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• Gamification in the enterprise updates, September edition

  - by erikanollwebb

  Things have been a little busy here at GamifyOracle.  Last week, I attended a small conference in San Diego on Enterprise Gamification.  Mario Herger of SAP, Matt Landes of Google and I were on a panel discussion about how to introduce and advocate gamification in your organization.  I gave a talk as well as a workshop on gamification.  The workshop was a new concept, to take our Design Jam from Applications User Experience and try it with people outside of user experience.  I have to say, the whole thing was a great success, in great part because I had some expert help from Teena Singh from Apps UX.  We took a flow from expense reporting and created a scenario about sales reps who are on the road a lot and how we needed them to get their expense reports filed by the end of the fiscal year.  We divided the attendees into groups and gave them a little over two hours to work out how they might use game mechanics to gamify the flows.   We even took the opportunity to re-use the app our fab dev team in our Mexico Development Center put together to gamify the event including badges, points, prizes and a leaderboard.  Since I am a firm believer that you can't gamify everything (or at least, not everything well), I focused my talk prior to the workshop on when it works, and when it might not, including pitfalls to gamifying badly.  I was impressed that the teams all considered what might go wrong with gamifying expenses and built into their designs some protections against that.  I can't wait to take this concept on the road again, it really was a fun day. Now that we have gotten through that set of events, we're wildly working on our next project for next week.  I'm doing a focus group at Oracle OpenWorld on Gamification in the Enterprise.  To do that, Andrea Cantu and I are trying to kill as many trees as possible while we work out some gamification concepts to present (see proof below!).  It should be a great event and I'm hoping we learn a lot about what our customers think about the use of gamification in their companies and in the products they use. So that's the news so far from GamifyOracle land.  I'll try to get more out about those events and more after next week. And if you will be at OOW, ping me and we can discuss in person!  I'd love to know what everyone is thinking in the area.

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• Learn programming backwards, or "so I failed the FizzBuzz test. Now what?"

  - by moraleida

  A Little Background I'm 28 today, and I've never had any formal training in software development, but I do have two higher education degrees equivalent to a B.A in Public Relations and an Executive MBA focused on Project Management. I've worked on those fields for about 6 years total an then, 2,5 years ago I quit/lost my job and decided to shift directions. After a month thinking things through I decided to start freelancing developing small websites in WordPress. I self-learned my way into it and today I can say I run a humble but successful career developing themes and plugins from scratch for my clients - mostly agencies outsourcing some of their dev work for medium/large websites. But sometimes I just feel that not having studied enough math, or not having a formal understanding of things really holds me behind when I have to compete or work with more experienced developers. I'm constantly looking for ways to learn more but I seem to lack the basics. Unfortunately, spending 4 more years in Computer Science is not an option right now, so I'm trying to learn all I can from books and online resources. This method is never going to have NASA employ me but I really don't care right now. My goal is to first pass the bar and to be able to call myself a real programmer. I'm currently spending my spare time studying Java For Programmers (to get a hold on a language everyone says is difficult/demanding), reading excerpts of Code Complete (to get hold of best practices) and also Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software (to grasp the inner workings of computers). TL;DR So, my current situation is this: I'm basically capable of writing any complete system in PHP (with the help of Google and a few books), integrating Ajax, SQL and whatnot, and maybe a little slower than an experienced dev would expect due to all the research involved. But I was stranded yesterday trying to figure out (not Google) a solution for the FizzBuzz test because I didn't have the if($n1 % $n2 == 0) method modulus operator memorized. What would you suggest as a good way to solve this dilemma? What subjects/books should I study that would get me solving problems faster and maybe more "in a programmers way"? EDIT - Seems that there was some confusion about what did I not know to solve FizzBuzz. Maybe I didn't express myself right: I knew the steps needed to solve the problem. What I didn't memorize was the modulus operator. The problem was in transposing basic math to the program, not in knowing basic math. I took the test for fun, after reading about it on Coding Horror. I just decided it was a good base-comparison line between me and formally-trained devs. I just used this as an example of how not having dealt with math in a computer environment before makes me lose time looking up basic things like modulus operators to be able to solve simple problems.

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• The Uganda .NET Usergroup meeting for January 2011 - a look back.

  - by Malisa L. Ncube

  We had a very interesting meeting on Friday 28th last week. We had 10 attendees and two speakers. The first topic presented was Cloud Computing, presented by Allan Rwakatungu @arwakatungu who works with MTN Uganda. He gave a very brilliant outline of how Cloud computing and service oriented applications had begun changing the platform for operating business and the costs it saves because of scalability and elasticity. He went on to demonstrate the steps you would take if you are beginning a new Windows Azure project. He explained the history and evolution of the Windows Azure, SQL Azure and cloud services offered by Amazon and google.com. The attendees had many questions to ask (obviously), but they were all answered very well. We once again thank Allan, for taking time to prepare the presentation and demonstrating for us. We recorded a video on the entire presentation and after doing some editing we will publish it. One wish which was echoed by most members was that Microsoft should open the cloud services and development for Africa. Microsoft currently does not even have servers here in Africa and so far, that does not put African developers in the same platform as other developers in other continents. Now is the time considering the improvements in network speeds and joining of the Seacom network and broadband.   I presented on Parallelism and Multithreading using .NET 4.0, I also gave some details on the language changes in C# 5.0 and the async keyword and the TaskEx class. I explained the Task, Scheduling of parallel tasks and demonstrated problems that may arise from using parallelism inappropriately. I also demonstrated the performance improvements that may be achieved by taking advantage of multi-core processors. You may download the presentation on Parallelism and Multi-threading from here. The resolution of the meeting was that we should meet more than once a month and begin other activities which should be more fun. e.g. Geek Dinner, Geek Beer or CodeCamp. Based on that we all agreed we shall have a mid-month meeting starting from February. Cheers folks! del.icio.us Tags: .net,usergroup,cloud computing,parallelism,multi-threading

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• Started wrong with a project. Should I start over?

