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• java:25: '.class' expected error while merging arrays

  - by user3677712

  Here is my code, it is asking me to call a class, I am confused as to do this. Noob to java, so any help would be greatly appreciated. line 25 is where the error occurs. This program is merging two arrays together into a new array. public class Merge{ public static void main(String[] args){ int[] a = {1, 1, 4, 5, 7}; int[] b = {2, 4, 6, 8}; int[] mergedArray = merge(a, b); for(int i = 0; i < mergedArray.length; i++){ System.out.print(mergedArray[i] + " "); } } public static int[] merge(int[] a, int[] b){ // WRITE CODE HERE int[] mergedArray = new int[a.length[] + b.length[]]; int i = 0, j = 0, k = 0; while (i < a.length() && j < b.length()) //error occurs at this line { if (a[i] < b[j]) { mergedArray[k] = a[i]; i++; } else { mergedArray[k] = b[j]; j++; } k++; } while (i < a.length()) { mergedArray[k] = a[i]; i++; k++; } while (j < b.length()) { mergedArray[k] = b[j]; j++; k++; } return mergedArray; } } This program is merging two arrays together into a new array.

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• Program that edits string and prints each word individually with C

  - by Michael_19

  I keep getting the error segmentation fault (core dumped) when I run my progam. #include<stdio.h> #include<stdlib.h> int nextword(char *str); int main(void) { char str[] = "Hello! Today is a beautiful day!!\t\n"; int i = nextword(str); while(i != -1) { printf("%s\n",&(str[i])); i = nextword(NULL); } return 0; } int nextword(char *str) { // create two static variables - these stay around across calls static char *s; static int nextindex; int thisindex; // reset the static variables if (str != NULL) { s = str; thisindex = 0; // TODO: advance this index past any leading spaces while (s[thisindex]=='\n' || s[thisindex]=='\t' || s[thisindex]==' ' ) thisindex++; } else { // set the return value to be the nextindex thisindex = nextindex; } // if we aren't done with the string... if (thisindex != -1) { nextindex = thisindex; // TODO: two things // 1: place a '\0' after the current word // 2: advance nextindex to the beginning // of the next word while (s[nextindex] != ' ' && s[nextindex] != '\0') nextindex++; str[nextindex] = '\0'; nextindex++; } return thisindex; } The goal of the program is to print each word in the string str[] to the console on a new line. I am a beginning programmer and this is an assignment so I must use this type of format (no string library allowed). I just would like to know where I went wrong and how I can fix it.

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• Convert binary unsigned vector to dec list

  - by Juan

  This code convert a unsigned long vector variable cR1 to NB_ERRORS numbers (in 'a' variable I print these numbers). for (l = 0; l < NB_ERRORS; ++l) { k = (l * EXT_DEGREE) / BIT_SIZE_OF_LONG; j = (l * EXT_DEGREE) % BIT_SIZE_OF_LONG; a = cR1[k] >> j; if(j + EXT_DEGREE > BIT_SIZE_OF_LONG) a ^= cR1[k + 1] << (BIT_SIZE_OF_LONG - j); a &= ((1 << EXT_DEGREE) - 1); printf("\na=%d\n",a); } For example I am have a cR1 with two elements that follow: 0,0,1,1,0,1,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,1,0,1,1,0,0,1,0,1,1,1,0,0,1,0,0,1,0,1,0,1,1,1,0,1,0,0,1,1,1,1,0, executing that code I get (44), (228, (243), (24), (77), (39), (117), (121). This code convert from right to left, I want modify to convert from right to left, Where I will be able to modify this? pdta: In the example case EXT_DEGREE = 8, BIT_SIZE_OF_LONG = 32

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• How do I trust a self signed cert using https?

