Search Results

Search found 962 results on 39 pages for 'consumer'.

Page 36/39 | < Previous Page | 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39  | Next Page >

  • What is Happening vs. What is Interesting

    - by Geertjan
    Devoxx 2011 was yet another confirmation that all development everywhere is either on the web or on mobile phones. Whether you looked at the conference schedule or attended sessions or talked to speakers at any point at all, it was very clear that no development whatsoever is done anymore on the desktop. In fact, that's something Tim Bray himself told me to my face at the speakers dinner. No new developments of any kind are happening on the desktop. Everyone who is currently on the desktop is working overtime to move all of their applications to the web. They're probably also creating a small subset of their application on an Android tablet, with an even smaller subset on their Android phone. Then you scratch that monolithic surface and find some interesting results. Without naming any names, I asked one of these prominent "ah, forget about the desktop" people at the Devoxx speakers dinner (and I have a witness): "Yes, the desktop is dead, but what about air traffic control, stock trading, oil analysis, risk management applications? In fact, what about any back office application that needs to be usable across all operating systems? Here there is no concern whatsoever with 100% accessibility which is, after all, the only thing that the web has over the desktop, (except when there's a network failure, of course, or when you find yourself in the 3/4 of the world where there's bandwidth problems)? There are 1000's of hidden applications out there that have processing requirements, security requirements, and the requirement that they'll be available even when the network is down or even completely unavailable. Isn't that a valid use case and aren't there 1000's of applications that fall into this so-called niche category? Are you not, in fact, confusing consumer applications, which are increasingly web-based and mobile-based, with high-end corporate applications, which typically need to do massive processing, of one kind or another, for which the web and mobile worlds are completely unsuited?" And you will not believe what the reply to the above question was. (Again, I have a witness to this discussion.) But here it is: "Yes. But those applications are not interesting. I do not want to spend any of my time or work in any way on those applications. They are boring." I'm sad to say that the leaders of the software development community, including those in the Java world, either share the above opinion or are led by it. Because they find something that is not new to be boring, they move on to what is interesting and start talking like the supposedly-boring developments don't even exist. (Kind of like a rapper pretending classical music doesn't exist.) Time and time again I find myself giving Java desktop development courses (at companies, i.e., not hobbyists, or students, but companies, i.e., the places where dollars are earned), where developers say to me: "The course you're giving about creating cross-platform, loosely coupled, and highly cohesive applications is really useful to us. Why do we never find information about this topic at conferences? Why can we never attend a session at a conference where the story about pluggable cross-platform Java is told? Why do we get the impression that we are uncool because we're not on the web and because we're not on a mobile phone, while the reason for that is because we're creating $1000,000 simulation software which has nothing to gain from being on the web or on the mobile phone?" And then I say: "Because nobody knows you exist. Because you're not submitting abstracts to conferences about your very interesting use cases. And because conferences tend to focus on what is new, which tends to be web related (especially HTML 5) or mobile related (especially Android). Because you're not taking the responsibility on yourself to tell the real stories about the real applications being developed all the time and every day. Because you yourself think your work is boring, while in fact it is fascinating. Because desktop developers are working from 9 to 5 on the desktop, in secure environments, such as banks and defense, where you can't spend time, nor have the interest in, blogging your latest tip or trick, as opposed to web developers, who tend to spend a lot of time on the web anyway and are therefore much more inclined to create buzz about the kind of work they're doing." So, next time you look at a conference program and wonder why there's no stories about large desktop development projects in the program, here's the short answer: "No one is going to put those items on the program until you start submitting those kinds of sessions. And until you start blogging. Until you start creating the buzz that the web developers have been creating around their work for the past 10 years or so. And, yes, indeed, programmers get the conference they deserve." And what about Tim Bray? Ask yourself, as Google's lead web technology evangelist, how many desktop developers do you think he talks to and, more generally, what his frame of reference is and what, clearly, he considers to be most interesting.

    Read the article

  • Windows Phone 8 Announcement

    - by Tim Murphy
    As if the Surface announcement on Monday wasn’t exciting enough, today Microsoft announce that Windows Phone 8 will be coming this fall.  That itself is great news, but the features coming were like confetti flying in all different directions.  Given this speed I couldn’t capture every feature they covered.  A summary of what I did capture is listed below starting with their eight main features. Common Core The first thing that they covered is that Windows Phone 8 will share a core OS with Windows 8.  It will also run natively on multiple cores.  They mentioned that they have run it on up to 64 cores to this point.  The phones as you might expect will at least start as dual core.  If you remember there were metrics saying that Windows Phone 7 performed operations faster on a single core than other platforms did with dual cores.  The metrics they showed here indicate that Windows Phone 8 runs faster on comparable dual core hardware than other platforms. New Screen Resolutions Screen resolution has never been an issue for me, but it has been a criticism of Windows Phone 7 in the media.  Windows Phone 8 will supports three screen resolutions: WVGA 800 x 480, WXGA 1280 x 768, and 720 1280x720.  Hopefully this makes pixel counters a little happier. MicroSD Support This was one of my pet peeves when I got my Samsung Focus. With Windows Phone 8 the operating system will support adding MicroSD cards after initial setup.  Of course this is dependent on the hardware company on implementing it, but I think we have seen that even feature phone manufacturers have not had a problem supporting this in the past. NFC NFC has been an anticipated feature for some time.  What Microsoft showed today included the fact that they didn’t just want it to be for the phone.  There is cross platform NFC functionality between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8.  The demos , while possibly a bit fanciful, showed would could be achieved even in a retail environment.  We are getting closer and closer to a Minority Report world with these technologies. Wallet Windows Phone 8 isn’t the first platform to have a wallet concept.  What they have done to differentiate themselves is to make it sot that it is not dependent on a SIM type chip like other platforms.  They have also expanded the concept beyond just banks to other types of credits such as airline miles. Nokia Mapping People have been envious of the Lumia phones having the Nokia mapping software.  Now all Windows Phone 8 devices will use NavTeq data and will have the capability to run in an offline fashion.  This is a major step forward from the Bing “touch for the next turn” maps. IT Administration The lack of features for enterprise administration and deployment was a complaint even before the Windows Phone 7 was released.  With the Windows Phone 8 release such features as Bitlocker and Secure boot will be baked into the OS. We will also have the ability to privately sign and distribute applications. Changing Start Screen Joe Belfiore made a big deal about this aspect of the new release.  Users will have more color themes available to them and the live tiles will be highly customizable. You will have the ability to resize and organize the tiles in a more dynamic way.  This allows for less important tiles or ones with less information to be made smaller.  And There Is More So what other tidbits came out of the presentation?  Later this summer the API for WP8 will be available.  There will be developer events coming to a city near you.  Another announcement of interest to developers is the ability to write applications at a native code level.  This is a boon for game developers and those who need highly efficient applications. As a topper on the cake there was mention of in app payment. On the consumer side we also found out that all updates will be available over the air.  Along with this came the fact that Microsoft will support all devices with updates for at least 18 month and you will be able to subscribe for early updates.  Update coming for Windows Phone 7.5 customers to WP7.8.  The main enhancement will be the new live tile features.  The big bonus is that the update will bypass the carriers.  I would assume though that you will be brought up to date with all previous patches that your carrier may not have released. There is so much more, but that is enough for one post.  Needless to say, EXCITING! del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone 8,WP8,Windows Phone 7,WP7,Announcements,Microsoft

