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• Certification Notes: 70-583 Designing and Developing Windows Azure Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  It’s time for another certification, and we’ve just release the 70-583 exam on Windows Azure. I’ve blogged my “study plans” here before on other certifications, so I thought I would do the same for this one. I’ll also need to take exam 70-513 and 70-516; but I’ll post my notes on those separately. None of these are “brain dumps” or any questions from the actual tests - just the books, links and notes I have from my studies. I’ll update these references as I’m studying, so bookmark this site and watch my Twitter and Facebook posts for when I’ll update them, or just subscribe to the RSS feed. A “Green” color on the check-block means I’ve done that part so far, red means I haven’t. First, I need to refresh my memory on some basic coding, so along with the Azure-specific information I’m reading the following general programming books: Introducing Microsoft .NET (Pro-Developer): http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Microsoft-Pro-Developer-David-Platt/dp/0735619182/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296339237&sr=1-1 Head First C#, 2E: A Learner's Guide to Real-World Programming with Visual C# and .NET: http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-2E-Real-World-Programming/dp/1449380344/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296339176&sr=8-1 Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Step by Step : http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Visual-2008-Step/dp/0735624305/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296339208&sr=1-1 c The first place to start is at the official site for the certification. That’s here: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exam.aspx?ID=70-583&Locale=en-us c On that page you’ll find several resources, and the first you should follow is the “Save to my learning” so you have a place to track everything. Then click the “Related Learning Plans” link and follow the videos and read the documentation in each of those bullets. There are six areas on the learning plan that you should focus on - make sure you open the learning plan to drill into the specifics. c Designing Data Storage Architecture (18%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Optimizing Data Access and Messaging (17%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Designing the Application Architecture (19%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Preparing for Application and Service Deployment (15%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Investigating and Analyzing Applications (16%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Designing Integrated Solutions (15%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes:

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• Mixing It Up with BluesMix

  - by Oracle OpenWorld Blog Team

  By Karen Shamban At home base in London prior to making a swing on the US west coast later this month, BluesMix took a few minutes to answer some musical questions. Q: What are the top three things people should know about your music? A: We focus on original material and blend funk with blues. We're big on songwriting but also performance, groove, and feel of the music. It's music you can dance to! We're from London, England and have been labeled 'one of the UK's leading blues/funk bands'. Oh - that's four things! :) Q: Do you prefer smaller, intimate venues or larger, louder ones? A: Actually both, for different reasons. We play many intimate club shows in London at prestigious venues such as the 100 Club. There's lots of musical history with these types of clubs where the likes of the Rolling Stones used to play week-in week-out in the '60s. Usually these shows generally have a fantastic atmosphere, with a close connection to the audience, who are packed close to the stage. They often turn up surprises too…for example, we've had artists such as Amy Winehouse and Mick Abrahams in the crowd enjoying the show and then asking to come onstage and play with the band. Lots of fun! The larger venues are great too, in a different way. We've played to 3,000-person+ crowds and the atmosphere with so many people enjoying the show is a real buzz. It's also nice to play outdoor venues, especially in places with nice weather like California! Q: What's new and different in the music you are playing today, versus a year or two ago? A: Well, we released a new album earlier this year. It's called Flat Nine; it's on the Proper Records label. Whilst our music has always been a blend of blues and vintage funk, this album in particular has evolved our funk side even further. We've received some really great reviews from the music press in the UK and had generous comparisons to the likes of The Meters, Dr. John, The Average White Band, Howlin' Wolf. The album has generated lots of interest, which is fantastic. We're playing to regular sellout shows in the UK and are also opening for some legends of the funk music scene, such as The New Mastersounds. BluesMix are headlining the Oracle OpenWorld Welcome Reception in Yerba Buena Gardens on Sunday, September 30 and are playing at the Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival at Slim's on Tuesday, October 2. More on the music: Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival BluesMix  >>

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• Is the Joel Test really a good gauging tool?

  - by henry

  I just learned about the Joel Test. I have been computer programmer for 22 years, but somehow I never heard about it before. I consider my best job so far to be this small investment managing company with 30 employees and only three people in the IT department. I am no longer with them, but I had being working there for five years – my longest streak with any given company. To my surprise they scored extremely poor on the Joel Test. The only two questions I would answer “yes” are #4: Do you have a bug database? And #9: Do you use the best tools money can buy? Everything else is either “sometimes” or straight “no”. Here is what I liked about the company however: Good pay. They bragged about it to my face, and I bragged about it to their face, so it was almost like a family environment. I always knew the big picture. When writing code to solve a particular problem there were no ambiguity about the business nature of that problem. Even though we did not always had written specifications we could ask business users a question anytime, often yelling it across the floor. I could even talk to executives any time I felt like doing it: no appointment necessary. Immediate feedback. Once we implement a solution and make business users happy they immediately let us know that, we (programmers) become heroes of the moment. No red tape. I could always buy any tools I deemed necessary, and design solutions the way my professional judgment dictates. Flexibility. If I had mid-day dental appointment that is near my house rather than near the office, I would send email to the company: "FYI: I work from home today". As long as one of three IT guys was on the floor (to help traders in case their monitors go dark) they did not care where two others were. So the question thus becomes: How valuable is the Joel Test? Why bother with it?

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• ODI 11g - Cleaning control characters and User Functions

  - by David Allan

  In ODI user functions have a poor name really, they should be user expressions - a way of wrapping common expressions that you may wish to reuse many times - across many different technologies is an added bonus. To illustrate look at the problem of how to remove control characters from text. Users ask these types of questions over all technologies - Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, DB2 and for many years - how do I clean a string, how do I tokenize a string and so on. After some searching around you will find a few ways of doing this, in Oracle there is a convenient way of using the TRANSLATE and REPLACE functions. So you can convert some text using the following SQL; replace( translate('This is my string'||chr(9)||' which has a control character', chr(3)||chr(4)||chr(5)||chr(9), chr(3) ), chr(3), '' ) If you had many columns to perform this kind of transformation on, in the Oracle database the natural solution you'd go to would be to code this as a PLSQL function since you don't want the code splattered everywhere. Someone tells you that there is another control character that needs added equals a maintenance headache. Coding it as a PLSQL function will incur a context switch between SQL and PLSQL which could prove costly. In ODI user functions let you capture this expression text and reference it many times across your mappings. This will protect the expression from being copy-pasted by developers and make maintenance much simpler - change the expression definition in one place. Firstly define a name and a syntax for the user function, I am calling it UF_STRIP_BAD_CHARACTERS and it has one parameter an input string;  We then can define an implementation for each technology we will use it, I will define Oracle's using the inputString parameter and the TRANSLATE and REPLACE functions with whatever control characters I want to replace; I can then use this inside mapping expressions in ODI, below I am cleaning the ENAME column - a fabricated example but you get the gist.  Note when I use the user function the function name remains in the text of the mapping, the actual expression is not substituted until I generate the scenario. If you generate the scenario and export the scenario you can have a peak at the code that is processed in the runtime - below you can see a snippet of my export scenario;  That's all for now, hopefully a useful snippet of info.

