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• Tools for Enterprise Architects: OmniGraffle for iPad?

  - by pat.shepherd

  Well, I have to admit to being a bit of an Apple fan and, of course, and early adopter of gadgets and technology in general.  So, when FedEx showed up with my iPad 3G last week, I was a kid in a candy store.  One of the apps that my “buy finger” was hovering over for a while (like all of 3 days) was Omnigraffle for the iPad.  I imagined that it would be very cool to use this with a customer’s EA’s to sketch out Business, Application, Information and Technology architectures.  Instead of using the blackboard, this seemed to offer promise as a white-boarding tool with obvious benefits over a traditional white-board.  I figured I’d get a VGA adapter, plug it into the customer’s projector and off we would go with a great JAD tool.  The touch pad approach offered an additional hands-on kind of feel. So, I made the $49.99 purchase + the $29.99 VGA adapter and tried to give it a go.  Well, I was both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised.  It is both powerful and easy to use.  There are great stencils included for shapes, software icons, Visio shapes, and even UML notation.  There is even a free-hand tool that works well.  I created some diagrams pretty quickly.   The one below was just a test and took all of 10 minuets to do. The only problem was that Onmigraffle does not recognize the VGA output, so I was stopped dead in my tracks, as it were.  My use case was as a collaborative diagramming tool with other architects, though I can still use it off line.  I called Omnigraffle and they said that VGA support is on the feature request list so, hopefully, in a short amount of time, I can use the tool as I envisioned.   Review: Criteria Result Is it fun? Yes Is it Useful? Yes Does it Show Promise? Yes Did the VGA Output Work? No File/diagram Formats PDF, Onmigraffle proprietary, image   Quick Sample:     OmniGraffle for iPad - Products - The Omni Group

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• It is CX a new concept?

  - by Isabel F. Peñuelas

  The Marketing Industry and the Web Industry are talking about CX since some time. However it is only very recently that the concept has reached some common meaning accepted by the analysts’ and the IT community. The new CX model depends on two previous facts: the expansion of the social media, and the impact of the new advanced features of mobile devices regarding brand-customer interaction. CXsers vs UXers First there is some need of disambiguity between User Experience and Customer Experience. User Experience -UX, is a much well established concept related with the design of user interactions for particular devices. UX people are interested on multiple touch points of digital interfaces while CX people are interested on all kind of interfaces including physical ones. UX is an evolution of Web Usability, while CX is a marketing concept. UX is an instrument of User Experience. CX in fact is all about Connections and Interactions. Connections Dan Draper, the creative director Mad Men, understands very well that to market effectively means to connect with people, and the best way to connect to people is to use the connections people have with other people: understanding Social Media connections and taking the customer pulse of customers on those medias, and are strong facilitators of CX strategies.  Interactions We can very simply define CX as the relationship that a customer establishes with a brand through multiple touch points (interactions, channels) through the entire life cycle of his relationship- direct or indirect with the brand. Interactions can be grouped on Customer Journeys through multiple touch points defined as the path a customer follows to achieve a goal. Processes A customer journey today usually starts at the moment he surfs the Web, then he takes a purchase decision; purchases the product;  request a particular service and finally recommends or do not recommends the product.  Customer Journeys are processes, and to analyze customer journeys there exists today a broad offering of modern Customer Journey tools very similar actually to the use cases or UML activity diagrams for IT systems design. As a summary CX is nothing more and nothing less than applying process analysis methods for better understanding how to create value through customer interactions across the multiple user´s touch points with the brand.

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• Best Language for the job? Database | C++, .NET, Java

  - by Randy E

  Ok, quick overview. I'm pretty brand new to software design. I have experience reading and editing/customizing PHP things for online scripts/software; Such as CMS, Wordpress, some forum solutions. I'm about to begin my degree in Software Design, the school I'm going to will allow us to kind of focus on an area, C++, Java, or .NET. I've played around a little with VB over the past week, mostly just trying to get a slight feel for it, however nothing extensive. I've been through Herbert Schildt's "C++, A Beginner's Guide." but I was mainly reading it, not doing anything with it beyond a couple basic Console Apps (and getting frustrated with auto-close :/ ). Now, where I decide to focus more in with my degree will depend on what the best language for the job is for my first piece of software I want to develop on my own. Assume I haven't looked at any of the languages at all, please help with the following: My first piece of software will be a database program. Everything has to do with users inputting and retrieving data, and calling that data to help with another function of the software, automatically calculating billing information based on information inputted in the other portion of the program. I won't go into too many details as I'm targeting a niche that doesn't have too much competition, but the competition that is there is established. I want to offer more features, scalable solutions, and the ability to port it to an online version. Ok, basically, it is a complete case management with integrated billing for Private Investigators. I would like the case management to be able to check the Database to see if certain information has been inputted before (such as Names/SSN's), and then the billing will pull hours inputted in the case portion for investigative work, multiplying by an already inputted amount for the fee, and then calculate sales tax. I also want to provide potential clients with an easily scalable solution, that is, a basic option for start ups that costs the least amount, with no additional users, ran on one machine. A middle option with the ability to create users and place them in two groups (User or Admin), as well as adding a few additional features, ran on one machine, but this will allow it to be accessed after being mapped on a network drive. And a third option to allow the placement into 4 different groups (Investigators, Billing, Managers, Admins) and more features. And then, a couple of years after launch, a 4th option that is browser based allowing the same 4 groups to login, as well as clients (view things concerning their case, with some admin customizable objects that can be added for clients view), over the internet. The only licensing security I would like to employ right off the bat will be serial key generated after ordering online (received in an email after the successful purchase). The program will access a database stored on a server periodically to verify license. I would like it to be able to check to make sure it's the most updated version and automatically update if not.