    Read the article

  • 2012&ndash;The End Of The World Review

    - by Tim Murphy
    The end of the world must be coming.  Not because the Mayan calendar says so, but because Microsoft is innovating more than Apple.  It has been a crazy year, with pundits declaring not that the end of the world is coming, but that the end of Microsoft is coming.  Let’s take a look at what 2012 has brought us. The beginning of year is a blur.  I managed to get to TechEd in June which was the first time that I got to take a deep dive into Windows 8 and many other things that had been announced in 2011.  The promise I saw in these products was really encouraging.  The thought of being able to run Windows 8 from a thumb drive or have Hyper-V native to the OS told me that at least for developers good things were coming. I finally got my feet wet with Windows 8 with the developer preview just prior to the RTM.  While the initial experience was a bit of a culture shock I quickly grew to love it.  The media still seems to hold little love for the “reimagined” platform, but I think that once people spend some time with it they will enjoy the experience and what the FUD mongers say will fade into the background.  With the launch of the OS we finally got a look at the Surface.  I think this is a bold entry into the tablet market.  While I wish it was a little more affordable I am already starting to see them in the wild being used by non-techies. I was waiting for Windows Phone 8 at least as much as Windows 8, probably more.  The new hardware, better marketing and new OS features I think are going to finally push us to the point of having a real presence in the smartphone market.  I am seeing a number of iPhone users picking up a Nokia Lumia 920 and getting rid of their brand new iPhone 5.  The only real debacle that I saw around the launch was when they held back the SDK from general developers. Shortly after the launch events came Build 2012.  I was extremely disappointed that I didn’t make it to this year’s Build.  Even if they weren’t handing out Surface and Lumia devices I think the atmosphere and content were something that really needed to be experience in person.  Hopefully there will be a Build next year and it’s schedule will be announced soon.  As you would expect Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 development were the mainstay of the conference, but improvements in Azure also played a key role.  This movement of services to the cloud will continue and we need to understand where it best fits into the solutions we build. Lower on the radar this year were Office 2013, SQL Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012.  Their glory stolen by the consumer OS and hardware announcements, these new releases are no less important.  Companies will see significant improvements in performance and capabilities if they upgrade.  At TechEd they had shown some of the new features of Windows Server 2012 around hardware integration and Hyper-V performance which absolutely blew me away.  It is our job to bring these important improvements to our company’s attention so that they can be leveraged. Personally, the consulting business in 2012 was the busiest it has been in a long time.  More companies were ready to attack new projects after several years of putting them on the back burner.  I also worked to bring back momentum to the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Both the community and clients are excited about the new technologies that have come out in 2012 and now it is time to deliver. What does 2013 have in store.  I don’t see it be quite as exciting as 2012.  Microsoft will be releasing the Surface Pro in January and it seems that we will see more frequent OS update for Windows.  There are rumors that we may see a Surface phone in 2013.  It has also been announced that there will finally be a rework of the XBox next fall.  The new year will also be a time for us in the development community to take advantage of these new tools and devices.  After all, it is what we build on top of these platforms that will attract more consumers and corporations to using them. Just as I am 99.999% sure that the world is not going to end this year, I am also sure that Microsoft will move on and that most of this negative backlash from the media is actually fear and jealousy.  In the end I think we have a promising year ahead of us. del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft,Pundits,Mayans,Windows 8,Windows Phone 8,Surface

    Read the article

  • What are the industry metrics for average spend on dev hardware and software? [on hold]

    - by RationalGeek
    I'm trying to budget for my dev shop and compare our budget items to industry expectations. I'm hoping to find some information on what percentage of a dev's salary is generally spent on tooling, both hardware and software. Where can I find such information? If instead there is a source that looks at raw dollars that is useful, too. I can extrapolate what I need from that. NOTE: Your anecdotal evidence from your own job will not be very helpful. I'm looking for industry average statistics from a credible source. EDIT: I'm reluctant to even keep this question going based on the passionate negative responses of commenters, but I do think this is valuable information (assuming anyone will care to answer) so let me make one attempt to clarify why I'm looking for this information, and then leave it at that. I'm not sure why understanding and validating my motives is a necessary step to providing the information, but apparently that is the case, so I will do my best. Firstly, let me respond to the idea that us "management types" shouldn't use these types of metrics to evaluate budgets. I agree in part. Ideally, you should spend whatever is necessary on developers in order to keep them fully happy and productive. And this is true of all employees. However, companies operate in a world of limited resources, and every dollar spent in one area means a dollar not spent in another. So it is not enough to simply say "I need to spend $10,000 per developer next year" without having some way to justify that position. One way to help justify it is to compare yourself against the industry. If it is the case that on average a software shops spends 5% (making up that number) of their total development budget (salaries being the large portion of the other 95%, for arguments sake), and I'm only spending 3%, it helps in the justification process. So, it is not my intent to use this information to limit what I spend on developers, but rather to arm myself with the necessary justification to spend what I need to spend on developers to give them the best tools I can. I have been a developer for many years and I understand the need for proper tooling. Next, let's examine the idea that even considering the relationship between a spend on developer salaries and developer tooling is ludicrous and should be banned from budgetary thinking. As Jimmy Hoffa put it in their comment, it's like saying "I'm going to spend no more than 10% of median employee salary on light bulbs and coffee from now on.". Well, yes, it is like saying that, and from a budgeting perspective, this is a useful way to look at things. If you know that, on average, an employee consumes X dollars of coffee a year, then you can project a coffee budget based on that. And you can compare it to an industry metric to understand where you fall: do you spend more on coffee than other companies or less? Why might this be? If you are a coffee supply manager, that seems like a useful thought process. The same seems to hold true for developers. Now, on to the idea that I need to compare "apples to apples" and only look at other shops that are in the same place geographically, the same business, the same application architecture, and the same development frameworks. I guess if I could find such a statistic that said "a shop that is exactly identical to yours spends X on developer tooling" it would be wonderful. But there is plenty of value in an average statistic. Here's an analogy: let's say you are working on a household budget and need to decide how much to spend on groceries. Is it enough to know that the average consumer spends 15% on groceries and therefore decide that you will budget exactly 15%? No. You have to tweak your budget based on your individual needs and situation. But the generalized statistic does help in this evaluation. You can know if your budget is grossly off from what others are doing, and this can help you figure out why this is. So, I will concede the point that it would be better to find statistics that align to my shop, though I think any statistics I could find would be useful for what I'm doing. In that light, let's say that my shop is mostly focused on ASP.NET web applications. That doesn't map perfectly to reality because large enterprises have very heterogenous IT environments. But if I was going to pick one technology that is our focus that would be it. But, if you were to point me at some statistics that are related to a Linux shop doing embedded Java applications, I would still find it useful as a point of comparison. SUMMARY: Let me try to rephrase my question. I'm trying to find industry metrics on how much dev shops spend on developer tooling, both hardware and software. I don't so much care whether it is expressed as a percentage of total budget or as X dollars per dev or as Y percentage of salary. Any metric would be useful. If there are metrics that are specific to ASP.NET dev shops in the Northeast US, all the better, but I would be happy to find anything.

    Read the article

  • Windows 8 for productivity?

    - by Charles Young
    At long last I’ve started using Windows 8.  I boot from a VHD on which I have installed Office, Visio, Visual Studio, SQL Server, etc.  For a week, now, I’ve been happily writing code and documents and using Visio and PowerPoint.  I am, very much, a ‘productivity’ user rather than a content consumer.   I spend my days flitting between countless windows and browser tabs displayed across dual monitors.  I need to access a lot of different functionality and information in as fluid a fashion as possible. With that in mind, and like so many others, I was worried about Windows 8.  The Metro interface is primarily about content consumption on touch-enabled screens, and not really geared for people like me sitting in front of an 8-core non-touch laptop and an additional Samsung monitor.  I still use a mouse, not my finger.  And I create more than I consume. Clearly, Windows 8 won’t be viable for people like me unless Metro keeps out of my hair when using productivity and development tools.  With this in mind, I had long expected Microsoft to provide some mechanism for switching Metro off.  There was a registry hack in last year’s Developer Preview, but this capability has been removed.   That’s brave.  So, how have things worked out so far? Well, I am really quite surprised.  When I played with the Developer Preview last year, it was clear that Metro was unfinished and didn’t play well enough with the desktop.  Obviously I expected things to improve, but the context switching from desktop to full-screen seemed a heavy burden to place on users.  That sense of abrupt change hasn’t entirely gone away (how could it), but after a few days, I can’t say that I find it burdensome or irritating.   I’ve got used very quickly to ‘gesturing’ with my mouse at the bottom or top right corners of the screen to move between applications, using the Windows key to toggle the Start screen and generally finding my way around.   I am surprised at how effective the Start screen is, given the rather basic grouping features it provides.  Of course, I had to take control of it and sort things the way I want.  If anything, though, the Start screen provides a better navigation and application launcher tool than the old Start menu. What I didn’t expect was the way that Metro enhances the productivity story.  As I write this, I’ve got my desktop open with a maximised Word window.  However, the desktop extends only across about 85% of the width of my screen.  On the left hand side, I have a column that displays the new Metro email client.  This is currently showing me a list of emails for my main work account.  I can flip easily between different accounts and read my email within that same column.  As I work on documents, I want to be able to monitor my inbox with a quick glance. The desktop, of course, has its own snap feature.  I could run the desktop full screen and bring up Outlook and Word side by side.  However, this doesn’t begin to approach the convenience of snapping the Metro email client.  Consider that when I snap a window on the desktop, it initially takes up 50% of the screen.  Outlook doesn’t really know anything about snap, and doesn’t adjust to make effective use of the limited screen estate.  Even at 50% screen width, it is difficult to use, so forget about trying to use it in a Metro fashion. In any case, I am left with the prospect of having to manually adjust everything to view my email effectively alongside Word.  Worse, there is nothing stopping another window from overlapping and obscuring my email.  It becomes a struggle to keep sight of email as it arrives.  Of course, there is always ‘toast’ to notify me when things arrive, but if Outlook is obscured, this just feels intrusive. The beauty of the Metro snap feature is that my email reader now exists outside of my desktop.   The Metro app has been crafted to work well in the fixed width column as well as in full-screen.  It cannot be obscured by overlapping windows.  I still get notifications if I wish.  More importantly, it is clear that careful attention has been given to how things work when moving between applications when ‘snapped’.  If I decide, say to flick over to the Metro newsreader to catch up with current affairs, my desktop, rather than my email client, obligingly makes way for the reader.  With a simple gesture and click, or alternatively by pressing Windows-Tab, my desktop reappears. Another pleasant surprise is the way Windows 8 handles dual monitors.  It’s not just the fact that both screens now display the desktop task bar.  It’s that I can so easily move between Metro and the desktop on either screen.  I can only have Metro on one screen at a time which makes entire sense given the ‘full-screen’ nature of Metro apps.  Using dual monitors feels smoother and easier than previous versions of Windows. Overall then, I’m enjoying the Windows 8 improvements.  Strangely, for all the hype (“Windows reimagined”, etc.), my perception as a ‘productivity’ user is more one of evolution than revolution.  It all feels very familiar, but just better.

