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  • Linux that restores itself on each reboot

    - by jettero
    I'm looking for methods and software to help create a variant of lubuntu that will restore itself to an install state and/or update on every boot. I'm thinking of doing things like putting the root filesystem on a squashfs and using unionfs and tmpfs to make root writable, but automagically restorable. I'm thinking of updating the squashfs with rsync. Perhaps there are other ways to approach the problem. Perhaps root needn't be writable at all. All thoughts welcome. The home dir would be writable in the usual way. The goal, if it matters, is a Linux that's simple to maintain from the home office, but that functions correctly for customers. We have some custom software that we wish for customers to be able to run trivially on equipment we provide. Ideally these devices would have a "restore to factory" function that would put it back the way we intended. If this is part of the normal boot cycle, so much the better. Why lubuntu? Personal preference for this application. It has a usable desktop, but doesn't take up much ram.

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  • Can I host multiple sites with one Amazon EC2 instance [duplicate]

    - by user22
    This question already has an answer here: Can you help me with my capacity planning? 2 answers I currently have VPS server and I pay around $75 per month and I get: 40GB HD 2Gb RAM 100GB BW 6 core cpu (but i dont use much) I have only one live website running and traffic is only max 100 user visit per day. I mostly do the my testing stuff and some of my inter sites for playing with coding. But I do need one server. I am thinking of moving to Amazon EC2 if the price diff is not so much because then I can learn some more stuff. I am thinking of getting the 3 years Heavy utilization Reserved instance because my server will be running all day and night. I tried their online caluclator with Medium Instance Heavy reserved for 3 years for EC2 it comes $31 per month(effective price) and for EBS and S3 , I think even if thats it $40 for all other stuff. I will be at no loss for what I am getting at present. Am i correct or I missed something?? Now In my current VPS I have Apache for PHP sites and MOD wsgi for python sites. I am not sure if I will be able to do all that stuff in Amazon EC2. Can I host python and PHP sites both in Amazon EC2 instance using Named Virtual Hosts and Ngnix

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  • Configure Web app for external access (IIS7), allowing only certain users via AD group. All users need internal access

    - by White Island
    We have a Web app running in IIS7 (Server 2008 R2). I now need to allow external access with an SSL certificate, so certain users (e.g. the owner of the company) can use it remotely without VPN. They want to roll out the external access only to those specific users at first (thinking: a Windows credential prompt), BUT everyone will still need access internally (HTTP), without the prompt. I have the SSL cert installed on the server and public DNS configured. I've been trying to figure out how to work the authentication/authorization. I was thinking I need to disable Anonymous authn and set Windows authn, then I keep coming back to 'URL Authorization' in my research for the group setting; however, when I tried URL authz, (removed allow all, added allow rule for the special group), it broke the site internally (403.2 Forbidden, I believe it was). I thought maybe setting up a second site in IIS pointing to the same program would work, but the exact same thing happened (and again with a new app pool, just for kicks). So I guess my question is, how would you do this: allow external access, limited to users in a specific AD group, while still allowing internal access without a credentials prompt? How do I separate the external HTTPS and internal HTTP authorization requirements? Will I need to just copy the entire contents of the app in Windows Explorer to a new folder and create my external site from that? Is Windows authentication the correct option for this? I did come across this, which refers to creating a custom module. While it sounds like a solution, it's not one I'm familiar with, and I just wondered if there is a simpler way to get it to work: http://forums.iis.net/p/1182792/2000775.aspx Thanks!

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  • Why don't I just build the whole web app in Javascript and Javascript HTML Templates?

    - by viatropos
    I'm getting to the point on an app where I need to start caching things, and it got me thinking... In some parts of the app, I render table rows (jqGrid, slickgrid, etc.) or fancy div rows (like in the New Twitter) by grabbing pure JSON and running it through something like Mustache, jquery.tmpl, etc. In other parts of the app, I just render the info in pure HTML (server-side HAML templates), and if there's searching/paginating, I just go to a new URL and load a new HTML page. Now the problem is in caching and maintainability. On one hand I'm thinking, if everything was built using Javascript HTML Templates, then my app would serve just an HTML layout/shell, and a bunch of JSON. If you look at the Facebook and Twitter HTML source, that's basically what they're doing (95% json/javascript, 5% html). This would make it so my app only needed to cache JSON (pages, actions, and/or records). Which means you'd hit the cache no matter if you were some remote api developer accessing a JSON api, or the strait web app. That is, I don't need 2 caches, one for the JSON, one for the HTML. That seems like it'd cut my cache store down in half, and streamline things a little bit. On the other hand, I'm thinking, from what I've seen/experienced, generating static HTML server-side, and caching that, seems to be much better performance wise cross-browser; you get the graphics instantly and don't have to wait that split-second for javascript to render it. StackOverflow seems to do everything in plain HTML, and you can tell... everything appears at once. Notice how though on twitter.com, the page is blank for .5-1 seconds, and the page chunks in: the javascript has to render the json. The downside with this is that, for anything dynamic (like endless scrolling, or grids), I'd have to create javascript templates anyway... so now I have server-side HAML templates, client-side javascript templates, and a lot more to cache. My question is, is there any consensus on how to approach this? What are the benefits and drawbacks from your experience of mixing the two versus going 100% with one over the other? Update: Some reasons that factor into why I haven't yet made the decision to go with 100% javascript templating are: Performance. Haven't formally tested, but from what I've seen, raw html renders faster and more fluidly than javascript-generated html cross-browser. Plus, I'm not sure how mobile devices handle dynamic html performance-wise. Testing. I have a lot of integration tests that work well with static HTML, so switching to javascript-only would require 1) more focused pure-javascript testing (jasmine), and 2) integrating javascript into capybara integration tests. This is just a matter of time and work, but it's probably significant. Maintenance. Getting rid of HAML. I love HAML, it's so easy to write, it prints pretty HTML... It makes code clean, it makes maintenance easy. Going with javascript, there's nothing as concise. SEO. I know google handles the ajax /#!/path, but haven't grasped how this will affect other search engines and how older browsers handle it. Seems like it'd require a significant setup.

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  • Opinions on Copy Protection / Software Licensing via phoning home?

    - by Jakobud
    I'm developing some software that I'm going to eventually sell. I've been thinking about different copy protection mechanisms, both custom and 3rd party. I know that no copy protection is 100% full-proof, but I need to at least try. So I'm looking for some opinions to my approach I'm thinking about: One method I'm thinking about is just having my software connect to a remote server when it starts up, in order to verify the license based off the MAC address of the ethernet port. I'm not sure if the server would be running a MySQL database that retrieves the license information, or what... Is there a more simple way? Maybe some type of encrypted file that is read? I would make the software still work if it can't connect to the server. I don't want to lock someone out just because they don't have internet access at that moment in time. In case you are wondering, the software I'm developing is extremely internet/network dependant. So its actually quite unlikely that the user wouldn't have internet access when using it. Actually, its pretty useless without internet/network access. Anyone know what I would do about computers that have multiple MAC addresses? A lot of motherboards these days have 2 ethernet ports. And most laptops have 1 ethernet, 1 wifi and Bluetooth MAC addresses. I suppose I could just pick a MAC port and run with it. Not sure if it really matters A smarty and tricky user could determine the server that the software is connecting to and perhaps add it to their host file so that it always trys to connect to localhost. How likely do you think this is? And do you think its possible for the software to check if this is being done? I guess parsing of the host file could always work. Look for your server address in there and see if its connecting to localhost or something. I've considered dongles, but I'm trying to avoid them just because I know they are a pain to work with. Keeping them updated and possibly requiring the customer to run their own license server is a bit too much for me. I've experienced that and it's a bit of a pain that I wouldn't want to put my customers through. Also I'm trying to avoid that extra overhead cost of using 3rd party dongles. Also, I'm leaning toward connecting to a remote server to verify authentication as opposed to just sending the user some sort of license file because what happens when the user buys a new computer? I have to send them a replacement license file that will work with their new computer, but they will still be able to use it on their old computer as well. There is no way for me to 'de-authorize' their old computer without asking them to run some program on it or something. Also, one important note, with the software I would make it very clear to the user in the EULA that the software connects to a remote server to verify licensing and that no personal information is sent. I know I don't care much for software that does that kinda stuff without me knowing. Anyways, just looking for some opinions for people who have maybe gone down this kinda road. It seems like remote-server-dependent-software would be one of the most effective copy-protection mechanisms, not just because of difficulty of circumventing, but also could be pretty easy to manage the licenses on the developers end.