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• The State of the Internet -- Retail Edition

  - by David Dorf

  Over at Business Insider, there's a great presentation on the State of the Internet done in the Mary Meeker style.  Its 138 slides so I took the liberty of condensing it down to the 15 slides that directly apply to the retail industry.  However, I strongly recommend looking at the entire deck when you have time.  And while you're at it, Business Insider just launched a retail portal that's dedicated to retail industry content.  Please check it out as well.  My take-aways are below after the slide show. &amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span id=&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;XinhaEditingPostion&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; [Source: Business Insider] Here are a few things I took away from the statistics: Facebook and Twitter are in their infancy.  While all retailers should have social programs, search is still the driver and therefore should receive the lions share of investment.  Facebook referrals are up 92% year-over-year, but Google still does 80% of the referrals. E-commerce continues to grow at breakneck speed, but in-store commerce is still king. Stores are not showrooms yet.  And social commerce pure-plays like Gilt and Groupon are tiny but worthy of some attention. There are more smartphones than PCs on the internet, and the disparity will continue to grow. PC growth will be flat and Tablet use will continue to grow. Mobile accounts for 12% of all internet traffic. A quarter of smartphone sales come from China, so anyone with a presence there better have a strong mobile strategy. 38% of people have used their smartphone to make a purchase, and many use their smartphones inside stores.  Smartphones are a critical consumer tool for shopping. Mobile is starting to drive significant traffic to e-commerce sites, especially tablets.  Tablet strategies are crucial for retailers. Mobile payments from the likes of Paypal and Square are growing quickly.  It will be interesting to see how NFC plays in this area. Mobile operating systems are losing market share to iOS and Android.  I wonder in Microsoft can finally make a dent? The internet is being dominated by mobile devices, and retailers had better have a strong mobile strategy to meet consumer demand.

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• What economic books would you suggest for learning about economic valuation of goods and simulations thereof?

  - by Rushyo

  I'm looking to create an economic model for a game based on goods created procedurally. Every natural resource and produced good would be procedurally generated, with certain goods being assigned certain uses. Fakesium might be used for the production of Weapon A and produced from Fakesium factories which use Dilithium and Widgets as reagents, where Widgets are also the product of Foo and Bar The problem is not creating the resources and their various production utlities - but getting the game's AI empires and merchants to (Addendum: somewhat) correctly value the goods according to their scarcity, utility and production costs. I need to create a simulation of goods which allows the various game factions to assign a common value denominator (credits) to each resource, depending on how much its worth to that empire. I see the simulation being something like: "I have a high requirement for Weapon A. Since I don't have much of Fakesium, which is needed for Weapon A - I must have a high demand for Fakesium. If I can acquire Fakesium, devalue it. If not, increase its value - and also increase demand for Dilithium and Widgets too." This is very naive - because it may be much much cheaper for the empire to simply purchase Dilithium and Widgets directly rather than purchasing Fakesium, for example. Another example is two resources might allow the creation of Weapon A (Fakesium and Lieron), so we'd need to consider that. I've been scratching my head over the problem and it keeps growing. By the time the player joins the world, I'd expect enough iterations of this process to have occurred that prices would have largely normalised - and would then only trigger rarely to compensate for major changes (eg. if the player blows up the world's only Foo mine!) Could anyone suggest resources (books, largely) which outline this style of modelling, preferably in the context of simulations? Since this problem would never occur outside fantasy worlds, I figured this is probably the most likely place to find people who have encountered similar problems and I'm sure there's people who know of good places for Games Developers to start looking at less specific economic theory too. Additionally, does anyone know of any developers with blogs whose games or research applications perform similar modelling? EDIT: I think I should underline that I'm not looking for optimal solutions. I'm looking to make the actors impulsive - making rudimentary decisions based on fuzzy inputs about what they care about or don't. I'm aiming to understand the problem area better not derive answers. All the textbooks I've found seem to be about real-world economics or how to solve complex theoretical problems, neither of which are terribly relevant to the actor's decision making.

