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• March 2010 Chicago Architects Group Wrap Up

  - by Tim Murphy

  I would like to thank everyone who came out to last night’s event and especially thank Mike Vogt for the presentation. I think at first everyone glassed over since very few of us spend a lot of time with Integration Architecture and most of us live more in the application architecture space.  Learning about subject like BPEL and BPMN was refreshing. The discussion after Mike’s talk was lively and I think that everyone came away with a good idea of areas they might want to know more about.  People stuck around long after the meeting was over. If you are interested in the topic you can find the slides here. Be sure to join us next month when Matt Hidinger talks about Onion Architecture.  Details are coming soon. del.icio.us Tags: CAG,Chicago Architects Group

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• TechEd 2012: Day 3 &ndash; Build Me A Solution

  - by Tim Murphy

  While digesting my lunch it was time to digest some TFS Build information. While much of my time is spent wearing my developer’s hat I am still a jack of all trades and automated builds are an important aspect of any project.  Because of this I was looking forward to finding out what new features are available in the latest release of Team Foundation Server. The first feature that caught my attention is the TFS Admin Client.  After being used to dealing with NAnt in the past it is nice to see a build a configuration GUI that is so flexible and well thought out.  The bonus is that it the tools that are incorporated in Visual Studio 2012 are just as feature rich.  Life is good. Since automated builds are the hub of your development process in a continuous integration shop I was really interested in the process related options. The biggest value add that I noticed was merge gated check-ins.  Merge or batch gated check-ins are an interesting concept.  If the build breaks with all the changes then TFS will run separate builds for each of the check-ins.  This ability to identify the actual offending check-in can save a lot of time and gray hair. The safari of TFS Build that was this session was packed with attractions.  How do you set it up builds, what are the different flavors of builds, how does the system report how the build went?  I would suggest anyone who is responsible for build automation spend some serious time with TFS 2012 and VS2012. del.icio.us Tags: Team Foundation Server 2012,TFS,Build,TechEd,TechEd 2012,Visual Studio 2012

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• Oracle at Logicon 2010

  - by [email protected]

  Oracle will be a premiere sponsor of this year's Logicon event, May 4th and 5th in Atlanta. Attendees of the event will hear a keynote address from Oracle's Vice President of Supply Chain, Maha Muzumdar, as he, along with Eaton Corporation's Vice President of IT, John Gercak, explore what market trends are causing the most significant impact on today's businesses and what organizations are doing to address and take advantage of those trends.   In addition, Oracle is sponsoring a customer and prospect dinner at the Atlanta Grill, rated by Zagat as Atlanta's #1 downtown and southern cuisine restaurant.   Additional event details can be found on WBR's website;http://www.wbresearch.com/logiconusa/

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• There is no on button showing in gnome shell extension

  - by Murphy

  How to enable gnome shell extension?. When i click on gnome shell extension there is no ON button showing advanced settings -- shell extensions. In a youtube video I saw there is one ON button to enable shell extensions. i have allready installed gnome tweak tool and everything.. I have want to use user themes for gnome shell, but I am having troubles. I installed the user theme extension, but it doesn't appear to show up under the gnome tweak tool. To confirm that I have the user themes extension installed, here is the feedback I get when I try to install it through terminal again:

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• 200th Post

  - by Tim Murphy

  I didn’t break any speed records getting getting to 200 posts, but I am here.  So what is the prize for getting here?  You have to put out the obligatory post announcing the achievement.  It also means that it is time to put “Yes, I’m a geek” on your business card.  Well, there it is.  Now go about your business.  Nothing to see here. del.icio.us Tags: 200th post

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• Open XML SDK 2 Released

  - by Tim Murphy

  Note: Cross posted from Coding The Document. Permalink This post is a little late since the SDK was released about a week ago.  At PSC we have been using the Open XML SDK 2 since its earliest beta.  It is a very powerful tool for generating documents without using the Office DLLs.  It is also the main technology that I have been working with for the last six months.  I would suggest giving it a try.  Stay tuned here.  In the near future I will be presenting at different locations on this and other document generation technologies. Download the Open XML SDK here. del.icio.us Tags: Office Open XML,Open XML SDK 2

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• Is It Time To Specialize?