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  • Please clarify how create/update happens against child entities of an aggregate root

    - by christian
    After much reading and thinking as I begin to get my head wrapped around DDD, I am a bit confused about the best practices for dealing with complex hierarchies under an aggregate root. I think this is a FAQ but after reading countless examples and discussions, no one is quite talking about the issue I'm seeing. If I am aligned with the DDD thinking, entities below the aggregate root should be immutable. This is the crux of my trouble, so if that isn't correct, that is why I'm lost. Here is a fabricated example...hope it holds enough water to discuss. Consider an automobile insurance policy (I'm not in insurance, but this matches the language I hear when on the phone w/ my insurance company). Policy is clearly an entity. Within the policy, let's say we have Auto. Auto, for the sake of this example, only exists within a policy (maybe you could transfer an Auto to another policy, so this is potential for an aggregate as well, which changes Policy...but assume it simpler than that for now). Since an Auto cannot exist without a Policy, I think it should be an Entity but not a root. So Policy in this case is an aggregate root. Now, to create a Policy, let's assume it has to have at least one auto. This is where I get frustrated. Assume Auto is fairly complex, including many fields and maybe a child for where it is garaged (a Location). If I understand correctly, a "create Policy" constructor/factory would have to take as input an Auto or be restricted via a builder to not be created without this Auto. And the Auto's creation, since it is an entity, can't be done beforehand (because it is immutable? maybe this is just an incorrect interpretation). So you don't get to say new Auto and then setX, setY, add(Z). If Auto is more than somewhat trivial, you end up having to build a huge hierarchy of builders and such to try to manage creating an Auto within the context of the Policy. One more twist to this is later, after the Policy is created and one wishes to add another Auto...or update an existing Auto. Clearly, the Policy controls this...fine...but Policy.addAuto() won't quite fly because one can't just pass in a new Auto (right!?). Examples say things like Policy.addAuto(VIN, make, model, etc.) but are all so simple that that looks reasonable. But if this factory method approach falls apart with too many parameters (the entire Auto interface, conceivably) I need a solution. From that point in my thinking, I'm realizing that having a transient reference to an entity is OK. So, maybe it is fine to have a entity created outside of its parent within the aggregate in a transient environment, so maybe it is OK to say something like: auto = AutoFactory.createAuto(); auto.setX auto.setY or if sticking to immutability, AutoBuilder.new().setX().setY().build() and then have it get sorted out when you say Policy.addAuto(auto) This insurance example gets more interesting if you add Events, such as an Accident with its PolicyReports or RepairEstimates...some value objects but most entities that are all really meaningless outside the policy...at least for my simple example. The lifecycle of Policy with its growing hierarchy over time seems the fundamental picture I must draw before really starting to dig in...and it is more the factory concept or how the child entities get built/attached to an aggregate root that I haven't seen a solid example of. I think I'm close. Hope this is clear and not just a repeat FAQ that has answers all over the place.

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  • The Internet of Things & Commerce: Part 2 -- Interview with Brian Celenza, Commerce Innovation Strategist

    - by Katrina Gosek, Director | Commerce Product Strategy-Oracle
    Internet of Things & Commerce Series: Part 2 (of 3) Welcome back to the second installation of my three part series on the Internet of Things & Commerce. A few weeks ago, I wrote “The Next 7,000 Days” about how we’ve become embedded in a digital architecture in the last 7,000 days since the birth of the internet – an architecture that everyday ties the massive expanse of the internet evermore closely with our physical lives. This blog series explores how this new blend of virtual and material will change how we shop and how businesses sell. Now enjoy reading my interview with Brian Celenza, one of the chief strategists in our Oracle Commerce innovation group. He comments on the past, present, and future of the how the growing Internet of Things relates and will relate to the buying and selling of goods on and offline. -------------------------------------------- QUESTION: You probably have one of the coolest jobs on our team, Brian – and frankly, one of the coolest jobs in our industry. As part of the innovation team for Oracle Commerce, you’re regularly working on bold features and groundbreaking commerce-focused experiences for our vision demos. As you look back over the past couple of years, what is the biggest trend (or trends) you’ve seen in digital commerce that started to bring us closer to this idea of what people are calling an “Internet of Things”? Brian: Well as you look back over the last couple of years, the speed at which change in our industry has moved looks like one of those blurred movement photos – you know the ones where the landscape blurs because the observer is moving so quickly your eye focus can’t keep up. But one thing that is absolutely clear is that the biggest catalyst for that speed of change – especially over the last three years – has been mobile. Mobile technology changed everything. Over the last three years the entire thought process of how to sell on (and offline) has shifted because of mobile technology advances. Particularly for eCommerce professionals who have started to move past the notion of “channels” for selling goods to this notion of “Mobile First”… then the Web site. Or more accurately, that everything – smartphones, web, store, tablet – is just one channel or has to act like one singular access point to the same product catalog, information and content. The most innovative eCommerce professionals realized some time ago that it’s not ideal to build an eCommerce Web site and then build everything on top of or off of it. Rather, they want to build an eCommerce API and then integrate it will all other systems. To accomplish this, they are leveraging all the latest mobile technologies or possibilities mobile technology has opened up: 4G and LTE, GPS, bluetooth, touch screens, apps, html5… How has this all started to come together for shopping experiences on and offline? Well to give you a personal example, I remember visiting an Apple store a few years ago and being amazed that I didn’t have to wait in line because a store associate knew everything about me from my ID – right there on the sales floor – and could check me out anywhere. Then just a few months later (when like any good addict) I went back to get the latest and greatest new gadget, I felt like I was stealing it because I could check myself out with my smartphone. I didn’t even need to see a sales associate OR go to a cash register. Amazing. And since then, all sort sorts of companies across all different types of industries – from food service to apparel –  are starting to see mobile payments in the billions of dollars now thanks not only to the convenience factor but to smart loyalty rewards programs as well. These are just some really simple current examples that come to mind. So many different things have happened in the last couple of years, it’s hard to really absorb all of the quickly – because as soon as you do, everything changes again! Just like that blurry speed photo image. For eCommerce, however, this type of new environment underscores the importance of building an eCommerce API – a platform that has services you can tap in to and build on as the landscape changes at a fever pitch. It’s a mobile first perspective. A web service perspective – particularly if you are thinking of how to engage customers across digital and physical spaces. —— QUESTION: Thanks for bringing us into the present – some really great examples you gave there to put things into perspective. So what do you see as the biggest trend right now around the “Internet of Things” – and what’s coming next few years? Brian: Honestly, even sitting where I am in the innovation group – it’s hard to look out even 12 months because, well, I don’t even think we’ve fully caught up with what is possible now. But I can definitely say that in the last 12 months and in the coming 12 months, in the technology and eCommerce world it’s all about iBeacons. iBeacons are awesome tools we have right now to tie together physical and digital shopping experiences. They know exactly where you are as a shopper and can communicate that to businesses. Currently there seem to be two camps of thought around iBeacons. First, many people are thinking of them like an “indoor GPS”, which to be fair they literally are. The use case this first camp envisions for iBeacons is primarily for advertising and marketing. So they use iBeacons to push location-based promotions to customers if they are close to a store or in a store. You may have seen these types of mobile promotions start to pop up occasionally on your smart phone as you pass by a store you’ve bought from in the past. That’s the work of iBeacons. But in my humble opinion, these promotions probably come too early in the customer journey and although they may be well timed and work to “convert” in some cases, I imagine in most they are just eroding customer trust because they are kind of a “one-size-fits-all” solution rather than one that is taking into account what exactly the customer might be looking for in that particular moment. Maybe they just want more information and a promotion is way too soon for that type of customer. The second camp is more in line with where my thinking falls. In this case, businesses take a more sensitive approach with iBeacons to customers’ needs. Instead of throwing out a “one-size-fits-all” to any passer by with iBeacons, the use case is more around looking at the physical proximity of a customer as an opportunity to provide a service: show expert reviews on a product they may be looking at in a particular aisle of a store, offer the opportunity to compare prices (and then offer a promotion), signal an in-store associate if a customer has been in the store for more than 10 minutes in one place. These are all less intrusive more value-driven uses of iBeacons. And they are more about building customer trust through service. To take this example a bit further into the future realm of “Big Data” and “Internet of Things” businesses could actually use the Oracle Commerce Platform and iBeacons to “silently” track customer movement w/in the store to provide higher quality service. And this doesn’t have to be creepy or intrusive. Simply if a customer has been in a particular department or aisle for more than a 5 or 10 minutes, an in-store associate could come over an offer some assistance already knowing customer preferences from their online profile and maybe even seeing the items in a shopping cart they started at home. None of this has to be revealed to the customer, but it certainly could boost the level of service an in-store sales associate could provide. Or, in another futuristic example, stores could use the digital footprint of the physical store transmitted by iBeacons to generate heat maps of the store that could be tracked over time. Imagine how much you could find out about which parts of the store are more busy during certain parts of the day or seasons. This could completely revolutionize how physical merchandising is deployed or where certain high value / new items are placed. And / or this use of iBeacons could also help businesses figure out if customers are getting held up in certain parts of the store during busy days like Black Friday. If long lines are causing customers to bounce from a physical store and leave those holiday gifts behind, maybe having employees with mobile check as an option could remove the cash register bottleneck. But going to back to my original statement, it’s all still very early in the story for iBeacons. The hardware manufacturers are still very new and there is still not one clear standard.  Honestly, it all goes back to building and maintaining an extensible and flexible platform for anywhere engagement. What you’re building today should allow you to rapidly take advantage of whatever unimaginable use cases wait around the corner. ------------------------------------------------------ I hope you enjoyed the brief interview with Brian. It’s really awesome to have such smart and innovation-minded individuals on our Oracle Commerce innovation team. Please join me again in a few weeks for Part 3 of this series where I interview one of the product managers on our team about how the blending of digital and in-store selling in influencing our product development and vision.