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• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Azul Brazilian Airlines

  - by me

  Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryAzul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras (Azul Brazilian Airlines) is the third-largest airline in Brazil serving  42 destinations with a fleet of 49 aircraft and employs 4,500 crew members. The company wanted to offer an innovative site with a simple purchasing process for customers to search for and buy tickets and for the company’s marketing team to more effectively conduct its campaigns. To this end, Azul implemented Oracle WebCenter Sites, succeeding in gathering all of the site’s key information onto a single platform. Azul can now complete the Web site content updating process—which used to take approximately 48 hours—in less than five minutes. Company OverviewAzul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras (Azul Brazilian Airlines) has established itself as the third-largest airline in Brazil, based on a business model that combines low prices with a high level of service. Azul serves 42 destinations with a fleet of 49 aircraft. It operates 350 daily flights with a team of 4,500 crew members. Last year, the company transported 15 million passengers, achieving a 10% share of the Brazilian market, according to the Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil (ANAC, or the National Civil Aviation Agency). Business ChallengesThe company wanted to offer an innovative site with a simple purchasing process for customers to search for and buy tickets and for the company’s marketing team to more effectively conduct its campaigns. Provide customers with an  innovative Web site with a simple process for purchasing flight tickets Bring dynamism to the Web site’s content updating process to provide autonomy to the airline’s strategic departments, such as marketing and product development Facilitate integration among the site’s different application providers, such as ticket availability and payment process, on which ticket sales depend Solution DeployedAzul worked with the  Oracle partner TQI to implement Oracle WebCenter Sites, succeeding in gathering all of the site’s key information onto a single platform. Previously, at least three servers and corporate information environments had directed data to the portal. The single Oracle-based platform now facilitates site updates, which are daily and constant. Business Results Gained development freedom in all processes—from implementation to content editing Gathered all of the Web site’s key information onto a single platform, facilitating its daily and constant updating, whereas the information was previously spread among at least three IT environments and had to go through a complex process to be made available online to customers Reduced time needed to update banners and other Web site content from an average of 48 hours to less than five minutes Simplified the flight ticket sales process thanks to tool flexibility that enabled the company to improve Website usability “Oracle WebCenter Sites provides an easy-to-use platform that enables our marketing department to spend less time updating content and more time on innovative activities. Previously, it would take 48 hours to update content on our Web site; now it takes less than five minutes. We have shown the market that we are innovators, enabling customer convenience through an improved flight ticket purchase process.” Kleber Linhares, Information Technology and E-Commerce Director, Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras Additional Information Azul Brazilian Airlines Case Study Oracle WebCenter Sites Oracle WebCenter Sites Satellite Server

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• Two New CRM USER Communities just launched

  - by Divya Malik

  Here comes an announcement from Chris Gallen, from our Support Services team. For those of you who are EBS CRM users, here are two new recently launched communities that are now available to discuss topics that are important to you. These communities are for Sales & Marketing and  Telesales  The Sales & Marketing community is open to discuss a wide range of topics from Oracle Sales, Sales Online, Territory Management, Partner Management, Leads Management, Sales Offline, Sales for Handhelds, Sales Foundation, and Oracle Marketing. Some possible topics include Oracle Sales Implementations, TCA and DQM Integrations, Territory Management Setups and Definitions, Product Catalog Integrations, Sales Forecasting, Lead and Opportunity management, Sales Manager and Sales User responsibilities and Reports, Resource Management including Roles and Groups, Oracle Sales Personalizations, Concurrent Requests for Sales Reps and Sales Manager Dashboards, Integration with Quoting, Proposals, General Ledger, Advanced Product Catalog, CRM Resource Administration, etc. The Telesales community is available to discuss topics such as Customer/Org/Person/Party Relationships, TCA/DQM Integration, Lead and Opportunity Management, Universal Work Queue, Universal Search Features, Purchase Items/Product Integration, eBusiness Center Setup Issues, Interactions, Tasks and Notes Integrations, and Form Personalizations. How Can You Get Started? Here are the two ways to get engaged. A) Click here to access all our communities  OR B) My Oracle Support as follows: Log into My Oracle Support (Flash or Classic).                                                                                                                           Click the "Community" link at the top of the page. Click [Enter Here] on the following page. Select the community from the "My Communities" list on the top-left. Take advantage TODAY!

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• Innovation for Retailers

  - by David Dorf

  One of my main objectives for this blog is to point out emerging technologies and how they might apply to the retail industry.  But ideas are just the beginning; retailers either have to rely on vendors or have their own lab to explore these ideas and see which ones work.  (A healthy dose of both is probably the best solution.)  The Nordstrom Innovation Lab is a fine example of dedicating resources to cultivate ideas and test prototypes. The video below, from 2011, is a case study in which the team builds an iPad app that helps customers purchase sunglasses in the store.  Customers take pictures of themselves wearing different sunglasses, then can do side-by-side comparisons. There are a few interesting take-aways from their process.  First, they are working in the store alongside employees and customers.  There's no concept of documenting all the requirements then building the product.  Instead, they work closely with those that will be using the app in order to fully understand what's needed.  When they find an issue, they change the software onsite and try again.  This iterative prototyping ensures their product hits the mark.  Feels like Extreme Programming if you recall that movement. Second, they have time-boxed the project to one week.  Either it works or it doesn't, and either way they've only expended a week's worth of resources.  Innovation always entails failure, and those that succeed are often good at detecting failure quickly then adjusting.  Fail fast and fail often. Third, its not always about technology.  I was impressed they used paper designs to walk through user stories and help understand the needs of the customer.  Pen and paper is the innovator's most powerful tool. Our Retail Applied Research (RAR) team uses some of these concepts in our development process.  (Calling it a process is probably overkill.)  We try to give life to concepts quickly so the rest of organization can help us decide if we're heading the right direction.  It takes many failures before finding a successful product.