  - by Tim Murphy

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/18/is-it-time-to-specialize.aspx Over my career I have made a living as a generalist.  I have been a jack of all trades and a master of none.  It has served me well in that I am able to move from one technology to the other quickly and make myself productive.  Where it becomes a problem is deep knowledge.  I am constantly digging for the things that aren’t basic knowledge.  How do you make a product like WCF or Windows RT do more than just “Hello World”? As an architect I need to be a jack of all trades.  This is what helps me to bring the big picture of a project into focus for developers with different skills to accomplish the goals of the project. It is a key when the mix technologies crosses Windows, Unix and Mainframe with different languages and databases.  The larger the company that the project is for the more likely this scenario will arise. As a consultant and a developer I need to have specialized skills in order to get the job done efficiently.  if I have a SharePoint or Windows Phone project knowing the object model details and possible roadblocks of the technology allow me to stay within budgets as well as better advise the client on technology decisions. What is the solution?  Constant learning and associating with developers who specialize in a variety of technologies is the best thing you can do.  You may have thought you were done with classes when you left college, but in this industry you need to constantly be learning new products and languages.  The ultimate answer is you must generally specialize.  Learn as many subject areas as possible, but go deep when ever you can.  Sleep is overrated.  Good luck. del.icio.us Tags: software development,software architecture,specialization,generalist

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• April 2010 Chicago Architects Group Meeting

  - by Tim Murphy

  The Chicago Architects Group will be holding its next meeting on April 20th.  Please come and join us and get involved in our architect community. Register Presenter: Matt Hidinger Topic: Onion Architecture      Location: Illinois Technology Association 200 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 1500 Room A/B Chicago, IL 60606 Time: 5:30 - Doors open at 5:00 del.icio.us Tags: Chicago Architects Group,Data Integration Architecture,Mike Vogt

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• Oracle Transportation Management Annual Customer Conference

  - by [email protected]

  The 2010 Oracle Transportation Management (OTM) Conference will be held June 13-16 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The conference brings together all things OTM: users, prospective users, development personnel, product strategy, implementation experts, and software and services partners.  With over 200 attendees, this conference is the premiere location and time to learn about OTM, build relationships with peers, and get answers to all your OTM questions.    This year's conference will be held at the: Sheraton Society Hill, One Dock St., Philadelphia, PA. 19106Companies speaking at this year's event include:AT&T Land O Lakes BlueScope Steel Baillie Lumber Kraft Sears Roseburg Forest Products Toyota Beckman CoulterLevi StraussNiagara BottlingSmurfit StonePQ CorporationOffice Depot               To register click here http://www.otmconference.com/ConfAgenda.aspx.  1

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• Chmod 777 to a folder and all contents on Apache web server

  - by Ryan Murphy

  I have just got new hosting for my website and I have a directory /www which I put all my website files within and a folder in that directory called 'store'. Within 'store' is several files and folders, I want to give the folder 'store' and all files and folders within the 'store' folder all permissions. How do I do this? I am guessing via .htaccess. I have tried inserting chmod 777 -R /store Into the .htaccess file but didn't work. Threw a big on screen error at me. I want to make all the files and folders within /store writable.

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• New Windows Phone 7 Stencil For Cacoo

  - by Tim Murphy

  I have created a stencil for wire framing Windows Phone 7 application in Cacoo.  This is definitely a work in progress, but until it is complete I would suggest combining this stencil with the Android stencil that is available by default in Cacoo.  Below are a couple of screen shots of the stencil so far. First here is what the stencil window looks like currently. Taking a closer look the main device frame is illustrated below Lastly is the button pallet which contains the icons from the Windows Phone toolkit. Check back and see more as other general controls are added to speed mocking your applications.  You can find the stencil here. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone 7,Cacoo,Stencil,Design

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• Copying A Slide From One Presentation To Another

