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• Is Oracle Policy Automation a Fit for My Agency? I'll bet it is.

  - by jeffrey.waterman

  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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-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;} Recently, I stumbled upon a new(-ish) whitepaper now posted on the Oracle Technology Network around Oracle Policy Automation (OPA). This paper is certain to become a must read for any customer interested in rules automation. What is OPA?  If you are not sitting in your favorite Greek restaurant waiting for that order of Saganaki to appear, OPA is Oracle’s solution for automated streamlining, standardizing, and the maintenance of policy. It is a specialized rules platform that simplifies the automation of rules and policies, putting the analysis in the hands of the analysts, not the IT organization. In other words, OPA allows the organization to be more efficient by eliminating (or at a minimum, reducing the engagement of) the middle man from the process. The whitepaper I mention above is titled, “Is Oracle Policy Automation a Good Fit for My Business?”. This short document walks the reader through use cases and advice for the reader to consider when deciding if OPA is right for their agency. The paper outlines many different scenarios, different uses of OPA in production today and, where OPA may not be a good fit. Many of the use case examples revolve around end user questionnaires or analyst research. What is often overlooked is OPA’s ability to act as a rules engine behind the scenes. That is, take inputs from one source (e.g., personnel data), process that data in OPA and send the output (e.g., pay data with benefits deductions) to a second source. The rules have been automated, no necessary human intervention to perform analysis. A few of my customers have used the embedded OPA solution to improve transaction processing and reduce the time spent analyzing exceptions. I suggest any reader whose organization is reliant on or deals with high complexity, volume or volatility in rules that are based on documentation – or which need to be documented – take a look at Oracle Policy Automation. You can find the white paper on Oracle Technology Network. You can find the white paper in the Oracle Policy Automation of the OTN. You can find more information around OPA on oracle.com. Finally, you can send me a question any time at [email protected] Thank you for reading. If you have any topics around Oracle Applications in the Federal or Public Sector industries you would like to see addressed in this blog, please leave suggestions in the comments section and I will do my best to address in a future post.

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• Wisdom Lies in Collaborative Power and Intelligence

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  By Alakh Verma, Director, Platform Technology Solutions   In my recent blog posts, I shared insights on Predictive Analytics (Will Predictive Analytics at 'Speed of Thoughts' Help Businesses?), Real Time Decisions (How critical are Real Time decisions in business today?) and their significance in our lives in general and in businesses today. In the current business paradigm shift- with evolutionary social business, it is paramount that businesses look for wisdom in collaborative power and intelligence and equip their employees with the tools to engage with one another. There is an old time saying that 5 sticks tied together are stronger and unable to break as opposed to an individual stick. We have recently witnessed the power of ordinary people uniting together and fought collaboratively using Facebook and Twitter to topple down dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya—and are threatening absolute rule in Syria. And an India one man’s (Anna Hazare) campaign against corruption went viral, bringing thousands to the streets in support. As anyone who has worked in a sizeable organization knows, there is no guarantee that the organization as a whole will perform efficiently and achieve its goals, even if each employee is individually efficient and every team has a high level of productivity. To achieve enterprise productivity, it is necessary not only for individuals and groups to “do things right” by working productively but also for the enterprise as a whole to “do the right things” - form the right teams, make the right decisions, allocate resources correctly, and effectively coordinate activities across the entire organization. Most organizations fall short of the optimal level of enterprise productivity because of one or more of these reasons, all at a great cost to the business.  They are disconnected from themselves with various parts of the organization unintentionally working at cross-purposes with each other.  Information that exists is not getting shared or reused.  Human talent is not being applied where it is most needed.  The same problems are being solved repeatedly by multiple groups. Intelligent collaboration through automated business processes has the ability to alter the course of any important business activity, with a potentially dramatic impact on the financial performance of the business. Whether it is a simple email exchange, a physical or virtual meeting, a task force, or a large-scale project, the activity is inherently collaborative.  In fact, collaboration can be defined as the work that takes place among people when a business process is not pre-determining how the work should take place. Collaboration is many things: information sharing, brainstorming, problem solving, best practice negotiation, innovation, coordination of activity, alignment of purpose, and so forth.  Collaboration is the “white space” between the business processes; it is the glue that holds an organization together, and the lubricant that allows the machinery to keep running.  Real time search and collaborative capabilities of the right people with the right content supported by defined processes will provide unparallel wisdom in the organization in the most competitive business environment today. Interestingly, technologies such as Oracle WebCenter offer these capabilities in our Web based business transactions and compliment in the overall collaborative intelligence and power to truly transform organizations to social businesses. Looking to learn more about engaging your employees to collaborate together and providing a complete user experience for your customers? You won't want to miss our webcast today! Drive Online Engagement with Intuitive Portals and Websites

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• Why are you doing this? [closed]

  - by NIcholas Lawson

  I am working on a story that I am going to be querying to several magazines in my hometown about this work that is being done by the AXR group. This is a group of people who have networked online and are working on developing a higher level syntax structure than CSS and HTML currently offer. I am covering this is as a story because I see potential in this as a human interest story in cosmopolitan society. I have been asked by the group to pose this question to you and would appreciate any and all comments you would have on the following ... To AXR: So when does the internet become finished? At what point does a computer scientist say to himself ... my job here is finished ... the internet is complete? When is the internet ready to be more about the display of content than the uploading of new websites or computer tech? You are embarking on upon a sixty year project every day you work with this internet, what drives you? Why are you spending your hard earned hours working on the code to this computer? I spend thirty hours a week online because I love the writing and I know what would make the internet better ... ease of use ... i know it is difficult to program but I see some very elegant solutions online ... in this early inception phase of your programming development for this HSS prototype ... I would like to know why I do not see you programmers asking questions such as ... What would make the end user's life the easiest when using this code? I know you can solve the problem but an evolution forward would be simple, not simple to a computer scientist but simple to use for a career janitor ... if you could solve the problem of alleviating the stress at using a the computer you could get better content out of the computer ... right now the main problem is that the best content is in the hands of the people least likely to use the computer and the more simple you make the computer to use ... the better the content collection will be in the long run ... That is not what I want to talk about though ... why are you writing code when you could be writing stories? I know the computer is worthless without content so I build content, I know the book is worthless without the combinations of words in them, i know the television is worthless without the television news anchor or the actor, what I want to know from you folks in a very journalistic sense is why are you even bothering to bother to write code for a machine that has only made our lives i would dare say less interesting. why are you feeding the beast your time when you could be writing stories or being an actor or musician or auto mechanic ... why code? why this machine? what do you love about it? what do you hate about it? what do you wonder about it? I want to know so that starting out I know how to further shape my questions with axr ... i want the full story ... i want the real answers ... and i want to know why you are doing this, it would make for great writing if you could elucidate on this point.