    Read the article

  • How to override C# DateTime serialization with class auto-generated from wsdl?

    - by Calvin Fisher
    I have a WSDL that the consumer of my web service expects will be adhered to strictly. I converted it into an interface with wsdl.exe and had my web service implement it. Except for this problem, I have been generally pleased with the results. A simple GetCurrentTime method will have the following response class generated from the WSDL in the interface definition: [System.CodeDobmCompiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("wsdl", "2.0.50727.3038")] [System.SerializableAttribute()] [System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()] [System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(Namespace="[Client Namespace]")] public partial class GetCurrentTimeResponse { private System.DateTime timeStampField; [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Form=System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified] public System.DateTime TimeStamp{ // [accesses timeStampField] } } When I put the response data into the automatically generated response class, it gets serialized into an appropriate XML response. (Most of the web methods have much more complicated return types with multiple levels of arrays.) The problem is that the default serialization of DateTime objects violates one of the requirements in the WSDL: ... <xsd:simpleType name="SearchTimeStamp"> <xsd:restriction base="xsd:dateTime"> <xsd:pattern value="[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}T[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}(.[0-9]{1,7})?Z"> </xsd:restriction> </xsd:simpleType> ... Note the last part of the pattern where subseconds must be either 1 or 7 characters if they are included. The client seems to be rejecting the response because it does not match that requirement. The main issue is that when .NET serializes a DateTime object, it omits all trailing zeroes, meaning the resulting subsecond value varies in length. (e.g., "12:34:56.700" gets serialized as "<TimeStamp>12:34:56:7</TimeStamp>" by default). We use millisecond precision, so I need all timestamps to format with 7 subsecond digits in order to be compliant with the WSDL. It would be easy if I could specify a format string, but I'm not sure how to control the string that the DateTime object uses to serialize to XML, or to otherwise override the serialization behavior. How do I do this? Keeping in mind the following... I would like to modify the generated code as little as possible... preferably not at all if the change can be made through a partial class or inherited class. Using an inherited class for the return type of the web method will cause the web service to no longer implement the auto-generated interface. The TimeStamp type occurs in other, more complex response types. So, manually overriding the entire serialization process may be prohibitively time-consuming.

    Read the article

  • Moose and error messages, the sun and the moon [closed]

    - by xxxxxxx
    So again using Moose I write a role like this: package My::Role; use Moose::Role; use Some::Class::Consuming::My::Role; With the note that Some::Class::Consuming::My::Role consumes the role My::Role; And what do I get ? I get an error message like this: A role generator is required to generate roles at /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.0/MooseX/Role/Parameterized/Meta/Role/Parameterizable.pm line 79 MooseX::Role::Parameterized::Meta::Role::Parameterizable::generate_role('MooseX::Role::Parameterized::Meta::Role::Parameterizable=HASH...', 'consumer', 'Moose::Meta::Class=HASH(0x894e540)', 'parameters', 'HASH(0x86fc1e0)') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.0/MooseX/Role/Parameterized/Meta/Role/Parameterizable.pm line 116 MooseX::Role::Parameterized::Meta::Role::Parameterizable::apply('MooseX::Role::Parameterized::Meta::Role::Parameterizable=HASH...', 'Moose::Meta::Class=HASH(0x894e540)', 'element_type', 'Tuple') called at /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util.pm line 132 Moose::Util::_apply_all_roles('Moose::Meta::Class=HASH(0x894e540)', undef, 'Stuff', 'HASH(0x894e1d0)') called at /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util.pm line 86 Moose::Util::apply_all_roles('Moose::Meta::Class=HASH(0x894e540)', 'Stuff', 'HASH(0x894e1d0)') called at /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0/Moose.pm line 57 Moose::with('Moose::Meta::Class=HASH(0x894e540)', 'Group', 'HASH(0x894e1d0)') called at /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0/Moose/Exporter.pm line 293 Moose::with('Group', 'HASH(0x894e1d0)') called at Some_path_on_disk line 6 require Some_other_path_on_disk called at Some_path_on_disk line 9 Group::BEGIN() called at Yet_another_path_on_disk line 0 eval {...} called at Yet_another_path_on_disk line 0 Compilation failed in require at some_path_on_disk line 9. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at some_path_on_disk line 9. What am I to make of this ? As Dijkstra would concisely describe, this looks like "just a meaningless concatenation of words"(which is exactly what it is). Would a more appropriate error message be "You cannot use a class consuming the role that you are currently defining " ? What does the error message try to convey ? Can the author make the error message meaningful ? Will he ever make it so ? maybe this can be planned for version 3.14159265358979323846 ? In actuality I get one and a half pages of error which is completely unreadable and devoid of any logic or sense of respect for the user that is using Moose (in terms of intuitive error messages) just like the one above. What's to be done in this case ? I mean I get on my screen these error messages that are sometimes completely unrelated to the problem that I'm having (which I can assess after solving the problems that probably caused them, I say probably becuase I have no idea where these error messages came from because they look like they fell from the sky as they have no relation to the actual situation). Is this: the inexplicable dramatic destiny of the Perl programmer using Moose ? someone being extremely lazy and sloppy at writing error messages ? maybe on heavy drugs ? me not understanding basic english ? Gentlemen, when writing software, please please please, take care of the poor programmer that will use it and respect him by writing relevant error messages. (Except for error messages Moose is a pretty good piece of software)

    Read the article

  • Entity Attribute Value Database vs. strict Relational Model Ecommerce question

    - by Dr. Zim
    It is safe to say that the EAV/CR database model is bad. That said, Question: What database model, technique, or pattern should be used to deal with "classes" of attributes describing e-commerce products which can be changed at run time? In a good E-commerce database, you will store classes of options (like TV resolution then have a resolution for each TV, but the next product may not be a TV and not have "TV resolution"). How do you store them, search efficiently, and allow your users to setup product types with variable fields describing their products? If the search engine finds that customers typically search for TVs based on console depth, you could add console depth to your fields, then add a single depth for each tv product type at run time. There is a nice common feature among good e-commerce apps where they show a set of products, then have "drill down" side menus where you can see "TV Resolution" as a header, and the top five most common TV Resolutions for the found set. You click one and it only shows TVs of that resolution, allowing you to further drill down by selecting other categories on the side menu. These options would be the dynamic product attributes added at run time. Further discussion: So long story short, are there any links out on the Internet or model descriptions that could "academically" fix the following setup? I thank Noel Kennedy for suggesting a category table, but the need may be greater than that. I describe it a different way below, trying to highlight the significance. I may need a viewpoint correction to solve the problem, or I may need to go deeper in to the EAV/CR. Love the positive response to the EAV/CR model. My fellow developers all say what Jeffrey Kemp touched on below: "new entities must be modeled and designed by a professional" (taken out of context, read his response below). The problem is: entities add and remove attributes weekly (search keywords dictate future attributes) new entities arrive weekly (products are assembled from parts) old entities go away weekly (archived, less popular, seasonal) The customer wants to add attributes to the products for two reasons: department / keyword search / comparison chart between like products consumer product configuration before checkout The attributes must have significance, not just a keyword search. If they want to compare all cakes that have a "whipped cream frosting", they can click cakes, click birthday theme, click whipped cream frosting, then check all cakes that are interesting knowing they all have whipped cream frosting. This is not specific to cakes, just an example.