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• One Week To Go: OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing

  - by Bob Rhubart

  One week remains until OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing kicks of at the spectacular Oracle HQ campus in Redwood Shores, CA. The event is free, and there is still time to register. When: Tuesday July 9, 2013 8:30am - 12:30pm Where: Oracle Conference Center350 Oracle Pkwy Redwood City, CA 94065 Register now. It's free! Here's the latest update to the event agenda: 8:30am - 9:00am Registration and Continental Breakfast 9:00am - 9:45am Keynote 21st Century IT | Dr. James Baty VP, Global Enterprise Architecture Program, Oracle Imagine a time long, long ago. A time when servers were certified and dedicated to specific applications, when anything posted on an enterprise web site was from restricted, approved channels, and when we tried to limit the growth of 'dirty' data and storage. Today, applications are services running in the muti-tenant hybrid cloud. Companies beg their customers to tweet them, friend them, and publicly rate their products. And constantly analyzing a deluge of Internet, social and sensor data is the key to creating the next super-successful product, or capturing an evil terrorist. The old IT architecture was planned, dedicated, stable, controlled, with separate and well-defined roles. The new architecture is shared, dynamic, continuous, XaaS, DevOps. This keynote session describes the challenges and opportunities that the new business / IT paradigms present to the IT architecture and architects. 9:45am - 10:30am Technical Session Oracle Cloud: A Case Study in Building a Cloud | Anbu Krishnaswami Enterprise Architect, Oracle Building a Cloud can be challenging thanks to the complex requirements unique to Cloud computing and the massive scale typically associated with Cloud. Cloud providers can take an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) approach and build a cloud on virtualized commodity hardware, or they can take the Platform as a Service (PaaS) path, a service-oriented approach based on pre-configured, integrated, engineered systems. This presentation uses the Oracle Cloud itself as a case study in the use of engineered systems, demonstrating how the technical design of engineered systems is leveraged for building PaaS and SaaS Cloud services and a Cloud management infrastructure. The presentation will also explore the principles, patterns, best practices, and architecture views provided in Oracle's Cloud reference architecture. 10:30 am -10:45 am Break 10:45am-11:30am Technical Session Database as a Service | Markus Michalewicz Senior Principal Product Manager Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) New applications are now commonly built in a Cloud model, where the database is consumed as a service, and many established business processes are beginning to migrate to database as a service (DBaaS). This adoption of DBaaS is made possible by the availability of new capabilities in the database that enable resource pooling, dynamic resource management, model-based provisioning, metered use, and effective quality-of-service controls. This session will examine the catalog of database services at a large commercial bank to understand how these capabilities are enabling DBaaS for a wide range of needs within the enterprise. 11:30 am - 12:00 pm Panel Q&A Dr. James Baty, Anbu Krishnaswami, and Markus Michalewicz respond to audience questions. Registration is free, but seating is limited, so register now.

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• One Week To Go: OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing

  - by Bob Rhubart

  One week remains until OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing kicks of at the spectacular Oracle HQ campus in Redwood Shores, CA. The event is free, and there is still time to register. When: Tuesday July 9, 2013 8:30am - 12:30pm Where: Oracle Conference Center350 Oracle Pkwy Redwood City, CA 94065 Register now. It's free! Here's the latest update to the event agenda: 8:30am - 9:00am Registration and Continental Breakfast 9:00am - 9:45am Keynote 21st Century IT | Dr. James Baty VP, Global Enterprise Architecture Program, Oracle Imagine a time long, long ago. A time when servers were certified and dedicated to specific applications, when anything posted on an enterprise web site was from restricted, approved channels, and when we tried to limit the growth of 'dirty' data and storage. Today, applications are services running in the muti-tenant hybrid cloud. Companies beg their customers to tweet them, friend them, and publicly rate their products. And constantly analyzing a deluge of Internet, social and sensor data is the key to creating the next super-successful product, or capturing an evil terrorist. The old IT architecture was planned, dedicated, stable, controlled, with separate and well-defined roles. The new architecture is shared, dynamic, continuous, XaaS, DevOps. This keynote session describes the challenges and opportunities that the new business / IT paradigms present to the IT architecture and architects. 9:45am - 10:30am Technical Session Oracle Cloud: A Case Study in Building a Cloud | Anbu Krishnaswami Enterprise Architect, Oracle Building a Cloud can be challenging thanks to the complex requirements unique to Cloud computing and the massive scale typically associated with Cloud. Cloud providers can take an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) approach and build a cloud on virtualized commodity hardware, or they can take the Platform as a Service (PaaS) path, a service-oriented approach based on pre-configured, integrated, engineered systems. This presentation uses the Oracle Cloud itself as a case study in the use of engineered systems, demonstrating how the technical design of engineered systems is leveraged for building PaaS and SaaS Cloud services and a Cloud management infrastructure. The presentation will also explore the principles, patterns, best practices, and architecture views provided in Oracle's Cloud reference architecture. 10:30 am -10:45 am Break 10:45am-11:30am Technical Session Database as a Service | Markus Michalewicz Senior Principal Product Manager Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) New applications are now commonly built in a Cloud model, where the database is consumed as a service, and many established business processes are beginning to migrate to database as a service (DBaaS). This adoption of DBaaS is made possible by the availability of new capabilities in the database that enable resource pooling, dynamic resource management, model-based provisioning, metered use, and effective quality-of-service controls. This session will examine the catalog of database services at a large commercial bank to understand how these capabilities are enabling DBaaS for a wide range of needs within the enterprise. 11:30 am - 12:00 pm Panel Q&A Dr. James Baty, Anbu Krishnaswami, and Markus Michalewicz respond to audience questions. Registration is free, but seating is limited, so register now.