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• Social Search: Looking for Love

  - by Mike Stiles

  For marketers and enterprise executives who have placed a higher priority on and allocated bigger budgets to search over social, it might be time to notice yet another shift that’s well underway. Social is search. Search marketing was always more of an internal slam-dunk than other digital initiatives. Even a C-suite that understood little about the new technology world knew it’s a good thing when people are able to find you. Google was the new Yellow Pages. Only with Google, you could get your listing first without naming yourself “AAAA Plumbing.” There were wizards out there who could give your business prominence in front of people who were specifically looking for what you offered. Other search giants like Bing also came along to offer such ideal matchmaking possibilities. But what if the consumer isn’t using a search engine to find what they’re looking for? And what if the search engines started altering their algorithms so that search placement manipulation was more difficult? Both of those things have started to happen. Experian Hitwise’s numbers show that visits to the major search engines in the UK dropped 100 million through August. Search engines are far from dead, or even challenged. But more and more, the public is discovering the sites and brands they need through advice they get via social, not search. You’ll find the worlds of social and search increasingly co-mingling as well. Search behemoths Google and Bing are including Facebook and Google+ into their engines. Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter have done some integration of global web search into their platforms. So what makes social such a worthwhile search entity for brands? First and foremost, the consumer has demonstrated a behavior of acting on recommendations from social connections. A cry in the wilderness like, “Anybody know any good catering companies?” will usually yield a link (and an endorsement) from a friend such as “Yeah, check out Just-Cheese-Balls Catering.” There’s no such human-driven force/influence behind the big search engines. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and others call it “Friend Mining.” It is, in essence, searching for answers from friends’ experiences as opposed to faceless code. And Facebook has all of those friends’ experiences already stored as data. eMarketer says search in an $18 billion business, and investors are really into it. So no shock Facebook’s ready to leverage their social graph into relevant search. What do you do about all this as a brand? For one thing, it’s going to lead to some interesting paid marketing opportunities around the corner, including Sponsored Stories bought against certain queries, inserting deals into search results, capitalizing on social search results on mobile, etc. Apart from that, it might be time to stop mentally separating social and search in your strategic planning and budgeting. Courting your fans on social will cumulatively add up to more valuable, personally endorsed recommendations for your company when a consumer conducts a search on social. Fail to foster those relationships, fail to engage, fail to provide knock-em-dead customer service, fail to wow them with your actual products and services…and you’ll wind up with the visibility you deserve in social search results.

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• Book Review (Book 12) - 20 Master Plots

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for a year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for May 2012 was:20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias. This is my final book review - at least for this year. I'll explain what I've learned in this book in particular, and in the last twelve months in general. Why I chose this book: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. I wanted to find out. What I learned: Probably my most favorite read of the year. Deceptively small, amazingly insightful. The premise is that there are only a few "base" themes, and that once you learn them you can put together an interesting set of stories on most any topic. Yes, the author admits that this number has been different throughout history - some have said 50, others 14, and still others claim only one or two basic plots. This doesn't change the fact that you can build very complex stories from a simple set of circumstances and characters. Be warned - if you read this book it takes away much of the wonder from almost every movie or book you'll read from here on! I loved it. My favorite part is that the author gives you exercises to build stories, right from the start. I've actually used these as the start of a meeting to foster creativity. Amazing stuff. One of my favorite sections of the book deals with plot and story. Plot: The king died, and the queen died. Story: The king died, and the queen died of heartbreak. Add one or two words, and you have the essence of storytelling. A highly recommended read, for all folks of all ages. You'll like it, your spouse will like it, and your kids will like it. I learned to be a better storyteller, and it helped me understand that plots and stories are not just things in books - they are a direct reflection of human nature. That makes me a better manager of myself and others.   And this is the last of the reviews - at least for this year. I probably won't post many more book reviews here, but I will keep up the practice. As a reminder, the goal was to select 12 books that will help you reach your career goals. They don't have to be technical, or even apply directly to your job - but they do need to be books that you mindfully select as getting you closer to what you want to be. Each month, jot down what you learned from the work. And see if it doesn't in fact get you closer to your goals. These readings helped me - I got a promotion this year, and I attribute at least some of that to the things I learned.

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• Book Review (Book 12) - 20 Master Plots

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for a year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for May 2012 was:20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias. This is my final book review - at least for this year. I'll explain what I've learned in this book in particular, and in the last twelve months in general. Why I chose this book: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. I wanted to find out. What I learned: Probably my most favorite read of the year. Deceptively small, amazingly insightful. The premise is that there are only a few "base" themes, and that once you learn them you can put together an interesting set of stories on most any topic. Yes, the author admits that this number has been different throughout history - some have said 50, others 14, and still others claim only one or two basic plots. This doesn't change the fact that you can build very complex stories from a simple set of circumstances and characters. Be warned - if you read this book it takes away much of the wonder from almost every movie or book you'll read from here on! I loved it. My favorite part is that the author gives you exercises to build stories, right from the start. I've actually used these as the start of a meeting to foster creativity. Amazing stuff. One of my favorite sections of the book deals with plot and story. Plot: The king died, and the queen died. Story: The king died, and the queen died of heartbreak. Add one or two words, and you have the essence of storytelling. A highly recommended read, for all folks of all ages. You'll like it, your spouse will like it, and your kids will like it. I learned to be a better storyteller, and it helped me understand that plots and stories are not just things in books - they are a direct reflection of human nature. That makes me a better manager of myself and others.   And this is the last of the reviews - at least for this year. I probably won't post many more book reviews here, but I will keep up the practice. As a reminder, the goal was to select 12 books that will help you reach your career goals. They don't have to be technical, or even apply directly to your job - but they do need to be books that you mindfully select as getting you closer to what you want to be. Each month, jot down what you learned from the work. And see if it doesn't in fact get you closer to your goals. These readings helped me - I got a promotion this year, and I attribute at least some of that to the things I learned.

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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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• Sitting Pretty

  - by Phil Factor

  Guest Editorial for Simple-Talk IT Pro newsletter'DBAs and SysAdmins generally prefer an expression of calmness under adversity. It is a subtle trick, and requires practice in front of a mirror to get it just right. Too much adversity and they think you're not coping; too much calmness and they think you're under-employed' I dislike the term 'avatar', when used to describe a portrait photograph. An avatar, in the sense of a picture, is merely the depiction of one's role-play alter-ego, often a ridiculous bronze-age deity. However, professional image is important. The choice and creation of online photos has an effect on the way your message is received and it is important to get that right. It is fine to use that photo of you after ten lagers on holiday in an Ibiza nightclub, but what works on Facebook looks hilarious on LinkedIn. My splendid photograph that I use online was done by a professional photographer at great expense and I've never had the slightest twinge of regret when I remember how much I paid for it. It is me, but a more pensive and dignified edition, oozing trust and wisdom. One gasps at the magical skill that a professional photographer can conjure up, without digital manipulation, to make the best of a derisory noggin (ed: slang for a head). Even if he had offered to depict me as a semi-naked, muscle-bound, sword-wielding hero, I'd have demurred. No, any professional person needs a carefully cultivated image that looks right. I'd never thought of using that profile shot, though I couldn't help noticing the photographer flinch slightly when he first caught sight of my face. There is a problem with using an avatar. The use of a single image doesn't express the appropriate emotion. At the moment, it is weird to see someone with a laughing portrait writing something solemn. A neutral cast to the face, somewhat like a passport photo, is probably the best compromise. Actually, the same is true of a working life in IT. One of the first skills I learned was not to laugh at managers, but, instead, to develop a facial expression that promoted a sense of keenness, energy and respect. Every profession has its own preferred facial cast. A neighbour of mine has the natural gift of a face that displays barely repressed grief. Though he is characteristically cheerful, he earns a remarkable income as a pallbearer. DBAs and SysAdmins generally prefer an expression of calmness under adversity. It is a subtle trick, and requires practice in front of a mirror to get it just right. Too much adversity and they think you're not coping; too much calmness and they think you're under-employed. With an appropriate avatar, you could do away with a lot of the need for 'smilies' to give clues as to the meaning of what you've written on forums and blogs. If you had a set of avatars, showing the full gamut of human emotions expressible in writing: Rage, fear, reproach, joy, ebullience, apprehension, exasperation, dissembly, irony, pathos, euphoria, remorse and so on. It would be quite a drop-down list on forums, but given the vast prairies of space on the average hard drive, who cares? It would cut down on the number of spats in Forums just as long as one picks the right avatar. As an unreconstructed geek, I find it hard to admit to the value of image in the workplace, but it is true. Just as we use professionals to tidy up and order our CVs and job applications, we should employ experts to enhance our professional image. After all you don't perform surgery or dentistry on yourself do you?