    Read the article

  • Can I retain a Google apps session token permanently for a specific user who logs into my google app

    - by Ali
    Hi guys, is it possible to retain upon authorization a single session token for a user who signs into my gogle application. CUrrently my application seems to every now and then require the user to authenticate into google apps. I think it has to do with session dying out or so. I have the following code: function getCurrentUrl() { global $_SERVER; $php_request_uri = htmlentities(substr($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], 0, strcspn($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], "\n\r")), ENT_QUOTES); if (isset($_SERVER['HTTPS']) && strtolower($_SERVER['HTTPS']) == 'on') { $protocol = 'https://'; } else { $protocol = 'http://'; } $host = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']; if ($_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'] != '' && (($protocol == 'http://' && $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'] != '80') || ($protocol == 'https://' && $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'] != '443'))) { $port = ':' . $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT']; } else { $port = ''; } return $protocol . $host . $port . $php_request_uri; } function getAuthSubUrl($n=false) { $next = $n?$n:getCurrentUrl(); $scope = 'http://docs.google.com/feeds/documents https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/ https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds/ https://www.google.com/m8/feeds/ https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/'; $secure = false; $session = true; //echo Zend_Gdata_AuthSub::getAuthSubTokenUri($next, $scope, $secure, $session);; return Zend_Gdata_AuthSub::getAuthSubTokenUri($next, $scope, $secure, $session).(isset($_SESSION['domain'])?'&hd='.$_SESSION['domain']:''); } function _regenerate_token() { global $BASE_URL; if(!$_SESSION['token']) { if(isset($_GET['token'])): $_SESSION['token'] = Zend_Gdata_AuthSub::getAuthSubSessionToken($_GET['token']); return; else: _regenerate_sessions(); _redirect(getAuthSubUrl($BASE_URL . '/index.php?'.$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'])); endif; } } _regenerate_token(); I know I'm doing it all wrong here and I don't know why :( I have a CONSUMER SECRET code but only use it whereever I need to access a google service. However something is wrong with my authentication as the user has to periodically 'grant access to my application' and reauthorise himself... help please

    Read the article

  • ASP.NET Web Service - how to handle special characters in strings?

    - by Vlorg
    To show this fundamental issue in .NET and the reason for this question, I have written a simple test web service with one method (EditString), and a consumer console app that calls it. They are both standard web service/console applications created via File/New Project, etc., so I won't list the whole code - just the methods in question: Web method: [WebMethod] public string EditString(string s, bool useSpecial) { return s + (useSpecial ? ((char)19).ToString() : ""); } [You can see it simply returns the string s if useSpecial is false. If useSpecial is true, it returns s + char 19.] Console app: TestService.Service1 service = new SCTestConsumer.TestService.Service1(); string response1 = service.EditString("hello", false); Console.WriteLine(response1); string response2 = service.EditString("hello", true); // fails! Console.WriteLine(response2); [The second response fails, because the method returns hello + a special character (ascii code 19 for argument's sake).] The error is: There is an error in XML document (1, 287) Inner exception: "'', hexadecimal value 0x13, is an invalid character. Line 1, position 287." A few points worth mentioning: The web method itself WORKS FINE when browsing directly to the ASMX file (e.g. http://localhost:2065/service1.asmx), and running the method through this (with the same parameters as in the console application) - i.e. displays XML with the string hello + char 19. Checking the serialized XML in other ways shows the special character is being encoded properly (the SERVER SIDE seems to be ok which is GOOD) So it seems the CLIENT SIDE has the issue - i.e. the .NET generated proxy class code doesn't handle special characters This is part of a bigger project where objects are passed in and out of the web methods - that contain string attributes - these are what need to work properly. i.e. we're de/serializing classes. Any suggestions for a workaround and how to implement it? Or have I completely missed something really obvious!!? Thanks in advance... PS. I've not had much luck with getting it to use CDATA tags (does .NET support these out of the box?).

    Read the article

  • Google Hybrid OpenID+OAuth with dotnetopenauth

    - by Max Favilli
    I have spent probably more than 10 hours in the last two days trying to understand how to implement user login with Google Hybrid OpenID+OAuth (Federated Login) To trigger the authorization request I use: InMemoryOAuthTokenManager tm = new InMemoryOAuthTokenManager( ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["googleConsumerKey"], ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["googleConsumerSecret"]); using (OpenIdRelyingParty openid = new OpenIdRelyingParty()) { Realm realm = HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.Scheme + Uri.SchemeDelimiter + ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["googleConsumerKey"] + "/"; IAuthenticationRequest request = openid.CreateRequest(identifier, Realm.AutoDetect, new Uri(HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.Scheme + "://" + HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.Authority + "/OAuth/google")); var authorizationRequest = new AuthorizationRequest { Consumer = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["googleConsumerKey"], Scope = "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.profile https://www.googleapis.com/auth/plus.me", }; request.AddExtension(authorizationRequest); request.AddExtension(new ClaimsRequest { Email = DemandLevel.Request, Gender = DemandLevel.Require }); request.RedirectToProvider(); } To retrieve the accesstoken I use: using (OpenIdRelyingParty openid = new OpenIdRelyingParty()) { IAuthenticationResponse authResponse = openid.GetResponse(); if (authResponse != null) { switch (authResponse.Status) { case AuthenticationStatus.Authenticated: HttpContext.Current.Trace.Write("AuthenticationStatus", "Authenticated"); FetchResponse fr = authResponse.GetExtension<FetchResponse>(); InMemoryOAuthTokenManager tm = new InMemoryOAuthTokenManager(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["googleConsumerKey"], ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["googleConsumerSecret"]); ServiceProviderDescription spd = new ServiceProviderDescription { spd.RequestTokenEndpoint = new DotNetOpenAuth.Messaging.MessageReceivingEndpoint("https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token", HttpDeliveryMethods.AuthorizationHeaderRequest | HttpDeliveryMethods.GetRequest); spd.AccessTokenEndpoint = new DotNetOpenAuth.Messaging.MessageReceivingEndpoint("https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token", HttpDeliveryMethods.AuthorizationHeaderRequest | HttpDeliveryMethods.GetRequest); spd.UserAuthorizationEndpoint = new DotNetOpenAuth.Messaging.MessageReceivingEndpoint("https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?access_type=offline", HttpDeliveryMethods.AuthorizationHeaderRequest | HttpDeliveryMethods.GetRequest); spd.TamperProtectionElements = new ITamperProtectionChannelBindingElement[] { new HmacSha1SigningBindingElement() }; WebConsumer wc = new WebConsumer(spd, tm); AuthorizedTokenResponse accessToken = wc.ProcessUserAuthorization(); if (accessToken != null) { HttpContext.Current.Trace.Write("accessToken", accessToken.ToString()); } else { } break; case AuthenticationStatus.Canceled: HttpContext.Current.Trace.Write("AuthenticationStatus", "Canceled"); break; case AuthenticationStatus.Failed: HttpContext.Current.Trace.Write("AuthenticationStatus", "Failed"); break; default: break; } } } Unfortunatelly I get AuthenticationStatus.Authenticated but wc.ProcessUserAuthorization() is null. What am I doing wrong? Thanks a lot for any help.

    Read the article

  • What's a clean way to break up a DataTable into chunks of a fixed size with Linq?

    - by Michael Haren
    Update: Here's a similar question Suppose I have a DataTable with a few thousand DataRows in it. I'd like to break up the table into chunks of smaller rows for processing. I thought C#3's improved ability to work with data might help. This is the skeleton I have so far: DataTable Table = GetTonsOfData(); // Chunks should be any IEnumerable<Chunk> type var Chunks = ChunkifyTableIntoSmallerChunksSomehow; // ** help here! ** foreach(var Chunk in Chunks) { // Chunk should be any IEnumerable<DataRow> type ProcessChunk(Chunk); } Any suggestions on what should replace ChunkifyTableIntoSmallerChunksSomehow? I'm really interested in how someone would do this with access C#3 tools. If attempting to apply these tools is inappropriate, please explain! Update 3 (revised chunking as I really want tables, not ienumerables; going with an extension method--thanks Jacob): Final implementation: Extension method to handle the chunking: public static class HarenExtensions { public static IEnumerable<DataTable> Chunkify(this DataTable table, int chunkSize) { for (int i = 0; i < table.Rows.Count; i += chunkSize) { DataTable Chunk = table.Clone(); foreach (DataRow Row in table.Select().Skip(i).Take(chunkSize)) { Chunk.ImportRow(Row); } yield return Chunk; } } } Example consumer of that extension method, with sample output from an ad hoc test: class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { DataTable Table = GetTonsOfData(); foreach (DataTable Chunk in Table.Chunkify(100)) { Console.WriteLine("{0} - {1}", Chunk.Rows[0][0], Chunk.Rows[Chunk.Rows.Count - 1][0]); } Console.ReadLine(); } static DataTable GetTonsOfData() { DataTable Table = new DataTable(); Table.Columns.Add(new DataColumn()); for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) { DataRow Row = Table.NewRow(); Row[0] = i; Table.Rows.Add(Row); } return Table; } }

    Read the article

  • How can I show a div, then hide the other divs when a link is clicked?