  - by dave

  Edit: I originally thought the server's certificate was self signed. Turns out it was signed by a self-signed CA certificate. I'm trying to write a Node.js application that accesses an HTTPS site that's protected using a self-signed certificate certificate signed by a private, self-signed CA certificate. I'd also like to not completely disable certificate checking. I tried putting the self signed certificate server's certificate in the request options, but that doesn't seem to be working. Anyone know how to do this? I expect the following code to print statusCode 200, but instead it prints [Error: SELF_SIGNED_CERT_IN_CHAIN]. I've tried similar code with request with the same results. var https = require('https'); var fs = require('fs'); var opts = { hostname: host, port: 443, path: '/', method: 'GET', ca: fs.readFileSync(serverCertificateFile, 'utf-8') }; var req = https.request(opts, function (res) { console.log('statusCode', res.statusCode); }); req.end(); req.on('error', function (err) { console.error(err); });

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• For Loop not advancing

  - by shizishan

  I'm trying to read in a large number of jpg files using a for loop. But for some reason, the k index is not advancing. I just get A as a 460x520x3 uint8. Am I missing something? My goal with this code is to convert all the jpg images to the same size. Since I haven't been able to advance through the images, I can't quite tell if I'm doing it right. nFrames = length(date); % Number of frames. for k = 1:nFrames-1 % Number of days % Set file under consideration A = imread(['map_EUS_' datestr(cell2mat(date_O3(k)),'yyyy_mm_dd') '_O3_MDA8.jpg']); % Size of existing image A. [rowsA, colsA, numberOfColorChannelsA] = size(A); % Read in and get size of existing image B (the next image). B = imread(['map_EUS_' datestr(cell2mat(date_O3(k+1)),'yyyy_mm_dd') '_O3_MDA8.jpg']); [rowsB, colsB, numberOfColorChannelsB] = size(B); % Size of B does not match A, so resize B to match A's size. B = imresize(B, [rowsA colsA]); eval(['print -djpeg map_EUS_' datestr(cell2mat(date_O3(k)),'yyyy_mm_dd') '_O3_MDA8_test.jpg']); end end

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• printing 2d table (headers)

  - by k0re

  Hi Is there are a better way than this one to print 2d table? std::cout << std::setw(25) << left << "FF.name" << std::setw(25) << left << "BB.name" << std::setw(12) << left << "sw.cycles" << std::setw(12) << left << "hw.cycles" << "\n" << std::setw(25) << left << "------" << std::setw(25) << left << "------" << std::setw(12) << left << "---------" << std::setw(12) << left << "---------" << "\n";

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• Having trouble deleting a node from a linked list

  - by Requiem

  I've been working on this code for my shell that I'm creating and for some reason it isn't working. I'm implementing a watchuser function that watch's a user when an argument is given (args[1]). However, when a second argument (args[2]) of "off" is given, the user should be deleted from the linked list and should no longer be watched. struct userList * goList; goList = userInventory; do{ if (strcmp(userInventory->username, args[1]) == 0){ printf("%s\n", args[1]); printf("%s\n",userInventory->username); struct userList * temp2; temp2 = userInventory->next; if (userInventory->next != NULL){ userInventory->next = temp2->next; userInventory->next->prev = userInventory; } free(temp2); } goList = goList->next; }while (goList != userInventory); My global struct is also as follows: struct userList{ char * username; struct userList * prev; struct userList * next; } For reason, this code won't delete the user node from my linked list. The adding works, but this remove function won't and I'm not sure why. The print statements are there just to make sure it's executing the condition, which it is. If anyone could help me find the reasoning behind my error, I'd greatly appreciate it. Till then, I'll be trying to debug this. Thanks.

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• Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines