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• Internships available in Oracle Netherlands - this summer

  - by jessica.ebbelaar

  I am Jannie Minnema, Director of Business Operations for Oracle in the Benelux. My career at Oracle started at Oracle Headquartes in San Francisco as a Project Manager, building Computer Based Training Products. After spending 3 years in Dubai, my husband and I moved to the USA as he wanted to study a MBA there. This move kick started my career as I was working in Silicon Valley during a time of great opportunity. After the USA, I fulfilled numerous roles at Oracle ranging from Project Management to Sales and Marketing. I currently work in the Netherlands were I am now Director of Business Operations for Oracle in the Benelux and a member of the Dutch Management Team. Business Operations advises the Benelux Management Team and focuses on topics such as Corporate Social Responsibility, Customer Satisfaction, Internal Communication, Internal training and effective usage of Sales Tools and Systems. We are currently also working on how best to introduce a “New way of Working”. The move to our new office building in 2011 aides in creating the right environment for this. Our goal is to continually improve the organisation. I enjoy working for Oracle because there is never a dull moment, and I am continuously challenged to improve. The environment that I work in changes constantly. Look at all the recent acquisitions; over 60 in the past 3 years! If you, as an Oracle employee, see something that can be done better, like a new service or tool, then combine it with some enthusiasm, motivate it further and the (Oracle) world changes! Internships This summer we have a number of Internships available, coordinated by the Business Operations team. We very much look forward to welcoming Students in our Dutch office. We look at it as an opportunity for both Oracle and the Interns to learn from each other. It will definitely result in both parties improving, growing and achieving results! We offer Internships related to Sales, Marketing and New Technology. You can find the assignments here. During the Internship you will experience what is like to work for an international and dynamic company, where we work and play hard. Our customers are major Dutch companies and our employees are professionals that compare working at Oracle with playing a Soccer World Cup final. We offer several Internships at the same time, so you will learn and share your experiences with a group of fellow students. If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact [email protected].  You can find our job opportunities via http://campus.oracle.com

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• LDoms and Maintenance Mode

  - by Owen Allen

   I got a few questions about how maintenance mode works with LDoms. "I have a Control Domain that I need to do maintenance on. What does being put in maintenance mode actually do for a Control Domain?" Maintenance mode is what you use when you're going to be shutting a system down, or otherwise tinkering with it, and you don't want Ops Center to generate incidents and notification of incidents. Maintenance mode stops new incidents from being generated, but it doesn't stop polling, or monitoring, the system and it doesn't prevent alerts. "What does maintenance mode do with the guests on a Control Domain?" If you have auto recovery set and the Control Domain is a member of a server pool of eligible systems, putting the Control Domain in maintenance mode automatically migrates guests to an available Control Domain.  When a Control Domain is in maintenance mode, it is not eligible to receive guests and the placement policies for guest creation and for automatic recovery won't select this server as a possible destination. If there isn't a server pool or there aren't any eligible systems in the pool, the guests are shut down. You can select a logical domain from the Assets section to view the Dashboard for the virtual machine and the Automatic Recovery status, either Enabled or Disabled. To change the status, click the action in the Actions pane. "If I have to do maintenance on a system and I do not want to initiate auto-recovery, what do I have to do so that I can manually bring down the Control Domain (and all its Guest domains)?" Use the Disable Automatic Recovery action. "If I put a Control Domain into maintenance mode, does that also put the OS into maintenance mode?" No, just the Control Domain server. You have to put the OS into maintenance mode separately. "Also, is there an easy way to see what assets are in maintenance mode? Can we put assets into, or take them out of, maintenance mode on some sort of group level?" You can create a user-defined group that will automatically include assets in maintenance mode. The docs here explain how to set up these groups. You'll use a group rule that looks like this:

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• What can a Service do on Windows?

  - by Akemi Iwaya

  If you open up Task Manager or Process Explorer on your system, you will see many services running. But how much of an impact can a service have on your system, especially if it is ‘corrupted’ by malware? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answers to a curious reader’s questions. Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Forivin wants to know how much impact a service can have on a Windows system, especially if it is ‘corrupted’ by malware: What kind malware/spyware could someone put into a service that does not have its own process on Windows? I mean services that use svchost.exe for example, like this: Could a service spy on my keyboard input? Take screenshots? Send and/or receive data over the internet? Infect other processes or files? Delete files? Kill processes? How much impact could a service have on a Windows installation? Are there any limits to what a malware ‘corrupted’ service could do? The Answer SuperUser contributor Keltari has the answer for us: What is a service? A service is an application, no more, no less. The advantage is that a service can run without a user session. This allows things like databases, backups, the ability to login, etc. to run when needed and without a user logged in. What is svchost? According to Microsoft: “svchost.exe is a generic host process name for services that run from dynamic-link libraries”. Could we have that in English please? Some time ago, Microsoft started moving all of the functionality from internal Windows services into .dll files instead of .exe files. From a programming perspective, this makes more sense for reusability…but the problem is that you can not launch a .dll file directly from Windows, it has to be loaded up from a running executable (exe). Thus the svchost.exe process was born. So, essentially a service which uses svchost is just calling a .dll and can do pretty much anything with the right credentials and/or permissions. If I remember correctly, there are viruses and other malware that do hide behind the svchost process, or name the executable svchost.exe to avoid detection. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.

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• DOAG 2012 and Educause 2012

  - by Chris Kawalek

  Oracle understands the value of desktop virtualization and how customers have really embraced it as a top tier method to deliver access to applications and data. Just as supporting operating systems other than Windows in the enterprise desktop space started to become necessary perhaps 5-7 years ago, supporting desktop virtualization with VDI, application virtualization, thin clients, and tablet access is becoming necessary today in 2012. Any application strategy needs to have a secure mobile component, and a solution that gives you a holistic strategy across both mobile and fixed-asset (i.e., desktop PCs) devices is crucial to success. This means it's probably useful to learn about desktop virtualization, even if it's not in your typical area of responsibility. A good way to do that is at one of the many trade shows where we exhibit. Here are two examples:  DOAG 2012 Conference + Exhibition The DOAG Conference is fast approaching, starting November 20th in Nuremberg, Germany. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might remember that we attended last year as well. This conference is fantastic for us because we get to speak directly to users of Oracle products. In many cases, those DBAs, IT managers, and other infrastructure folks are looking for ways to deal with the burgeoning BYOD model, as well as ways of streamlining their standard desktop and access technologies. We have a couple of sessions where you can learn a great deal about how Oracle can help with these points. Session Schedule (look under "Infrastruktur & Hardware") The two sessions focused on desktop virtualization are: Oracle VDI Best Practice unter Linux (Oracle VDI Best Practice Under Linux) Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Implementierungen und Praxiserfahrungen (Virtual Desktop Infrastructures Implementations and Best Practices) We will also have experts on hand at the booth to answer your questions on using desktop virtualization. If you're at the show, please stop by and say hello to our team there! Educause 2012  Another good example is Educause. We've gone the last few years to show off a slough of education oriented applications and capabilities in the Oracle product portfolio. And every year, we display those applications through Oracle desktop virtualization. This means the demonstration can easily be setup ahead of time and replicated out to however many "demo pods" that we have available. There's no need for our product teams to setup individual laptops for demos -- we can display a standardized Windows desktop virtual machine with their apps all ready to go on a whole bunch of devices like your standard trade show laptop, our Sun Ray Clients, and iPad. Educause 2012 just wrapped, so we're sorry we missed you this year. But there is always next year! Until then, here are a few pictures from this year's show: You can also watch this video to see how Catholic Education Australia uses Oracle Secure Global Desktop to help cope with the ever changing ways that people access their applications.  -Chris 