  - by solidsnake

  I'm a beginner web developer (one year of experience). A couple of weeks after graduating, I got offered a job to build a web application for a company whose owner is not much of a tech guy. He recruited me to avoid theft of his idea, the high cost of development charged by a service company, and to have someone young he can trust onboard to maintain the project for the long run (I came to these conclusions by myself long after being hired). Cocky as I was back then, with a diploma in computer science, I accepted the offer thinking I can build anything. I was calling the shots. After some research I settled on PHP, and started with plain PHP, no objects, just ugly procedural code. Two months later, everything was getting messy, and it was hard to make any progress. The web application is huge. So I decided to check out an MVC framework that would make my life easier. That's where I stumbled upon the cool kid in the PHP community: Laravel. I loved it, it was easy to learn, and I started coding right away. My code looked cleaner, more organized. It looked very good. But again the web application was huge. The company was pressuring me to deliver the first version, which they wanted to deploy, obviously, and start seeking customers. Because Laravel was fun to work with, it made me remember why I chose this industry in the first place - something I forgot while stuck in the shitty education system. So I started working on small projects at night, reading about methodologies and best practice. I revisited OOP, moved on to object-oriented design and analysis, and read Uncle Bob's book Clean Code. This helped me realize that I really knew nothing. I did not know how to build software THE RIGHT WAY. But at this point it was too late, and now I'm almost done. My code is not clean at all, just spaghetti code, a real pain to fix a bug, all the logic is in the controllers, and there is little object oriented design. I'm having this persistent thought that I have to rewrite the whole project. However, I can't do it... They keep asking when is it going to be all done. I can not imagine this code deployed on a server. Plus I still know nothing about code efficiency and the web application's performance. On one hand, the company is waiting for the product and can not wait anymore. On the other hand I can't see myself going any further with the actual code. I could finish up, wrap it up and deploy, but god only knows what might happen when people start using it. What do you think I should do?

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• OpenWorld in Small Bites

  - by Kathryn Perry

  Fifty thousand attendees -- that's bigger than the cities some of us live in. Monday morning it took 20 minutes to get from Hall D in Moscone North to a conference room in Moscone South -- the crowds were crushing! A great start to a great week! Larry is as big a name as ever on the program schedule and on the Moscone stage. People were packed in Hall D and clustered around every big screen TV. He stayed on script as he laid out Oracle's SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS strategies. Every seat in Chris Leone's Fusion Apps Cloud Overview was filled on Monday morning. Oracle employees who wanted to get in were turned away. And the same thing happened in the repeat session on Wednesday. Our newest suite of apps is hot! Speaking of hot, the weather was made to order. Then it turned very San Francisco-like on Wednesday afternoon. Downright cold for those who trusted SF temps to hold in the 80's. Who did you follow on Twitter during the conference? So many voices, opinions, and convos! Great combo of social media and sharp minds. Be sure to follow @larryellison, @stevenrmiranda, and @Oracle for updates and MyPOVs. Keywords for the Apps customers at the conference were cloud, mobile, and social. Every day, every session, every speaker. Wednesday afternoon, 4 pm at the Four Seasons hotel. A large roomful of analysts and influencers firing questions at a panel of eight Fusion customers. Steve Miranda moderating. Good energy and a great exchange of information and confidence. Word on the street is that OpenWorld has outgrown San Francisco -- but moving it seems unthinkable. The city isn't just a backdrop for an industry conference - it's a headliner right up there with Larry Ellison and Pearl Jam. As you can imagine, electrical outlets were in high demand at every venue. The most popular hotels and bars near Moscone designed their interiors around accessible electrical power strips. People are plenty willing to buy a drink while they grab a charge. Wednesday afternoon, 4 pm at the Four Seasons hotel. A large roomful of analysts and influencers firing questions at a panel of eight Fusion customers. Steve Miranda moderating. Good energy and a great exchange of information and confidence. Treasure Island in the dark. Eddy Vedder has an amazing voice! And Kings of Leon over delivered on people's expectations. It was cold. It was windy. It was very fun. One analyst said it's the best customer appreciation party in the industry. 

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• Emaroo 1.4.0 Released

  - by WeigeltRo

  Emaroo is a free utility for browsing most recently used (MRU) lists of various applications. Quickly open files, jump to their folder in Windows Explorer, copy their path - all with just a few keystrokes or mouse clicks. tl;dr: Emaroo 1.4.0 is out, go download it on www.roland-weigelt.de/emaroo   Why Emaroo? Let me give you a few examples. Let’s assume you have pinned Emaroo to the first spot on the task bar so you can start it by hitting Win+1. To start one of the most recently used Visual Studio solutions you type Win+1, [maybe arrow key down a few times], Enter This means that you can start the most recent solution simply by Win+1, Enter What else? If you want to open an Explorer window at the file location of the solution, you type Ctrl+E instead of Enter.   If you know that the solution contains “foo” in its name, you can type “foo” to filter the list. Because this is not a general purpose search like e.g. the Search charm, but instead operates only on the MRU list of a single application, you usually have to type only a few characters until you can press Enter or Ctrl+E.   Ctrl+C copies the file path of the selected MRU item, Ctrl+Shift+C copies the directory If you have several versions of Visual Studio installed, the context menu lets you open a solution in a higher version.   Using the context menu, you can open a Visual Studio solution in Blend. So far I have only mentioned Visual Studio, but Emaroo knows about other applications, too. It remembers the last application you used, you can change between applications with the left/right arrow or accelerator keys. Press F1 or click the Emaroo icon (the tab to the right) for a quick reference. Which applications does Emaroo know about? Emaroo knows the MRU lists of Visual Studio 2008/2010/2012/2013 Expression Blend 4, Blend for Visual Studio 2012, Blend for Visual Studio 2013 Microsoft Word 2007/2010/2013 Microsoft Excel 2007/2010/2013 Microsoft PowerPoint 2007/2010/2013 Photoshop CS6 IrfanView (most recently used directories) Windows Explorer (directories most recently typed into the address bar) Applications that are not installed aren’t shown, of course. Where can I download it? On the Emaroo website: www.roland-weigelt.de/emaroo Have fun!