  - by Eric Z Goodnight

  Want to send some Geek Love to that special someone? Why not do it with these elementary school throwback valentines, and win their heart this upcoming Valentine’s day—the geek way! Read on to see the simple method to make your own custom Valentines, as well as download a set of eleven ready-made ones any geek guy or gal should be delighted get. It’s amore! How to Make Custom Valentines A size we’ve used for all of our Valentines is a 3” x 4” at 150 dpi. This is fairly low resolution for print, but makes a great graphic to email. With your new image open, Navigate to Edit > Fill and fill your background layer with a rich, red color (or whatever appeals to you.) By setting “Use” to “Foreground color as shown above, you’ll paint whatever foreground color you have in your color picker. Press to select the text tool. Set a few text objects, using whatever fonts appeal to you. Pixel fonts, like this one, are freely downloadable, and we’ve already shared a great list of Valentines fonts. Copy an image from the internet if you’re confident your sweetie won’t mind a bit of fair use of copyrighted imagery. If they do mind, find yourself some great Creative Commons images. to do a free transform on your image, sizing it to whatever dimensions work best for your design. Right click your newly added image layer in your panel and Choose “Blending Effects” to pick a Layer Style. “Stroke” with this setting adds a black line around your image. Also turning on “Outer Glow” with this setting puts a dark black shadow around the top and bottom (and sides, although they are hidden). Add some more text. Double entendre is recommended. Click and hold down on the “Rectangle Tool” to get the “Custom Shape Tool.” The custom shape tool has useful vector shapes built into it. Find the “Shape” dropdown in the menu to find the heart image. Click and drag to create a vector heart shape in your image. Your layers panel is where you can change the color, if it happens to use the wrong one at first. Click the color swatch in your panel, highlighted in blue above. will transform your vector heart. You can also use it to rotate, if you like. Add some details, like this Power or Standby symbol, which can be found in symbol fonts, taken from images online, or drawn by hand. Your Valentine is now ready to be saved as a JPG or PNG and sent to the object of your affection! Keep reading to see a list of 11 downloadable How-To Geek Valentines, including this one and the three from the header image. Download The HTG Set of Valentines Download the HTG Geek Valentines (ZIP) Download the HTG Geek Valentines (ZIP) When he’s not wooing ladies with Valentines cards, you can email the author at [email protected] with your Photoshop and Graphics questions. Your questions may be featured in a future How-To Geek article! Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines How to Integrate Dropbox with Pages, Keynote, and Numbers on iPad RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean? How to Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally How To Colorize Black and White Vintage Photographs in Photoshop How To Get SSH Command-Line Access to Windows 7 Using Cygwin How to Kid Proof Your Computer’s Power and Reset Buttons Microsoft’s Windows Media Player Extension Adds H.264 Support Back to Google Chrome Android Notifier Pushes Android Notices to Your Desktop Dead Space 2 Theme for Chrome and Iron Carl Sagan and Halo Reach Mashup – We Humans are Capable of Greatness [Video] Battle the Necromorphs Once Again on Your Desktop with the Dead Space 2 Theme for Windows 7

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• SQLAuthority News – Professional Development and Community

  - by pinaldave

  I was recently invited by Hyderabad Techies to deliver a keynote for their 16-day online session called TECH THUNDERS. This event has been running from May 15 and will continue up to the end of the month May 30). There would be a total of 30 sessions. In every evening of those 16 day, there will be either one or two sessions from several noted industry experts. It is the same group which has received the Microsoft Community Impact Award as the Best User Group in India as for developers. I have never talked about Professional Development before. Even if this was my first time to do so, I still accepted the wonderful challenge for the sake of the thousands of audience who were expected to attend this online event. Time is of the essence; I had 15 minutes to deliver the keynote and open the event. The reason why I was nervous was because I had to cover precisely only 15 minutes- no more, no less. If I had an hour, I would have been very confident because I knew I could do a good job for sure. However, I still needed to open the event as great as it can be even if the time was short. I finally created a 6-slide small presentation. In reality, there were only two pages which had the main contents of my keynote, and the remaining slides were just wrappers and decors. You can download the complete slide deck from here. The image used in the slide deck is a curtsy of blog reader Roger Smith who sent it to me. The slide in which I spent a good amount of time is the slide which talks about Professional Development. The content of the slide is as follows: Today, Technology and You Keep your eyes, ears and senses open – Stay Active! You are not the first one who faced the problem – Search Online! Learn the web – Blogs, Forums and Friends! Trust the Technology, Not Print – Test Everything! Community and You! I had a very little time creating the slide deck as I was busy the whole day doing the Advanced SQL Server Training. I had put together these slides during the tea/coffee break of my session. Though it was just a six-bullet point, I had received quite a few emails right after keynote requesting me to talk more about this subject and share the details of my slide deck. I have talked with the event organizer and he will put the keynote online very soon. The subject of the talk is very simple; it revolves around the community. Time has changed, and Internet has come a long way from where it was many years ago. Now that we are all connected, help via the Internet and useful software is easily available around us. In fact, RSS, Newletters and few other technologies have progressed so much that the help through news is now being delivered to our door steps, instead of going out and seeking them. Sometimes, a simple search online solves a lot of problems of many developers. The community is now the first stop for any developer when he or she needs help or just wants to hang around and share some thoughts. I strongly suggest everybody to be a part of the Tech Community. Be it online, offline community or just a local user group, I strongly advise all of you to get involved. I am active in the Community, and I must say I recommend getting drawn into it. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL User Group, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Community