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• Paper-free Customer Engagement

  - by Michael Snow

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} 12.00 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Appropriate repost from our friends at the AIIM blog: Digital Landfill -- John Mancini, supporting our mission of enabling customer engagement through better technology choices.  ---------- My wife didn't even give me a card for #wpfd - and they say husbands are bad at remembering anniversaries Well, today is the third World Paper Free Day.  I just got off the Tweet Jam, and there was a host of ideas for getting rid of -- or at least reducing -- paper. When we first started talking about "paper-free" most of the reasons raised to pursue this direction were "green" reasons.  I'm glad to see that the thinking has moved on to questions about how getting rid of paper and digitizing processes helps improve customer engagement.  And the bottom line.  And process responsiveness.  Not that the "green" reasons have gone away, but it's nice to see a maturation in the BUSINESS reasons to get rid of paper. Our World Paper Free Handbook (do not, do not, do not print it!) looks at how less paper in the workplace delivers significant benefits. Key findings show eliminating paper from processes can improve the responsiveness of customer service by 300 percent. Removing paper from business processes and moving content to PCs and tablets has the added advantage of helping companies adopt mobile-enable processes and eliminate elapsed time, lost forms, poor data and re-keying. To effectively mobile-enable processes and reduce reliance on paper, data should be captured as close to the point of origination as possible, which makes information easily available to whomever needs it, wherever they are, in the shortest time possible. This handbook summarizes the value of automating manual, paper-based processes. It then goes a step beyond to provide actionable steps that will set you on the path to productivity, profitability, and, yes, less paper.  Get your copy today and send the link around to your peers and colleagues.  Here's the link; please share it! http://www.aiim.org/Research-and-Publications/Research/AIIM-White-Papers/WPFD-Revolution-Handbook And don't miss out on the real world discussions about increasing engagement with WebCenter in new webinars being offered over the next couple of weeks:  October 30, 2012:  ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter November 1, 2012: WebCenter Content for Applications: Streamline Processes with Oracle WebCenter Content Management for Human Resources Applications Available On-Demand:  Using Oracle WebCenter to Content-Enable Your Business Applications

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• E-Business Suite : Role of CHUNK_SIZE in Oracle Payroll

  - by Giri Mandalika

  Different batch processes in Oracle Payroll flow have the ability to spawn multiple child processes (or threads) to complete the work in hand. The number of child processes to fork is controlled by the THREADS parameter in APPS.PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS view. THREADS parameter The default value for THREADS parameter is 1, which is fine for a single-processor system but not optimal for the modern multi-core multi-processor systems. Setting the THREADS parameter to a value equal to or less than the total number of [virtual] processors available on the system may improve the performance of payroll processing. However on the down side, since multiple child processes operate against the same set of payroll tables in HR schema, database may experience undesired consequences such as buffer busy waits and index contention, which results in giving up some of the gains achieved by using multiple child processes/threads to process the work. Couple of other action parameters, CHUNK_SIZE and CHUNK_SHUFFLE, help alleviate the database contention. eg., Set a value for THREADS parameter as shown below. CONNECT APPS/APPS_PASSWORD UPDATE PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS SET PARAMETER_VALUE = DESIRED_VALUE WHERE PARAMETER_NAME = 'THREADS'; COMMIT; (I am not aware of any maximum value for THREADS parameter) CHUNK_SIZE parameter The size of each commit unit for the batch process is controlled by the CHUNK_SIZE action parameter. In other words, chunking is the act of splitting the assignment actions into commit groups of desired size represented by the CHUNK_SIZE parameter. The default value is 20, and each thread processes one chunk at a time -- which means each child process inserts or processes 20 assignment actions at any time. When multiple threads are configured, each thread picks up a chunk to process, completes the assignment actions and then picks up another chunk. This is repeated until all the chunks are exhausted. It is possible to use different chunk sizes in different batch processes. During the initial phase of processing, CHUNK_SIZE number of assignment actions are inserted into relevant table(s). When multiple child processes are inserting data at the same time into the same set of tables, as explained earlier, database may experience contention. The default value of 20 is mostly optimal in such a case. Experiment with different values for the initial phase by +/-10 for CHUNK_SIZE parameter and observe the performance impact. A larger value may make sense during the main processing phase. Again experimentation is the key in finding the suitable value for your environment. Start with a large value such as 2000 for the chunk size, then increment or decrement the size by 500 at a time until an optimal value is found. eg., Set a value for CHUNK_SIZE parameter as shown below. CONNECT APPS/APPS_PASSWORD UPDATE PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS SET PARAMETER_VALUE = DESIRED_VALUE WHERE PARAMETER_NAME = 'CHUNK_SIZE'; COMMIT; CHUNK_SIZE action parameter accepts a value that is as low as 1 or as high as 16000. CHUNK SHUFFLE parameter By default, chunks of assignment actions are processed sequentially by all threads - which may not be a good thing especially given that all child processes/threads performing similar actions against the same set of tables almost at the same time. By saying not a good thing, I mean to say that the default behavior leads to contention in the database (in data blocks, for example). It is possible to relieve some of that database contention by randomizing the processing order of chunks of assignment actions. This behavior is controlled by the CHUNK SHUFFLE action parameter. Chunk processing is not randomized unless explicitly configured. eg., Set chunk shuffling as shown below. CONNECT APPS/APPS_PASSWORD UPDATE PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS SET PARAMETER_VALUE = 'Y' WHERE PARAMETER_NAME = 'CHUNK SHUFFLE'; COMMIT; Finally I recommend checking the following document out for additional details and additional pay action tunable parameters that may speed up the processing of Oracle Payroll.     My Oracle Support Doc ID: 226987.1 Oracle 11i & R12 Human Resources (HRMS) & Benefits (BEN) Tuning & System Health Checks Also experiment with different combinations of parameters and values until the right set of action parameters and values are found for your deployment.

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• Finalists for Community Manager of the Year Announced

  - by Mike Stiles

  For as long as brand social has been around, there’s still an amazing disparity from company to company on the role of Community Manager. At some brands, they are the lead social innovators. At others, the task has been relegated to interns who are at the company temporarily. Some have total autonomy and trust. Others must get chain-of-command permission each time they engage. So what does a premiere “worth their weight in gold” Community Manager look like? More than anyone else in the building, they have the most intimate knowledge of who the customer is. They live on the front lines and are the first to detect problems and opportunities. They are sincere, raving fans of the brand themselves and are trusted advocates for the others. They’re fun to be around. They aren’t salespeople. Give me one Community Manager who’s been at the job 6 months over 5 focus groups any day. Because not unlike in speed dating, they must immediately learn how to make a positive, lasting impression on fans so they’ll want to return and keep the relationship going. They’re informers and entertainers, with a true belief in the value of the brand’s proposition. Internally, they live at the mercy of the resources allocated toward social. Many, whose managers don’t understand the time involved in properly curating a community, are tasked with 2 or 3 too many of them. 63% of CM’s will spend over 30 hours a week on one community. They come to intuitively know the value of the relationships they’re building, even if they can’t always be shown in a bar graph to the C-suite. Many must communicate how the customer feels to executives that simply don’t seem to want to hear it. Some can get the answers fans want quickly, others are frustrated in their ability to respond within an impressive timeframe. In short, in a corporate world coping with sweeping technological changes, amidst business school doublespeak, pie charts, decks, strat sessions and data points, the role of the Community Manager is the most…human. They are the true emotional connection to the real life customer. Which is why we sought to find a way to recognize and honor who they are, what they do, and how well they have defined the position as social grows and integrates into the larger organization. Meet our 3 finalists for Community Manager of the Year. Jeff Esposito with VistaprintJeff manages and heads up content strategy for all social networks and blogs. He also crafts company-wide policies surrounding the social space. Vistaprint won the NEDMA Gold Award for Twitter Strategy in 2010 and 2011, and a Bronze in 2011 for Social Media Strategy. Prior to Vistaprint, Jeff was Media Relations Manager with the Long Island Ducks. He graduated from Seton Hall University with a BA in English and a minor in Classical Studies. Stacey Acevero with Vocus In addition to social management, Stacey blogs at Vocus on influential marketing and social media, and blogs at PRWeb on public relations and SEO. She’s been named one of the #Nifty50 Women in Tech on Twitter 2 years in a row, as well as included in the 15 up-and-coming PR pros to watch in 2012. Carly Severn with the San Francisco BalletCarly drives engagement, widens the fanbase and generates digital content for America’s oldest professional ballet company. Managed properties include Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube and G+. Prior to joining the SF Ballet, Carly was Marketing & Press Coordinator at The Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, where she graduated with a degree in English. We invite you to join us at the first annual Oracle Social Media Summit November 14 and 15 at the Wynn in Las Vegas where our finalists will be featured. Over 300 top brand marketers, agency executives, and social leaders & innovators will be exploring how social is transforming business. Space is limited and the information valuable, so get more info and get registered as soon as possible at the event site.