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  • Is HR/Recruitment Really Ready For Innovative Candidates

    - by david.talamelli
    Before I begin this blog post, I want to acknowledge that there are some great HR/Recruitment people out there who are innovative and are leading the way in using new means to successfully attract and connect with talented people. For those of you who fit in this category, please keep thinking outside the square - just because what you do may not be the norm doesn't mean it is bad. Ok, with that acknowledgment out of the way - Earlier this morning (I started this post Friday morning) I came across this online profile via a tweet from Philip Tusing I love the information that Jason has put on his web-pages. From his work Jason clearly demonstrates not only his skills/experience but also I love how he relates his experience and shows how it will help an employer and what the value add of having him on your team is. Looking at Jason's profile makes me think though, is HR/Recruitment in general terms ready to deal with innovative candidates. Sure most Recruiters are online in some form or another, but how many actually have a process that is flexible enough to deal with someone who may not fit into your processes. Is your company's recruitment practice proactive enough to find Jason's web-pages? I am not sure what he is doing in terms of a job search, but if he is not mailing a resume or replying to ads on a Job Board - hopefully Jason comes up on some of the candidate searching you are doing. Once you find this information, would the information Jason provides fit nicely into your Applicant Tracking System or your Database? If not, how much of the intangible information are you losing and potentially not passing on to a Hiring Manager. I think what has worked in the past will not necessarily work in the future. Candidates want to work somewhere they will be challenged and learn and grow. If your HR/Recruitment team displays processes that take don't necessarily convey this message, this potentially could turn people away who were once interested in your company. For example (and I have to admit I still do some of these things myself), once calling up and having a talk to a candidate a company may say: 1) HR Question: Send me in a copy of your resume - Candidate Reply - you actually already have my resume, the web-page is http:// 2) HR Question:Come in for a chat so we can get to know you - Candidate Reply - if this is the basis of a meeting, you already know me and my thoughts by looking at my online links (blog, portfolio, homepage, etc...) These questions if not handled properly could potentially turn a candidate from being interested in your company to not being interested in your company. It potentially could demonstrate that your company is not social media savvy or maybe give the impression of not really being all that innovative. A candidate may think, if this company isn't able to take information I have provided in the public forum and use it, is it really a company I want to work for? I think when liaising with candidates a company should utilise the information the person has provided in the public domain. A candidate may inadvertantly give you answers to many of the questions you are seeking on their online presence and save everyone time instead of having to fill out forms or paperwork. If you build this into your conversations with your candidates it becomes a much more individualised service you are providing and really demonstrates to a candidate you are thinking of them as an individual. Yes I know we need to have processes in place and I am not saying don't work to those processes, but don't let process take away a candidates individuality. Don't let your process inadvertently scare away the top candidates that you may want in your company. This article was originally posted on David Talamelli's Blog - David's Journal on Tap

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  • Call Webservices&hellip;Maybe!?

    - by MOSSLover
    So I have been doing preliminary work for my iOS talk for a while, but did not get into the meat of the project until recently.  One day I envision my talk uploading pictures from a camera on an iPhone or iPad into SharePoint and telling people how I did it.  As you know with my Silverlight talk and any new technology, building new talks with new technologies always ends up with some pain points that you must jump over just to grab data.  So step 1 always starts out with how do we even access a webservice using the new technology. I started out watching every single SPC video available on oAuth and Rest Webservices in SharePoint 2013.  I also sent an email to Eric Shupps about some REST and 2013 examples.  The videos further confused me, because all the videos were on SharePoint hosted apps (provider and autohosted).  I did not want to create a SharePoint hosted app, but instead a mobile app outside of the SharePoint context altogether.  Nick Swan sent me his code and it was great for a starting point on how the JSON calls would look like on iOS, but I was still missing a piece.  Nick does a great job on showing how to use the REST/JSON calls in a non-MS tech, however his presentation uses the SharePoint context and can grab the SPAppToken.  At this point I had to ask the question how do you grab the SAML token outside of SharePoint 2013 in iOS using Objective-C?  After reading all the MSDN documentation, some documentation on Restkit and Objective-C/oAuth calls, and some SharePoint 2013 blog post my head was swimming.  I was dreaming about REST and iOS in SharePoint 2013.  SAML tokens were taunting me.  I was nowhere near understanding 2013. I started talking to my friend, Pedro Jimenez, who is also playing with Objective-C and went to SPC.  He found me a couple good MSDN posts with REST/JSON calls that basically showed the accessToken was all I needed (at this point I was still thinking iOS needed to be a provider hosted app which is wrong).  So then again I had to ask the SAML token question…How do you get a SAML token outside of SharePoint without the TokenHelper class? So then I started talking to people and thinking why do I need to completely avoid TokenHelper…The solution in concept is basically create a webservice in Azure wrapped into a Provider Hosted App in SharePoint.  Wictor Wilen created a helper webservice in the following blog post: http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/How-to-do-active-authentication-to-Office-365-and-SharePoint-Online.aspx. So now I have to basically stand up the webservice, the SharePoint app wrapper, and then use Restkit to call the first webservice to grab the token and then the second webservice to pass in the token and grab some SharePoint data.  What this means is that you can no longer just pass credentials into SharePoint webservices and get data back.  You have to pass in a SAML token with every single webservice call to SharePoint.  The theory is that this token is associated with the permissions the app can handle (read, write, whatever).  It seems like a ton of pain and a lot of work, but this is step 1 in my crusade to pull some piece of data into iOS from SharePoint and show people how to do it themselves.  In the upcoming months hopefully I can get halfway to my end goal. Technorati Tags: SharePoint 2013,REST,oAuth,Objective-C,iOS

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  • Expression Studio 4 - without SketchFlow&hellip;

