friends that you look forward to seeing year after year at the Summit.  Who knows, it might even turn out that you have some specific experience that will help out that other person a few months’ from now when they run into the same challenge that you just overcame, or vice-versa.  But the point is, if you don’t get out and meet people, you’ll never have the chance for anything else to happen in the future. One more tip for shy attendees of the Summit…if you can’t bring yourself to strike up conversation with strangers at these events, then at the least, after you sit through a good session that helps you out, go up to the speaker and introduce yourself and thank them for taking the time and effort to put together their presentation.  Ideally, when you do this, tell them WHY it was beneficial to you (e.g. “Now I have a new idea of how to tackle a problem back at the office.”)  I know you think the speakers are all full of confidence and are always receiving a ton of accolades and applause, but you’re wrong.  Most of them will be very happy to hear first-hand that all the work they put into getting ready for their presentation is paying off for somebody. Training With over 170 technical sessions at the Summit, training is what it’s all about, and the training is fantastic!  Of course there are the big-name trainers like Paul Randall, Kimberly Tripp, Kalen Delaney, Itzik Ben-Gan and several others, but I am always impressed by the quality of the training put on by so many other “regular” members of the SQL Server community.  It is amazing how you don’t have to be a published author or otherwise recognized as an “expert” in an area in order to make a big impact on others just by sharing your personal experience and lessons learned.  I would rather hear the story of, and lessons learned from, “some guy or gal” who has actually been through an issue and came out the other side, than I would a trained professor who is speaking just from theory or an intellectual understanding of a topic. In addition to the three full days of regular sessions, there are also two days of pre-conference intensive training available.  There is an extra cost to this, but it is a fantastic opportunity.  Think about it…you’re already coming to this area for training, so why not extend your stay a little bit and get some in-depth training on a particular topic or two?  I did this for the first time last year.  I attended one day of extra training and it was well worth the time and money.  One of the best reasons for it is that I am extremely busy at home with my regular job and family, that it was hard to carve out the time to learn about the topic on my own.  It worked out so well last year that I am doubling up and doing two days or “pre-cons” this year. And then there are the DVDs.  I think these are another great option.  I used the online schedule builder to get ready and have an idea of which sessions I want to attend and when they are (much better than trying to figure this out at the last minute every day).  But the problem that I have run into (seems this happens every year) is that nearly every session block has two different sessions that I would like to attend.  And some of them have three!  ACK!  That won’t work!  What is a guy supposed to do?  Well, one option is to purchase the DVDs which are recordings of the audio and projected images from each session so you can continue to attend sessions long after the Summit is officially over.  Yes, many (possibly all) of these also get posted online and attendees can access those for no extra charge, but those are not necessarily all available as quickly as the DVD recording are, and the DVDs are often more convenient than downloading, especially if you want to share the training with someone who was not able to attend in person. Remember, I don’t make any money or get any other benefit if you buy the DVDs or from anything else that I have recommended here.  These are just my own thoughts, trying to help out based on my experiences from the 8 or so Summits I have attended.  There is nothing like the Summit.  It is an awesome experience, fantastic training, and a whole lot of fun which is just compounded if you’ll take advantage of the first part of this article and make some new friends along the way.

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