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• SharePoint Content and Site Editing Tips

  - by Bil Simser

  A few content management and site editing tips for power users on this bacon flavoured unicorn morning. The theme here is keep it clean!Write "friendly" email addressesRemember it's human beings reading your content. So seeing something like "If you have questions please send an email to [email protected]" breaks up the readiblity. Instead just do the simple steps of writing the content in plain English and going back, highlighting the name and insert a link (note: you might have to prefix the link with mailto:[email protected]). It makes for a friendlier looking page and hides the ugliness that are sometimes in email addresses.Use friendly column and list namesThis is a big pet peeve of mine. When you first create a column or list with spaces the internal name is changed. The display name might be "My Amazing List of Animals with Large Testicles" but the internal (and link) name becomes "My_x00x20_Amazing_x00x20_List_x00x20_of_x00x20_Animals_x00x20_with_x00x20_Large_x00x20_Testicles". What's worse is if you create a publishing page named "This Website is Fueled By a Dolphin's Spleen". Not only is it incorrect grammar, but the apostrophe wreaks havoc on both the internal name for the list (with lots of crazy hex codes) as well as the hyperlink (where everything is uuencoded). Instead create the list with a distinct and compact name then go back and change it to whatever you want. The end result is a better formed name that you can both script and access in code easier.Keep your Views CleanWhen you add a column to a list or create a new list the default is to add it to the default view. Do everyone a favour and don't check this box! The default view of a list should be something similar to the Title field and nothing else. Keep it clean. If you want to set a defalt view that's different, go back and create one with all the fields and filtering and sorting columns you want and set it as default. It's a good idea to keep the original AllItems.aspx (note the lack of space in the filename!) easy and unfiltered. It's also a good idea to keep your column count down in views. Don't let every column be added by default and don't add every column just because you can. Create separate views for distinct responsibilities and try to keep the number of columns down to a single screen to prevent horizontal scrolling.Simple NavigationThe Quick Launch is a great tool for navigating around your site but don't use the default of adding all lists to it. Uncheck that box and keep navigation simple. Create custom groupings that make sense so if you don't have a site with "Documents and Lists" but "Reports and Notices" makes more sense then do it. Also hide internal lists from the Quick Launch. For example, if most users don't need to see all the lookup tables you might have on a site don't show them. You can use audience filtering on the Quick Launch if you want to hide admin items from non-admin users so consider that as an option.Enjoy!

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• The Social Content Conundrum

  - by Mike Stiles

  Here’s the social content conundrum: people who are not entertainers are being asked to entertain. Despite a world of skilled MBAs, marketing savants, technological innovators, analysts, social strategists and consultants, every development in social for brands keeps boomeranging right back to the same unavoidable truth. Success hinges on having content creators who know how to entertain the target audience. You can’t make this all about business-processes. You can’t make this all about technology, though data is critical and helps inform content. This is about having human beings who know the audience, know what they’d love to see, and can create the magic that will draw and hold them. Since showing up in the News Feed is critical for exposition and engagement, and since social ads primarily serve to amplify content that’s performing well, I’m comfortable saying content creators are becoming exponentially recruited and valued. They will no longer be commodities. They’ll be your stars. Social has fundamentally changed the relationship between brand and consumer. No longer can the customer be told to sit down, shut up, and listen to our ads. It’s now all about what consumers are willing to watch or read. Their patience for subjecting themselves to material they aren’t interested in is waning. Therefore, brands must now be producers of entertainment and information content, not merely placers of ads within someone else’s content. Social has given you a huge stage, with an audience sitting out there waiting to see what you’re going to do. What are you putting on that stage? For most corporate environments, entertaining is alien. It’s risky and subjective. Most operate around two foundational principles: control and fear. To entertain and inform with branded content, some control has to go. You control the product. Past that, control is being transferred into the hands of the consumer. The “fear first” culture also has to yield. If you strive to never make waves, you will move absolutely nothing. Because most corporations don’t house entertainers, they must be found then trusted. They’re usually a little weird. The ideas they’ll bring may seem “out there.” But like any business professional, they’ve gone through the training and experiences that make them uniquely good at what they do, even if you don’t quite understand them. It’s okay. It’s what the audience thinks that matters. Get it right, and you’ll be generating one ambassador after another who’s proud to be identified with the brand and will regularly consume and share your content. Entertainment entities are able to shape our culture and succeed beyond their wildest dreams by being beholden to one thing…what the public likes and wants. When brands put the same emphasis on crowd-pleasing content, they too will enjoy brand fame the likes of which they’ve never seen. The stage is yours. Now get out there and go for that applause.

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• Cloud Deployment Models

  - by B R Clouse

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE As the cloud paradigm grows in depth and breadth, more readers are approaching the topic for the first time, or from a new perspective.  This blog is a basic review of  cloud deployment models, to help orient newcomers and neophytes. Most cloud deployments today are either private or public. It is also possible to connect a private cloud and a public cloud to form a hybrid cloud. A private cloud is for the exclusive use of an organization. Enterprises, universities and government agencies throughout the world are using private clouds. Some have designed, built and now manage their private clouds. Others use a private cloud that was built by and is now managed by a provider, hosted either onsite or at the provider’s datacenter. Because private clouds are for exclusive use, they are usually the option chosen by organizations with concerns about data security and guaranteed performance. Public clouds are open to anyone with an Internet connection. Because they require no capital investment from their users, they are particularly attractive to companies with limited resources in less regulated environments and for temporary workloads such as development and test environments. Public clouds offer a range of products, from end-user software packages to more basic services such as databases or operating environments. Public clouds may also offer cloud services such as a disaster recovery for a private cloud, or the ability to “cloudburst” a temporary workload spike from a private cloud to a public cloud. These are examples of a hybrid cloud. These are most feasible when the private and public clouds are built with similar technologies. Usually people think of a public cloud in terms of a user role, e.g., “Which public cloud should I consider using?” But someone needs to own and manage that public cloud. The company who owns and operates a public cloud is known as a public cloud provider. Oracle Database Cloud Service, Amazon RDS, database.com and Savvis Symphony Database are examples of public cloud database services. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} When evaluating deployment models, be aware that you can use any or all of the available options. Some workloads may be best-suited for a private cloud, some for a public or hybrid cloud. And you might deploy multiple private clouds in your organization. If you are going to combine multiple clouds, then you want to make sure that each cloud is based on a consistent technology portfolio and architecture. This simplifies management and gives you the greatest flexibility in moving resources and workloads among your different clouds. Oracle’s portfolio of cloud products and services enables both deployment models. Oracle can manage either model. Universities, government agencies and companies in all types of business everywhere in the world are using clouds built with the Oracle portfolio. By employing a consistent portfolio, these customers are able to run all of their workloads – from test and development to the most mission-critical -- in a consistent manner: One Enterprise Cloud, powered by Oracle.   /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Cloud – the forecast is improving