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• Full disk encryption with seperate boot and encrypted keyfile storage: Two-Form Authentication

  - by Cain

  I am trying to setup true Full Disk encryption with two-form authentication on 12.04 and can not find out how to call a keyfile for the encrypted root out of another encrypted partition. All documentation or questions I am finding for whole or full disk encryption only encrypts separate partitions on the same disk. This is not what most are calling full disk encryption, /boot is not on a partition on the root drive, rather it is on a usb stick as sdx1. Instead root is on a logical partition on top of a LUKS container. Luks is run on the whole disk, encrypting the partition table as well. All drives in the machine are completely encrypted and to open it it requires a USB drive (what I have) as well as a passphrase (what I know) resulting in Two-Form Authentication to boot the machine. Device sdx cryptroot vg00 lvroot / There is no passphrase to open the encrypted root device, only a keyfile. That keyfile is kept on the usb drive with /boot, in its own encrypted partition (I'll call this cryptkey). In order for the root file system (cryptroot) to be opened, initramfs must ask for the passphrase to cryptkey on the usb drive, then use the keyfile inside that to open cryproot. I did manage to find what I think is the how-to I used to do this once before: http://wiki.ubuntu.org.cn/UbuntuHelp:FeistyLUKSTwoFormFactor I already have the system installed and can chroot into it, however, I can not get it to call for the keys on the USB during boot. I did find a how-to saying I needed to make a cryptroot conf for initramfs but, I believe that is for a passphrase: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EncryptedFilesystemLVMHowto#Notes_for_making_it_work_in_Ubuntu_12.04_.22Precise_Pangolin.22_amd64 I also tried to setup crypttab. However, crypttab only works for drives mounted after the root drive as calling for a keyfile on a device not yet mounted to the system doesnt work. The Feisty how-to included scripts that would be run during boot instructing initramfs to mount the usb drive temporarily and call the keyfile for root which worked quite well except those scripts are outdated now, many of the things they relied on have been merged into something else, changed, or simply don't exist anymore. If I have missed a clear how-to for this, that would be wonderful, I just don't think I have.

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• EPM 11.1.2.2.000 release - considerations

  - by THE

  (guest Article by Nancy) Please be aware with the upcoming release of EPM v11.1.2.2.000, it is highly recommended you first read the"ORACLE® ENTERPRISE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM 11.1.2.2.000 Readme" prior to installing this release. We want to highlight the "Installation Information" section which includes the following late-breaking information: Business Rules Migration to Calculation Manager Oracle Hyperion Calculation Manager has replaced Oracle Hyperion Business Rules as the mechanism for designing and managing business rules, therefore, Business Rules is no longer released with EPM System Release 11.1.2.2. If you are applying 11.1.2.2 as a maintenance release, or upgrading to Release 11.1.2.2, and have been using Business Rules in an earlier release, you must migrate to Calculation Manager rules in Release 11.1.2.2. (See Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Installation and Configuration Guide.) Planning User Interface Enhancements This release of Planning includes a large number of user interface enhancements, as described in Oracle Hyperion Planning New Features. To optimize performance with these new features, you must implement the following recommended configuration. Server: 64-bit, 16 GB physical RAM Client: Optimized for Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 10 or higher Client-to-Server Connectivity: High-speed internet connection or VPN connection between client and server, client-to-server ping time < 150 milliseconds for best performance The new, improved Planning user interface requires efficient browsers to handle interactivity provided through Web 2.0 like functionality. In our testing, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Firefox 3.x are not sufficient to handle such interactivity, and the responsiveness in these versions of browsers is not as fast as the user interface in the previous releases of Planning. For this reason, we strongly recommend that you upgrade your browser to Internet Explorer 9 or Firefox 10 to get responsiveness similar to what you experienced in previous releases. In some instances, the response times in Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.x could be acceptable. Hence, we suggest that you uptake the new user interface only after you conduct an end user response test and you are satisfied with the results of these tests for these versions of browsers. Please note that it is still possible to leverage the old user interface and features from Planning Release 11.1.2.1. (For more information, see “Using the Planning Release 11.1.2.1 User Interface and Features” in the Oracle Hyperion Planning Administrator's Guide.) IBM HTTP Server and IIS Default Ports Both IBM HTTP Server and IIS Web Server use 80 as their default port. If you are using WebSphere, you must change one of these defaults so that there is no port conflict. If you have further questions, please utilize the  Planning or Essbase MOS Community.

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• String contains trailing zeroes when converted from decimal [migrated]