    - by mbcrump
    is kinda like an explosion with no “Ka-Boom”… I was excited to hear the news yesterday at Microsoft Teched that Expression Studio 4 had officially launched. MSDN subscribers could log in and download the full release. So, I logged into my MSDN account and started downloading Expression Studio 4 Premium thinking that I was only minutes away from trying out SketchFlow 4. To my dismay, I launched Blend 4 and noticed it did not say SketchFlow on the splash screen. So, I went to New Project and the template was not available. After some digging around on the net, I learned my premium MSDN subscription did not include SketchFlow and I would need to purchase the Ultimate Edition. Below is a excerpt directly from Microsoft: Q: What products are included in the Microsoft Expression Studio 4 Ultimate? A: Expression Studio 4 Ultimate is comprised of 4 products, Expression Web 4, Microsoft Expression Blend® 4 + SketchFlow, Expression Encoder 4 Pro and Expression Design 4. Expression Blend 4 includes SketchFlow in Expression Studio 4 Ultimate product only. Q: What products are included in the Microsoft Expression Studio 4 Premium? A: Expression Studio 4 Premium is comprised of 4 products, Expression Web 4, Microsoft Expression Blend 4, Expression Encoder 4 and Expression Design 4. Expression Studio 4 Premium is not available for retail purchase. Q: What products are included in the Microsoft Expression Studio 4 Web Professional? A: Expression Studio 4 Web Professional is comprised of 3 products, Expression Web 4, Expression Encoder 4 and Expression Design 4. As you can see, we got screwed on this deal and plenty of people are complaining: Kiran Says: 6.07.2010 at 5:07 PM No SketchFlow for Expression Studio 4 Premium? What a bumper for Microsoft Partners!! Martin Says: 6.07.2010 at 6:18 PM Why does Expression Professional Subscription not include upgrades and new releases of Expression Studio. Good question hey. I bought my subscription 5 days ago thinking I would get what i purchased but no Expression upgrades or new releases for me, what a waste of money. I think I am not the only long term user of this software that feels disgruntled. Sorry john just had to tell someone. shaggygi Says: 6.07.2010 at 7:31 PM SketchFlow NOT included in Studio 4? WTF! I repeat.... WT...Freaking.... F! This is totally unacceptable. My development team purchased VS 2010 Premium w/ MSDN with the impression by Adam Kinney, Scott Guthrie, etc. that this would be included in the Premium package or some sort of free upgrade. I understand this is a Marketing thing, but come on! I believe, at very least, this should have been explained in detail before this release. John Papa... as a rep to give feedback to the team... Please please and please.... tell powers-at-be to fix this problem. Sorry for the rant. Besides this issue, I believe it is a very good product:) Thanks Vaclav Elias Says: 6.08.2010 at 4:30 AM Well, I am also not happy that SketchFlow is only for the chosen ones :-) It is very nice product. Actually, kind of foundation for web development so they could really support any MSDN subscribers.. :-( I am hoping that Microsoft will make this right for all of us with MSDN premier subscriptions. In the meantime,  you can check out the 5 day training series available here.

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  • What Banks Can Learn From An English Teacher’s Advice

    - by Gaurav H
    The earliest definitions I learnt at school pertained to nouns and verbs. Nouns, my teacher said, indicated names of people, things and places. Verbs, the stern lady said, are “action words”. They indicated motion.  The idea for this blog filtered in when I applied these definitions to the entity I most often deal with for my personal financial needs, and think about or relate to from a professional standpoint: ‘a bank’. Noun? It certainly is. At least that’s how I’d had it figured in my head. It used to be a place I visited to get my financial business done. It is the name of an entity I have a business relationship with. But, taking a closer look at how ‘the bank’ has evolved recently makes me wonder. Is it not after all acquiring some shades of a verb? For one, it’s in motion if I consider my mobile device with its financial apps. For another, it’s in ‘quasi-action’ if I consider a highly interactive virtual bank. The point I’m driving at is not semantic. But the words we use and the way we use them are revealing, and can offer tremendous insights into our existing mindsets. I think the same applies to businesses. Banks that first began examining and deconstructing their cherished ‘definitions’ or business models (nouns) were the earliest to adapt, change, and reinvent (verbs). They were able to waltz past disintermediation threats. Though rooted in a ‘brick and mortar’ heritage, their thinking and infrastructure were flexible enough for the digital era. While their physical premises imposed restrictions—opening hours, transaction hours, appointments, waiting time, overcrowding, processing time, clearing time, etc,—their thinking did not. They innovated. Across traditional and new-era channels, they easily slipped in customer services of a differentiated kind: spot loans, deposits with idle account balances, convenient mortgages with multiple liens or collateral, and instant payment options.I believe the most successful banks are those that fit into the rhythm of their customers’ lives rather than forcing their customers to fit into theirs. It was true for banks that existed before the Internet era; it’s true for banks now. I look no further than UBANK, JIBUN and HBOS Germany to make my point. They are resounding successes because they are not trapped in their own definitions of ‘a bank’. They walk with their customers, rather than waiting for their clients to walk-in for services.Back to my English teacher. She once advised me to use more verbs in my composition. Readers relate better to “action” she said. Banks too can profit from her advice. To succeed, they need to interact more. And remain flexible enough to interact with their customers. Sonny Singh is Senior Vice President  and General Manager of the Oracle Financial Services Global Business Unit. He can be reached at sonny.singh AT oracle.com or on twitter @sonnyhsingh

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  • Partner outreach on the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience begins

    - by mvaughan
    by Misha Vaughan, Architect, Applications User Experience I have been asked the question repeatedly since about December of last year: “What is the Applications User Experience group doing about partner outreach?”  My answer, at the time, was: “We are thinking about it.”  My colleagues and I were really thinking about the content or tools that the Applications UX group should be developing. What would be valuable to our partners? What will actually help grow their applications business, and fits within the applications user experience charter?In the video above, you’ll hear Jeremy Ashley, vice president of the Applications User Experience team, talk about two fundamental initiatives that our group is working on now that speaks straight to partners.  Special thanks to Joel Borellis, Kelley Greenly, and Steve Hoodmaker for helping to make this video happen so flawlessly. Steve was responsible for pulling together a day of Oracle Fusion Applications-oriented content, including David Bowin, Director, Fusion Applications Strategy, on some of the basic benefits of Oracle Fusion Applications.  Joel Borellis, Group Vice President, Partner Enablement, and David Bowin in the Oracle Studios.Nigel King, Vice President Applications Functional Architecture, was also on the list, talking about co-existence opportunities with Oracle Fusion Applications.Me and Nigel King, just before his interview with Joel. Fusion Applications User Experience 101: Basic education  Oracle has invested an enormous amount of intellectual and developmental effort in the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience. Find out more about that at the Oracle Partner Network Fusion Learning Center (Oracle ID required). What you’ll learn will help you uncover how, exactly, Oracle made Fusion General Ledger “sexy,” and that’s a direct quote from Oracle Ace Director Debra Lilley, of Fujitsu. In addition, select Applications User Experience staff members, as well as our own Fusion User Experience Advocates,  can provide a briefing to our partners on Oracle’s investment in the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience. Looking forward: Taking the best of the Fusion Applications UX to your customersBeyond a basic orientation to one of the key differentiators for Oracle Fusion Applications, we are also working on partner-oriented training.A question we are often getting right now is: “How do I help customers build applications that look like Fusion?” We also hear: “How do I help customers build applications that take advantage of the next-generation design work done in Fusion?”Our answer to this is training and a tool – our user experience design patterns – these are a set of user experience best-practices. Design patterns are re-usable, usability-tested, user experience components that make creating Fusion Applications-like experiences straightforward.  It means partners can leverage Oracle’s investment, but also gain an advantage by not wasting time solving a problem we’ve already solved. Their developers can focus on helping customers tackle the harder development challenges. Ultan O’Broin, an Apps UX team member,  and I are working with Kevin Li and Chris Venezia of the Oracle Platform Technology Services team, as well as Grant Ronald in Oracle ADF, to bring you some of the best “how-to” UX training, customized for your local area. Our first workshop will be in EMEA. Stay tuned for an assessment and feedback from the event.