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• 4.8M wasn't enough so we went for 5.055M tpmc with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel r2 :-)

  - by wcoekaer

  We released a new set of benchmarks today. One is an updated tpc-c from a few months ago where we had just over 4.8M tpmc at $0.98 and we just updated it to go to 5.05M and $0.89. The other one is related to Java Middleware performance. You can find the press release here. Now, I don't want to talk about the actual relevance of the benchmark numbers, as I am not in the benchmark team. I want to talk about why these numbers and these efforts, unrelated to what they mean to your workload, matter to customers. The actual benchmark effort is a very big, long, expensive undertaking where many groups work together as a big virtual team. Having the virtual team be within a single company of course helps tremendously... We already start with a very big server setup with tons of storage, many disks, lots of ram, lots of cpu's, cores, threads, large database setups. Getting the whole setup going to start tuning, by itself, is no easy task, but then the real fun starts with tuning the system for optimal performance -and- stability. A benchmark is not just revving an engine at high rpm, it's actually hitting the circuit. The tests require long runs, require surviving availability tests, such as surviving crashes -and- recovery under load. In the TPC-C example, the x4800 system had 4TB ram, 160 threads (8 sockets, hyperthreaded, 10 cores/socket), tons of storage attached, tons of luns visible to the OS. flash storage, non flash storage... many things at high scale that all have to be perfectly synchronized. During this process, we find bugs, we fix bugs, we find performance issues, we fix performance issues, we find interesting potential features to investigate for the future, we start new development projects for future releases and all this goes back into the products. As more and more customers, for Oracle Linux, are running larger and larger, faster and faster, more mission critical, higher available databases..., these things are just absolutely critical. Unrelated to what anyone's specific opinion is about tpc-c or tpc-h or specjenterprise etc, there is a ton of effort that the customer benefits from. All this work makes Oracle Linux and/or Oracle Solaris better platforms. Whether it's faster, more stable, more scalable, more resilient. It helps. Another point that I always like to re-iterate around UEK and UEK2 : we have our kernel source git repository online. Complete changelog of the mainline kernel, and our changes, easy to pull, easy to dissect, easy to know what went in when, why and where. No need to go log into a website and manually click through pages to hopefully discover changes or patches. No need to untar 2 tar balls and run a diff.

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• Wireframing: A Day In the Life of UX Workshop at Oracle

  - by ultan o'broin

  The Oracle Applications User Experience team's Day in the Life (DITL) of User Experience (UX) event was run in Oracle's Redwood Shores HQ for Oracle Usability Advisory Board (OUAB) members. I was charged with putting together a wireframing session, together with Director of Financial Applications User Experience, Scott Robinson (@scottrobinson). Example of stunning new wireframing visuals we used on the DITL events. We put on a lively show, explaining the basics of wireframing, the concepts, what it is and isn't, considerations on wireframing tool choice, and then imparting some tips and best practices. But the real energy came when the OUAB customers and partners in the room were challenge to do some wireframing of their own. Wireframing is about bringing your business and product use cases to life in real UX visual terms, by creating a low-fidelity drawing to iterate and agree on in advance of prototyping and coding what is to be finally built and rolled out for users. All the best people wireframe. Leonardo da Vinci used "cartoons" on some great works, tracing outlines first and using red ochre or charcoal dropped through holes in the tracing parchment onto the canvas to outline the subject. (Image distributed under Wikimedia commons license) Wireframing an application's user experience design enables you to: Obtain stakeholder buy-in. Enable faster iteration of different designs. Determine the task flow navigation paths (in Oracle Fusion Applications navigation is linked with user roles). Develop a content strategy (readability, search engine optimization (SEO) of content, and so on) Lay out the pages, widgets, groups of features, and so on. Apply usability heuristics early (no replacement for usability testing, but a great way to do some heavy-lifting up front). Decide upstream which functional user experience design patterns to apply (out of the box solutions that expedite productivity). Assess which Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) or equivalent technology components can be used (again, developer productivity is enhanced downstream). We ran a lively hands-on exercise where teams wireframed a choice of application scenarios using the time-honored tools of pen and paper. Scott worked the floor like a pro, pointing out great use of features, best practices, innovations, and making sure that the whole concept of wireframing, the gestalt, transferred. "We need more buttons!" The cry of the energized. Not quite. The winning wireframe session (online shopping scenario) from the Applications UX DITL event shown. Great fun, great energy, and great teamwork were evident in the room. Naturally, there were prizes for the best wireframe. Well, actually, prizes were handed out to the other attendees too! An exciting, slightly different aspect to delivery of this session made the wireframing event one of the highlights of the day. And definitely, something we will repeat again when we get the chance. Thanks to everyone who attended, contributed, and helped organize.

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• Lookup Viewer

  - by Geertjan

  The Maven integrated view that I showed yesterday I was able to create because I happened to know that an implementation of SubprojectProvider and LogicalViewProvider are in the Lookup of Maven projects. With that knowledge, I was able to use and even delegate to those implementations. But what if you don't know that those implementations are in the Lookup of the Project object? In the case of the Maven Project implementation, you could look in the source code of the Maven Project implementation, at the "getLookup" method. However, any other module could be putting its own objects into that Lookup, dynamically, i.e., at runtime. So there's no way of knowing what's in the Lookup of any Project object or any other object with a Lookup. But now imagine that you have a Lookup Viewer, as a tool during development, which you would exclude when distributing the application. Whenever new objects are found in the Lookup, the viewer displays them. You could install the Lookup Viewer into NetBeans IDE, or any other NetBeans Platform application, and then get a quick impression of what's actually in the Lookup when you select a different item in the application during development. Here it is (though I vaguely remember someone else writing something similar): Above, a Maven Project is selected. The Lookup Window shows that, among many other classes, an implementation of SubprojectProvider and LogicalViewProvider are found in the Lookup when the Maven Project is selected. If an item in the Lookup Window has its own Lookup, the content of that Lookup is displayed as child nodes of the Lookup, etc, i.e., you can explore all the way down the Lookup of each item found within objects found within the current selection. (What's especially fun is seeing the SaveCookieImpl being added and removed from the Lookup Window when you make/save a change in a document.) Another example is below, showing the Lookup Window installed in a custom application created during a course at MIT in Boston: A small trick I had to apply is that I always show the previous Lookup, since the current Lookup, when you select one of the Nodes in the Lookup Window, would be the Lookup of the Lookup Window itself! If anyone is interested in this, I can publish the NetBeans module providing the above window to the NetBeans update center. 