  - by Locke

  I've run into an unusual quirk in a program I'm writing, and I was trying to figure out if anyone knew the cause. Note that fixing the issue is easy enough. I just can't figure out why it is happening in the first place. I have a WinForms program written in VB.NET that is displaying a subset of data. It contains a few labels that show numeric values (the .Text property of the labels are being assigned directly from the Decimal values). These numbers are being returned by a DLL I wrote in C#. The DLL calls a webservice which initially returns the values in question. It returns one as a string, the other as a decimal (I don't have any control over the webservice, I just consume it). The DLL assigns these to properties on an object (both of which are decimals) then returns that object back to the WinForm program that called the DLL. Obviously, there's a lot of other data being consumed from the webservice, but no other operations are happening which could modify these properties. So, the short version is: WinForm requests a new Foo from the DLL. DLL creates object Foo. DLL calls webservice, which returns SomeOtherFoo. //Both Foo.Bar1 and Foo.Bar2 are decimals Foo.Bar1 = decimal.Parse(SomeOtherFoo.Bar1); //SomeOtherFoo.Bar1 is a string equal to "2.9000" Foo.Bar2 = SomeOtherFoo.Bar2; //SomeOtherFoo.Bar2 is a decimal equal to 2.9D DLL returns Foo to WinForm. WinForm.lblMockLabelName1.Text = Foo.Bar1 //Inspecting Foo.Bar1 indicates my value is 2.9D WinForm.lblMockLabelName2.Text = Foo.Bar2 //Inspecting Foo.Bar2 also indicates I'm 2.9D So, what's the quirk? WinForm.lblMockLabelName1.Text displays as "2.9000", whereas WinForm.lblMockLabelname2.Text displays as "2.9". Now, everything I know about C# and VB indicates that the format of the string which was initially parsed into the decimal should have no bearing on the outcome of a later decimal.ToString() operation called on the same decimal. I would expect that decimal.Parse(someDecimalString).ToString() would return the string without any trailing zeroes. Everything I find online seems to corroborate this (there are countless Stack Overflow questions asking exactly the opposite...how to keep the formatting from the initial parsing). At the moment, I've just removed the trailing zeroes from the initial string that gets parsed, which has hidden the quirk. However, I'd love to know why it happens in the first place.

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• Creating a Strong Bridge to the Post PC World

  - by Webgui

  Moving from location to location requires strong roads.  When crossing a barrier though, like a body of water or valley, we are required to build a strong bridge to get us from point A to point B in a way that is fast, safe, and easy.Yet we are not talking here about driving a car or riding a bus.  As we in the computing world are evidencing the move to the post-PC era, modernizing and migrating legacy applications to harness the power of HTML5 web, cloud and mobile is one of the most difficult challenges enterprises have faced.  Constant technological changes have weakened the business value of legacy systems, which have been developed over the years through huge investments.  There are several risks of course in this move.  Do you choose to simply rewrite code of legacy apps and transform them to HTML5 one by one?  This is quite expensive (according to research firm Gartner, the cost is $6 - $26 per line of code).  Of course, the pace of the rewriting process is very slow – around 170 lines per day for each developer – which slows down business productivity in a world in which no organization can afford to fall behind.  Other questions include whether the new cloud-based apps will have the same functionality as the trusted applications that worked for you for years.  How will the user experience be affected?  And of course, what about data security?  So we are faced with the challenge of building a sturdy bridge to stabilize our move in order to allow us to confidently and easily move our legacy applications into the post-PC era.   We at Gizmox are excited to release the first downloadable Community Technology Preview (CTP) of our Instant CloudMove Transposition Studio.Developers: To download the tool, and try it out for yourself, please visit http://www.visualwebgui.com/download.aspx.The CTP is the first and only tool-based solution allowing any Microsoft Visual Studio developer to extend VB6 and .NET enterprise client/server applications into HTML5 web, cloud and mobile applications, including the ability to upgrade their code and UI while doing so.   It is the only solution to fully replicate enterprise desktop applications behavior in the post-PC era.  With Instant CloudMove, the transposed application is available on any mobile or tablet device, browser and across any client operating system. Moreover, the extended application logic and data remains on the server behind the fire-wall and therefore the application’s front end is secured-by-design.   We would love for you to try out the tool for yourselves and let us know what you think.  How are you finding the move?

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• Cannot get 3D OpenGL support in Vmware guests, how can I fix this?

  - by jjapol

  I have been working at this problem for 2 days now. I cannot for the life of me enable 3D support in VMWare 9 guests. My specifications are: Hardware: Dell Latitude E5520 laptop. Processor: Intel i7-2620M CPU @ 2.70GHz × 4. Memory: 8GB. Video: Intel Sandybridge Mobile x86/MMX/SSE2 OS: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, 32 bit. Vmware Workstation: 9.0.1 build-894247 Glxgears functions fine. Frame rate is ~60fps. Vmware guest: Windows 7 Starting the Windows 7 guest in VMware throws the following errors: No 3D support is available from the host. and Hardware graphics acceleration is not available. I've read through this VMware forum thread, but again the hardware in the post is different (nVidia). I've followed the instructions at this Ask Ubuntu post as closely as possible as the question is nearly the same as mine although my hardware is different. Answer 1 regarding setting mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = TRUE; in my vmx configuration file causes the VM to crash when it starts. The second answer I followed as closely as possible. I uninstalled VMware, Did sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) at a terminal, Added the PPA https://launchpad.net/~glasen/+archive/intel-driver, Then at a terminal did sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y I reinstalled VMware and have the same results: no 3D in guests. I'm getting the feeling that something is awry with the Sandy Bridge driver, but I can't seem to come up with any solutions. Has anyone out there run across this problem also? By the way, the operation of the likes of Solidworks and AutoCad within a Windpws 7 guest does appear to be improved in VMware 9 vs VMware 8 in spite of the fact that 3D support is lacking in the Windows 7 guest. I'd also add that my glxinfo file was nearly identical to the glxinfo file posted at askubuntu.com/questions/181829/…. I had a total of seven minor differences per a comparison using Meld. –

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• Maximum Availability with Oracle GoldenGate

  - by Irem Radzik

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Oracle Database offers a variety of built-in and optional products for maximum availability, and it is well known for its robust high availability and disaster recovery solutions. With its heterogeneous, real-time, transactional data movement capabilities, Oracle GoldenGate is a key part of the Maximum Availability Architecture for Oracle Database. This week on Thursday Dec. 13th we will be presenting in a live webcast how Oracle GoldenGate fits into Oracle Database Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA). Joe Meeks from the Oracle Database High Availability team will discuss how Oracle GoldenGate complements other key products within MAA such as Active Data Guard. Nick Wagner from GoldenGate PM team will present how to upgrade to latest Oracle Database release without any downtime. Nick will also cover 2 new features of  Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2:  Integrated Capture for Oracle Database and Automated Conflict Detection and Resolution. Nick will provide in depth review of these new features with examples. Oracle GoldenGate also offers maximum availability for non-Oracle databases, such as HP NonStop, SQL Server, DB2 (LUW, iSeries, or zSeries) and more. The same robust, reliable real-time, bidirectional data movement capabilities apply to all supported databases.  I'd like to invite you to join us on Thursday Dec. 13th 10am PT/1pm ET to hear from the product experts on how to use GoldenGate for maximizing database availability and to ask your questions. You can find the registration link below. Webcast: Maximum Availability with Oracle GoldenGate Thursday Dec. 13th 10am PT/1pm ET Look forward to another great webcast with lots of interaction with the audience. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