  - by Rob Farley

  There is a lot of discussion about “the cloud”, and how that affects people’s data stories. Today the discussion enters the realm of T-SQL Tuesday, hosted this month by Jorge Segarra. Over the years, companies have invested a lot in making sure that their data is good, and I mean every aspect of it – the quality of it, the security of it, the performance of it, and more. Experts such as those of us at LobsterPot Solutions have helped these companies with this, and continue to work with clients to make sure that data is a strong part of their business, not an oversight. Whether business intelligence systems are being utilised or not, every business needs to be able to rely on its data, and have the confidence in it. Data should be a foundation upon which a business is built. In the past, data had been stored in paper-based systems. Filing cabinets stored vital information. Today, people have server rooms with storage of various kinds, recognising that filing cabinets don’t necessarily scale particularly well. It’s easy to ‘lose’ data in a filing cabinet, when you have people who need to make sure that the sheets of paper are in the right spot, and that you know how things are stored. Databases help solve that problem, but still the idea of a large filing cabinet continues, it just doesn’t involve paper. If something happens to the physical ‘filing cabinet’, then the problems are larger still. Then the data itself is under threat. Many clients have generators in case the power goes out, redundant cables in case the connectivity dies, and spare servers in other buildings just in case they’re required. But still they’re maintaining filing cabinets. You see, people like filing cabinets. There’s something to be said for having your data ‘close’. Even if the data is not in readable form, living as bits on a disk somewhere, the idea that its home is ‘in the building’ is comforting to many people. They simply don’t want to move their data anywhere else. The cloud offers an alternative to this, and the human element is an obstacle. By leveraging the cloud, companies can have someone else look after their filing cabinet. A lot of people really don’t like the idea of this, partly because the administrators of the data, those people who could potentially log in with escalated rights and see more than they should be allowed to, who need to be trusted to respond if there’s a problem, are now a faceless entity in the cloud. But this doesn’t mean that the cloud is bad – this is simply a concern that some people may have. In new functionality that’s on its way, we see other hybrid mechanisms that mean that people can leverage parts of the cloud with less fear. Companies can use cloud storage to hold their backup data, for example, backups that have been encrypted and are therefore not able to be read by anyone (including administrators) who don’t have the right password. Companies can have a database instance that runs locally, but which has its data files in the cloud, complete with Transparent Data Encryption if needed. There can be a higher level of control, making the change easier to accept. Hybrid options allow people who have had fears (potentially very justifiable) to take a new look at the cloud, and to start embracing some of the benefits of the cloud (such as letting someone else take care of storage, high availability, and more) without losing the feeling of the data being close. @rob_farley

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• Tech Talk: Managing Cloud Integration

  - by Tanu Sood

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Cloud computing solutions are widely hailed as a way to reduce capital expenditures yet organizations are realizing they need to also consider all of the nuances of integrating cloud applications with existing information systems.Cloud integration, after all, has a direct impact on your costs, maintenance and upgrade efforts. Catch this conversation on Tech Talk with Oracle Vice President, Amit Zavery, to understand how Oracle Fusion Middleware provides a simple and consistent method to maintaining integration interfaces across disparate systems across cloud and on-premise applications. Simplify your IT infrastructure and seamlessly manage data and application integration across your applications with Oracle solutions. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} For other Fusion Middleware talks, subscribe to Fusion Middleware Radio today and visit us on oracle.com 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Photo courtesy: www.cloudtweaks.com

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• Optimal Data Structure for our own API

  - by vermiculus

  I'm in the early stages of writing an Emacs major mode for the Stack Exchange network; if you use Emacs regularly, this will benefit you in the end. In order to minimize the number of calls made to Stack Exchange's API (capped at 10000 per IP per day) and to just be a generally responsible citizen, I want to cache the information I receive from the network and store it in memory, waiting to be accessed again. I'm really stuck as to what data structure to store this information in. Obviously, it is going to be a list. However, as with any data structure, the choice must be determined by what data is being stored and what how it will be accessed. What, I would like to be able to store all of this information in a single symbol such as stack-api/cache. So, without further ado, stack-api/cache is a list of conses keyed by last update: `(<csite> <csite> <csite>) where <csite> would be (1362501715 . <site>) At this point, all we've done is define a simple association list. Of course, we must go deeper. Each <site> is a list of the API parameter (unique) followed by a list questions: `("codereview" <cquestion> <cquestion> <cquestion>) Each <cquestion> is, you guessed it, a cons of questions with their last update time: `(1362501715 <question>) (1362501720 . <question>) <question> is a cons of a question structure and a list of answers (again, consed with their last update time): `(<question-structure> <canswer> <canswer> <canswer> and ` `(1362501715 . <answer-structure>) This data structure is likely most accurately described as a tree, but I don't know if there's a better way to do this considering the language, Emacs Lisp (which isn't all that different from the Lisp you know and love at all). The explicit conses are likely unnecessary, but it helps my brain wrap around it better. I'm pretty sure a <csite>, for example, would just turn into (<epoch-time> <api-param> <cquestion> <cquestion> ...) Concerns: Does storing data in a potentially huge structure like this have any performance trade-offs for the system? I would like to avoid storing extraneous data, but I've done what I could and I don't think the dataset is that large in the first place (for normal use) since it's all just human-readable text in reasonable proportion. (I'm planning on culling old data using the times at the head of the list; each inherits its last-update time from its children and so-on down the tree. To what extent this cull should take place: I'm not sure.) Does storing data like this have any performance trade-offs for that which must use it? That is, will set and retrieve operations suffer from the size of the list? Do you have any other suggestions as to what a better structure might look like?

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• Getting 2D Platformer entity collision Response Correct (side-to-side + jumping/landing on heads)