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• Portland Silverlight User Group: WP7 &amp; XNA &ndash; I survived.

  - by George Clingerman

  Last night I gave a talk to the Portland Silverlight User Group. http://www.portlandsilverlight.net/Meetings/Details/15 And I survived (which you should have probably already figured out since you’re reading this post AND that’s what I titled it…) Really though it was a fantastic time and I had a lot of fun! I was a little nervous getting ready for it, but I’m always a little nervous getting ready for things. I had the game all written,  I knew the general flow for what the talk was going to be. I read over Scott Hanselman’s 11 Top Tips for a Successful Technical presentation (which has become something I do EVERY time I’m preparing for a talk). I gave myself a brief list of points I wanted to make sure I covered or worked into the talk. But then I was ready and I waited. I hate the waiting. It makes me nervous. Once I was up in front of the room though with my laptop open and some XNA code in front of me, my nerves go away. Then I’m ready. I know XNA, I love talking about XNA and I love sharing what I know and hearing questions that make me think. And hopefully that came through while I was talking. I had a freaking blast. The swag went quickly (and I was even able to hand out some XNA 2.0 books that have been around forever!) and the pizza was been gobbled down. I started the talk at about 6:10 and managed to cover a very brief intro to programming against the game loop (it’s a different concept and one that seems to trip a lot of people up getting started with game development) and then rolled into making a basic 2D game for Windows Phone 7 using XNA. And I finished the whole thing before 8:30. Wahoo! I’m planning on posting the source code and assets on my site so those should be coming soon. And to make things even better, they recorded the whole thing on video so everyone will get to see me pretend I can speak! Just wait till you hear the new song I wrote for this talk…

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• My Doors - Why Standards Matter to Business

  - by [email protected]

  By Brian Dayton on April 8, 2010 9:27 PM "Standards save money." "Standards accelerate projects." "Standards make better solutions." What do these statements mean to you? You buy technology solutions like Oracle Applications but you're a business person--trying to close the quarter, get performance reviews processed, negotiate a new sourcing contract, etc. When "standards" come up in presentations and discussions do you: - Nod your head politely - Tune out and check your smart phone - Turn to your IT counterpart and say "Bob's all over this standards thing, right Bob?" Here's why standards matter. My wife wants new external doors downstairs, ones that would get more light into the rooms. Am I OK with that? "Uhh, sure...it's a little dark in the kitchen." - 24 hours ago - wife calls to tell me that she's going to the hardware store and may look at doors - 20 hours ago - wife pulls into driveway, informs me that two doors are in the back of her station wagon, ready for me to carry - 19 hours ago - I re-discovered the fact that it's not fun to carry a solid wood door by myself - 5 hours ago - Local handyman, who was at our house anyway, tells me that the doors we bought will likely cost 2-3x the material cost in installation time and labor...the doors are standard but our doorways aren't We could have done more research. I could be more handy. Sure. But the fact is, my 1951 house wasn't built with me in mind. They built what worked and called it a day. The same holds true with a lot of business applications. They were designed and architected for one-time use with one use-case in mind. Today's business climate is different. If you're going to use your processes and technology to differentiate your business you should have at least a working knowledge of: - How standards can benefit your business - Your IT organization's philosophy around standards - Your vendor's track-record around standards...and watch for those who pay lip-service to standards but don't follow through The rallying cry in most IT organizations today is "learn more about the business, drop the acronyms." I'm not advocating that you go out and learn how to code in Java. But I do believe it will help your business and your decision-making process if you meet IT ½...even ¼ of the way there. Epilogue: The door project has been put on hold and yours truly has to return the doors to the hardware store tomorrow.

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• The Softer Side of Customer Experience

  - by Christina McKeon

  It’s election season in the U.S., and you know what that means. It means I stop by the recycling bin in my garage before entering the house with the contents of my mailbox. A couple of weeks ago, I was doing my usual direct mail purge when I came across a piece from The Container Store®. This piece would have gone straight to the recycling bin, but the title stopped me: Learn what WE STAND FOR! Under full disclaimer, I’m probably a “frequent flier” at The Container Store. One can never be too organized! Now, back to the direct mail piece. I opened it to discover that The Container Store has taken their customer experience beyond “a shopping experience that makes you smile” to giving customers more insight and transparency into how they feel about their employees, the vendors they partner with, and the communities they live in. The direct mail piece included several employees showcasing a skill, hobby or talent with their photo and a personal note that used one word to describe what these employees believe The Container Store stands for. I do not recall the last time I read through an entire piece of direct mail. But this time, I pored over all the comments and photos.  Summer, a salesperson, believes that one word is PASSION. Thomas in distribution center inventory systems chooses the word ACTION. The list goes on to include MATCHLESS, FUN, FAMILY, LOVE, and EMPOWERMENT. The Container Store is running a contest asking you to tell them what nonprofit organization you stand for. Anyone can submit their favorite nonprofit to win cash, products and services from The Container Store. Don’t forget about the softer side of customer experience. With many organizations working feverishly to transform their business into being more customer-centric, it’s easy to get caught up in processes and technology. Focusing on people and social responsibility often falls behind and becomes a lower priority. Keeping people and social responsibility at the forefront is crucial. Your customers will use your processes and technology, but they will see or hear your people and feel their passion. The latter is what they will remember most about your brand. I’m sure there are many other great examples of the softer side of customer experience. Please share your examples in the comments section.

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• So, I though I wanted to learn frontend/web development and break out of my comfort zone...