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  • Announcing Oracle Knowledge 8.5: Even Superheroes Need Upgrades

    - by Richard Lefebvre
    It’s no secret that we like Iron Man here at Oracle. We've certainly got stuff in common: one of the world’s largest technology companies and one of the world’s strongest technology-driven superheroes. If you've seen the recent Iron Man movies, you might have even noticed some of our servers sitting in Tony Stark’s lab. Heck, our CEO made a cameo appearance in one of the movies. Yeah, we’re fans. Especially as Iron Man is a regular guy with some amazing technology – like us. But Like all great things even Superheroes need upgrades, whether it’s their suit, their car or their spacestation. Oracle certainly has its share of advanced technology.  For example, Oracle acquired InQuira in 2011 after years of watching the company advance the science of Knowledge Management.  And it was some extremely super technology.  At that time, Forrester’s Kate Leggett wrote about it in ‘Standalone Knowledge Management Is Dead With Oracle's Announcement To Acquire InQuira’ saying ‘Knowledge, accessible via web self-service or agent UIs, is a critical customer service component for industries fielding repetitive questions about policies, procedures, products, and solutions.’  One short sentence that amounts to a very tall order.  Since the acquisition our KM scientists have been hard at work in their labs. Today Oracle announced its first major knowledge management release since its acquisition of InQuira: Oracle Knowledge 8.5. We’ve put a massively-upgraded supersuit on our KM solution because we still have bad guys to fight. And we are very proud to say that we went way beyond our original plans. So what, exactly, did we do in Oracle Knowledge 8.5? We did what any high-tech super-scientist would do. We made Oracle Knowledge smarter, stronger and faster. First, we gave Oracle Knowledge a stronger heart: Certified on Oracle technologies, including Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Business Intelligence, Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. Huge scaling and performance improvements. Then we gave it a better reach: Improved iConnect functionality that delivers contextualized knowledge directly into CRM applications. Better content acquisition support across disparate sources. Enhanced Language Support including Natural Language search support for 16 Languages. Enhanced Keyword Search for 23 authoring languages, as well as enhanced out-of-the-box industry ontologies covering 14 languages. And finally we made Oracle Knowledge ridiculously smarter: Improved Natural Language Search and a new Contextual Answer Delivery that understands the true intent of each inquiry to deliver the best possible answers. AnswerFlow for Guided Navigation & Answer Delivery, a new application for guided troubleshooting and answer delivery. Knowledge Analytics standardized on Oracle’s Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. Knowledge Analytics Dashboards optimized search and content creation through targeted, actionable insights. A new three-level language model "Global - Language - Locale" that provides an improved search experience for organizations with a global footprint. We believe that Oracle Knowledge 8.5 is the most sophisticated KM solution in existence today and we’ve worked very hard to help it fulfill the promise of KM: empowering customers and employees with deep insights wherever they need them. We hope you agree it’s a suit worth wearing. We are continuing to invest in Knowledge Management as it continues to be especially relevant today with the enterprise push for peer collaboration, crowd-sourced wisdom, agile innovation, social interaction channels, applied real-time analytics, and personalization. In fact, we believe that Knowledge Management is a critical part of the Customer Experience portfolio for success. From empowering employee’s, to empowering customers, to gaining the insights from interactions across all channels, businesses today cannot efficiently scale their efforts, strengthen their customer relationships or achieve their growth goals without a solid Knowledge Management foundation to build from. And like every good superhero saga, we’re not even close to being finished. Next we are taking Oracle Knowledge into the Cloud. Yes, we’re thinking what you’re thinking: ROCKET BOOTS! Stay tuned for the next adventure… By Nav Chakravarti, Vice-President, Product Management, CRM Knowledge and previously the CTO of InQuira, a knowledge management company acquired by Oracle in 2011

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  • Announcing Oracle Knowledge 8.5: Even Superheroes Need Upgrades

    - by Chris Warner
    It’s no secret that we like Iron Man here at Oracle. We've certainly got stuff in common: one of the world’s largest technology companies and one of the world’s strongest technology-driven superheroes. If you've seen the recent Iron Man movies, you might have even noticed some of our servers sitting in Tony Stark’s lab. Heck, our CEO made a cameo appearance in one of the movies. Yeah, we’re fans. Especially as Iron Man is a regular guy with some amazing technology – like us. But Like all great things even Superheroes need upgrades, whether it’s their suit, their car or their spacestation. Oracle certainly has its share of advanced technology.  For example, Oracle acquired InQuira in 2011 after years of watching the company advance the science of Knowledge Management.  And it was some extremely super technology.  At that time, Forrester’s Kate Leggett wrote about it in ‘Standalone Knowledge Management Is Dead With Oracle's Announcement To Acquire InQuira’ saying ‘Knowledge, accessible via web self-service or agent UIs, is a critical customer service component for industries fielding repetitive questions about policies, procedures, products, and solutions.’  One short sentence that amounts to a very tall order.  Since the acquisition our KM scientists have been hard at work in their labs. Today Oracle announced its first major knowledge management release since its acquisition of InQuira: Oracle Knowledge 8.5. We’ve put a massively-upgraded supersuit on our KM solution because we still have bad guys to fight. And we are very proud to say that we went way beyond our original plans. So what, exactly, did we do in Oracle Knowledge 8.5? We did what any high-tech super-scientist would do. We made Oracle Knowledge smarter, stronger and faster. First, we gave Oracle Knowledge a stronger heart: Certified on Oracle technologies, including Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Business Intelligence, Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. Huge scaling and performance improvements. Then we gave it a better reach: Improved iConnect functionality that delivers contextualized knowledge directly into CRM applications. Better content acquisition support across disparate sources. Enhanced Language Support including Natural Language search support for 16 Languages. Enhanced Keyword Search for 23 authoring languages, as well as enhanced out-of-the-box industry ontologies covering 14 languages. And finally we made Oracle Knowledge ridiculously smarter: Improved Natural Language Search and a new Contextual Answer Delivery that understands the true intent of each inquiry to deliver the best possible answers. AnswerFlow for Guided Navigation & Answer Delivery, a new application for guided troubleshooting and answer delivery. Knowledge Analytics standardized on Oracle’s Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. Knowledge Analytics Dashboards optimized search and content creation through targeted, actionable insights. A new three-level language model "Global - Language - Locale" that provides an improved search experience for organizations with a global footprint. We believe that Oracle Knowledge 8.5 is the most sophisticated KM solution in existence today and we’ve worked very hard to help it fulfill the promise of KM: empowering customers and employees with deep insights wherever they need them. We hope you agree it’s a suit worth wearing. We are continuing to invest in Knowledge Management as it continues to be especially relevant today with the enterprise push for peer collaboration, crowd-sourced wisdom, agile innovation, social interaction channels, applied real-time analytics, and personalization. In fact, we believe that Knowledge Management is a critical part of the Customer Experience portfolio for success. From empowering employee’s, to empowering customers, to gaining the insights from interactions across all channels, businesses today cannot efficiently scale their efforts, strengthen their customer relationships or achieve their growth goals without a solid Knowledge Management foundation to build from. And like every good superhero saga, we’re not even close to being finished. Next we are taking Oracle Knowledge into the Cloud. Yes, we’re thinking what you’re thinking: ROCKET BOOTS! Stay tuned for the next adventure… By Nav Chakravarti, Vice-President, Product Management, CRM Knowledge and previously the CTO of InQuira, a knowledge management company acquired by Oracle in 2011. 

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  • SQLAuthority News – Random Thoughts and Random Ideas

    - by pinaldave
    There are days when I keep on wondering about SQL, and even my life overall. Today is Saturday so I decided to write about SQL Server. Just like any other mornings, I woke up at 5 and opened my blog editor. I usually do not open Twitter or Facebook when I am planning to focus on my work, as they are little distractions for me. But today I opened my Twitter account and came across a very interesting quote from a friend: ‘Can I expect you to be different today?’ Well, I think it was very powerful quote for me to read first thing on a new day. This quote froze me for a while and made me think, “Do I really want to write about an SQL Server tip, or something different?”  After a little thinking, I’ve realized that for today I would go on and write something different. I am going to write about a few of the ideas and thoughts I had yesterday. After writing all these, I realized that if I am thinking so much in a day, and if I write a blog post of my random musing of the week or month, it can be so long (and boring). Here are some of my random thoughts I’d like to share with you: When the airplane lands, why does everybody get up and try to rush out when their luggage would be coming probably 20-30 minutes later? I really do not like this question when it was asked to me: “SQL Server is not using optimal index which I just created – how can I force it?” I am not going elaborate on this statement but you are allowed to in the comment section. Why do some people wish Good Morning even when they meet us after 4 PM? Can I optimize a query so much that it gives me a result before I execute it? Is it corruption when someone does their personal household work at office? The lane where I drive is always the slowest lane. Why waste time on correcting others when there are a lot of pending improvements for ourselves? If I have to get Tattoo, which SQL Server Execution Plan symbol should I get? Why do I reach office so early that the coffee machine is yet running its daily cleaning job? Why does every laptop have a ‘Page Up’ key at different locations on the keyboard? While I like color movies, I really appreciate black and white photographs. I do not appreciate statements like, “If I receive your books in PDF, I will spread it to many people to give you much greater exposure. So would you please send them to me ASAP?” Do not tell me, “Why does the database grow back after shrinking it every day?” I suggest you use “Search this blog” for the explanation. Petrol prices are currently at INR 74. I hope the rate remains there. Let me ask you the same question which started my day today:  “Can I expect you to be different today?” Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • Some Original Expressions