  - by jbrennan

  I've been working on a 2D (tile based) 2D platformer for iOS and I've got basic entity collision detection working, but there's just something not right about it and I can't quite figure out how to solve it. There are 2 forms of collision between player entities as I can tell, either the two players (human controlled) are hitting each other side-to-side (i. e. pushing against one another), or one player has jumped on the head of the other player (naturally, if I wanted to expand this to player vs enemy, the effects would be different, but the types of collisions would be identical, just the reaction should be a little different). In my code I believe I've got the side-to-side code working: If two entities press against one another, then they are both moved back on either side of the intersection rectangle so that they are just pushing on each other. I also have the "landed on the other player's head" part working. The real problem is, if the two players are currently pushing up against each other, and one player jumps, then at one point as they're jumping, the height-difference threshold that counts as a "land on head" is passed and then it registers as a jump. As a life-long player of 2D Mario Bros style games, this feels incorrect to me, but I can't quite figure out how to solve it. My code: (it's really Objective-C but I've put it in pseudo C-style code just to be simpler for non ObjC readers) void checkCollisions() { // For each entity in the scene, compare it with all other entities (but not with one it's already compared against) for (int i = 0; i < _allGameObjects.count(); i++) { // GameObject is an Entity GEGameObject *firstGameObject = _allGameObjects.objectAtIndex(i); // Don't check against yourself or any previous entity for (int j = i+1; j < _allGameObjects.count(); j++) { GEGameObject *secondGameObject = _allGameObjects.objectAtIndex(j); // Get the collision bounds for both entities, then see if they intersect // CGRect is a C-struct with an origin Point (x, y) and a Size (w, h) CGRect firstRect = firstGameObject.collisionBounds(); CGRect secondRect = secondGameObject.collisionBounds(); // Collision of any sort if (CGRectIntersectsRect(firstRect, secondRect)) { //////////////////////////////// // // // Check for jumping first (???) // // //////////////////////////////// if (firstRect.origin.y > (secondRect.origin.y + (secondRect.size.height * 0.7))) { // the top entity could be pretty far down/in to the bottom entity.... firstGameObject.didLandOnEntity(secondGameObject); } else if (secondRect.origin.y > (firstRect.origin.y + (firstRect.size.height * 0.7))) { // second entity was actually on top.... secondGameObject.didLandOnEntity.(firstGameObject); } else if (firstRect.origin.x > secondRect.origin.x && firstRect.origin.x < (secondRect.origin.x + secondRect.size.width)) { // Hit from the RIGHT CGRect intersection = CGRectIntersection(firstRect, secondRect); // The NUDGE just offsets either object back to the left or right // After the nudging, they are exactly pressing against each other with no intersection firstGameObject.nudgeToRightOfIntersection(intersection); secondGameObject.nudgeToLeftOfIntersection(intersection); } else if ((firstRect.origin.x + firstRect.size.width) > secondRect.origin.x) { // hit from the LEFT CGRect intersection = CGRectIntersection(firstRect, secondRect); secondGameObject.nudgeToRightOfIntersection(intersection); firstGameObject.nudgeToLeftOfIntersection(intersection); } } } } } I think my collision detection code is pretty close, but obviously I'm doing something a little wrong. I really think it's to do with the way my jumps are checked (I wanted to make sure that a jump could happen from an angle (instead of if the falling player had been at a right angle to the player below). Can someone please help me here? I haven't been able to find many resources on how to do this properly (and thinking like a game developer is new for me). Thanks in advance!

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• JBoss 7.1.1 + Spring 3.1 + JPA 2 (Hibernate 3.6.8) > Cannot parse beans.xml