  - by ripper234

  I've been a backend developer for a long time, and I really swim in that field. C++/C#/Java, databases, NoSql, caching - I feel very much at ease around these platforms/concepts. In the past few years, I started to taste end-to-end web programming, and recently I decided to take a job offer in a front end team developing a large, complex product. I wanted to break out of my comfort zone and become more of an "all around developer". Problem is, I'm getting more and more convinced I don't like it. Things I like about backend programming, and missing in frontend stuff: More interesting problems - When I compare designing a server that handle massive data, to adding another form to a page or changing the validation logic, I find the former a lot more interesting. Refactoring refactoring refactoring - I am addicted to Visual Studio with Resharper, or IntelliJ. I feel very comfortable writing code as it goes without investing too much thought, because I know that with a few clicks I can refactor it into beautiful code. To my knowledge, this doesn't exist at all in javascript. Intellisense and navigation - I hate looking at a bunch of JS code without instantly being able to know what it does. In VS/IntelliJ I can summon the documentation, navigate to the code, climb up inheritance hiererchies ... life is sweet. Auto-completion - Just hit Ctrl-Space on an object to see what you can do with it. Easier to test - With almost any backend feature, I can use TDD to capture the requirements, see a bunch of failing tests, then implement, knowing that if the tests pass I did my job well. With frontend, while tests can help a bit, I find that most of the testing is still manual - fire up that browser and verify the site didn't break. I miss that feeling of "A green CI means everything is well with the world." Now, I've only seriously practiced frontend development for about two months now, so this might seem premature ... but I'm getting a nagging feeling that I should abandon this quest and return to my comfort zone, because, well, it's so comfy and fun. Another point worth mentioning in this context is that while I am learning some frontend tools, a lot of what I'm learning is our company's specific infrastructure, which I'm not sure will be very useful later on in my career. Any suggestions or tips? Do you think I should give frontend programming "a proper chance" of at least six to twelve months before calling it quits? Could all my pains be growing pains, and will they magically disappear as I get more experienced? Or is gaining this perspective is valuable enough, even if plan to do more "backend stuff" later on, that it's worth grinding my teeth and continuing with my learning?

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• Bullet Physics implementing custom MotionState class

  - by Arosboro

  I'm trying to make my engine's camera a kinematic rigid body that can collide into other rigid bodies. I've overridden the btMotionState class and implemented setKinematicPos which updates the motion state's tranform. I use the overridden class when creating my kinematic body, but the collision detection fails. I'm doing this for fun trying to add collision detection and physics to Sean O' Neil's Procedural Universe I referred to the bullet wiki on MotionStates for my CPhysicsMotionState class. If it helps I can add the code for the Planetary rigid bodies, but I didn't want to clutter the post. Here is my motion state class: class CPhysicsMotionState: public btMotionState { protected: // This is the transform with position and rotation of the camera CSRTTransform* m_srtTransform; btTransform m_btPos1; public: CPhysicsMotionState(const btTransform &initialpos, CSRTTransform* srtTransform) { m_srtTransform = srtTransform; m_btPos1 = initialpos; } virtual ~CPhysicsMotionState() { // TODO Auto-generated destructor stub } virtual void getWorldTransform(btTransform &worldTrans) const { worldTrans = m_btPos1; } void setKinematicPos(btQuaternion &rot, btVector3 &pos) { m_btPos1.setRotation(rot); m_btPos1.setOrigin(pos); } virtual void setWorldTransform(const btTransform &worldTrans) { btQuaternion rot = worldTrans.getRotation(); btVector3 pos = worldTrans.getOrigin(); m_srtTransform->m_qRotate = CQuaternion(rot.x(), rot.y(), rot.z(), rot.w()); m_srtTransform->SetPosition(CVector(pos.x(), pos.y(), pos.z())); m_btPos1 = worldTrans; } }; I add a rigid body for the camera: // Create rigid body for camera btCollisionShape* cameraShape = new btSphereShape(btScalar(5.0f)); btTransform startTransform; startTransform.setIdentity(); // forgot to add this line CVector vCamera = m_srtCamera.GetPosition(); startTransform.setOrigin(btVector3(vCamera.x, vCamera.y, vCamera.z)); m_msCamera = new CPhysicsMotionState(startTransform, &m_srtCamera); btScalar tMass(80.7f); bool isDynamic = (tMass != 0.f); btVector3 localInertia(0,0,0); if (isDynamic) cameraShape->calculateLocalInertia(tMass,localInertia); btRigidBody::btRigidBodyConstructionInfo rbInfo(tMass, m_msCamera, cameraShape, localInertia); m_rigidBody = new btRigidBody(rbInfo); m_rigidBody->setCollisionFlags(m_rigidBody->getCollisionFlags() | btCollisionObject::CF_KINEMATIC_OBJECT); m_rigidBody->setActivationState(DISABLE_DEACTIVATION); This is the code in Update() that runs each frame: CSRTTransform srtCamera = CCameraTask::GetPtr()->GetCamera(); Quaternion qRotate = srtCamera.m_qRotate; btQuaternion rot = btQuaternion(qRotate.x, qRotate.y, qRotate.z, qRotate.w); CVector vCamera = CCameraTask::GetPtr()->GetPosition(); btVector3 pos = btVector3(vCamera.x, vCamera.y, vCamera.z); CPhysicsMotionState* cameraMotionState = CCameraTask::GetPtr()->GetMotionState(); cameraMotionState->setKinematicPos(rot, pos);

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• The Minimalist Approach to Content Governance - Create Phase

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

   Originally posted by John Brunswick. In this installment of our Minimalist Approach to Content Governance we finally get to the fun part of the content creation process! Once the content requester has addressed the items outlined in the Request Phase it is time to setup and begin the production of content.   For this to be done correctly it is important the the content be assigned appropriate workflow and security information. As in our prior phase, let's take a look at what can be done to streamline this process - as contributors are focused on getting information to their end users as quickly as possible. This often means that details around how to ensure that the materials are properly managed can be overlooked, but fortunately there are some techniques that leverage our content management system's native capabilities to automatically take care of some of the details. 1. Determine Access Why - Even if content is not something that needs to restricted due to security reasons, it is helpful to apply access rights so that the content ends up being visible only to users that it relates to. This will greatly improve user experience. For instance, if your team is working on a group project many of your fellow company employees do not need to see the content that is being worked on for that project. How - Make use of native content features that allow propagation of security and meta data from parent folders within your content system that have been setup for your particular effort. This makes it painless to enforce security, as well as meta data policies for even the most unorganized users. The default settings at a parent level can be set once the content creation request has been accepted and a location in the content management system is assigned for your specific project. Impact - Users can find information will less effort, as they will only be exposed to what they need for their work and can leverage advanced search features to take advantage of meta data assigned to content. The combination of default security and meta data will also help in running reports against the content in the Manage and Retire stages that we will discuss in the next 2 posts. 2. Assign Workflow (optional depending on nature of content) Why - Every case for workflow is going to be a bit different, but it generally involves ensuring that content conforms to management, legal and or editorial requirements. How - Oracle's Universal Content Management offers two ways of helping to workflow content without much effort. Workflow can be applied to content based on Criteria acting on meta data or explicitly assigned to content with a Basic workflow. Impact - Any content that needs additional attention before release is addressed, allowing users to comment and version until a suitable result is reached. By using inheritance from parent folders within the content management system content can automatically be given the right security, meta data and workflow information for a particular project's content. This relieves the burden of doing this for every piece of content from management teams and content contributors. We will cover more about the management phase within the content lifecycle in our next installment.