    - by Abriel
    I am right now trying to hide six divs while showing only one of the divs. I've tried JavaScript and in jQuery, but nothing seems to work! Click here to get to the website. I would like to know if it has to do with my CSS, jQuery, or the HTML. Or is there an easier way of doing this? HTML: <div id="resourceLinks"> <a href="#" name="resource" id="resource1">General&nbsp;Information</a><br /> <a href="#" name="resource" id="resource2">Automatic&nbsp;401(k)</a><br /> <a href="#" name="resource" id="resource3">Consumer&nbsp;Fraud</a><br /> <a href="#" name="resource" id="resource4">Direct&nbsp;Deposit</a><br /> <a href="#" name="resource" id="resource5">Diversity</a><br /> <a href="#" name="resource" id="resource6">Women</a><br /> <a href="#" name="resource" id="resource7">Young&nbsp;Adults&nbsp;(20s&nbsp;-&nbsp;40s)</a> </div> <div id="resource1></div> <div id="resource2></div> <div id="resource3></div> <div id="resource4></div> <div id="resource5></div> <div id="resource6></div> <div id="resource7></div> CSS: #resource1, #resource2, #resource3, #resource4, #resource5, #resource6, #resource7 { position: absolute; margin-left: 400px; margin-top: -10px; width: 300px; padding-bottom: 120px; } #resourceLinks { position: fixed; margin-left: -450px; z-index: 3; margin-top: 180px; font-size: 16px; } jQuery: $(document).ready(function(){ $('#resourceLinks a').click(function (selected) { var getName = $(this).attr("id"); var projectImages = $(this).attr("name"); $(function() { $(".resource").hide().removeClass("current"); $("#" + projectImages ).show("normal").addClass("current"); }); }); });

    Read the article

  • Array within Form collecting multiple values with the same name possible?

    - by JM4
    Good afternoon, I will first start with the goal I am trying to accomplish and then give a very basic sample of what I need to do. Goal Instead of collecting several variables and naming them with keys individually, I have decided to give in and use an array structure to handle all inputs of the same type and rules. Once I have the variables, I will validate against them and if 'ok' store them in a MySQL table. The table will hold consumer information and will need to store multiple rows of the same type of information. First Pass I will leave out the validation portion of this question because I feel I need to first understand the basics. <form action="?" method="POST" name="Form"> Member 1 First Name:<input type="text" name="MemberFirstName[]" /><br /> Member 1 Last Name: <input type="text" name="MemberLastName[]" /><br /> Member 1 Email: <input type="text" name="MemberEmail[]" /><br /> Member 2 First Name:<input type="text" name="MemberFirstName[]" /><br /> Member 2 Last Name: <input type="text" name="MemberLastName[]" /><br /> Member 2 Email: <input type="text" name="MemberEmail[]" /><br /> Member 3 First Name:<input type="text" name="MemberFirstName[]" /><br /> Member 3 Last Name: <input type="text" name="MemberLastName[]" /><br /> Member 3 Email: <input type="text" name="MemberEmail[]" /><br /> <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Continue" /> </form> I am hoping that each input given for First Name (a required field) will generate a unique key for that particular entry and not overwrite any data entered. Because I am carrying information from page to page (checkout form), I am turning the POST variables into SESSION variables then storing in a mysql database in the end. My hope is to have: <?php $conn = mysql_connect("localhost", "username", "password"); mysql_select_db("DBname",$conn); $sql = "INSERT INTO tablename VALUES ('$_SESSION[Member1FirstName]', '$_SESSION[Member1LastName]', '$_SESSION[Member1Email]', '$_SESSION[Member2FirstName]', '$_SESSION[Member2LastName]', '$_SESSION[Member2Email]', '$_SESSION[Member1FirstName]', '$_SESSION[Member3LastName]', '$_SESSION[Member3Email]')"; $result = mysql_query($sql, $conn) or die(mysql_error()); Header ("Location: completed.php"); ?> Where Member1, Member2, and Member3 values will appear on their own row within the table. I KNOW my code is wrong but I am giving a first shot at the overall business purpose I am trying to achieve and trying to learn how to code the right way. I am very, very new to programming so any 'baby advice' is greatly appreciated.

    Read the article

  • Instagram API and Zend/Loader.php

    - by Jaemin Kim
    I want to use Instagram API and I found this code. <html> <head></head> <body> <h1>Popular on Instagram</h1> <?php // load Zend classes require_once 'Zend/Loader.php'; Zend_Loader::loadClass('Zend_Http_Client'); // define consumer key and secret // available from Instagram API console $CLIENT_ID = 'YOUR-CLIENT-ID'; $CLIENT_SECRET = 'YOUR-CLIENT-SECRET'; try { // initialize client $client = new Zend_Http_Client('https://api.instagram.com/v1/media/popular'); $client->setParameterGet('client_id', $CLIENT_ID); // get popular images // transmit request and decode response $response = $client->request(); $result = json_decode($response->getBody()); // display images $data = $result->data; if (count($data) > 0) { echo '<ul>'; foreach ($data as $item) { echo '<li style="display: inline-block; padding: 25px"><a href="' . $item->link . '"><img src="' . $item->images->thumbnail->url . '" /></a> <br/>'; echo 'By: <em>' . $item->user->username . '</em> <br/>'; echo 'Date: ' . date ('d M Y h:i:s', $item->created_time) . '<br/>'; echo $item->comments->count . ' comment(s). ' . $item->likes->count . ' likes. </li>'; } echo '</ul>'; } } catch (Exception $e) { echo 'ERROR: ' . $e->getMessage() . print_r($client); exit; } ?> </body> </html> In here, I found Zender/Load.php, and I've never heard about that. Is it okay to go http://www.zend.com/en/products/guard/downloads here, and download Zend for linux?? And for another question, is this code available to use Instagram API?? For last, could you let me know that is there any simple code to use Instagram API? Thank you.

    Read the article

  • Implementing a logging library in .NET with a database as the storage medium

    - by Dave
    I'm just starting to work on a logging library that everyone can use to keep track of any sort of system information while the user is running our application. The simplest example so far is to track Info, Warnings, and Errors. I want all plugins to be able to use this feature, but since each developer might have a different idea of what's important to report, I want to keep this as generic as possible. In the C++ world, I would normally use something like a stl::pair<string,string> to act as a key value pair structure, and have a stl::list of these to act as a "row" in the log. The log cache would then be a list<list<pair<string,string>>> (ugh!). This way, the developers can use a const string key like INFO, WARNING, ERROR to have a consistent naming for a column in the database (for SELECTing specific types of information). I'd like the database to be able to deal with any number of distinct column names. For example, John might have an INFO row with a column called USER, and Bill might have an INFO row with a column called FILENAME. I want the log viewer to be able to display all information, and if one report doesn't have a value for INFO / FILENAME, those fields should just appear blank. So one option is to use List<List<KeyValuePair<String,String>>, and the another is to have the log library consumer somehow "register" its schema, and then have the database do an ALTER TABLE to handle this situation. Yet another idea is to have a table that's just for key value pairs, with a foreign key that maps the key value pairs back to the original log entry. I obviously don't want logging to bog down the system, so I only lock the log cache to make a copy of the data (and remove the already-copied data), then a background thread will dump the information to the database. My specific questions regarding this are: Do you see any performance issues? In other words, have you ever tried something like this and found that certain things just don't work well in practice? Is there a more .NETish way to implement the key value pairs, other than List<List<KeyValuePair<String,String>>>? Even if there is a way to do #2 better, is the ALTER TABLE idea I proposed above a Bad Thing? Would you recommend multiple databases over a single one? I don't yet have an idea of how frequently the log would get written to, but we ideally would like to have lots of low level information. Perhaps there should be a DB with a fixed schema only for the low level stuff, and then another DB that's more flexible for reporting information back to users.

    Read the article

  • How is "clean" testing done on the Macintosh without virtualization?