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• Is IE9 a modern browser?

  - by anirudha

  Is IE9 a modern browser? i show you a post who compare IE as well as they compare chrome. Is IE9 a modern browser? well Are you thing that they make something bettter then thing another that what Firefox and chrome do whenever Microsoft do this. that's point that Microsoft always blast IE because they make version upon version not upon update like Firefox make 3.6.14 after 3.6.13 and chrome give update soon as possible but IE not come soon. they will thing for making 10 instead of giving update on 9. well what they tell us new. they make fool public everytime i believe they make fool public as same as today they maked for version 9 they show developer tool in 9 have three new tabs or pael are this enough. whenever  in chrome and firefox their is many plugin who make development easier IE still have a developer tool who not have enough power like Firebug in Firefox. they show performance but forget luna user [window xp] and their IE never runs on other plateform but chrome and firefox can. no customization in IE whenever chrome and firefox have uncountable plugin and addons. show features now in IE who already implemented in firefox very early. well their is no rule that static goes right every time not sure that IE and Firefox both are right in their language. their is no one predict what thing goes better in future. so well keep a thing in mind never wasted time and also thing to make task easier even you need to use sollution opensource or closesoure inside or outside MS does not matter. well everyone tell you much more then they do even IE and some other. they never tell you this thing not in IE but in another can be found they never tell you use other whenever you need a thing and never can be found in their software. you need to more beware of IE because they make them commorcial not really for public if really then why they stop wxp user to use them as well firefox and chrome never force. because they need a thing that force more then more copy of windows sale. so they thing to add a thing in window 8. the IE9 they thing to make before that they thing to make  this for windows 8. they always force user to purchase this for this. this for this. and this trick sell their software. well outside MS Mozilla and Chrome all behave better with user and their feedback. they respect user their privacy and feedback. if you not believe that how much problem you found in IE and they got solved soon as in chrome and firefox bug kill soon. because IE not opensource we need to  boycutt them secondly their is no customization then they make user task easier even with twitter and facebook.

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• So Much Happening at Devoxx

  - by Tori Wieldt

  Devoxx, the premier Java conference in Europe, has been sold out for a while. The organizers (thanks Stephan and crew!) cap the attendance to make sure all attendees have a great experience, and that speaks volumes about their priorities. The speakers, hackathons, labs, and networking are all first class. The Oracle Technology Network will be there, and if you were smart/lucky enough to get a ticket, come find us and join the fun: IoT Hack Fest Build fun and creative Internet of Things (IoT) applications with Java Embedded, Raspberry Pi and Leap Motion on the University Days (Monday and Tuesday). Learn from top experts Yara & Vinicius Senger and Geert Bevin at two Raspberry Pi & Leap Motion hands-on labs and hacking sessions. Bring your computer. Training and equipment will be provided. Devoxx will also host an Internet of Things shop in the exhibition floor where attendees can purchase Arduino, Raspberry PI and Robot starter kits. Bring your IoT wish list! Video Interviews Yolande Poirier and I will be interviewing members of the Java Community in the back of the Expo hall on Wednesday and Thursday. Videos are posted on Parleys and YouTube/Java. We have a few slots left, so contact me (you can DM @Java) if you want to share your insights or cool new tip or trick with the rest of the developer community. (No commercials, no fluff. Keep it techie and keep it real.)  Oracle Keynote Wednesday morning Mark Reinhold, Chief Java Platform Architect, and Brian Goetz, Java Language Architect will provide an update on Java 8 and beyond. Oracle Booth Drop by the Oracle booth to see old and new friends.  We'll have Java in Action demos and the experts to explain them and answer your questions. We are raffling off Raspberry Pi's each day, so be sure to get your badged scanned. We'll have beer in the booth each evening. Look for @Java in her lab coat.  See you at Devoxx! 

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• In-Store Tracking Gets a Little Harder

  - by David Dorf

  Remember how Nordstrom was tracking shopper movements within their stores using the unique number, called a MAC, emitted by the WiFi radio in smartphones?  The phones didn't need to connect to the network, only have their WiFi enabled, as most people do by default.  They did this, presumably, to track shoppers' path to purchase and better understand traffic patterns.  Although there were signs explaining this at the entrances, people didn't like the notion of being tracked.  (Nevermind that there are cameras in the ceiling watching them.)  Nordstrom stopped the program. To address this concern the Future of Privacy, a Washington think tank, created Smart Store Privacy, a do-not-track service that allows consumers to register their MAC address in much the same way people register their phone numbers in the national do-not-call list.  A group of companies agreed to respect consumers' wishes and ignore smartphones listed in the database.  The database includes Bluetooth identifiers as well.  Of course you could simply turn your bluetooth and WiFi off when shopping as well. Most know that Apple prefers to use BLE beacons to contact and track smartphones within their stores.  This feature extends the typical online experience to also work in physical stores.  By identifying themselves, shoppers can expect a more tailored shopping experience much like what we've come to expect from Amazon's website, with product recommendations and offers that are (usually) relevant. But the upcoming release of iOS8 is purported to have a new feature that randomizes the WiFi MAC address of smartphones during the "probing" phase.  That is, before connecting to the WiFi network, a random MAC number is used so as to keep the smartphone's real MAC address secret.  Unless you actually connect to the store's WiFi, they won't recognize the MAC address. The details on this are still sketchy, but if the random MAC is consistent for a short period, retailers will still be able to track movements anonymously, but they won't recognize repeat visitors.  That may be sufficient for traffic analytics, but it will stymie target marketing.  In the case of marketing, using iBeacons with opt-in permission from consumers will be the way forward. There is always a battle between utility and privacy, so I expect many more changes in this area.  Incidentally, if you'd like to see where beacons are being used this site tracks them around the world.