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• Ask the Readers: Which Browser is a Must-Have for You on Linux?

  - by Asian Angel

  Linux systems all come with their own particular set of default browsers, but those browsers may not be the ones you want or need. This week we would like to know which browser (or browsers) are considered “must-have” on your Linux systems. As a general rule many Linux distributions have Firefox and/or Konqueror as one of the default installation browsers. During this past year the open source browser Chromium has also been gaining a lot of traction as a default install for systems. For most people these browsers are the ones that they like best or feel work well enough to not make any changes. But there are other people who want more than what is available with a default system install. They may favor a particular browser for its’ extensibility or speed…others prefer a particular browser for its’ features or minimalist UI. Whatever your preferences may be, there is a browser out there to fit your style. Some people may even prefer to run only bleeding edge nightly releases or add them in with their current browsers. The important part is that you have choices when it comes to your Linux system. What we would like to know this week is which browser or browsers you make sure are always installed on your Linux systems. Does the Linux system you use already have your favorite browser installed as part of the default set? Maybe you are content with using the default set of browsers that come with the system. Or perhaps you prefer to rework the entire browser setup on your system by removing the defaults and adding your favorites. Let us know which browsers you consider “must have” and why in the comments! Note: You can make up to two selections on today’s poll since most people will likely have more than one browser that they make certain is always installed. How-To Geek Polls require Javascript. Please Click Here to View the Poll. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC BotSync Enables Secure FTP File Synchronization on Android Devices Enjoy Beautiful City Views with the Cityscape Theme for Windows 7 Luigi Installs Any OS on Google’s Cr-48 Notebook DIY iPad Stylus Offers Pen-Based Interaction on the Cheap Serene Blue Ubuntu Wallpaper for Your Desktop Enjoy Old School Style Video Game Fun with Chicken Invaders

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• Switch from back-end to front-end programming: I'm out of my comfort zone, should I switch back?

  - by ripper234

  I've been a backend developer for a long time, and I really swim in that field. C++/C#/Java, databases, NoSql, caching - I feel very much at ease around these platforms/concepts. In the past few years, I started to taste end-to-end web programming, and recently I decided to take a job offer in a front end team developing a large, complex product. I wanted to break out of my comfort zone and become more of an "all around developer". Problem is, I'm getting more and more convinced I don't like it. Things I like about backend programming, and missing in frontend stuff: More interesting problems - When I compare designing a server that handle massive data, to adding another form to a page or changing the validation logic, I find the former a lot more interesting. Refactoring refactoring refactoring - I am addicted to Visual Studio with Resharper, or IntelliJ. I feel very comfortable writing code as it goes without investing too much thought, because I know that with a few clicks I can refactor it into beautiful code. To my knowledge, this doesn't exist at all in javascript. Intellisense and navigation - I hate looking at a bunch of JS code without instantly being able to know what it does. In VS/IntelliJ I can summon the documentation, navigate to the code, climb up inheritance hiererchies ... life is sweet. Auto-completion - Just hit Ctrl-Space on an object to see what you can do with it. Easier to test - With almost any backend feature, I can use TDD to capture the requirements, see a bunch of failing tests, then implement, knowing that if the tests pass I did my job well. With frontend, while tests can help a bit, I find that most of the testing is still manual - fire up that browser and verify the site didn't break. I miss that feeling of "A green CI means everything is well with the world." Now, I've only seriously practiced frontend development for about two months now, so this might seem premature ... but I'm getting a nagging feeling that I should abandon this quest and return to my comfort zone, because, well, it's so comfy and fun. Another point worth mentioning in this context is that while I am learning some frontend tools, a lot of what I'm learning is our company's specific infrastructure, which I'm not sure will be very useful later on in my career. Any suggestions or tips? Do you think I should give frontend programming "a proper chance" of at least six to twelve months before calling it quits? Could all my pains be growing pains, and will they magically disappear as I get more experienced? Or is gaining this perspective is valuable enough, even if plan to do more "backend stuff" later on, that it's worth grinding my teeth and continuing with my learning?

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• Speaker Notes...

  - by wulfers

  At a .Net User Group meeting this week, I experienced two poorly prepared speakers floundering through presentations….  As a Lead Technologist at the company I work for, I have experience training technical staff and also giving presentations at code camps.  Here are a few guidelines for aspiring speakers you might find helpful…   1.       Do not stand in front of your audience and read your slides.  This is  offensive to your audience and not what they came for...  Your slides are there to reinforce the information you are presenting and to give the audience a little clarification on some terms you may use and as a visual aid for some complicated issues. 2.       Have someone review your presentation (slides, notes, …) who speaks the language you will be presenting in fluently.  Also record at least ten minutes of your presentation and have that same person review that.  One of the speakers this week used the word “Basically” fifty times in less than thirty minutes…  I started to flinch every time he used the term. 3.       Be Prepared  -  before the presentation begins.  Don’t make any last minute changes to your presentation or demo code the night before.  Don’t patch your laptop or demo servers the night before.  If possible create a virtual image that you only use for presentations and use that (refreshed before every presentation). 4.       Know the level of expertise of your audience.  Speaking above or below their abilities will make or break your presentation. 5.       Deliver what you promise. The presentation this week was supposed to be on BDD (Behavior Driven Develpment).  The presenter completely ran off track and 90% of the discussion was how his team mistakenly used TDD (Test Driven Development), and was unhappy with the results.  Based on his loss of focus we only heard a rushed 10 minute presentation on DBB which was a disservice to the audience. 6.       Practice your presentation with your own small team before you try this on a room full of people you don’t know.  A side benefit of doing this with your own team is that you can get candid feedback from your team and also get kudos for training your own team.  I find I can also turn my presentations into technical white papers and get a third benefit from the work I’ve put into a presentation. 7.       Sharpen your own saw.  Pick a topic that is fairly current.  Something you would like to learn about and would benefit your current career path. 8.       Have fun doing it.