  - by Tim Murphy

  There are many ways to generate a PowerPoint presentation using Open XML.  The first way is to build it by hand strictly using the SDK.  Alternately you can modify a copy of a base presentation in place.  The third approach to generate a presentation is to build a new presentation from the parts of an existing presentation by copying slides as needed.  This post will focus on the third option. In order to make this solution a little more elegant I am going to create a VSTO add-in as I did in my previous post.  This one is going to insert Tags to identify slides instead of NonVisualDrawingProperties which I used to identify charts, tables and images.  The code itself is fairly short. SlideNameForm dialog = new SlideNameForm(); Selection selection = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ActiveWindow.Selection;   if(dialog.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK) { selection.SlideRange.Tags.Add(dialog.slideName,dialog.slideName); } Zeyad Rajabi has a good post here on combining slides from two presentations.  The example he gives is great if you are doing a straight merge.  But what if you want to use your source file as almost a supermarket where you pick and chose slides and may even insert them repeatedly?  The following code uses the tags we created in the previous step to pick a particular slide an copy it to a destination file. using (PresentationDocument newDocument = PresentationDocument.Open(OutputFileText.Text,true)) { PresentationDocument templateDocument = PresentationDocument.Open(FileNameText.Text, false);   uniqueId = GetMaxIdFromChild(newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideMasterIdList); uint maxId = GetMaxIdFromChild(newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideIdList);   SlidePart oldPart = GetSlidePartByTagName(templateDocument, SlideToCopyText.Text);   SlidePart newPart = newDocument.PresentationPart.AddPart<SlidePart>(oldPart, "sourceId1");   SlideMasterPart newMasterPart = newDocument.PresentationPart.AddPart(newPart.SlideLayoutPart.SlideMasterPart);   SlideIdList idList = newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideIdList;   // create new slide ID maxId++; SlideId newId = new SlideId(); newId.Id = maxId; newId.RelationshipId = "sourceId1"; idList.Append(newId);   // Create new master slide ID uniqueId++; SlideMasterId newMasterId = new SlideMasterId(); newMasterId.Id = uniqueId; newMasterId.RelationshipId = newDocument.PresentationPart.GetIdOfPart(newMasterPart); newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideMasterIdList.Append(newMasterId);   // change slide layout ID FixSlideLayoutIds(newDocument.PresentationPart);     //newPart.Slide.Save(); newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.Save(); } The GetMaxIDFromChild and FixSlideLayoutID methods are barrowed from Zeyad’s article.  The GetSlidePartByTagName method is listed below.  It is really one LINQ query that finds SlideParts with child Tags that have the requested Name. private SlidePart GetSlidePartByTagName(PresentationDocument templateDocument, string tagName) { return (from p in templateDocument.PresentationPart.SlideParts where p.UserDefinedTagsParts.First().TagList.Descendants <DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Presentation.Tag>().First().Name == tagName.ToUpper() select p).First(); } This is what really makes the difference from what Zeyad posted.  The most powerful thing you can have when generating documents from templates is a consistent way of naming items to be manipulated.  I will be show more approaches like this in upcoming posts. del.icio.us Tags: Office Open XML,Presentation,PowerPoint,VSTO,TagList

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• Speaking At The Chicago Code Camp

  - by Tim Murphy

  I just got news that my talk on Office Open XML has been accepted for the Chicago Code Camp.  I hear that they will be announcing the full schedule of sessions soon.  Be sure to register and join us.  As a bonus the guys from .NET Rocks will be there. http://www.chicagocodecamp.com del.icio.us Tags: .NET Rocks,Chicago Code Camp,Speaking,OOXML SDK 2.0,OOXML,Office Open XML,PSC Group

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• Oracle Leader in Transportation Management