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• Keeping your options open in a cloud solution

  - by BuckWoody

  In on-premises solutions we have the full range of options open for a given computing solution – but we don’t always take advantage of them, for multiple reasons. Data goes in a Relational Database Management System, files go on a share, and e-mail goes to the Exchange server. Over time, vendors (including ourselves) add in functionality to one product that allow non-standard use of the platform. For example, SQL Server (and Oracle, and others) allow large binary storage in or through the system – something not originally intended for an RDBMS to handle. There are certainly times when this makes sense, of course, but often these platform hammers turn every problem into a nail. It can make us “lazy” in our design – we sometimes don’t take the time to learn another architecture because the one we’ve spent so much time with can handle what we want to do. But there’s a distinct danger here. In nature, when a population shares too many of the same traits, it can cause a complete collapse if a situation exploits a weakness shared by that population. The same is true with not using the righttool for the job in a computing environment. Your company or organization depends on your knowledge as a professional to select the best mix of supportable, flexible, cost-effective technologies to solve their problems, whether you’re in an architect role or not.  So take some time today to learn something new. The way I do this is to select a given problem, and try to solve it with a technology I’m not familiar with. For instance – create a Purchase Order system in Excel, then in Hadoop or MongoDB, or even in flat-files using PowerShell as an interface. No, I’m not suggesting any of these architectures are the proper way to solve the PO problem, but taking something concrete that you know well and applying that meta-knowledge to another platform will assist you in exercising the “little grey cells” and help you and your organization understand what is open to you. And of course you can do all of this on-premises – but my recommendation is to check out a cloud platform (my suggestion would of course be Windows Azure :) ) and try it there. Most providers (including Microsoft) provide free time to do that.

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• Determining whether a visitor reached two different pages in one visit

  - by Shaun

  I have a funnel that I would like to track. Tracking this funnel won't work with the default "goal funnel" tracking in Google due to the fact that I am mixing events and pageviews. As such, I've created a series of reports: Visits to demo pages - An inclusion filter on "Page". Triggers an Event on these pages - An inclusion filter on "Page" and "Event Category". Does not bounce - An inclusion filter on "Page" and an exclusion filter on "Exit Page" for these same pages. Reach our storefront - ?? Purchase something - An inclusion filter on "Page" and a report that shows "Transactions". At a basic level, I need to track users who reached demo pages, then reached any page on our store. Intuitively, I created a segment, used two inclusive "Page" filters (one for the demo pages and one for any page in our store), and combined them with an "AND" operator. I thought this was working until I tried to do the same thing in a dashboard widget and on a custom report. When I tried the same thing in those areas, I got zero results. I figured this might be because widgets and custom report filters function differently from segment filters (the options are different for all of them), so I tried applying my "demo page && store page" segment to a report that gave me a general page list. All I saw was a list of the specific pages. I tried simplifying things by creating a custom report that showed all visits to store pages, then applied a segment that filtered for users who visited demo pages. This got me the same numbers as my "demo page && store page" segment, but showed a list of demo pages. This has led me to believe that the "demo page && store page segment" approach and the "demo segment && store report" functionally behave the same. However, this experience has left me questioning whether they're giving me what I want. Are these methods showing me all users who reached both sets of pages? Is there a better/easier/more standard way of doing this aside from looking at visitor flow reports? I'm trying to avoid a combination of custom variables/events and using the horizontal funnel approach since it would consume a large number of our limited goals and seems more complicated than is necessary for tracking this funnel.