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• Anticipating JavaOne 2012 – Number 17!

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  As I write this, JavaOne 2012 (September 30-October 4 in San Francisco, CA) is just over a week away -- the seventeenth JavaOne! I’ll resist the impulse to travel in memory back to the early days of JavaOne. But I will say that JavaOne is a little like your birthday or New Year’s in that it invites reflection, evaluation, and comparison. It’s a time when we take the temperature of Java and assess the world of information technology generally. At JavaOne, insight and information flow amongst Java developers like no other time of the year.This year, the status of Java seems more secure in the eyes of most Java developers who agree that Oracle is doing an acceptable job of stewarding the platform, and while the story is still in progress, few doubt that Oracle is engaging strongly with the Java community and wants to see Java thrive. From my perspective, the biggest news about Java is the growth of some 250 alternative languages for the JVM – from Groovy to Jython to JRuby to Scala to Clojure and on and on – offering both new opportunities and challenges. The JVM has proven itself to be unusually flexible, resulting in an embarrassment of riches in which, more and more, developers are challenged to find ways to optimally mix together several different languages on projects.    To the matter at hand -- I can say with confidence that Oracle is working hard to make each JavaOne better than the last – more interesting, more stimulating, more networking, and more fun! A great deal of thought and attention is being devoted to the task. To free up time for the 475 technical sessions/Birds of feather/Hands-on-Labs slots, the Java Strategy, Partner, and Technical keynotes will be held on Sunday September 30, beginning at 4:00 p.m.   Let’s not forget Java Embedded@JavaOne which is being held Wednesday, Oct. 3rd and Thursday, Oct. 4th at the Hotel Nikko. It will provide business decision makers, technical leaders, and ecosystem partners important information about Java Embedded technologies and new business opportunities.   This year's JavaOne theme is “Make the Future Java”. So come to JavaOne and make your future better by:--Choosing from 475 sessions given by the experts to improve your working knowledge and coding expertise --Networking with fellow developers in both casual and formal settings--Enjoying world-class entertainment--Delighting in one of the world’s great cities (my home town) Hope to see you there! Originally published on blogs.oracle.com/javaone.

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• New Features Of WordPress 3.3 You Must Know

  - by Gopinath

  After months of beta testing, WordPress 3.3 version is going to be released at the end of this month. There are several new features packed in the new version and few of them are going to excite WordPress admins. In this post we are going to discuss about the exciting new features. 1. Drag and Drop Media Uploads One of the biggest improvements in this version of WordPress is it’s all new media uploader. Now you can upload multiple files by just dragging & dropping, instantly resize  the images and filter files by their type. The media upload sports a brand new look WordPress adopted the Pupload plugin to power its media uploader component and it’s written by the same team who created the popular TinyMCE editor plugin. 2. Improved Admin Bar(Toolbar) The admin bar or newly called toolbar has got handful of makeovers. The not so much used items like Search box and other elements are removed to make sure that the bar is not clumsy. The user menu and the related options are moved to the right like how we see in Google’s user bar. Also there are few changes to the colour of the bar to make it more eye friendly. 3. Fly out Admin Menus All the left side bar menus of WordPress admin are now sports a fly out menu style to save a click. In the previous versions if you want to access a sub menu on the left side bar, you need to first click on the category and then choose the menu item from the expanded list. Now on just mouse over you will see a flyout of menu items. 4. Adaptive Admin – Layout Auto Adjust To Fit Various Devices If you own an iPad or any other so called tablets then you are going to love this feature. The admin site of WordPress has got a lot more friendly with tablets and smartphones. WordPress now auto adjusts layout to fit the device through which you are accessing the admin site.  Accessing admin dashboard on your tablets is going to be more fun. 5. Other Features Now that we have read the most useful 4 features here is a small list of other features that may interest you Nice Tooltips are displayed where ever possible to help the newbies to understand the usage of admin site Responsive Layouts jQuery 1.7 and jQuery UI 1.8.16 are the power horses of WordPress Performance improvements This article titled,New Features Of WordPress 3.3 You Must Know, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• Top 10 Reasons to Attend the 7th Annual Maintenance Summit

  - by Stephen Slade

  Some of you may be sitting the fence before registering for the Oracle Maintenance Summit 2013. Here are 10 solid reasons to register in the next 3 weeks: 1. It's the 'IN' red carpet maintenance event for 2013. The summit will have one of the greatest concentrations of maintenance best practices, case studies and success stories that can catapult your organization. 2.  Return a Hero! Hear how you can drive reliability and operational excellence back home at the plant!  3. Learn the Roadmap! Hear form product experts who will discuss the vision, strategy and roadmap for Oracle products 4. See Product Demos! All the SCM/EAM rich products will be exhibited by both sales consultants and developers. Ask the hardest question you can think of and be ready for a great response. 5. Meet our Partners! There will be a good number of supporting partners exhibiting at the summit. Hear and learn of what ingredients make for success. 6. Join a panel or discussion group! Raise your hand and be heard – have your questions answered. Contribute to the discussion. 7. Network with your peers. Rub elbows with your fellow maintenance managers and operations supervisors. Talk shop here! 8. 6 Summits under one roof. Hear and share supply chain information at one of the other summits taking place concurrently. Bring other team members and secure the group discount. 9. Save $100, register by Dec 31 for the early bird rate. Hotel will fill fast.  www.oracle.com/goto/vcs 10. Have a great time! The Summit is both informational and enjoyable. Set at the waterfront in downtown San Francisco at the Embarcadero, the summit will be a fun-filled and enjoyable experience.