    - by Phil Factor
    Guest Editorial for Simple-Talk newsletterIn a guest editorial for the Simple-Talk Newsletter, Phil Factor wonders if we are still likely to find some more novel and unexpected ways of using the newer features of Transact SQL: or maybe in some features that have always been there! There can be a great deal of fun to be had in trying out recent features of SQL Expressions to see if  they provide new functionality.  It is surprisingly rare to find things that couldn’t be done before, but in a different   and more cumbersome way; but it is great to experiment or to read of someone else making that discovery.  One such recent feature is the ‘table value constructor’, or ‘VALUES constructor’, that managed to get into SQL Server 2008 from Standard SQL.  This allows you to create derived tables of up to 1000 rows neatly within select statements that consist of  lists of row values.  E.g. SELECT Old_Welsh, number FROM (VALUES ('Un',1),('Dou',2),('Tri',3),('Petuar',4),('Pimp',5),('Chwech',6),('Seith',7),('Wyth',8),('Nau',9),('Dec',10)) AS WelshWordsToTen (Old_Welsh, number) These values can be expressions that return single values, including, surprisingly, subqueries. You can use this device to create views, or in the USING clause of a MERGE statement. Joe Celko covered  this here and here.  It can become extraordinarily handy to use once one gets into the way of thinking in these terms, and I’ve rewritten a lot of routines to use the constructor, but the old way of using UNION can be used the same way, but is a little slower and more long-winded. The use of scalar SQL subqueries as an expression in a VALUES constructor, and then applied to a MERGE, has got me thinking. It looks very clever, but what use could one put it to? I haven’t seen anything yet that couldn’t be done almost as  simply in SQL Server 2000, but I’m hopeful that someone will come up with a way of solving a tricky problem, just in the same way that a freak of the XML syntax forever made the in-line  production of delimited lists from an expression easy, or that a weird XML pirouette could do an elegant  pivot-table rotation. It is in this sort of experimentation where the community of users can make a real contribution. The dissemination of techniques such as the Number, or Tally table, or the unconventional ways that the UPDATE statement can be used, has been rapid due to articles and blogs. However, there is plenty to be done to explore some of the less obvious features of Transact SQL. Even some of the features introduced into SQL Server 2000 are hardly well-known. Certain operations on data are still awkward to perform in Transact SQL, but we mustn’t, I think, be too ready to state that certain things can only be done in the application layer, or using a CLR routine. With the vast array of features in the product, and with the tools that surround it, I feel that there is generally a way of getting tricky things done. Or should we just stick to our lasts and push anything difficult out into procedural code? I’d love to know your views.

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  • Building a personal website using Silverlight.

    - by mbcrump
    I’ve always believed that as a developer you should always have a hobby project going on. I think a hobby project needs to contain at least one of following things: Something that you have never done before. Something that you are interested in. Something that you can work on in your spare time without affecting your *paying* job. I decided my hobby project would be an entire web application written in Silverlight that could be used as a self-promotion/marketing tool. This goal of the site is to provide information on the work that I’ve done to conferences, future employers and anyone else that wanted to learn more about me. Before I go any further, if you just want to check out the site then it is located at http://michaelcrump.info. So, what did I use to create it? MVVM Light – I’m a big fan of this software. The item and project templates plus code snippets make this a huge win for any SL/WPF/WP7 application. Jetpack Theme by Microsoft – I suck at designing so I used this template to help speed up this project. ComponentOne 3rd Party Controls – I have a license and really like several of their products. A User Control that Jeremy Likness created called DynamicXaml (used with his permission). I had created my own version of this a while back, but Jeremy’s implementation was simply better. Main Page – Designed to create my “brand”. This was built for a quick glimpse of who I am and what do I do.  Blog – The best marketing tool for a developer is their blog. I decided to go with an HTML page displaying my site and the user could pop into full-screen if desired. I also included my feed and Silverlight-Zone. (Another site I work on) Online – This page links to sites that I have been featured on as well as community involvement and awards. I also have a web service that I can update this information without re-compiling the Silverlight App. Projects – I’ve been wanting to use a CoverFlow for a really long time now. =) This page list several hobby projects as well as a few professional projects.  Resume Page – This page only exist because I got tired of sending companies my resume in e-mail. I can now provide a deep link to this page and the recruiter can print, search or save my resume. The PDF of my resume exist in a folder that I can easily update without recompiling the app. Contact Page – Just a contact page with a web service that sends the email. The Send button becomes disabled after a successful send. I thought of adding captcha to this page but in the end didn’t think it was worth it. Looking back at this app, I’m happy with how it turned out. I love Silverlight and I am already thinking of my next hobby project. (Thinking another Windows Phone 7 app or MVC3).  Subscribe to my feed

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  • Do you want to be an ALM Consultant?

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    Northwest Cadence is looking for our next great consultant! At Northwest Cadence, we have created a work environment that emphasizes excellence, integrity, and out-of-the-box thinking.  Our customers have high expectations (rightfully so) and we wouldn’t have it any other way!   Northwest Cadence has some of the most exciting customers I have ever worked with and even though I have only been here just over a month I have already: Provided training/consulting for 3 government departments Created and taught courseware for delivering Scrum to teams within a high profile multinational company Started presenting Microsoft's ALM Engagement Program  So if you are interested in helping companies build better software more efficiently, then.. Enquire at [email protected] Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Consultant An ALM Consultant with a minimum of 8 years of relevant experience with Application Lifecycle Management, Visual Studio (including Visual Studio Team System) and software design is needed. Must provide thought leadership on best practices for enterprise architecture, understand the Microsoft technology solution stack, and have a thorough understanding of enterprise application integration. The ALM Practice Lead will play a central role in designing and implementing the overall ALM Practice strategy, including creating, updating, and delivering ALM courseware and consultancy engagements. This person will also provide project support, deliverables, and quality solutions on Visual Studio Team System that exceed client expectations. Engagements will vary and will involve providing expert training, consulting, mentoring, formulating technical strategies and policies and acting as a “trusted advisor” to customers and internal teams. Sound sense of business and technical strategy required. Strong interpersonal skills as well as solid strategic thinking are key. The ideal candidate will be capable of envisioning the solution based on the early client requirements, communicating the vision to both technical and business stakeholders, leading teams through implementation, as well as training, mentoring, and hands-on software development. The ideal candidate will demonstrate successful use of both agile and formal software development methods, enterprise application patterns, and effective leadership on prior projects. Job Requirements Minimum Education: Bachelor’s Degree (computer science, engineering, or math preferred). Locale / Travel: The Practice Lead position requires estimated 50% travel, most of which will be in the Continental US (a valid national Passport must be maintained).  This is a full time position and will be based in the Kirkland office. Preferred Education: Master’s Degree in Information Technology or Software Engineering; Premium Microsoft Certifications on .NET (MCSD) or MCPD or relevant experience; Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) or relevant experience. Minimum Experience and Skills: 7+ years experience with business information systems integration or custom business application design and development in a professional technology consulting, corporate MIS or software development environment. Essential Duties & Responsibilities: Provide training, consulting, and mentoring to organizations on topics that include Visual Studio Team System and ALM. Create content, including labs and demonstrations, to be delivered as training classes by Northwest Cadence employees. Lead development teams through the complete ALM and/or Visual Studio Team System solution. Be able to communicate in detail how a solution will integrate into the larger technical problem space for large, complex enterprises. Define technical solution requirements. Provide guidance to the customer and project team with respect to technical feasibility, complexity, and level of effort required to deliver a custom solution. Ensure that the solution is designed, developed and deployed in accordance with the agreed upon development work plan. Create and deliver weekly status reports of training and/or consulting progress. Engagement Responsibilities: · Provide a strong desire to provide thought leadership related to technology and to help grow the business. · Work effectively and professionally with employees at all levels of a customer’s organization. · Have strong verbal and written communication skills. · Have effective presentation, organizational and planning skills. · Have effective interpersonal skills and ability to work in a team environment. Enquire at [email protected]

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  • Working for free?