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• Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 3: Key Concerns

  - by Tim Murphy

  This is part 3 in a series of posts based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. Keys Concerns Of Smartphones In The Enterprise These are the factors that you need to be aware of and address in order to build successful enterprise smartphone applications.  Most of them have nothing to do with the application itself as you will see here. Managing Devices Managing devices is a factor that is going to effect how much your company will have to spend outside of developing the applications.  How will you track the devices within the corporation?  How often will you have to replace phones and as a consequence have to upgrade your applications to support new phones?  The devices can represent a significant investment of capital.  If these questions are not addressed you will find a number of hidden costs throughout the life of your solution. Purchase or BYOD We have seen the trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) lately within the enterprise.  How many meetings have you been in where someone is on their personal iPad, iPhone, Android phone or Windows Phone?  The issue is if you can afford to support everyone's choice in device? That is a lot to take on even if you only support the current release of each platform. Do you go with the most popular device or do you pick a platform that best matches your current ecosystem and distribute company owned devices?  There is no easy answer here, but you should be able give some dollar value to both hardware and development costs related to platform coverage. Asset Tracking/Insurance Smartphones are devices that are easier to lose or have stolen than laptops and desktops. Not only do you have your normal asset management concerns but also assignment of financial responsibility. You also will need to insure them against damage and theft and add legal documents that spell out the responsibilities of the employees that use these devices. Personal vs. Corporate Data What happens when you terminate an employee?  How do you recover the device?  What happens when they have put personal data on the device?  These are all situation that can cause possible loss of corporate intellectual property or legal repercussions of reclaiming a device with personal data on it.  Policies need to be put in place that protect the company from being exposed to type of loss.  This can mean significant legal and procedural cost that you need to consider. Coming Up In the last installment of this series I will cover application development considerations. del.icio.us Tags: Smartphones,Enterprise Smartphone Apps,Architecture

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• Windows Server 2003 Trial Activation Issue

  - by Adam Batkin

  I have a Windows Server 2003 (R2 Enterprise with SP2) VM, originally installed with a trial license. We forgot about the server, and now more than 120 days has passed, and I can't do anything with the server. I seem to be at a dead end with the existing installation. When I log in, I get: The evaluation period for this copy of Windows has ended. Windows cannot start. To continue using Windows, please purchase and install a retail copy of the product. Fine. I'll do that with my MSDN media. I should add that safe mode works, but there isn't anything obvious that I found to help me there Next up, I tried repairing my installation: Boot from Server 2003 R2 Enterprise with SP2 media, tell it I want to install (as opposed to recovery console), then let it repair the existing install. Once that completes and reboots I log in: This copy of Windows must be activated with Microsoft before you can continue. You cannot log on until you activate Windows. Do you want to activate Windows now? To shut down the computer, click Cancel. Great! I click "Yes" and am left with a big blue screen. Not a blue screen of death, just a blue screen (i.e. the default windows desktop background color). No Ctrl+Alt+Del. All I can do is power cycle. I have some complex third-party software on there that I can't reinstall, which is why I haven't already built a fresh Windows VM and copied everything over. I have a backup of the VM from after trial period expired but before I installed anything. Ideas?

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• Router for creating site to site VPN to server provider using Cisco ASA 5540

  - by fondie

  We have dedicated servers hosted for us by a third party, we connect to these over a VPN. My server provider uses Cisco ASA 5540 as VPN devices. Currently we're using software clients on individual machines to connect to this VPN, either: Cisco VPN Client Shrew Soft VPN Connect However, I'm looking to purchase a new load balancing router for our office and thought this could be an opportunity to get VPN client duties taken over by hardware. We could then create a permanent VPN tunnel that could be used by anyone on the network with no software client necessary. Sadly I'm not the most knowledgeable on this kind of stuff so is: 1) This a realizable goal? Next I need to know what kind of hardware I will need. I'm not looking to spend lots of money on this (~$500), so doubtful I can afford any Cisco kit. Therefore, this is the most promising candidate I've seen (as far as my limited knowledge goes): Draytek Vigor 2955 - http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/vigor2955.html 2) Would this be compatible with the Cisco kit my server provider uses? 3) If not, are there any alternatives I should consider? Many thanks in advance.

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• Use RAID for desktop computer?

  - by NickAldwin

  I'm building a new computer over the summer. I'm fairly competent in computer hardware, and am thus building the computer from scratch. I have everything planned out, but I was wondering if I should consider RAID/what RAID to use. I plan to purchase 2x1TB drives. Currently I'm leaning toward RAID 1 for the redundancy -- I've heard newer super-capacity drives fail more often than one would think, and I don't want to have a problem and lose all my data. What do you think? My mobo supports RAID 0/1/5/10. Is it worth it to use RAID at all, or should I just use a backup service like Mozy? Should I consider RAID 0 instead, for the performance? I'm kind-of going back and forth on this one. Thanks a lot for your help. EDIT: I'd like to avoid the OS drive different from Data drive situation, because that can get frustrating when programs like to store a lot of data in their program files folder. I've lived with that situation before and it gets annoying after a while.

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• Advice needed: ADSL and VPN for a small company