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• The Numbers of Customer Experience

  - by Christie Flanagan

  This week, we’ll be continuing our conversations about Customer Experience (CX) on the Oracle WebCenter blog.  While we all know that customer experience is critically important for acquiring new customers and engendering long term brand loyalty, I thought we could kick this week off by taking a look at the numbers of customer experience.   I’m sure you’ll agree that nothing quite puts things into perspective like numbers and figures. A whopping 86% of consumers say that they are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.  But many companies are failing to step up to the challenge.  And when companies fail deliver on customer experience expectations, they leave money on the table. A huge percentage of customers, 89%, begin doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience. Breaking up isn’t hard to do and today’s empowered customers have no qualms about taking their business elsewhere when their expectations for customer experience are not met. Over a quarter of consumers, 26%, posted a negative comment on a social networking site like Facebook or Twitter following a poor customer experience. Today, individual customer service failures have the ability to easily snowball.  An unsatisfied customer has the ability to easily share their rancor with their entire social network and chip away at your brand’s reputation. A large number of consumers, 79%,  who shared complaints about poor customer experience online had their complaints ignored.  Companies ignore customer complaints at their own peril.  And unsatisfied customers, when handled effectively, have the potential to become advocates for your brand.  Of the 21% of consumers who did get responses to complaints, more than half had positive reactions to the same company about which they were previously complaining. Half of consumers will give a brand only a week to respond to a question before they stop doing business with them.  The clock is ticking when customers have questions about your brand and a week is an eternity in the realm of customer experience.  The source for these stats is the 2011 Customer Experience Impact (CEI) Report, which explores the relationship between consumers and brands.  The report is based on a survey commissioned by RightNow (acquired by Oracle in 2012) and conducted by Harris Interactive. If you’re interested in seeing more facts and figures about customer experience, download the full report.

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• How can I attach a model to the bone of another model?

  - by kaykayman

  I am trying to attach one animated model to one of the bones of another animated model in an XNA game. I've found a few questions/forum posts/articles online which explain how to attach a weapon model to the bone of another model (which is analogous to what I'm trying to achieve), but they don't seem to work for me. So as an example: I want to attach Model A to a specific bone in Model B. Question 1. As I understand it, I need to calculate the transforms which are applied to the bone on Model B and apply these same transforms to every bone in Model A. Is this right? Question 2. This is my code for calculating the Transforms on a specific bone. private Matrix GetTransformPaths(ModelBone bone) { Matrix result = Matrix.Identity; while (bone != null) { result = result * bone.Transform; bone = bone.Parent; } return result; } The maths of Matrices is almost entirely lost on me, but my understanding is that the above will work its way up the bone structure to the root bone and my end result will be the transform of the original bone relative to the model. Is this right? Question 3. Assuming that this is correct I then expect that I should either apply this to each bone in Model A, or in my Draw() method: private void DrawModel(SceneModel model, GameTime gametime) { foreach (var component in model.Components) { Matrix[] transforms = new Matrix[component.Model.Bones.Count]; component.Model.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(transforms); Matrix parenttransform = Matrix.Identity; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(component.ParentBone)) parenttransform = GetTransformPaths(model.GetBone(component.ParentBone)); component.Player.Update(gametime.ElapsedGameTime, true, Matrix.Identity); Matrix[] bones = component.Player.GetSkinTransforms(); foreach (SkinnedEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.SetBoneTransforms(bones); effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); effect.World = transforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateRotationY(MathHelper.ToRadians(model.Angle)) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(model.Position) * parenttransform; effect.View = getView(); effect.Projection = getProjection(); effect.Alpha = model.Opacity; } } mesh.Draw(); } I feel as though I have tried every conceivable way of incorporating the parenttransform value into the draw method. The above is my most recent attempt. Is what I'm trying to do correct? And if so, is there a reason it doesn't work? The above Draw method seems to transpose the models x/z position - but even at these wrong positions, they do not account for the animation of Model B at all. Note: As will be evident from the code my "model" is comprised of a list of "components". It is these "components" that correspond to a single "Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.Model"

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• How do I import my first sprites?

  - by steven_desu

  Continuing from this question (new question - now unrelated) So I have a thorough background in programming already (algorithms, math, logic, graphing problems, etc.) however I've never attempted to code a game before. In fact, I've never had anything more than minimal input from a user during the execution of a program. Generally input was given from a file or passed through console, all necessary functions were performed, then the program terminated with an output. I decided to try and get in on the world of game development. From several posts I've seen around gamedev.stackexchange.com XNA seems to be a favorite, and it was recommended to me when I asked where to start. I've downloaded and installed Visual Studio 2010 along with the XNA Framework and now I can't seem to get moving in the right direction. I started out looking on Google for "xna game studio tutorial", "xna game development beginners", "my first xna game", etc. I found lots of crap. The official "Introduction to Game Studio 4.0" gave me this (plus my own train of thought happily pasted on top thanks to MSPaint): http://tinypic.com/r/2w1sgvq/7 The "Get Additional Help" link (my best guess, since there was no "Continue" or "Next" link) lead me to this page: http://tinypic.com/r/2qa0dgx/7 I tried every page. The forum was the only thing that seemed helpful, however searching for "beginner", "newbie", "getting started", "first project", and similar on the forums turned up many threads with specific questions that are a bit above my level ("beginner to collision detection", for instance) Disappointed I returned to the XNA Game Studio home page. Surely their own website would have some introduction, tutorial, or at least a useful link to a community. EVERYTHING on their website was about coding Windows Phone 7.... Everything. http://tinypic.com/r/10eit8i/7 http://tinypic.com/r/120m9gl/7 Giving up on any official documentation after a while, I went back to Google. I managed to locate www.xnadevelopment.com. The website is built around XNA Game Studio 3.0, but how different can 3.0 be from 4.0?.... Apparently different enough. http://tinypic.com/r/5d8mk9/7 http://tinypic.com/r/25hflli/7 Figuring that this was the correct folder, I right-clicked.... http://tinypic.com/r/24o94yu/7 Hmm... maybe by "Add Content Reference" they mean "Add a reference to an existing file (content)"? Let's try it (after all- it's my only option) http://tinypic.com/r/2417eqt/7 At this point I gave up. I'm back. My original goal in my last question was to create a keyboard-navigable 3D world (no physics necessary, no logic or real game necessary). After my recent failures my goal has been revised. I want to display an image on the screen. Hopefully in time I'll be able to move it with the keyboard.