    - by Schnapple
    One of the things I've run across on Windows is when a web browser plugin or program you're developing makes an assumption that something is installed that, by default, isn't always present on Windows. A perfect example would be .NET - a whole lot of people running Windows XP have never installed any versions of .NET and so the installer needs to detect and remedy this if necessary. The way I've been testing this in Windows is to have a virtual machine with a snapshot of a clean, patched, but otherwise untouched install of XP or Vista or 7 or whatever. When I'm done testing I just discard any changes since the snapshot. Works great. I'm now developing something for the Macintosh, a platform which is very new to me, and I'm seeing that virtualization does not appear to be an option. It's explicitly forbidden in the EULA of Mac OS X, it's only allowed from Mac OS X Server, which seeing as how I'm targeting an end product is of no use to me, and the one program I see which can virtualize it - VirtualBox - only supports the server and actively nukes any discussion of running the consumer/client version of Mac OS X. And the only instructions I find anywhere on the topic seem to involve the use of "hacking" programs which is very much incompatible with the full-time gig I'm trying to do this for. So it looks like virtualization is out, but at various points I'm going to want or need to simulate what it's like to install and run this software on a "clean" Macintosh. How do people usually do this? Just buy multiple Macintoshes and use Time Machine? Am I thinking about this all wrong and everything Just Works? To be clear I'm not trying to run Mac OS X on a Windows machine. I have a Macintosh, I'm fine with virtualizing Mac OS X on Apple hardware, I'm just not seeing a route to making the non-Server version do this. I'm aware that Mac OS X Server can be virtualized but that's not what I'm going for. I'm aware that there are unsanctioned/unsupported methods of making Mac OS X run in virtualization programs like VirtualBox but for legal reasons I am not interested in those. My question is not "how can I do this?" but rather "so this thing I do on Windows seems to not be possible, generally, on the Macintosh, so what do people do to achieve what I'm going for?"

    Read the article

  • Spring constructor injection error

    - by Jeune
    I am getting the following error for a bean in my application context: Related cause: org.springframework.beans.factory.UnsatisfiedDependencyException: Error creating bean with name 'businessLogicContext' d efined in class path resource [activemq-jms-consumer.xml]: Unsatisfied dependency expressed through constructor argument with index 0 of type [java.lang.String]: Could not convert constructor argument value of type [java.util.ArrayList] to required type [java.lang.String]: Failed to convert value of type [java.util.ArrayList] to required type [java.lang.Stri ng]; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Cannot convert value of type [java.util.ArrayList] to requi red type [java.lang.String]: no matching editors or conversion strategy found at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.ConstructorResolver.createArgumentArray(ConstructorResolver.java:53 4) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.ConstructorResolver.autowireConstructor(ConstructorResolver.java:18 6) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.autowireConstructor(AbstractAuto wireCapableBeanFactory.java:855) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBeanInstance(AbstractAutow ireCapableBeanFactory.java:765) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCap ableBeanFactory.java:412) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory$1.run(AbstractAutowireCapableBea nFactory.java:383) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapab leBeanFactory.java:353) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:245) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegis try.java:169) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:242) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:164) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListable BeanFactory.java:400) at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplic ationContext.java:736) at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:369) at org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.<init>(ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.java :123) at org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.<init>(ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.java :66) Here is my bean: <bean id="businessLogicContext" class="org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext" depends-on="resolveProperty"> <constructor-arg index="0"> <list> <value>jms-applicationContext.xml</value> <value>jms-managerBeanContext.xml</value> <value>jms-daoContext.xml</value> <value>jms-serviceContext.xml</value> </list> </constructor-arg> </bean> I don't know what's wrong, I have googled how to inject a string array via constructor injection and the way I do it above seems okay.

    Read the article

  • Parallel programming in C#

    - by Alxandr
    I'm interested in learning about parallel programming in C#.NET (not like everything there is to know, but the basics and maybe some good-practices), therefore I've decided to reprogram an old program of mine which is called ImageSyncer. ImageSyncer is a really simple program, all it does is to scan trough a folder and find all files ending with .jpg, then it calculates the new position of the files based on the date they were taken (parsing of xif-data, or whatever it's called). After a location has been generated the program checks for any existing files at that location, and if one exist it looks at the last write-time of both the file to copy, and the file "in its way". If those are equal the file is skipped. If not a md5 checksum of both files is created and matched. If there is no match the file to be copied is given a new location to be copied to (for instance, if it was to be copied to "C:\test.jpg" it's copied to "C:\test(1).jpg" instead). The result of this operation is populated into a queue of a struct-type that contains two strings, the original file and the position to copy it to. Then that queue is iterated over untill it is empty and the files are copied. In other words there are 4 operations: 1. Scan directory for jpegs 2. Parse files for xif and generate copy-location 3. Check for file existence and if needed generate new path 4. Copy files And so I want to rewrite this program to make it paralell and be able to perform several of the operations at the same time, and I was wondering what the best way to achieve that would be. I've came up with two different models I can think of, but neither one of them might be any good at all. The first one is to parallelize the 4 steps of the old program, so that when step one is to be executed it's done on several threads, and when the entire of step 1 is finished step 2 is began. The other one (which I find more interesting because I have no idea of how to do that) is to create a sort of worker and consumer model, so when a thread is finished with step 1 another one takes over and performs step 2 at that object (or something like that). But as said, I don't know if any of these are any good solutions. Also, I don't know much about parallel programming at all. I know how to make a thread, and how to make it perform a function taking in an object as its only parameter, and I've also used the BackgroundWorker-class on one occasion, but I'm not that familiar with any of them. Any input would be appreciated.

    Read the article

  • Authenticating users in iPhone app

    - by Myron
    I'm developing an HTTP api for our web application. Initially, the primary consumer of the API will be an iPhone app we're developing, but I'm designing this with future uses in mind (such as mobile apps for other platforms). I'm trying to decide on the best way to authenticate users so they can access their accounts from the iPhone. I've got a design that I think works well, but I'm no security expert, so I figured it would be good to ask for feedback here. The design of the user authentication has 3 primary goals: Good user experience: We want to allow users to enter their credentials once, and remain logged in indefinitely, until they explicitly log out. I would have considered OAuth if not for the fact that the experience from an iPhone app is pretty awful, from what I've heard (i.e. it launches the login form in Safari, then tells the user to return to the app when authentication succeeds). No need to store the user creds with the app: I always hate the idea of having the user's password stored in either plain text or symmetrically encrypted anywhere, so I don't want the app to have to store the password to pass it to the API for future API requests. Security: We definitely don't need the intense security of a banking app, but I'd obviously like this to be secure. Overall, the API is REST-inspired (i.e. treating URLs as resources, and using the HTTP methods and status codes semantically). Each request to the API must include two custom HTTP headers: an API Key (unique to each client app) and a unique device ID. The API requires all requests to be made using HTTPS, so that the headers and body are encrypted. My plan is to have an api_sessions table in my database. It has a unique constraint on the API key and unique device ID (so that a device may only be logged into a single user account through a given app) as well as a foreign key to the users table. The API will have a login endpoint, which receives the username/password and, if they match an account, logs the user in, creating an api_sessions record for the given API key and device id. Future API requests will look up the api_session using the API key and device id, and, if a record is found, treat the request as being logged in under the user account referenced by the api_session record. There will also be a logout API endpoint, which deletes the record from the api_sessions table. Does anyone see any obvious security holes in this?

    Read the article

  • Making a Wrapper class for ActiveMQ

    - by DarthVader
    I want to make a Wrapper class for ActiveMQ which will have only send and get functions. I want to wrap them in a static class. Users can use this client and send, get messages to the activemq instance. I want this process to be transparent. There are two classes in this link My only handicap is, i need to this in c++ and not sure where to start. I havent used c++ for ages and now not sure how I can create this wrapper class. I m giving it a try as follows: // .h file #include <stdlib.h> #include <iostream> using namespace std; class ActiveMQWrapper { public: static void send(std::string message); static std::string get(); }; // .cpp file #include<string> #include<iostream> #include "ActiveMQWrapper.h" void ActiveMQWrapper::send(std::string message){ std::cout<<message; } std::string ActiveMQWrapper::get(){ return "test"; } // test file #include <string> #include <iostream> #include "ActiveMQWrapper.h" int main() { std::string foo ="test"; ActiveMQWrapper::send(foo); std::cout<<ActiveMQWrapper::get(); return 1; } When I added the following to .h file, hell breaks loose. Do you think I should seperate this impl to a factory and initialize and instance and return to the wrapper above? How do i deal with all the dependencies? private: Connection* connection; Session* session; Destination* destination; MessageProducer* producer; int numMessages; bool useTopic; bool sessionTransacted; std::string brokerURI; and the header files, i get several messages as errors, which complains about the path. How can i get this correct? I eventually want to build a Factory, get an instance and send or get the messages to the queue. is there a code sample i can look into to get this right? essential i want to use the functionality of only this producer and consumer. Edit: I understand there is no such thing as static class in C++ . This is my reference.