  - by Saajid Ismail

  Hi. I need advice on purchasing an ADSL modem/router for a small company. At the moment, we are using the iBurst Wireless service for internet connectivity. I have the iBurst desktop modem, which connects to my Netgear WNR2000 router via ethernet. I am using the Netgear WNR2000 to deploy a wireless network as well. I have also set up a VPN using Windows Server 2003, and enabled the VPN Passthrough settings on the Netgear router. I am able to connect to the office network remotely without difficulty. However the problem that I've read is that the Netgear WNR2000 only supports VPN passthrough for a single session. This is simply not good enough. I need to be able to support at least 3 concurrent VPN connections immediately, and up to 5 in the near future. Now I am cancelling my iBurst Wireless service and have just got my ADSL line installed. I have to purchase an ADSL modem, and now is a good time to think of future proofing my investment. I need a good ADSL modem, that will allow me to support at least 5 concurrent VPN connections, or more, without breaking the bank. My budget is about 150-200 USD. I believe that my current Netgear WNR2000 router will be useless, except maybe to extend my wireless network in the future by a bit. Is there a solution where I can still use my Netgear WNR2000 for WiFi, for e.g., by connecting a cheaper non-WiFi ADSL modem to the Netgear router? If not, then which WiFi-enabled ADSL modem/router that supports at least 5 VPN passthroughs can you recommend? To sum it up, I need an ADSL modem/router that is: ADSL & ADSL2+ compatible has built-in 802.11n 270/300mbps WiFi (if having this feature doesn't push the price up too much) supports at least 5 VPN connections using VPN passthrough EDIT: Answer 2.10 in the following FAQ has me a bit worried - What is VPN/multiple VPN Pass-through?

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• ISA Server 2006 SSL Certificate Dilemma

  - by JohnyD

  I'm making so great headway in offering our services over https with help from a Go Daddy certificate, later to be upgraded to Thawte SSL123 certs. But, I've just run into one whopper of a problem. Here's my setup: I run an ISA 2006 firewall. Our web services are distributed over 2 servers. One is Windows 2000 (www.domain.com) and the other is Windows 2003 (services.domain.com). So, I'll need to purchase 2 certs for both www and services, import them into IIS6 on their respective machines, then export them with the primary key (making sure to Include all certificates in the certification path if possible... that had me stumped for a while), and then to finally import them into ISA's local computer Personal store. The problem I've just run into is that I have separate firewall rules for services.domain.com and www.domain.com... because requests need to be forwarded to different web servers. Each of these firewall rules use the same httplistener. I have just found out that you can only use 1 certificate per httplistener. To make matters worse you can only have a single httplistener per ip / port. Is this correct? I can only use a single certificate for a single ip address? This would seem to be a severe limitation. Am I wrong? If I'm not then I've got a whole lot more work ahead of me as I'll have to set up extra ip's, add them to the firewall's network interface, create new listeners using that ip, etc... Can someone please confirm that I'm doing this correctly / incorrectly? Once I got my head wrapped around it all it seemed easy... then this. Thanks in advance.

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• Hardware Requirements & Tuning - Flash Media Server 3.5 Interactive

  - by Anthony Kanago

  I am trying to spec out a server to purchase (physically, not rented from someone like softlayer.com) to run an intranet instace of Flash Media Server 3.5 Interactive. In general, the server will likely be fielding somewhere on the order of 400 connections at a time at the upper limit. Of course, should this increase, we don't want to be stuck. While the decision is not final, we will likely be running the server on Red Hat rather than Windows. The server will be run on gigabit ethernet. I have two related questions: What sort of hardware would I need realistically to support this? What advice can you offer for settings in tuning FMS/the OS to be performant to this level? We are looking for a bare minimum that will run this effectively to save on costs. Realistically, the average number of connections will be fairly low (50-150) by comparison with that upper limit estimate. To reiterate: we just want to be cautious in not getting caught when we need more power, but we also need a low-cost solution (doesn't everyone?) and that may take priority. Windows and RedHat are the two officially supported operating systems. Since FMS is stated to be 32-bit only, I'm sticking with a 32-bit OS. The hardware requirements listed by Adobe on their website are: 3.2GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 processor (dual Intel Xeon® or faster recommended) 2GB of RAM (4GB recommended) 1Gb Ethernet card So what realistically do I need for those sorts of connection numbers, and what can I due to tune things up to get more out of less hardware? Thanks!

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• EEE PC Keyboard malfunctioning - Ctrl key "sticks" after 10 seconds

  - by DWilliams

  I was given a EEE PC belonging to a friend of a friend to fix. The keyboard did not appear to work at all. I spent a while testing out various things, blowing the keyboard out, checking for damage, and so on. Nothing appeared to be physically wrong. At first I noticed that the keyboard appeared to work just fine for 10 seconds (on average, sometimes more sometimes less) after being powered on. It had been restored to the factory default xandros installation with no user set up, so I couldn't get in to mess with things since I couldn't type to make a user. I made an ubuntu live USB to boot it from, and managed to get the boot order changed to boot from USB in the ~10 seconds of working keyboard I had (I don't think I've ever had to rush around BIOS menus that quickly). After I got Ubuntu up on it, I played around a bit more and determined that apparently the ctrl key is stuck down (not literally, but it's on all the time). If I open gedit, pressing the "o" key brings the open dialog, "s" opens the save dialog, and all other behaviour you would expect to see if you were holding down the control key. The only exception that I noticed is the "9" and "0" keys. They function normally. Figuring that out I made a xandros user with a name/password consisting of 9's and 0's. I couldn't find any options in Xandros that could potentially be helpful. I'm not familiar with EEE PCs. Is it safe to assume that the keyboard is simply dead or could there be another problem? I don't want to purchase another keyboard for him if that isn't going to fix the problem. The netbook doesn't show any obvious signs of damage but the owner is a biker and very often has it with him on the road so it's been subjected to a good bit of vibration.