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• TechEd 2010 Day Three: The Database Designer (Isn't)

  - by BuckWoody

  Yesterday at TechEd 2010 here in New Orleans I worked the front-booth, answering general SQL Server questions for the masses. I was actually a little surprised to find most of the questions I got were from folks that wanted to know more about Stream Insight and Master Data Services. In past conferences I've been asked a lot of "free consulting" questions, about problems folks have had from older products. I don't mind that a bit - in fact, I'm always happy to help in any way I can. But this time people are really interested in the new features in the product, and I like that they are thinking ahead, not just having to solve problems in production. My presentation was on "Database Design in an Hour". We had the usual fun, and SideShow Bob made an appearance - I kid you not. The guy in the back of the room looked just like Sideshow Bob, so I quickly held a "bes thair" contest, and he won. Duing the presentation, I explain the tools you can use to design databases. I also explain that the "Database Designer" tool in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) isn't truly a desinger - it uses non-standard notation, doesn't have a meta-data dictionary, and worst of all, it works at the physical level. In other words, whatever you do in SSMS will automatically change the field/table/relationship structures in the database. We fixed this in SSMS 2008 and higher by adding an option to block that, but the tool is not a good design function nonetheless. To be fair, no one I know of at Microsoft recommends that it is - but I was shocked to hear so many developers in the room defending it as a good tool. I think the main issue for someone who doesn't have to work with Relational Systems a great deal is that it can be difficult to figure out Foreign Keys. The syntax makes them look "backwards", so it's just easier to grab a field and place it on the table you want to point to. There are options. You can download a couple of free tools (CA has a community edition of ER-WIN, Quest has one, and Embarcadero also has one) and if you design more than one or two databases a year, it may be worth buying a true design tool. For years I used Visio, but we changed it so that it doesn't forward-engineer (create the DDL) any more, so it isn't a true design tool either. So investigate those free and not-so-free tools. You'll find they help you in your job - but stay away from the Database Designer in SSMS. Or I'll send Sideshow Bob over there to straighten you out. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Point line collision reaction

  - by user4523

  I am trying to program point line segment collision detection and reaction. I am doing this for fun and to learn. The point moves (it has a velocity, and can be controlled by the user), whilst the lines are strait and stationary. The lines are not axis aligned. Everything is in 2D. It is quite straight forward to work out if a collision has occurred. For each frame, the point moves from A to B. AB is a line, and if it crosses the line segment, a collision has occurred (or will occur) and I am able to work out the point of intersection (poi). The problem I am having is with the reaction. Ideally I would like the point to be prevented from moving across the line. In one frame, I can move the point back to the poi (or only alow it to move as far as the poi), and alter the velocity. The problem I am having with this approach (I think) is that, next frame the user may try to cross the line again. Although the point is on the poi, the point may not be exactly on the line. Since it is not axis aligned, I think there is always some subtle rounding issue (A float representation of a point on a line might be rounded to a point that is slightly on one side or the other). Because of this, next frame the path might not intersect the line (because it can start on the other side and move away from it) and the point is effectively allowed to cross the line. Firstly, does the analysis sound correct? Having accepted (maybe) that I cannot always exactly position the point on the line, I tried to move the point away from the line slightly (either along the normal to the line, or along the path vector). I then get a problem at edges. Attempting to fix one collision by moving the point away from the line (even slightly) can cause it to cross another line (one shape I am dealing with is a star, with sharp corners). This can mean that the solution to one collision inadvertently creates another collision, which is ignored. Again, does this sound correct? Anyway, whatever I try, I am having difficulty with edges, and the point is occasionally able to penetrate the polygons and cross lines, which is undesirable. Whilst I can find a lot of information about collision detection on the web (and on this site) I can find precious little information on collision reaction. Does any one know of any good point line collision reaction tutorials? Or is my approach too flawed/over complicated?

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• The difference

  So with the CTP tools available, weve been building a few apps, just to get a feel for the tools and whats supported in the framework.  Whats been great is that everything is fairly familiar and consistent, largely to do with the .net framework and Microsofts focus on providing good tools.  Weve produced mobile applications, mostly in concept form, for Windows Phone Classic, iPhone and Android but never so quickly and not of such high quality and visual impression.  I attribute some of this obviously to our familiarity to the Microsoft platform and tools.  Though when you look at the designs our team has produced, it becomes clear that this is not just another mobile application container.                                                            The Metro design language implores content prominence with fluid motion and transitions, with a crisp font and easily organized features and services placement.  In addition to a purposeful right edge tease, where the intent is for users to discover new premium content and services.   The concept that enables this is called hubs, building application with hubs changes your thinking from a single mobile application task, to thinking creatively about a mobile experience. Its engaging to think of the other brands and industry verticals that will take advantage of this core feature.  Combine this with Windows Phone 7 live tiles, more on that later, and you have a recipe for a solid mobile services platform.                                                              This so much more fun and liberating than my icon on a gridDid you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• F# and the useful infinite Sequence (I think)

  - by MarkPearl

  So I have seen a few posts done by other F# fans on solving project Euler problems. They looked really interesting and I thought with my limited knowledge of F# I would attempt a few and the first one I had a look at was problem 5. Which said : “2520 is the smallest number that can be divided by each of the numbers from 1 to 10 without any remainder. What is the smallest number that is evenly divisible by all of the numbers from 1 to 20?” So I jumped into coding it and straight away got stuck – the C# programmer in me wants to do a loop, starting at one and dividing every number by 1 to 20 to see if they all divide and once a match is found, there is your solution. Obviously not the most elegant way but a good old brute force approach. However I am pretty sure this would not be the F# way…. So after a bit of research I found the Sequences and how useful they were. Sequences seemed like the beginning of an approach to solve my problem. In my head I thought - create a sequence, and then start at the beginning of it and move through it till you find a value that is divisible by 1 to 20. Sounds reasonable? So the question is begged - how would you create a sequence that you are sure will be large enough to hold the solution to the problem? Well… You can’t know! Some more googling and I found what I would call infinite sequences – something that looks like this… let nums = 1 |> Seq.unfold (fun i -> Some (i, i + 1))   My interpretation of this would be as follows… create a sequence, and whenever it is called add 1 to its size (I would appreciate someone helping me on wording this right functionally). Something that I don’t understand fully yet is the forward pipe operator (|>) which I think plays a key role in this code. With this in hand I was able to code a basic optimized solution to this problem. I’m going to go over it some more before I post the full code just in case!

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