    Read the article

  • Oracle Enhances Oracle Social Cloud with Next-Generation User Experience

    - by Richard Lefebvre
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Today’s enterprise must meet the technology standards of today’s consumer. According to a recent IDG Enterprise report, enterprises that invest in consumerized, easy-to-use technologies experience a 56 percent increase in employee productivity and a 46 percent increase in customer satisfaction. In order to deliver that simple and intuitive experience across even the most advanced social management capabilities, Oracle today introduced Social Station, an innovative new workspace within Oracle Social Cloud’s Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform. With Social Station, users benefit from a personalized and intuitive user experience that helps increase both the productivity and performance of social business practices. 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:"Times New Roman","serif";} 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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;} News Facts 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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;} Oracle today introduced Social Station, an innovative new workspace within Oracle Social Cloud’s Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform that helps organizations socially enable the way they do business. With an advanced yet intuitive user interface, Social Station delivers a compelling user experience that improves productivity and helps users more easily deliver on social objectives. To help users quickly and easily build out and configure their social workspaces, Social Station provides drag-and-drop capabilities that allow users to personalize their workspace with different social modules. With a new Custom Analytics module that mixes and matches more than 120 metrics with thousands of customizable reporting options, users can customize their view of social data and access constantly refreshed updates that support real-time understanding. One-click sharing capabilities and annotation functionality within the new Custom Analytics module also drives productivity by improving sharing and collaboration across teams, departments, and executives. Multiview layout capabilities further allows visibility into social insights by offering users the flexibility to monitor conversations by network, stream, metric, graph type, date range, and relative time period. Social Station also includes an Enhanced Calendar module that provides a clear visual representation of content, posts, networks, and views, helping users easily and efficiently understand information and toggle between various functions and views. To support different user personas and social business needs, Oracle plans to continue building out Social Station with additional modules, including content curation, influencer engagement, and command center creation. /* 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:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

    Read the article

  • Week in Geek: LastPass Rescues Xmarks Edition

    - by Asian Angel
    This week we learned how to breathe new life into an aging Windows Mobile 6.x device, use filters in Photoshop, backup and move VirtualBox machines, use the BitDefender Rescue CD to clean an infected PC, and had fun setting up a pirates theme on our computers. Photo by _nash. Weekly Feature Do you love using the Faenza icon set on your Ubuntu system but feel that there are a few much needed icons missing (or you desire a different version of a particular icon)? Then you may want to take a look at the Faenza Variants icon pack. The icons are available in the following sizes: 16px, 22px, 32px, 48px and scalable sizes. Photo by Asian Angel. Faenza Variants Random Geek Links Another week with extra link goodness to help keep you on top of the news. Photo by Asian Angel. LastPass acquires Xmarks, premium service announced Xmarks announced that it has been acquired by LastPass, a cross-platform password management service. This also means that Xmarks is now in transition from a “free” to a “freemium” business model. WikiLeaks reappears on European Net domains WikiLeaks has re-emerged on a Swiss Internet domain followed by domains in Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands, sidestepping a move that had in effect taken the controversial site off the Internet. Iran: Yes, Stuxnet hurt our nuclear program The Stuxnet worm got some big play from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who acknowledged that the malware dinged his nuclear program. More Windows Rogues than Just AV – Fake Defragmenter Check Disk Don’t think for a second that rogues are limited to scareware, because as so-called products such as “System Defragmenter”, “Scan Disk” “Check Disk” prove, they’re not. Internet Explorer’s Protected Mode can be bypassed Researchers from Verizon Business have now described a way of bypassing Protected Mode in IE 7 and 8 in order to gain access to user accounts. Can you really see who viewed your Facebook profile? Rogue application spreads virally Once again, a rogue application is spreading virally between Facebook users pretending to offer you a way of seeing who has viewed your profile. More holes in Palm’s WebOS Researchers Orlando Barrera and Daniel Herrera, who both work for security firm SecTheory, have discovered a gaping security hole in Palm’s WebOS smartphone operating system. Next-gen banking Trojans hit APAC With the proliferation of banking Trojans, Web and smartphone users of online banking services have to be on constant alert to avoid falling prey to fraud schemes, warned Etay Maor, project manager for RSA Fraud Action. AVG update cripples 64-bit computers A signature update automatically deployed by the AVG virus scanner Thursday has crippled numerous computers. Article includes link to forums to fix computers affected after a restart. Congress moves to outlaw ‘mystery charges’ for Web shoppers Legislation that makes it illegal for Web merchants and so-called post-transaction marketers to charge credit cards without the card owners’ say-so came closer to becoming law this week. Ballmer Set to “Look Into” Windows Home Server Drive Extender Fiasco Tuesday’s announcement from Microsoft regarding the removal of Drive Extender from Windows Home Server has sent shock waves across the web. Google tweaks search recipe to ding scam artists Google has changed its search algorithm to penalize sites deemed to provide an “extremely poor user experience” following a New York Times story on a merchant who justified abusive behavior towards customers as a search-engine optimization tactic. Geek Video of the Week Watch as our two friends debate back and forth about the early adoption of new technology through multiple time periods (Stone Age to the far future). Will our reluctant friend finally succumb to the temptation? Photo by CollegeHumor. Early Adopters Through History Random TinyHacker Links Fix Issues in Windows 7 Using Reliability Monitor Learn how to analyze Windows 7 errors and then fix them using the built-in reliability monitor. Learn About IE Tab Groups Tab groups is a useful feature in IE 8. Here’s a detailed guide to what it is all about. Google’s Book Helps You Learn About Browsers and Web A cool new online book by the Google Chrome team on browsers and the web. TrustPort Internet Security 2011 – Good Security from a Less Known Provider TrustPort is not exactly a well-known provider of security solutions. At least not in the consumer space. This review tests in detail their latest offering. How the World is Using Cell phones An infographic showing the shocking demographics of cell phone use. Super User Questions See the great answers to these questions from Super User. I am unable to access my C drive. It says it is unable to display current owner. List of Windows special directories/shortcuts like ‘%TEMP%’ Is using multiple passes for wiping a disk really necessary? How can I view two files side by side in Notepad++ Is there any tool that automatically puts screenshots to my Dropbox? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Look through our hottest articles from this past week at How-To Geek. How to Create a Software RAID Array in Windows 7 9 Alternatives for Windows Home Server’s Drive Extender Why Doesn’t Disk Cleanup Delete Everything from the Temp Folder? Ask the Readers: How Much Do You Customize Your Operating System? How to Upload Really Large Files to SkyDrive, Dropbox, or Email One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy reading through these awesome articles from one year ago. How To Upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium Edition How To Fix No Aero Transparency in Windows 7 Troubleshoot Startup Problems with Startup Repair Tool in Windows 7 & Vista Rename the Guest Account in Windows 7 for Enhanced Security Disable Error Reporting in XP, Vista, and Windows 7 The Geek Note That wraps things up here for this week. Regardless of the weather wherever you may be, we hope that you have an opportunity to get outside and have some fun! Remember to keep sending those great tips in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Tony the Misfit. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Get the Complete Android Guide eBook for Only 99 Cents [Update: Expired] Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography How to Choose What to Back Up on Your Linux Home Server How To Harmonize Your Dual-Boot Setup for Windows and Ubuntu Hang in There Scrat! – Ice Age Wallpaper How Do You Know When You’ve Passed Geek and Headed to Nerd? On The Tip – A Lamborghini Theme for Chrome and Iron What if Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were Human? [Video] Peaceful Winter Cabin Wallpaper Store Tabs for Later Viewing in Opera with Tab Vault

    Read the article

  • Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010 and WCF RIA Services Released