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• Domino to Exchange 2007 (or 2010) Design Concerns?

  - by NickToyota

  Today we got the executive green light to proceed with changing from a Domino platform to Exchange. The business prefers Exchange for a messaging platform. (even though IMO IBM Domino is fine - if it aint broke, don't fix it but it was not my call). I have been put in charge of Domino to Exchange process goes smoothly as possible. I have also been told to put together costs for this project. I have some questions and concerns re: network design, licensing, costs: The current setup is as follows. 1 HQ office (100 users), 1 secondary office (50 users), 5 branch offices (under 10 users). 5 different email domains Windows Server 2003 functional level with a few 2008 R2 Servers Lotus Domino Notes Servers (one in each office) Ironmail Appliance Public Domino Web Mail server Majority G5+ Proliant Servers Domino Blackberry Enterprise license and server No VoIP phones What are the basic hardware requirements for Exchange 2007 or 2010? Can I simply purchase a single physical server? Will each office require an Exchange server or possibly additional servers (roles)? How is email routed to the smaller branch offices? Standard or Enterprise licenses? The business has been running Domino (messaging and application services) for over 10 years and also want Exchange to support email services, Blackberry, Outlook Web Access, possibly support for iPhone devices. Thank you Serverfault universe.

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• Skype Connect as SIP/Trunk for Asterisk

  - by Kaurin

  First off: I'm not sure if this should be on superuser or here. I have recently built a few Asterisk boxes with OpenVOX FXO/FXS ports little or no trouble. My current project is building an Asterisk box with SIP trunks. My current employer insisted on getting Skype Business/Skype connect for that purpose. After reviewing the Skype Connect plan, I agreed, because I thought it is going to be straightforward: Purchase G729 licences and setup SIP trunk/trunks. Boy was i wrong :) Here is the setup: The setup is for calling US numbers only via skype (we got skype US minute bundles in skype connect) AsteriskNOW - Asterisk 1.4 + asterisk-gui Trunks: SIP Trunk configured with Skype Connect - shows as registered Users: 2 test extensions. Both work fine when calling each other, voicemail etc works fine too The asterisk box is behind a Mikrotik router which i configured to forward all relevant ports: 5060-5090 UDP, 10000-20000 UDP. When trying out an extension outside of my LAN, it worked. I could make calls to the other extension. Outgoing rule: _NXXXXXXXXX Strip:0 Prepend:+1 Use skype trunk Inbound rule: Trunk: Skype Pattern: s Destination: Extension1 (6210) Here is the output of asterisk CLI (-rvvvvv) with outgoing calls: http://pastebin.com/eWVpL72e you can see the circuit-busy response when using trunk1 (skype) When calling my Skype Connect number from the outside, I get nothing in the logs. Can anyone with Skype Connect / Asterisk experience help out? :)

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• Restoring open software after a restart event in windows

  - by Doltknuckle

  I find that at the end of a long day, I sometimes have a large number of programs running. All which I will need to use tomorrow. Normally, this isn't an issue, I can simply lock the machine and come back tomorrow. My problem arrises when windows update launches in the middle of the night and force restarts my computer. That in turns closes all my open software. I of course save everything regularly so I don't loose anything, but I waste time reopening all of those resources whenever there is a restart. [EDIT] I should clarify that I still want to be able to restart my computer when an update comes down. Preventing the restart only delays the problem until later. I should have been more specific in that I want to be able to recover my working environment after a restart for any reason. Things like scheduled maintence, power loss, updates, and software installs. [EDIT] I can't simply have them setup to launch at startup becasuse those files change from week to week. So I need something that monitors what I have open, and gives me the option to "recover" those software sessions when I log back in. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do? I'd even be willing to purchase software to do this for me if that is the only option. Thanks

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• Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances: "Heavy Utilization" clarification

  - by gravyface

  Should be another easy one here, but I need clarification on what they define as "heavy utilization" for Reserved Instance types. From their Website: Heavy Utilization RIs – Heavy Utilization RIs offer the most absolute savings of any Reserved Instance type. They’re most appropriate for steady-state workloads where you’re willing to commit to always running these instances in exchange for our lowest hourly usage fee. With this RI, you pay a little higher upfront payment than Medium Utilization RIs, a significantly lower hourly usage fee, and you’re charged that lower hourly rate for every hour in the Reserved Instance term you purchase. Using Heavy Utilization RIs, you can save up to 41% for a 1-year term and 58% for a 3-year term vs. running On-Demand Instances. If you’re trying to find a break-even utilization, you’re economically advantaged using Heavy Utilization RIs (vs. On-Demand Instances) if you plan to use your instance more than 43% of a 1-year term or 79% of a 3-year term. I'm assuming that, if I'm planning on running a 24/7 Web Server, then regardless of how many resources I consume (bandwidth, cpu cycles, memory), I would want to go with a Heavy Utilization Reserved Instance? This one Web Server in particular will likely barely budge the cpu, but it needs to be up and running 24/7. Not 100% on what they're defining as "heavy".

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