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• What should filenames and URLs of images contain for SEO benefit?

  - by Baumr

  We know that good site architecture usually looks like this: example-company.com/ example-company.com/about/ example-company.com/contact/ example-company.com/products/ example-company.com/products/category/ example-company.com/products/category/productname/ Now, when it comes to Google Image search, it is clear that the img alt tag, filename/URL, and surrounding text (captions, headings, paragraphs) have an effect on ranking. I want to ask about the filename of the images that we should use (e.g. product-photo.jpg). ...but first about the URL: Often web developers stick all images in a single folder in the root: example-company.com/img/ — and I have stopped doing that. (I don't want to get into it, but basically, it seems more semantic for images which make up part of the content at each sub-directory) However, when all images appear in a folder, I feel that their filename needs to reflect what they are a bit more than usual, for example: example-company.com/img/example-company-productname-category.jpg It's a longer filename than just product.png, but as long as it's relevant, I see no problem with regards to SEO (unless you're keyword stuffing), and it could even help rank for keywords: "example company" "productname" "category" So no questions there. But what about when we have places images in the site architecture we outlined at the beginning? In other words, what if image URL paths look like this: example-company.com/products/category/productname/productname.jpg My question is, should the URL be kept short like above and only have the "productname" (and some descriptive keywords) as part of it's filename? Or, should it also include the "example-company" and "category"? Like so: example-company.com/products/category/productname/example-company-category-productname.jpg That seems much longer, and redundant when we look at the URL, but here are a few considerations. Images are often downloaded onto computers, and, to the average user, they lose their original URL and thus — it isn't clear where they came from. Also, some social networks, forums, and other platforms leave the filename intact when uploaded. (Many others rewrite it, for example, Pinterest and Facebook.) Another consideration, will this really help (even if ever so slightly) rank in Google Image Search, or at least inform Google that the product is something specific to the "example-company"? For example, what if this product can only be bought at this store and is the flagship product? In addition to an abundance of internal links to this product page, would having the "example company" name and "category" help it appear in "example company" searches? In other words, is less more?

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• Endeca Information Discovery 3-Day Hands-on Training Workshop

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  For Oracle Partners, on October 3-5, 2012 in Milan, Italy: Register here. Endeca Information Discovery plays a key role with your big data analysis and complements Oracle Business Intelligence Solutions such as OBIEE. This FREE hands-on workshop for Oracle Partners highlights technical know-how of the product and helps understand its value proposition. We will walk you through four key components of the product: Oracle Endeca Server—A highly scalable, search-analytical database that derives the data model based on the data presented to it, thereby reducing data modeling requirements. Studio—A highly interactive, component-based user interface for configuring advanced, yet intuitive, analytical applications. Integration Suite—Provides rapid unification and enrichment of diverse sources of information into a single integrated view. Extensible Value-Added Modules—Add-on modules that provide value quickly through configuration instead of custom coding. Topics covered will include Data Exploration with Endeca Information Discovery, Data Ingest, Project Lifecycle, Building an Endeca Server data model and advanced modeling techniques, and Working with Studio. Lab Outline The labs showcase Oracle Endeca Information Discovery components and functionality by providing expertise on features and know-how of building such applications. The hands-on activities are based on a Quick Start application provided during the class. Audience Oracle Partners, Big Data Analytics Developer and Architects BI and EPM Application Developers and Implementers, Data Warehouse Developers Equipment Requirements This workshop requires attendees to provide their own laptops for this class. Attendee laptops must meet the following minimum hardware/software requirements: Hardware 8GB RAM is highly recommended (Windows 64 bit Machine is required) 40 GB free space (includes staging) USB 2.0 port (at least one available) Software One of the following operating systems: 64-bit Windows host/laptop OS (Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008) 64-bit host/laptop OS with a Windows VM (Server, or Win 7, BIC2g, etc.) Internet Explorer 8.x , Firefox 3.6 or Firefox 6.0 WINRAR or 7ziputility to unzip workshop files: Download-able from http://www.win-rar.com/download.html Download-able from http://www.7zip.com/ Oracle Endeca Information Discovery Workshop Register here: October 3-5, 2012: Cinisello Balsamo, Milan.  We will confirm with you your place within 2 weeks. Questions?  Send email to: [email protected]  :  Oracle Platform Technologies Enablement Services.

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• I need to move an entity to the mouse location after i rightclick

  - by I.Hristov

  Well I've read the related questions-answers but still cant find a way to move my champion to the mouse position after a right-button mouse-click. I use this code at the top: float speed = (float)1/3; And this is in my void Update: //check if right mouse button is clicked if (mouse.RightButton == ButtonState.Released && previousButtonState == ButtonState.Pressed) { // gets the position of the mouse in mousePosition mousePosition = new Vector2(mouse.X, mouse.Y); //gets the current position of champion (the drawRectangle) currentChampionPosition = new Vector2(drawRectangle.X, drawRectangle.Y); // move champion to mouse position: //handles the case when the mouse position is really close to current position if (Math.Abs(currentChampionPosition.X - mousePosition.X) <= speed && Math.Abs(currentChampionPosition.Y - mousePosition.Y) <= speed) { drawRectangle.X = (int)mousePosition.X; drawRectangle.Y = (int)mousePosition.Y; } else if (currentChampionPosition != mousePosition) { drawRectangle.X += (int)((mousePosition.X - currentChampionPosition.X) * speed); drawRectangle.Y += (int)((mousePosition.Y - currentChampionPosition.Y) * speed); } } previousButtonState = mouse.RightButton; What that code does at the moment is on a click it brings the sprite 1/3 of the distance to the mouse but only once. How do I make it move consistently all the time? It seems I am not updating the sprite at all. EDIT I added the Vector2 as Nick said and with speed changed to 50 it should be OK. I tried it with if ButtonState.Pressed and it works while pressing the button. Thanks. However I wanted it to start moving when single mouse clicked. It should be moving until reaches the mousePosition. The Edit of Nick's post says to create another Vector2, But I already have the one called mousePosition. Not sure how to use another one. //gets a Vector2 direction to move *by Nick Wilson Vector2 direction = mousePosition - currentChampionPosition; //make the direction vector a unit vector direction.Normalize(); //multiply with speed (number of pixels) direction *= speed; // move champion to mouse position if (currentChampionPosition != mousePosition) { drawRectangle.X += (int)(direction.X); drawRectangle.Y += (int)(direction.Y); } } previousButtonState = mouse.RightButton;