  - by John Murphy

  Oracle Named a Leader in the Transportation Management Systems Market by Leading Analyst Firm Redwood Shores, Calif. – October 15, 2012 News Facts Gartner, Inc. has placed Oracle Transportation Management in the Leaders Quadrant of its 2012 report, “Magic Quadrant for Transportation Management Systems (TMS).” (1) Gartner Magic Quadrants position vendors within a particular market segment based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute on that vision. According to the report, “Multiple subcomponents make up a comprehensive TMS across planning (for example, load consolidation, routing, mode selection and carrier selection) and execution (for example, tendering loads to carriers, shipment track and trace, and freight audit and payment).” Built on modern, flexible, Internet based architecture, Oracle Transportation Management is a global transportation and logistics operations system that allows companies to minimize cost, optimize service levels, support sustainability initiatives, and create flexible business process automation within their transportation and logistics networks. With a share of 26% of worldwide software revenue for 2011, Oracle is also number one in TMS vendor share according to Gartner’s report, “Market Trends: A Golden Opportunity in the Transportation Management System Market, 2012 – 2016.” (2) Supporting Quote “Shippers and logistics service providers face increasingly complex challenges as they try to reduce costs, secure capacity and improve overall freight efficiency,” said Derek Gittoes, vice president, logistics product strategy, Oracle. “We believe our high standing in both Gartner reports is a reflection of Oracle’s commitment to addressing these challenges by delivering the industry’s broadest and deepest transportation management platform. With a flexible and modern platform, we are able to support customers with both basic transportation needs, as well as those with highly complex logistics requirements.” Supporting Resources Magic Quadrant for Transportation Management Systems Market Trends: A Golden Opportunity in the Transportation Management System Market, 2012 – 2016 Oracle Transportation Management (1) Gartner, Inc., “Magic Quadrant for Transportation Management Systems,” by C. Dwight Klappich, August 23, 2012 (2) Gartner, Inc., “Market Trends: A Golden Opportunity in the Transportation Management System Market, 2012 – 2016,” by Chad Eschinger and C. Dwight Klappich, September 24, 2012. About Oracle Applications Over 65,000 customers worldwide rely on Oracle's complete, open and integrated enterprise applications to achieve superior results. Oracle provides a secure path for customers to benefit from the latest technology advances that improve the customer software experience and drive better business performance. Oracle Applications Unlimited is Oracle's commitment to customer choice through continuous investment and innovation in current applications offerings. Oracle's next-generation Fusion Applications build upon that commitment, and are designed to work with and evolve Oracle's Applications Unlimited offerings. Oracle's lifetime support policy helps ensure customers will continue to have a choice in upgrade paths, based on their enterprise needs. For more information on the latest Oracle Applications releases go towww.oracle.com/applications About Oracle Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center. For more information about Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL), visit www.oracle.com. Trademarks Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. ###   Karen [email protected] Simon JonesBlanc & [email protected]

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• Article Sharing &ndash; Windows Azure Memcached Plugin

  - by Shaun

  I just found that David Aiken, a windows azure developer and evangelist, wrote a cool article about how to use Memcached in Windows Azure through the new feature Azure Plugin. http://www.davidaiken.com/2011/01/11/windows-azure-memcached-plugin/ I think the best solution for distributed cache in Azure would be the Windows Azure AppFabric Caching but since it’s only in CTP and avaiable in the US data center David’s solution would be the best. Only one thing I’m concerning about, is the stability of windows verion Memcached.

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• Carriers Holding Your OS Updates Hostage

  - by Tim Murphy

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/10/10/carriers-holding-your-os-updates-hostage.aspx Just a small rant here.  Today the Windows Phone 8 GDR2 update finally became available for Nokia handset users.  Now I’m not sure that it is AT&T fault entirely that Samsung and HTC users got their updates two months ago and we are just finally seeing it.  It may have something to do with the Nokia Amber update.  But every Windows Phone update on AT&T from 7.1 on seems to have been delayed.  How is it that the premiere Windows Phone carrier is always the last one to release updates? Smart phone ecosystems are a partnership between the OS provider, the hardware manufacturer and the carriers.  If any one of those partners does not hold up its responsibilities then everyone gets a black eye.  The goal for all involved should be to release updates as early as possible with reasonable assurance of stability.  This ensures the satisfaction of consumers and increases the likelihood of future sales. From what I have seen so far AT&T has been the one breaking the consumer’s trust in the Windows Phone ecosystem.  Aside from voicing our dissatisfaction we may need to start voting with our feet until they realize that they being a poor citizen has consequences. Technorati Tags: ATT,Windows Phone,Windows Phone 8,Microsoft,Nokia,GDR2

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• Building apps that work Together

  - by Tim Murphy

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/07/03/building-apps-that-work-together.aspx  Writing apps that stand alone will only get yon so far.  If your app can allow the user to leverage other applications and share data you Can have a real winner on your hands. Jake Sabulsky started off by explaining that you should be concentrating on the core functionality of your app and letting the framework take care of the features that users require these days.  This is implemented be leveraging contracts.  When Windows 8 was released it included the File, Share and Pickers contracts.  With the release of Windows 8.1 they have added the Contacts and Calendar contracts. There have been a number of improvements to the original contracts. The File URI contract will now automatically detect the size that a new windows should be opened and will also allow you to programmatically influence new window size.  The Share contract has been enhanced by allowing apps to always share screenshots and links to the app in the store. To my thinking the contracts are one of the most powerful features of Windows 8.  Take the time view this session and learn how to leverage them. Technorati Tags: BUILD 2013,Windows 8,Live tiles