  - by Mashrur

  Trying to deploy a JSF 2 app with Spring 3.1 + JPA 2 (Hibernte 3.6.8) into JBoss 7.1.1 AS. The app was working fine on tomcat 7. Now, I have already added and changed some configurations. Added jboss-deployment-structure.xml <jboss-deployment-structure xmlns="urn:jboss:deployment-structure:1.1"> <deployment> <exclusions> <module name="org.apache.log4j" /> <module name="javax.faces.api" slot="main"/> <module name="com.sun.jsf-impl" slot="main"/> <module name="org.hibernate"/> <module name="org.javassist" /> <module name="javaee.api" /> <module name="org.hibernate.validator" /> <module name="org.jboss.as.web" /> <module name="org.jboss.logging" /> <module name="javax.persistence.api" /> <module name="org.jboss.interceptor" /> </exclusions> </deployment> </jboss-deployment-structure> 2. Inside web.xml added these lines: <persistence-unit-ref> <persistence-unit-ref-name>persistence/persistenceUnit</persistence-unit-ref-name> <persistence-unit-name>persistenceUnit</persistence-unit-name> </persistence-unit-ref> 3. Inside applicationContext.xml, changed bean definition for entityManagerFactory by adding this property <property name="persistenceXmlLocation" value="classpath*:META-INF/persistence.xml"/> Now, do I still need to do something more than these which is obvious to you? Because, while I am trying to deploy it from eclipse indigo SR2, getting this 14:10:32,046 INFO [org.jboss.modules] JBoss Modules version 1.1.1.GA 14:10:33,054 INFO [org.jboss.msc] JBoss MSC version 1.0.2.GA 14:10:33,200 INFO [org.jboss.as] JBAS015899: JBoss AS 7.1.1.Final "Brontes" starting 14:10:36,375 INFO [org.xnio] XNIO Version 3.0.3.GA 14:10:36,384 INFO [org.jboss.as.server] JBAS015888: Creating http management service using socket-binding (management-http) 14:10:36,432 INFO [org.xnio.nio] XNIO NIO Implementation Version 3.0.3.GA 14:10:36,462 INFO [org.jboss.remoting] JBoss Remoting version 3.2.3.GA 14:10:36,587 INFO [org.jboss.as.logging] JBAS011502: Removing bootstrap log handlers 14:10:36,714 INFO [org.jboss.as.security] (ServerService Thread Pool -- 44) JBAS013101: Activating Security Subsystem 14:10:36,735 INFO [org.jboss.as.naming] (MSC service thread 1-2) JBAS011802: Starting Naming Service 14:10:37,043 INFO [org.jboss.as.mail.extension] (MSC service thread 1-6) JBAS015400: Bound mail session [java:jboss/mail/Default] 14:10:37,208 INFO [org.jboss.as.connector] (MSC service thread 1-7) JBAS010408: Starting JCA Subsystem (JBoss IronJacamar 1.0.9.Final) 14:10:37,295 INFO [org.jboss.as.security] (MSC service thread 1-7) JBAS013100: Current PicketBox version=4.0.7.Final 14:10:37,740 INFO [org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources] (ServerService Thread Pool -- 27) JBAS010403: Deploying JDBC-compliant driver class org.h2.Driver (version 1.3) 14:10:38,792 INFO [org.jboss.ws.common.management.AbstractServerConfig] (MSC service thread 1-3) JBoss Web Services - Stack CXF Server 4.0.2.GA 14:10:38,833 INFO [org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol] (MSC service thread 1-2) Starting Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-localhost-127.0.0.1-8080 14:10:39,534 INFO [org.jboss.as.server.deployment.scanner] (MSC service thread 1-1) JBAS015012: Started FileSystemDeploymentService for directory F:\work\softwares\Application Servers\JBoss\jboss-as-7.1.1.Final\jboss-as-7.1.1.Final\standalone\deployments 14:10:39,618 INFO [org.jboss.as.remoting] (MSC service thread 1-3) JBAS017100: Listening on localhost/127.0.0.1:4447 14:10:39,623 INFO [org.jboss.as.remoting] (MSC service thread 1-2) JBAS017100: Listening on /127.0.0.1:9999 14:10:39,698 INFO [org.jboss.as.server.deployment.scanner] (DeploymentScanner-threads - 1) JBAS015014: Re-attempting failed deployment treasury.war 14:10:39,706 INFO [org.jboss.as.server.deployment.scanner] (DeploymentScanner-threads - 1) JBAS015003: Found com.misl.treasury.ui.war in deployment directory. To trigger deployment create a file called com.misl.treasury.ui.war.dodeploy 14:10:40,105 INFO [org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources] (MSC service thread 1-2) JBAS010400: Bound data source [java:jboss/datasources/ExampleDS] 14:10:40,399 INFO [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-1) JBAS015876: Starting deployment of "com.misl.treasury.ui.war" 14:10:40,405 INFO [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-7) JBAS015876: Starting deployment of "treasury.war" 14:10:55,283 WARN [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-7) JBAS015893: Encountered invalid class name 'com.sun.faces.vendor.Tomcat6InjectionProvider:org.apache.catalina.util.DefaultAnnotationProcessor' for service type 'com.sun.faces.spi.injectionprovider' 14:10:55,289 WARN [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-7) JBAS015893: Encountered invalid class name 'com.sun.faces.vendor.Jetty6InjectionProvider:org.mortbay.jetty.plus.annotation.InjectionCollection' for service type 'com.sun.faces.spi.injectionprovider' 14:10:55,428 INFO [org.jboss.as.jpa] (MSC service thread 1-7) JBAS011401: Read persistence.xml for persistenceUnit 14:10:55,843 WARN [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-4) JBAS015893: Encountered invalid class name 'com.sun.faces.vendor.Tomcat6InjectionProvider:org.apache.catalina.util.DefaultAnnotationProcessor' for service type 'com.sun.faces.spi.injectionprovider' 14:10:55,849 WARN [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-4) JBAS015893: Encountered invalid class name 'com.sun.faces.vendor.Jetty6InjectionProvider:org.mortbay.jetty.plus.annotation.InjectionCollection' for service type 'com.sun.faces.spi.injectionprovider' 14:10:56,010 ERROR [org.jboss.msc.service.fail] (MSC service thread 1-2) MSC00001: Failed to start service jboss.deployment.unit."com.misl.treasury.ui.war".POST_MODULE: org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service jboss.deployment.unit."com.misl.treasury.ui.war".POST_MODULE: Failed to process phase POST_MODULE of deployment "com.misl.treasury.ui.war" at org.jboss.as.server.deployment.DeploymentUnitPhaseService.start(DeploymentUnitPhaseService.java:119) [jboss-as-server-7.1.1.Final.jar:7.1.1.Final] at org.jboss.msc.service.ServiceControllerImpl$StartTask.startService(ServiceControllerImpl.java:1811) [jboss-msc-1.0.2.GA.jar:1.0.2.GA] at org.jboss.msc.service.ServiceControllerImpl$StartTask.run(ServiceControllerImpl.java:1746) [jboss-msc-1.0.2.GA.jar:1.0.2.GA] at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886) [rt.jar:1.6.0_23] at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908) [rt.jar:1.6.0_23] at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662) [rt.jar:1.6.0_23] Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/ServletOutputStream at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredConstructors0(Native Method) [rt.jar:1.6.0_23] at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredConstructors(Class.java:2389) [rt.jar:1.6.0_23] at java.lang.Class.getConstructor0(Class.java:2699) [rt.jar:1.6.0_23] at java.lang.Class.getConstructor(Class.java:1657) [rt.jar:1.6.0_23] at org.jboss.as.web.deployment.jsf.JsfManagedBeanProcessor.deploy(JsfManagedBeanProcessor.java:108) at org.jboss.as.server.deployment.DeploymentUnitPhaseService.start(DeploymentUnitPhaseService.java:113) [jboss-as-server-7.1.1.Final.jar:7.1.1.Final] ... 5 more Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.servlet.ServletOutputStream from [Module "deployment.com.misl.treasury.ui.war:main" from Service Module Loader] at org.jboss.modules.ModuleClassLoader.findClass(ModuleClassLoader.java:190) at org.jboss.modules.ConcurrentClassLoader.performLoadClassUnchecked(ConcurrentClassLoader.java:468) at org.jboss.modules.ConcurrentClassLoader.performLoadClassChecked(ConcurrentClassLoader.java:456) at org.jboss.modules.ConcurrentClassLoader.performLoadClassChecked(ConcurrentClassLoader.java:423) at org.jboss.modules.ConcurrentClassLoader.performLoadClass(ConcurrentClassLoader.java:398) at org.jboss.modules.ConcurrentClassLoader.loadClass(ConcurrentClassLoader.java:120) ... 11 more 14:10:56,628 ERROR [org.jboss.msc.service.fail] (MSC service thread 1-4) MSC00001: Failed to start service jboss.deployment.unit."treasury.war".PARSE: org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service jboss.deployment.unit."treasury.war".PARSE: Failed to process phase PARSE of deployment "treasury.war" at org.jboss.as.server.deployment.DeploymentUnitPhaseService.start(DeploymentUnitPhaseService.java:119) [jboss-as-server-7.1.1.Final.jar:7.1.1.Final] at org.jboss.msc.service.ServiceControllerImpl$StartTask.startService(ServiceControllerImpl.java:1811) [jboss-msc-1.0.2.GA.jar:1.0.2.GA] at org.jboss.msc.service.ServiceControllerImpl$StartTask.run(ServiceControllerImpl.java:1746) [jboss-msc-1.0.2.GA.jar:1.0.2.GA] at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886) [rt.jar:1.6.0_23] at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908) [rt.jar:1.6.0_23] at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662) [rt.jar:1.6.0_23] Caused by: org.jboss.as.server.deployment.DeploymentUnitProcessingException: SAXException parsing vfs:/F:/work/softwares/Application Servers/JBoss/jboss-as-7.1.1.Final/jboss-as-7.1.1.Final/bin/content/treasury.war/WEB-INF/beans.xml at org.jboss.as.weld.deployment.BeansXmlParser.parse(BeansXmlParser.java:100) at org.jboss.as.weld.deployment.processors.BeansXmlProcessor.parseBeansXml(BeansXmlProcessor.java:133) at org.jboss.as.weld.deployment.processors.BeansXmlProcessor.deploy(BeansXmlProcessor.java:97) at org.jboss.as.server.deployment.DeploymentUnitPhaseService.start(DeploymentUnitPhaseService.java:113) [jboss-as-server-7.1.1.Final.jar:7.1.1.Final] ... 5 more Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Premature end of file. at org.apache.xerces.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:196) at org.apache.xerces.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.fatalError(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:175) at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:394) at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:322) at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:281) at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLScanner.reportFatalError(XMLScanner.java:1459) at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$PrologDispatcher.dispatch(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:903) at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:324) at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:845) at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:768) at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:108) at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1196) at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:555) at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserImpl.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:289) at org.jboss.as.weld.deployment.BeansXmlParser.parse(BeansXmlParser.java:94) ... 8 more 14:10:56,670 INFO [org.jboss.as] (MSC service thread 1-1) JBAS015951: Admin console listening on http://127.0.0.1:9990 14:10:56,672 ERROR [org.jboss.as] (MSC service thread 1-1) JBAS015875: JBoss AS 7.1.1.Final "Brontes" started (with errors) in 25527ms - Started 143 of 222 services (2 services failed or missing dependencies, 76 services are passive or on-demand) 14:10:56,671 INFO [org.jboss.as.server] (DeploymentScanner-threads - 2) JBAS015871: Deploy of deployment "treasury.war" was rolled back with no failure message 14:10:56,679 INFO [org.jboss.as.server] (DeploymentScanner-threads - 2) JBAS015870: Deploy of deployment "com.misl.treasury.ui.war" was rolled back with failure message {"JBAS014671: Failed services" => {"jboss.deployment.unit.\"com.misl.treasury.ui.war\".POST_MODULE" => "org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service jboss.deployment.unit.\"com.misl.treasury.ui.war\".POST_MODULE: Failed to process phase POST_MODULE of deployment \"com.misl.treasury.ui.war\""}} 14:10:56,851 INFO [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-8) JBAS015877: Stopped deployment com.misl.treasury.ui.war in 172ms 14:10:57,068 INFO [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-7) JBAS015877: Stopped deployment treasury.war in 395ms 14:10:57,070 INFO [org.jboss.as.controller] (DeploymentScanner-threads - 2) JBAS014774: Service status report JBAS014777: Services which failed to start: service jboss.deployment.unit."treasury.war".PARSE: org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service jboss.deployment.unit."treasury.war".PARSE: Failed to process phase PARSE of deployment "treasury.war" service jboss.deployment.unit."com.misl.treasury.ui.war".POST_MODULE: org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service jboss.deployment.unit."com.misl.treasury.ui.war".POST_MODULE: Failed to process phase POST_MODULE of deployment "com.misl.treasury.ui.war" 14:10:57,079 ERROR [org.jboss.as.server.deployment.scanner] (DeploymentScanner-threads - 1) {"JBAS014653: Composite operation failed and was rolled back. Steps that failed:" => {"Operation step-2" => {"JBAS014671: Failed services" => {"jboss.deployment.unit.\"com.misl.treasury.ui.war\".POST_MODULE" => "org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service jboss.deployment.unit.\"com.misl.treasury.ui.war\".POST_MODULE: Failed to process phase POST_MODULE of deployment \"com.misl.treasury.ui.war\""}}}} 14:10:57,087 ERROR [org.jboss.as.server.deployment.scanner] (DeploymentScanner-threads - 1) JBAS014654: Composite operation was rolled back And by the way, JBOSS_HOME\modules\javax\api\main folder only contains a module.xml, no jars. Tried to add jboss-servlet-api_3.0_spec-1.0.0.Final.jar file in that directory and updated module.xml too. But, it shows a very long trail of stacktraces :) I have even removed beans.xml. No change. I have never tried JBoss before. Any help would be highly appreciated.