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• How to keep balance / Unlock items / achievement rules

  - by Mark Knol

  I'm working on an engine for a game, too learn javascript and just because its fun. I'm a flashdeveloper, I know how to build websites. Now making games is a different challenge, javascript is a challenge, but I'd love to learn how to structure code and what patterns are common. I dont mind if the game ever finish, I'm mostly interested in the programming part of it. I dont have a particular endresult in mind, so I'll see where it takes me. I currently have a system where you can buy items. The items cost a specified amount of gold, silver, diamonds etc. When you have selected and bought the item, it takes time before getting rewarded. When time is over, you are getting rewarded with other properties (gold, energy, diamonds). For example, you can buy an apple for 50gold, It takes a minute, you get rewarded with 75energy. Or if you take a run, it cost 50energy, it takes 5minutes, reward is 25gold and 25silver. These definitions is what i call actions. Currently I already have a system where this already works and I can define as much actions with as much properties as I want. The definitions I have kinda looks like this: {id:101, category:544, onInit:{gold:-75}, onComplete:{energy:75}, time:2000, name:"Apple", locked: false} {id:102, category:544, onInit:{gold:-135}, onComplete:{energy:145}, time:2000, name:"Banana", locked: false} {id:106, category:302, onInit:{energy:-50, power: -25}, onComplete:{gold:100, diamonds:2}, time:10000, name:"Run", locked: false} {id:107, category:302, onInit:{energy:-70, silver: -55}, onComplete:{gold:100}, time:10000, name:"Dance", locked: false} {id:108, category:302, onInit:{energy:-230, power: -355}, onComplete:{gold:70, silver:70}, time:10000, name:"Fitness", locked: false} Now, I would love to add a system where I can lock/unlock the actions using achievement rules. Lets say, if you buy 10 apples, you unlock a new action, like bananas which cost more, and reward more. In the future I maybe want to restrict achievements and actions to levels. I am kinda stuck how to structure this. I have 2 questions: Which patterns are used to define achievements? How/where are they defined? Should it be part of the action, or should it be a separate controller? Is it a good idea to register all completed actions to it? I think I want multiple types of achievement rules, Id love to hear some ideas how to develop it. How do you create/find a good balance, so the user does not get stuck or can cheat by repeat a pattern of actions to get too much rewards. I know there is not a simple answer and i'm lacking of a good game-concept, but I wonder if anyone created such a game and how you dealed and played with it.

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• Investment scheme for a PC game the project

  - by Alex Kamen

  Good day everyone, I am working on a PC game project that has 3 phases planned, micro, macro and mmo versions [if confused, see a brief description at the bottom]. I have found a potential investor for the micro version of the game, but naturally, he requested a detailed plan of how the game will pay back. And the problem is that micro version itself is not supposed to be monetized much, other than some ads and limited in-game currency utilization. The idea is that with this combat demo already at hand, it should be possible to get a really large enough investment (millions of dollars) and use it to pay back the initial small one (thousands of dollars) and take the project into macro phase, which will really make profit. This way, everybody is going to win, provided that I can deliver the end-product. Yet while I am confident of that both the conception of the macro and the real game-play of the micro versions are going to be appealing, I don’t know how to obtain any guarantee of that I will be able to get funded once I have the prototype ready. And without that, I won’t receive the funds for the prototype in the first place! To summarize, my question is: how to figure out my future possibilities of getting funded once I have combat demo out, basically “whom to write to and what”. Ideally, I would like some sort of a preliminary agreement with a game publisher, something that would basically state “If the developer provides the product in time and in quality corresponding to the specifications given, the publisher guarantees to allocate funds for distribution and further development, thereby acquiring the right to X part of all future profits”. Does this sound sane? It’s just that I don’t want to sell all of my rights out straight away by taking a big outside investment while the project is in such early stage. I would appreciate if you would share your thoughts on this kind of scheme, and be sure to ask questions as I am sure I must have forgotten to mention a ton of important things, like the fact that initial funds are going to be spent on outsourcing (living in Siberia is really just great). [here’s a brief outline of what each version will feature] [micro] 1) turn based tactical combat rules 2) character development 3) arena/tournament system [macro] 4) ai-ruled dynamic interactive worlds 5) global map adventuring 6) strategic rpg + god simulator gameplay [mmo] 7) Persistent worlds system 8) Social structures system (“guilds/clans”) 9) god-simulation on the mmo scale P.S. Obviously, these features are incremental, so that mmo version has all 9.

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• How Microsoft Market DotNet?

  - by Fendy

  I just read an Joel's article about Microsoft's breaking change (non-backwards compatibility) with dot net's introduction. It is interesting and explicitly reflected the condition during that time. But now almost 10 years has passed. The breaking change It is mainly on how bad is Microsoft introducing non-backwards compatibility development tools, such as dot net, instead of improving the already-widely used asp classic or VB6. As much have known, dot net is not natively embedded in windows XP (yes in vista or 7), so in order to use the .net apps, you need to install the .net framework of over 300mb (it's big that day). However, as we see that nowadays many business use .net as their main development tools, with asp.net or mvc as their web-based applications. C# nowadays be one of tops programming languages (the most questions in stackoverflow). The more interesing part is, win32api still alive even there is newer technology out there (and still widely used). Imagine if microsoft does not introduce the breaking change, there will many corporates still uses asp classic or vb-based applications (there still is, but not that much). There are many corporates use additional services such as azure or sharepoint (beside how expensive is it). Please note that I also know there are many flagships applications (maybe adobe's and blizzard's) still use C-based or older language and not porting to newer high-level language. The question How can Microsoft persuade the users to migrate their old applications into dot net? As we have known it is very hard and give no immediate value when rewrite the applications (netscape story), and it is very risky. I am more interested in Microsoft's way and not opinion such as "because dot net is OOP, or dot net is dll-embedable, etc". This question may be constructive, as the technology is vastly changes over times lately. As we can see, Microsoft changes Asp.Net webform to MVC, winform is legacy now, it is starting to change to use windows store rather than basic-installment, touchscreen and later on we will have see-through applications such as google class. And that will be breaking changes. We will need to account portability as an issue nowadays. We will need other than just mere technology choice, but also migration plans. Even maybe as critical as we might need multiplatform language compiler, as approached by Joel's Wasabi. (hey, I read his articles too much!)

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