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• 2011 Chicago Code Camp

  - by Tim Murphy

  It is that time again.  Time to polish up you presentation skills on your favorite language or technology features.  The Chicago Code Camp is accepting proposals for presentations.  Show everyone in the Chicago area what you know and submit your own. I really enjoyed presenting last year and just had to submit a proposal for this year.  This time around my topic is Increasing Collaboration with Windows Phone 7, SharePoint 2010 and Office Open XML.  I had a much longer title but the site forced me to shorten it up.  I guess that is a good way to tell people not to get too wordy. If you don’t feel like presenting mark the date and come out and enjoy the company of your fellow geeks and learn about some new technologies. http://chicagocodecamp.com/ del.icio.us Tags: Chicago Code Camp,speaking,WP7,Windows Phone 7,SharePoint 2010,OOXML,Office Open XML

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• TechEd 2012: A Little Cloud And Too Little Windows Phone

  - by Tim Murphy

  It is Monday afternoon and the last couple of sessions have been disappointing.  I started out in the Nokia: Learning to Tile session.  I guess I should have read the summary more closely because it turned out to be more of a Nokia/WP7 history and sales pitch. “I’m outa here!” I made a quick venue change and now we are learning about Private Cloud Architecture.  The topic and the material were very informative.  The speaker even had a couple of quotable statements. The first quote was “You can trust me … I’m a doctor”.  The second was a new acronym (at least for me): CAVE – committee against virtually everything.  I am sure I have dealt with them more than once in my career. Unfortunately he didn’t just have a doctorate, the presentation was overdone like a medical journal.  While I didn’t enjoy the presentation, I am looking forward to getting my hands on the slides to review. Here is looking forward to the next sessions. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone,Cloud,Architecture

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• May 2010 Chicago Architects Group Meeting

  - by Tim Murphy

  The Chicago Architects Group will be holding its next meeting on May 18th.  Please come and join us and get involved in our architect community. Register Presenter: Scott Seely  Topic: Azure For Architects       Location: TechNexus 200 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 1500 Room A/B Chicago, IL 60606 Time: 5:30 - Doors open at 5:00 del.icio.us Tags: Chicago Architects Group,Azure,Scott Seely

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• Why We Need UX Designers

  - by Tim Murphy

  Ok, so maybe this is really why I need UX designers.  While I have always had an interest in photography and can appreciate a well designed user interface putting one together is an entirely different endeavor.  Being color blind doesn’t help, but coming up with ideas is probably the biggest portion of the issue.  I can spot things that just don’t look like they work right, but what will? UX designers is an area that most companies do not spend much if any resources.  As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression and and a poorly designed site or application is a bad first impression.  Given that they you would think that companies would invest more in appearance and usability. One of two things need to be done to rectify this issue.  Either we need to start educating our developers on user experience and design or we need to start finding ways to subsidize putting full time designers on our project teams.  Maybe it should be a time share type of situation, but something needs to be done.  As architects we need to impress on our project stakeholders the importance of User Experience and why it should be part of the budget.  If they hear it often enough eventually they may present it to you as their own idea. del.icio.us Tags: User Experience,UX,Application Design

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• Microsoft Build 2012 Day 1 Keynote Summary