    - by Jonny
    I came across this article Work for Free that got me thinking. The goal of every employer is to gain more value from workers than the firm pays out in wages; otherwise, there is no growth, no advance, and no advantage for the employer. Conversely, the goal of every employee should be to contribute more to the firm than he or she receives in wages, and thereby provide a solid rationale for receiving raises and advancement in the firm. I don't need to tell you that the refusenik didn't last long in this job. In contrast, here is a story from last week. My phone rang. It was the employment division of a major university. The man on the phone was inquiring about the performance of a person who did some site work on Mises.org last year. I was able to tell him about a remarkable young man who swung into action during a crisis, and how he worked three 19-hour days, three days in a row, how he learned new software with diligence, how he kept his cool, how he navigated his way with grace and expertise amidst some 80 different third-party plug-ins and databases, how he saw his way around the inevitable problems, how he assumed responsibility for the results, and much more. What I didn't tell the interviewer was that this person did all this without asking for any payment. Did that fact influence my report on his performance? I'm not entirely sure, but the interviewer probably sensed in my voice my sense of awe toward what this person had done for the Mises Institute. The interviewer told me that he had written down 15 different questions to ask me but that I had answered them all already in the course of my monologue, and that he was thrilled to hear all these specifics. The person was offered the job. He had done a very wise thing; he had earned a devotee for life. The harder the economic times, the more employers need to know what they are getting when they hire someone. The job applications pour in by the buckets, all padded with degrees and made to look as impressive as possible. It's all just paper. What matters today is what a person can do for a firm. The resume becomes pro forma but not decisive under these conditions. But for a former boss or manager to rave about you to a potential employer? That's worth everything. What do you think? Has anyone here worked for free? If so, has it benefited you in any way? Why should(nt) you work for free (presuming you have the money from other means to keep you going)? Can you share your experience? Me, I am taking a year out of college and haven't gotten a degree yet so that's probably why most of my job applications are getting ignored. So im thinking about working for free for the experience?

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  • Don't Forget To Enjoy Life

    - by Justin
    I have a pretty clear stance on posting personal information in my blogs. I tend to avoid it almost instinctively. Part of that is because I am a somewhat private person. And the other is because I know how easy it is for personal information to be gathered and collected from sources such as blogs. So, this has remained a tech only blog for me. I've only posted topics mostly related to issues I have encountered at work. In a way this blog is a 'bookmark' for me. If I post something here and run into the issue again it allows me to refer back to a convenient place where the 'fix' is documented in a way that I understand. But today, I am posting something that speaks to everyone. Something PERSONAL. Honestly, I expect this entry to receive zero views. But if nothing else, I can come back to this blog one day when I'm having a bad day or something and run across this post. And I will be reminded... DON'T FORGET TO ENJOY LIFE. Say this to yourself out loud, right now. People, we can get caught up in some rather mundane details as we trek through life. It's so easy to lose track of what really matters that it should be no surprise to find yourself reading something like this and thinking to yourself 'Yeah. You are right, man. Some of this crap I'm clinging on to right now is so small in the grand scheme of things'. I have no reservation, no shame, in saying that I am more often than not caught up in the ever evolving world of 'shit that does not matter'. When you work in technology, you are surrounded by deadlines, upgrades, new versions, support 'end of life', etc. And by time you get done with your 8 hours you go home and put in a few more because you are STILL CAUGHT UP in the things you dealt with at work all day. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR. DO YOUR FAMILY AND FRIEND A FAVOR. When you are done for the day, and you drive home, get those work-related things out of your head before you pull into the driveway. If you are still thinking on them when you park the car, leave the engine running, close your eyes and take a deep breath. If you believe in God, pray. If you don't then meditate for a second with the INTENTION of letting go of the day and becoming the 'real you'. You may have forgotten who the real you is so I'll remind you.... THE REAL YOU IS THAT GUY OR GAL THAT LAUGHS, LOVES, AND LIVES. Be the real you as often as possible. If you can't do it during your 9 - 5, do it at home. YOUR RELATIONSHIPS AND YOUR PERSONAL HAPPINESS DEPEND ON IT. I am going to make you a promise right now. If you do what I've just said, your days will be longer and your joy will be exponential. I can't explain why I know this to be true. But I do know it. And if you are there reading this right now, you know it is true too. We both know it is true because it COMES FROM WITHIN EVERY MAN, WOMAN and CHILD. We are born into love and happiness. Lets not fade away into the darkness so easily found in this world. Lets keep the flame burning. The flame of passion. Passion for LIFE. Peace be with you.

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  • Is the Internet Making us Smarter or Not?

    - by BuckWoody
    I’ve been reading recently about an exchange among some very bright folks, some who posit that the Internet with its instant-on, sometimes-right, big-statement-wins mentality is making people think in a more shallow way, teaching us to rely on others as experts and diluting our logical thought process. Others state that it broadens our perspective and extends our mental reach. Whenever I see this kind of exchange on two ends of a spectrum, I begin to wonder if both sides might be correct.   I can certainly say that I have changed my way of learning, reading, and social interactions because of the Internet. And my tolerance for reading long missives has indeed gone down. I tend to (mentally and literally) “bookmark” things I never seem to have time to get back to. But I also agree that I’ve been exposed to thoughts, ideas and people I never would have encountered any other way. So how to deal with this dichotomy?   Well, I’m going to go off and think about it. No, I’m really going to go off for a full week to a cabin I’ve rented in a National Forest in the Midwest. It has no indoor plumbing, phones, Internet connections or anything else – only a bed to sleep in and a place to cook a little. I’m taking one book, some paper, and a guitar with me and that’s it. I plan to spend my days walking, reading a little, playing a little on the guitar, but mostly just thinking. Those of you who know me might find this unusual. I’m an always-on, hyper-caffeinated, overly-busy, connected person. I haven’t taken a vacation in five years, at least for more than two or three days at a time. Even then, I keep us on the move constantly – our vacations aren’t cruises or anything like that. I check e-mail, post and all that. When I’m not on vacation, I live with and leverage lots of technology, and work with those that do the same. This, however, is a really “unplugged” event, and I’m hoping that it will let me unpack the things I’ve been stuffing in my head. I plan to spend a lot of time on a single subject, writing notes, thinking, and writing more notes.   So after I post tomorrow's “quote of the day” I’ll be “going dark” for a week. No twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, e-mail, chat, none of my five blogs will get updated, and I’ll have to turn in my two articles for InformIT.com early. I won’t have access to my college class portal, so my students will be without me for a week. I will really be offline. I’ll see you in a week – hopefully a little more educated. See you then.   Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Is the Internet Making us Smarter or Not?

    - by BuckWoody
    I’ve been reading recently about an exchange among some very bright folks, some who posit that the Internet with its instant-on, sometimes-right, big-statement-wins mentality is making people think in a more shallow way, teaching us to rely on others as experts and diluting our logical thought process. Others state that it broadens our perspective and extends our mental reach. Whenever I see this kind of exchange on two ends of a spectrum, I begin to wonder if both sides might be correct.   I can certainly say that I have changed my way of learning, reading, and social interactions because of the Internet. And my tolerance for reading long missives has indeed gone down. I tend to (mentally and literally) “bookmark” things I never seem to have time to get back to. But I also agree that I’ve been exposed to thoughts, ideas and people I never would have encountered any other way. So how to deal with this dichotomy?   Well, I’m going to go off and think about it. No, I’m really going to go off for a full week to a cabin I’ve rented in a National Forest in the Midwest. It has no indoor plumbing, phones, Internet connections or anything else – only a bed to sleep in and a place to cook a little. I’m taking one book, some paper, and a guitar with me and that’s it. I plan to spend my days walking, reading a little, playing a little on the guitar, but mostly just thinking. Those of you who know me might find this unusual. I’m an always-on, hyper-caffeinated, overly-busy, connected person. I haven’t taken a vacation in five years, at least for more than two or three days at a time. Even then, I keep us on the move constantly – our vacations aren’t cruises or anything like that. I check e-mail, post and all that. When I’m not on vacation, I live with and leverage lots of technology, and work with those that do the same. This, however, is a really “unplugged” event, and I’m hoping that it will let me unpack the things I’ve been stuffing in my head. I plan to spend a lot of time on a single subject, writing notes, thinking, and writing more notes.   So after I post tomorrow's “quote of the day” I’ll be “going dark” for a week. No twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, e-mail, chat, none of my five blogs will get updated, and I’ll have to turn in my two articles for InformIT.com early. I won’t have access to my college class portal, so my students will be without me for a week. I will really be offline. I’ll see you in a week – hopefully a little more educated. See you then.   Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Blink-Data vs Instinct?