    - by ScottGu
    The final release of the Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 and WCF RIA Services is now available for download.  Download and Install If you already have Visual Studio 2010 installed (or the free Visual Web Developer 2010 Express), then you can install both the Silverlight 4 Tooling Support as well as WCF RIA Services support by downloading and running this setup package (note: please make sure to uninstall the preview release of the Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010 if you have previously installed that).  The Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010 package extends the Silverlight support built into Visual Studio 2010 and enables support for Silverlight 4 applications as well.  It also installs WCF RIA Services application templates and libraries: Today’s release includes the English edition of the Silverlight 4 Tooling – localized versions will be available next month for other Visual Studio languages as well. Silverlight Tooling Support Visual Studio 2010 includes rich tooling support for building Silverlight and WPF applications. It includes a WYSIWYG designer surface that enables you to easily use controls to construct UI – including the ability to take advantage of layout containers, and apply styles and resources: The VS 2010 designer enables you to leverage the rich data binding support within Silverlight and WPF, and easily wire-up bindings on controls.  The Data Sources window within Silverlight projects can be used to reference POCO objects (plain old CLR objects), WCF Services, WCF RIA Services client proxies or SharePoint Lists.  For example, let’s assume we add a “Person” class like below to our project: We could then add it to the Data Source window which will cause it to show up like below in the IDE: We can optionally customize the default UI control types that are associated for each property on the object.  For example, below we’ll default the BirthDate property to be represented by a “DatePicker” control: And then when we drag/drop the Person type from the Data Sources onto the design-surface it will automatically create UI controls that are bound to the properties of our Person class: VS 2010 allows you to optionally customize each UI binding further by selecting a control, and then right-click on any of its properties within the property-grid and pull up the “Apply Bindings” dialog: This will bring up a floating data-binding dialog that enables you to easily configure things like the binding path on the data source object, specify a format convertor, specify string-format settings, specify how validation errors should be handled, etc: In addition to providing WYSIWYG designer support for WPF and Silverlight applications, VS 2010 also provides rich XAML intellisense and code editing support – enabling a rich source editing environment. Silverlight 4 Tool Enhancements Today’s Silverlight 4 Tooling Release for VS 2010 includes a bunch of nice new features.  These include: Support for Silverlight Out of Browser Applications and Elevated Trust Applications You can open up a Silverlight application’s project properties window and click the “Enable Running Application Out of Browser” checkbox to enable you to install an offline, out of browser, version of your Silverlight 4 application.  You can then customize a number of “out of browser” settings of your application within Visual Studio: Notice above how you can now indicate that you want to run with elevated trust, with hardware graphics acceleration, as well as customize things like the Window style of the application (allowing you to build a nice polished window style for consumer applications). Support for Implicit Styles and “Go to Value Definition” Support: Silverlight 4 now allows you to define “implicit styles” for your applications.  This allows you to style controls by type (for example: have a default look for all buttons) and avoid you having to explicitly reference styles from each control.  In addition to honoring implicit styles on the designer-surface, VS 2010 also now allows you to right click on any control (or on one of it properties) and choose the “Go to Value Definition…” context menu to jump to the XAML where the style is defined, and from there you can easily navigate onward to any referenced resources.  This makes it much easier to figure out questions like “why is my button red?”: Style Intellisense VS 2010 enables you to easily modify styles you already have in XAML, and now you get intellisense for properties and their values within a style based on the TargetType of the specified control.  For example, below we have a style being set for controls of type “Button” (this is indicated by the “TargetType” property).  Notice how intellisense now automatically shows us properties for the Button control (even within the <Setter> element): Great Video - Watch the Silverlight Designer Features in Action You can see all of the above Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 features (and some more cool ones I haven’t mentioned) demonstrated in action within this 20 minute Silverlight.TV video on Channel 9: WCF RIA Services Today we also shipped the V1 release of WCF RIA Services.  It is included and automatically installed as part of the Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 setup. WCF RIA Services makes it much easier to build business applications with Silverlight.  It simplifies the traditional n-tier application pattern by bringing together the ASP.NET and Silverlight platforms using the power of WCF for communication.  WCF RIA Services provides a pattern to write application logic that runs on the mid-tier and controls access to data for queries, changes and custom operations. It also provides end-to-end support for common tasks such as data validation, authentication and authorization based on roles by integrating with Silverlight components on the client and ASP.NET on the mid-tier. Put simply – it makes it much easier to query data stored on a server from a client machine, optionally manipulate/modify the data on the client, and then save it back to the server.  It supports a validation architecture that helps ensure that your data is kept secure and business rules are applied consistently on both the client and middle-tiers. WCF RIA Services uses WCF for communication between the client and the server  It supports both an optimized .NET to .NET binary serialization format, as well as a set of open extensions to the ATOM format known as ODATA and an optional JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format that can be used by any client. You can hear Nikhil and Dinesh talk a little about WCF RIA Services in this 13 minutes Channel 9 video. Putting it all Together – the Silverlight 4 Training Kit Check out the Silverlight 4 Training Kit to learn more about how to build business applications with Silverlight 4, Visual Studio 2010 and WCF RIA Services. The training kit includes 8 modules, 25 videos, and several hands-on labs that explain Silverlight 4 and WCF RIA Services concepts and walks you through building an end-to-end application with them.    The training kit is available for free and is a great way to get started. Summary I’m really excited about today’s release – as they really complete the Silverlight development story and deliver a great end to end runtime + tooling story for building applications.  All of the above features are available for use both in VS 2010 as well as the free Visual Web Developer 2010 Express Edition – making it really easy to get started building great solutions. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

    Read the article

  • How Mary Meeker’s Latest Findings May Make You Re-Imagine Commerce

    - by Brenna Johnson-Oracle
    0 0 1 954 5439 Endeca Technologies 45 12 6381 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:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Today, Mary Meeker released her highly anticipated annual “Internet Trends” presentation for 2014. All 164 slides are jam-packed with pretty much everything you need to know about the state of the Internet. And as luck would have it, Oracle is staying ahead of these trends (but we’ll talk about that later). There were a few surprises, some stats to solidify what you likely already know, and Meeker’s novel observations about where we are all going. What interested me the most is not only how people are engaging in their personal lives, but how they engage with brands. As you could probably predict, Internet usage growth is slowing while tablet user and mobile data traffic growth continue their meteoric rise around the globe, with tremendous growth in underpenetrated markets like China, India, Brazil and Indonesia. Now hold those the “Internet is dead” comments. Keep in mind there’s still plenty of room to grow, and a multiscreen model is Meeker’s vision for our future. Despite 1.5x YOY growth for mobile traffic, mobile still only makes up about 23% of all traffic today. With tablet shipments easily outpacing figures for PCs even at their height (in 2007), mobile will only continue on it’s path, but won’t be everything to everyone. Mobile won’t replace every touchpoint, it’s just created our shorter attention spans and demand for simpler, more personal experiences. As Meeker points out TVs, tablets, PCs, and smartphones are used for different activities at present, but lines will blur (for example, 84% of smartphones owners use their device while watching TV). Day-to-day activities are being re-imagining through simple, beautiful user experiences. It seems like every day I discover a new way a brand/site/app made the most mundane or mounting task enjoyable and frictionless – and I’m not alone. Meeker points out the evolution of how we do everything from how we communicate, get information, use money, meet someone, get places, order a meal, and consume media is all done through new user interfaces that make day-to-day tasks simpler. This movement has caused just about everyone’s patience for a poor UX to take a nosedive. And it’s not just the digital user experience, technology is making a lot of people’s offline lives easier, and less expensive. Today 47% of online shopping utilizes free shipping— nearly half. And Meeker predicts same day local delivery will be the “next big thing” (and you can take a guess on who will own that). Content, Community and Commerce creates the “Internet Trifecta.” Meeker pointed out that when content, communities and commerce occur in a single experience it’s embraced by consumers, which translates to big dollars for brands. The magic happens when consumers can get inspired, research, and buy in a single experience. As the buying cycle has changed and touchpoints (Web, mobile, social, store) are no longer tied to “roles” or steps in the customer journey, brands must make all experiences (content and commerce) available in a single, adaptable experience. (We at Oracle Commerce have a lot to say on this topic – stay tuned!) And in what Meeker calls the “biggest re-imagination of all:” consumers enabled with smartphones and sensors are creating troves of findable and sharable data, which she says is in the early stages, by growing rapidly. She notes that transparency and patterns of consumers with this hardware (FYI - there are up to 10 sensors embedded in smartphones now) has created a Big Data treasure chest to be mined to improve business and the life of the consumer. The opportunities are endless. So what does it all mean for a company doing business online? Start thinking about how you can: Re-imagine your experience. Not your online experience and your mobile experience and your social experience – your overall experience. When consumers can research, buy, and advocate from anywhere (and their attention spans are at an all-time low) channels don’t exist. Enable simple and beautiful interactions informed by all of the online and offline data you leverage across your enterprise. Ethically leverage the endless supply of data (user generated content, clicks, purchases, in-store behavior, social activity) to make experiences more beautiful, more accurate, and more personalized (not to mention, more lucrative for you). Re-imagine content and commerce. Content and commerce must co-exist in a single destination where shoppers can get inspired, explore, research, share, and purchase in a collective experience. Think of how you can deliver an experience where all types of experiences (brand stories and commerce) adapt to every customer need. (Look for more on this topic coming soon). Re-imagine your reach. Look to Meeker’s findings to see how the global appetite for digital experiences is growing, but under-served in many places (i.e.: India, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, Philippines, etc.). Growing your online business to a new geography doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch or having an entirely new team manage the new endeavor. Expand using what you’ve already built in a multisite framework, with global language support. And of course, make sure it’s optimized for mobile! Re-imagine the possible. After every Meeker report, I’m always left with the thought “we are just at the beginning.” Everyday there is more data, more possibilities, more online consumers, and more opportunities to use new latest technology to get closer to your customers and be more successful. There’s a lot going on in our Product Development and Product Innovations groups to automate innovation for our customers, so that they can continue to stay ahead of these trends, without disrupting their business. Check out a recent interview with our Innovations Team on some of these new possibilities. Staying on track despite the seemingly endless possibilities out there is the hard part. Prioritizing where you will focus based on your unique brand promise, customer and goals is what you do best. To learn how Oracle Commerce can help your business achieve your goals check out oracle.com/commerce. Check out Meeker’s entire report here.

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39  | Next Page >