  - by Tim Murphy

  So I have finally dried the tears after watching the Keynote for Build 2012.  This wasn’t because it was an emotional presentation, but because for the second year I missed the goodies.  Each on site attendee got a Surface RT, a Lumia 920 and a voucher for 100GB of SkyDrive storage. The event was opened with the announcement that in the three days since the launch of Windows 8 over 4 million upgrades have been sold.  I don’t care who you are that is an impressive stat.  Ballmer then spent a fair amount of time remaking the case for the Windows and Windows Phone platforms similar to what we have heard over the last to launch events. There were some cool, but non-essential demos.  The one that was the most fun was the Perceptive Pixel 82” slate device.  At first glance I wondered why I would ever want such a device, but then Ballmer explained it’s possible use for schools and boardrooms.  The actually made sense. Then things got strange.  Steve started explaining features that developers could leverage.  Usually this type of information is left to the product leads.  He focused on the integration with the Charms features such as Search and Share. Steve “Guggs” Guggenheim showed off an app that would appeal to my kids from Disney called “Agent P” which is base on Phineas and Ferb.  Then he got to the meat of the presentation.  We found out that you could add a tile that can be used to sell ad space.  In the same vein we also found out that you could use Microsoft’s, Paypal’s or any commerce engine of your own creation or choosing. For those who are interested in sports and especially developing sports apps you would have found the small presentation from Michael Bayle of ESPN.  He introduced the ESPN app which has tons of features.  For the developers in the crowd he also mentioned that ESPN has an API available at developer.espn.com. During the launch events we were told apps were coming.  In this presentation we were actually shown a scrolling list of logos and told about a couple of them.  Ballmer mentioned specifically Twitter, SAP and DropBox.  These are impressive names that were just a couple of the list impressive names. Steve Ballmer addressed the question of why you should develop for the Windows 8 platform.  He feels that Microsoft has the best commercial terms for developers, a better way to build apps than other platforms and a variety of form factors.  His key point though was the available volume of customers given the current Windows install base and assuming even a flat growth of the platform.  This he backed with a promise that Microsoft is going to do better at marketing and you won’t be able to avoid the ads that they are bringing out. The last section of the key note was present by Kevin Gallo from the Windows Phone team.  This was the real reason I tuned into the webcast.  He impressed upon those watching that the strength of developing for the Microsoft platform is the common programming model that now exist.  While there are difference between form factor implementations you can leverage code across them. He claimed that 90% of developer requests for Windows Phone 8 had been implemented.  These include: More controls with better performance Better live tiles including lock screen integration Speech support in custom apps Easier submission to the market place App camera integration VOIP and chat support Bluetooth and NFC support Native C++ development Direct 3D development   The quote from Kevin that stood out for me was that “Take your Dramamine and buckle your seatbelt type of games are coming to Windows Phone 8”.  He back this up by displaying a list of game development frameworks and then having Unity come out and do a demo. Ok, almost done … The last two things of note for me were the announcement that the SDK is immediately available at dev.windowsphone.com and that they were reducing the cost of an individual developer account to $8 for the next 8 days. Let the development commence. del.icio.us Tags: Build 2012,Windows 8,Windows Phone 8,Windows Phone

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• ARC write-up on the OTM SIG

  - by John Murphy

  ARC write-up on the recent OTM SIG event. The Oracle Transportation Management Special Interest Group (OTM SIG) hosted its 6th annual user conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 13-15, 2012. This independently run conference drew almost 400 attendees, predominantly Oracle Transportation Management (OTM) users. It featured four concurrent tracks that included both functionally and technically focused presentations. The tracks included a number of informative presentations by OTM users from various industries. These discussed the users' implementations, current usage, and future plans for OTM within their organizations. ARC Advisory Group found ConAgra's and Mutual Materials' presentations on OTM adoption and Kraft's presentation on the company's use of Fusion Transportation Intelligence particularly informative. Complete ARC write-up

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• New study shows supply chain cost management increased from 6.0% to 6.9%

  - by John Murphy

  A global survey of supply chain managers indicates that aggressively managing costs and creating a flexible supply chain are major factors for businesses in successfully growing market share as the economy rebounds. Results also show supply chain managers are investing in systems and developing partnerships that enable greater visibility with their supply chain partners. http://www.mhia.org/news/industry/11429/flexible-supply-chains-drive-growth-in-revenue-and-profit

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• Orchestrating the Virtual Enterprise