    - by Samantha.Y. Ma
    In his landmark bestseller Blink, well-known author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell explores how human beings everyday make seemingly instantaneous choices --in the blink of an eye--and how we “think without thinking.”  These situations actually aren’t as simple as they seem, he postulates; and throughout the book, Gladwell seeks answers to questions such as: 1.    What makes some people good at thinking on their feet and making quick spontaneous decisions?2.    Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others consistently seem to stumble into error?3.    Why are some of the best decisions often those that are difficult to explain to others?In Blink, Gladwell introduces us to the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Ultimately, Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who spend the most time deliberating or analyzing information, but those who focus on key factors among an overwhelming number of variables-- i.e., those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing.” In Data vs. Instinct: Perfecting Global Sales Performance, a new report sponsored by Oracle, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) explores the roles data and instinct play in decision-making by sales managers and discusses how sales executives can increase sales performance through more effective  territory planning and incentive/compensation strategies.If you are a sales executive, ask yourself this:  “Do you rely on knowledge (data) when you plan out your sales strategy?  If you rely on data, how do you ensure that your data sources are reliable, up-to-date, and complete?  With the emergence of social media and the proliferation of both structured and unstructured data, how do you know that you are applying your information/data correctly and in-context?  Three key findings in the report are:•    Six out of ten executives say they rely more on data than instinct to drive decisions. •    Nearly one half (48 percent) of incentive compensation plans do not achieve the desired results. •    Senior sales executives rely more on current and historical data than on forecast data. Strikingly similar to what Gladwell concludes in Blink, the report’s authors succinctly sum up their findings: "The best outcome is a combination of timely information, insightful predictions, and support data."Applying this insight is crucial to creating a sound sales plan that drives alignment and results.  In the area of sales performance management, “territory programs and incentive compensation continue to present particularly complex challenges in an increasingly globalized market," say the report’s authors. "It behooves companies to get a better handle on translating that data into actionable and effective plans." To help solve this challenge, CRM Oracle Fusion integrates forecasting, quotas, compensation, and territories into a single system.   For example, Oracle Fusion CRM provides a natural integration between territories, which define the sales targets (e.g., collection of accounts) for the sales force, and quotas, which quantify the sales targets. In fact, territory hierarchy is a core analytic dimension to slice and dice sales results, using sales analytics and alerts to help you identify where problems are occurring. This makes territoriesStart tapping into both data and instinct effectively today with Oracle Fusion CRM.   Here is a short video to provide you with a snapshot of how it can help you optimize your sales performance.  

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  • Design Pattern for building a Budget

    - by Scott
    So I've looked at the Builder Pattern, Abstract Interfaces, other design patterns, etc. - and I think I'm over thinking the simplicity behind what I'm trying to do, so I'm asking you guys for some help with either recommending a design pattern I should use, or an architecture style I'm not familiar with that fits my task. So I have one model that represents a Budget in my code. At a high level, it looks like this: public class Budget { public int Id { get; set; } public List<MonthlySummary> Months { get; set; } public float SavingsPriority { get; set; } public float DebtPriority { get; set; } public List<Savings> SavingsCollection { get; set; } public UserProjectionParameters UserProjectionParameters { get; set; } public List<Debt> DebtCollection { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public List<Expense> Expenses { get; set; } public List<Income> IncomeCollection { get; set; } public bool AutoSave { get; set; } public decimal AutoSaveAmount { get; set; } public FundType AutoSaveType { get; set; } public decimal TotalExcess { get; set; } public decimal AccountMinimum { get; set; } } To go into more detail about some of the properties here shouldn't be necessary, but if you have any questions about those I will fill more out for you guys. Now, I'm trying to create code that builds one of these things based on a set of BudgetBuildParameters that the user will create and supply. There are going to be multiple types of these parameters. For example, on the sites homepage, there will be an example section where you can quickly see what your numbers look like, so they would be a much simpler set of SampleBudgetBuildParameters then say after a user registers and wants to create a fully filled out Budget using much more information in the DebtBudgetBuildParameters. Now a lot of these builds are going to be using similar code for certain tasks, but might want to also check the status of a users DebtCollection when formulating a monthly spending report, where as a Budget that only focuses on savings might not want to. I'd like to reduce code duplication (obviously) as much as possible, but in my head, every way I can think to do this would require using a base BudgetBuilderFactory to return the correct builder to the caller, and then creating say a SimpleBudgetBuilder that inherits from a BudgetBuilder, and put all duplicate code in the BudgetBuilder, and let the SimpleBudgetBuilder handle it's own cases. Problem is, a lot of the unique cases are unique to 2/4 builders, so there will be duplicate code somewhere in there obviously if I did that. Can anyone think of a better way to either explain a solution to this that may or may not be similar to mine, or a completely different pattern or way of thinking here? I really appreciate it.

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  • Procedual level generation for a platformer game (tilebased) using player physics

    - by Notbad
    I have been searching for information about how to build a 2d world generator (tilebased) for a platformer game I am developing. The levels should look like dungeons with a ceiling and a floor and they will have a high probability of being just made of horizontal rooms but sometimes they can have exits to a top/down room. Here is an example of what I would like to achieve. I'm refering only to the caves part. I know level design won't be that great when generated but I think it is possible to have something good enough for people to enjoy the procedural maps (Note: Supermetrod Spoiler!): http://www.snesmaps.com/maps/SuperMetroid/SuperMetroidMapNorfair.html Well, after spending some time thinking about this I have some ideas to create the maps that I would like to share with you: 1) I have read about celular automatas and I would like to use them to carve the rooms but instead of carving just a tile at once I would like to carve full columns of tiles. Of course this carving system will have some restrictions like how many tiles must be left for the roof and the ceiling, etc... This way I could get much cleaner rooms than using the ussual automata. 2) I want some branching into the rooms. It will have little probability to happen but I definitely want it. Thinking about carving I came to the conclusion that I could be using some sort of path creation algorithm that the carving system would follow to create a path in the rooms. This could be more noticiable if we make the carving system to carve columns with the height of a corridor or with the height of a wide room (this will be added to the system as a param). This way at some point I could spawn a new automa beside the main one to create braches. This new automata should play side by side with the first one to create dead ends, islands (both paths created by the automatas meet at some point or lead to the same room. It would be too long to explain here all the tests I have done, etc... just will try to summarize the problems to see if anyone could bring some light to solve them (I don't mind sharing my successes but I think they aren't too relevant): 1) Zone reachability: How can I make sure that the player will be able to reach all zones I created (mainly when branches happen or vertical rooms are created). When branches are created I have to make sure that there will be a way to get onto the new created branch. I mean a bifurcation that the player could follow. Player will follow the main path or jump to a platform to get onto the other way). On the other hand if an island is created by the meeting of both branches I need to make sure the player will be able to get onto the island too. 2) When a branch is created and corridors are generated for each branch how can I make then both merge or repel to create an island or just make them separated corridors. 3) When I create a branch and an island is created becasue both corridors merge at somepoint or they lead to the same room, is there any way to detect this and randomize where to create the needed platforms to get onto the created isle? This platforms could be created at the start of the island or at the end. I guess part of the problem could be solved using some sort of graph following the created paths but I'm a bit lost in this sea of precedural content creation :). On the other hand I don't expect a solution to the problem but some information to get me moving forward again. Thanks in advance.

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