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• How to parse amadeus air ticket file

  - by Andrus

  Amadeous produces AIR file like below for every flyight reservation. I need to read reservation number and source and destionation airports from this file. I searched goog for "amadeous air format" but havent found format description. Wikipedia entry about EDIFACt is a bit different, it does not describe this content. Where to fnd information about the file structure ? How to parse this file ? I have not idea about the file stucture, does it contain records like sql table or is it some reservation protocol instructions like postscript file ? Application should work in Microsoft Windows and preferably in Visual FoxPro or C# language. FoxPro or Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Express can used as programming environment Google returns only Amadeus users guides and tutorials like in comment and in http://www.amadeusschweiz.com/en/documentation/usermanuals.html Those are user manuals. Most promising looks Amadeus Air user guide from this: File which I received name was air.txt and first token in file is AIR-BLK206 Maybe BLK206 is some booking format descriptor. Google returns some documens like my using this so it looks like it is commonly used. This file probably describes how to reserve ticket, which produces air.txt file. I seacrched this and ticket user guide for BLK but those do not contains this abbreviation. Commands in user manual look different than those from this file. How to use this information to extract reservation number and destination airport from this file ? I havent found format description using google. There are amadeus user guides, tutorials ja quick reference files similar which you posted but I do'nt understand how to use them to parse this file. One message describes that this is form of EDIFACT. However EDIFACT message sample in Wikipedia is also diffrerent. I need to create quick prototype to customer which shows that we vcan read those files. Maybe there are some programs which can used to display it in human readable form ?

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• Do SEO-friendly URLs really affect a page's ranking?

  - by Lee Harold

  SEO-friendly URLs are all the rage these days. But do they actually have a meaningful impact on a page's ranking in Google and other search engines? If so, why? If not, why not? (Note that I would absolutely agree that SEO-friendly URLs are nicer to use for human beings. My question is whether they actually make a difference to the ranking algorithms.) Update: As it turns out, the Google post that endorphine points to here has caused tremendous confusion in the SEO community. For a sampling of the discussion, see here, here, and here. Part of the problem is that the Google post is addressing the worst case where URL rewriting is done poorly and so you'd be better off sticking with a dynamic URL rather than a mangled static "SEO-friendly" URL. There's no question dynamic URLs can be crawled by Google and can achieve high rankings. Maybe it would be easier to reframe the question more concretely: given 2 otherwise equivalent pages, which will rank higher for the search "do seo friendly urls really affect page ranking"? A) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/505793/do-seo-friendly-urls-really-affect-a-pages-ranking or B) http://stackoverflow.com?question=505793 (a fake URL for comparison only)

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• How do I make Master/Detail subreports in ReportBuilder come out right?

  - by Mason Wheeler

  I've got a report in ReportBuilder that's supposed to report on two objects. I didn't create this report, and I can't ask the person who did about how it works. Before running the report, we have some code that goes through, finds all the properties on the objects, and loads them into a memory dataset that looks like this: OBJECT_ID: TStringField PROP_NAME: TStringField PROP_VALUE: TStringField The report engine then creates a line on the report for each property in this dataset. This is implemented in a sub-report, whose parent only contains an OBJECT_ID, which is a human-readable name. Everything was going great until we had to display a "comment" of arbitrary size in the report. I made a second sub-report with a TMemoField so it could hold the text, and set the report up in the report designer. What I expect when I run the report is something that looks like this: HEADER Object 1 properties Object 1 comment Object 2 properties Object 2 comment I've managed to get just about everything but that. I used the MasterDataPipeline and MasterFieldLinks properties of the sub-report's pipelines to try to link the OBJECT_IDs of the sub-reports to the OBJECT_ID of the header, and that's the closest I've managed to come, but now what I see is: HEADER Object 1 properties Object 1 comment Object 2 comment The "Object 2 properties" section is nowhere to be seen, even though I've manually verified that the data is making it into the dataset correctly. This is driving me nuts. Any ReportBuilder gurus out there know what's going on and now to fix it?

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• Issue on file existence in C

  - by darkie15

  Hi All, Here is my code which checks if the file exists : #include<stdio.h> #include<zlib.h> #include<unistd.h> #include<string.h> int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { char *path=NULL; FILE *file = NULL; char *fileSeparator = "/"; size_t size=100; int index ; printf("\nArgument count is = %d", argc); if (argc <= 1) { printf("\nUsage: ./output filename1 filename2 ..."); printf("\n The program will display human readable information about the PNG file provided"); } else if (argc > 1) { for (index = 1; index < argc;index++) { path = getcwd(path, size); strcat(path, fileSeparator); printf("\n File name entered is = %s", argv[index]); strcat(path,argv[index]); printf("\n The complete path of the file name is = %s", path); if (access(path, F_OK) != -1) { printf("File does exist"); } else { printf("File does not exist"); } path=NULL; } } return 0; } On running the command ./output test.txt test2.txt The output is: $ ./output test.txt test2.txt Argument count is = 3 File name entered is = test.txt The complete path of the file name is = /home/welcomeuser/test.txt File does not exist File name entered is = test2.txt The complete path of the file name is = /home/welcomeuser/test2.txt File does not exist Now test.txt does exist on the system: $ ls assignment.c output.exe output.exe.stackdump test.txt and yet test.txt is shown as a file not existing. Please help me understand the issue here. Also, please feel free to post any suggestions to improve the code/avoid a bug. Regards, darkie

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• newline-ignoring diff / diff across multiple lines / reflow-ignoring diff

  - by Adam

  Does anybody know of a diff-like tool that can show me the changes between two text files, but ignore changes in whitespace including newlines? Here's an example: the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy bear. the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy bear. the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy bear. the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy bear. quick brown fox jumped over the lazy bear. the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy bear. the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy bear. the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy bear. All I did was delete one word and reflow it, but "diff -b" detects a change on every line (as it should; I'm not saying this is a bug in diff). But for large LaTeX files this is a major problem; change one word in a long paragraph and the diff you get back is basically useless. By the way, I'm aware that this requires way more computational power than the usual lines-are-atomic diff. I'm only doing this on small human-generated files and am happy to wait a long time if I have to.

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• solr JOIN query

  - by Sfairas

  I need to run a JOIN query on a solr index. I've got two xmls that I have indexed, person.xml and subject.xml. Person: <doc> <field name="id">P39126</field> <field name="family">Smith</field> <field name="given">John</field> <field name="subject">S1276</field> <field name="subject">S1312</field> </doc> Subject: <doc> <field name="id">S1276</field> <field name="topic">Abnormalities, Human</field> </doc> I need to only display information from the person doc but each query should match fields in both person and subject. In the case the query matches only the subject doc I need to display all docs from the person that have a matching id. Is this possible to do without running two seperate queries? Something like a JOIN query would do the job. Any help?

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