  - by John Murphy

  During the American Industrial Revolution, the Ford Motor Company did it all. It turned raw materials into a showroom full of Model Ts. It owned a steel mill, a glass factory, and an automobile assembly line. The company was both self-sufficient and innovative and went on to become one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. Nowadays, it's unusual for any business to follow this vertical integration model because its much harder to be best in class across such a wide a range of capabilities and services. Instead, businesses focus on their core competencies and outsource other business functions to specialized suppliers. They exchange vertical integration for collaboration. When done well, all parties benefit from this arrangement and the collaboration leads to the creation of an agile, lean and successful "virtual enterprise." Case in point: For Sun hardware, Oracle outsources most of its manufacturing and all of its logistics to third parties. These are vital activities, but ones where Oracle doesn't have a core competency, so we shift them to business partners who do. Within our enterprise, we always retain the core functions of product development, support, and most of the sales function, because that's what constitutes our core value to our customers. This is a perfect example of a virtual enterprise.  What are the implications of this? It means that we must exchange direct internal control for indirect external collaboration. This fundamentally changes the relative importance of different business processes, the boundaries of security and information sharing, and the relationship of the supply chain systems to the ERP. The challenge is that the systems required to support this virtual paradigm are still mired in "island enterprise" thinking. But help is at hand. Developments such as the Web, social networks, collaboration, and rules-based orchestration offer great potential to fundamentally re-architect supply chain systems to better support the virtual enterprise.  Supply Chain Management Systems in a Virtual Enterprise Historically enterprise software was constructed to automate the ERP - and then the supply chain systems extended the ERP. They were joined at the hip. In virtual enterprises, the supply chain system needs to be ERP agnostic, sitting above each of the ERPs that are distributed across the virtual enterprise - most of which are operating in other businesses. This is vital so that the supply chain system can manage the flow of material and the related information through the multiple enterprises. It has to have strong collaboration tools. It needs to be highly flexible. Users need to be able to see information that's coming from multiple sources and be able to react and respond to events across those sources.  Oracle Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO) is a perfect example of a supply chain system designed to operate in this virtual way. DOO embraces the idea that a company's fulfillment challenge is a distributed, multi-enterprise problem. It enables users to manage the process and the trading partners in a uniform way and deliver a consistent user experience while operating over a heterogeneous, virtual enterprise. This is a fundamental shift at the core of managing supply chains. It forces virtual enterprises to think architecturally about how best to construct their supply chain systems.  Case in point, almost everyone has ordered from Amazon.com at one time or another. Our orders are as likely to be fulfilled by third parties as they are by Amazon itself. To deliver the order promptly and efficiently, Amazon has to send it to the right fulfillment location and know the availability in that location. It needs to be able to track status of the fulfillment and deal with exceptions. As a virtual enterprise, Amazon's operations, using thousands of trading partners, requires a very different approach to fulfillment than the traditional 'take an order and ship it from your own warehouse' model. Amazon had no choice but to develop a complex, expensive and custom solution to tackle this problem as there used to be no product solution available. Now, other companies who want to follow similar models have a better off-the-shelf choice -- Oracle Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO).  Consider how another of our customers is using our distributed orchestration solution. This major airplane manufacturer has a highly complex business and interacts regularly with the U.S. Government and major airlines. It sits in the middle of an intricate supply chain and needed to improve visibility across its many different entities. Oracle Fusion DOO gives the company an orchestration mechanism so it could improve quality, speed, flexibility, and consistency without requiring an organ transplant of these highly complex legacy systems. Many retailers face the challenge of dealing with brick and mortar, Web, and reseller channels. They all need to be knitted together into a virtual enterprise experience that is consistent for their customers. When a large U.K. grocer with a strong brick and mortar retail operation added an online business, they turned to Oracle Fusion DOO to bring these entities together. Disturbing the Peace with Acquisitions Quite often a company's ERP system is disrupted when it acquires a new company. An acquisition can inject a new set of processes and systems -- or even introduce an entirely new business like Sun's hardware did at Oracle. This challenge has been a driver for some of our DOO customers. A large power management company is using Oracle Fusion DOO to provide the flexibility to rapidly integrate additional products and services into its central fulfillment operation. The Flip Side of Fulfillment Meanwhile, we haven't ignored similar challenges on the supply side of the equation. Specifically, how to manage complex supply in a flexible way when there are multiple trading parties involved? How to manage the supply to suppliers? How to manage critical components that need to merge in a tier two or tier three supply chain? By investing in supply orchestration solutions for the virtual enterprise, we plan to give users better visibility into their network of suppliers to help them drive down costs. We also think this technology and full orchestration process can be applied to the financial side of organizations. An example is transactions that flow through complex internal structures to minimize tax exposure. We can help companies manage those transactions effectively by thinking about the internal organization as a virtual enterprise and bringing the same solution set to this internal challenge.  The Clear Front Runner No other company is investing in solving the virtual enterprise supply chain issues like Oracle is. Oracle is in a unique position to become the gold standard in this market space. We have the infrastructure of Oracle technology. We already have an Oracle Fusion DOO application which embraces the best of what's required in this area. And we're absolutely committed to extending our Fusion solution to other use cases and delivering even more business value.

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