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• Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Superman

  - by Pinal Dave

  I enjoyed comparing developers to Spiderman so much, that I have decided to continue the trend and encourage some of my favorite people (developers) with another favorite superhero – Superman.  Superman is probably the most famous superhero – and one of the most inspiring. Everyone has their own favorite, but Superman has been the longest enduring of all comic book characters.  Clark Kent has inspired multiple movie series, TV shows, books, cartoons, and costumes.  Superman’s enduring popularity has been attributed to his superhuman strength, integrity, dedication to good, and his humility in keeping his identity a secret. So how are developers like Superman? Well, read on my list of reasons. Secret Identities They have secret identities.  I’m not saying that all developers wear thick glasses and go by an alias like “Clark Kent.”  But developers certainly work in the background, making sure everything runs smoothly, often without recognition.  Like Superman, when they have done their job right, no one knows they were there. Working Alone You don’t have to work alone.  Superman doesn’t have a sidekick like Robin or Bat Girl, but he is a major player in the Justice League.  Developers have amazing skills, and they shouldn’t be afraid to unite those skills to solve some of the world’s major problems (like slow networks). Daily Inspiration Developers are inspiring.  Clark Kent works at The Daily Planet, Metropolis’ newspaper, which is lucky because he can keep some of the publicity Superman inspires under wraps.  Developers might go unnoticed sometimes, but when people hear about some of the tasks they accomplish on a daily basis, it inspires awe. Discover Your Superpowers You have to discover your superpowers.  Clark Kent didn’t just wake up one morning with the full understanding that he could fly, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and was stronger than a speeding locomotive.  He slowly discovered these powers (after a few comic book-worthy misunderstandings!).  Developers are always learning and growing as well.  You probably won’t wake up with super powers, either, but years of practice and continuing education can get you close. Every Day is a New Day The story continues.  The Superman comic books are still being printed, and have been in print since 1938.  There have been two TV series, (one, Smallville, was on TV for ten seasons) and multiple cartoon adaptations.  There have been multiple movies, with many different actors.  A new reboot came out last year, and another is set to premier in 2016.   So, developers, when you are having a bad day or a problem seems unsolvable – remember, the story will continue!  There is always tomorrow. I hope you are all enjoying reading about developers-as-superheroes as much as I am enjoying writing about them.  Please tell me how else developers are like Superheroes in the comments – especially if you know any developers who are faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Developer, Superhero

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• Start Learning Ruby with IronRuby – Setting up the Environment

  - by kazimanzurrashid

  Recently I have decided to learn Ruby and for last few days I am playing with IronRuby. Learning a new thing is always been a fun and when it comes to adorable language like Ruby it becomes more entertaining. Like any other language, first we have to create the development environment. In order to run IronRuby we have to download the binaries form the IronRuby CodePlex project. IronRuby supports both .NET 2.0 and .NET 4, but .NET 4 is the recommended version, you can download either the installation or the zip file. If you download the zip file make sure you added the bin directory in the environment path variable. Once you are done, open up the command prompt and type : ir –v It should print message like: IronRuby 1.0.0.0 on .NET 4.0.30319.1 The ir is 32bit version of IronRuby, if you want to use 64bit you can try ir64. Next, we have to find a editor where we can write our Ruby code as there is currently no integration story of IronRuby with Visual Studio like its twin Iron Python. Among the free IDEs only SharpDevelop has the IronRuby support but it does not have auto complete or debugging built into it, only thing that it supports is the syntax highlighting, so using a text editor which has the same features is nothing different comparing to it. To play with the IronRuby we will be using Notepad++, which can be downloaded from its sourceforge download page. The Notepad++ does have a nice syntax highlighting support : I am using the Vibrant Ink with some little modification. The next thing we have to do is configure the Notepad++ that we can run the Ruby script in IronRuby inside the Notepad++. Lets create a batch(.bat) file in the IronRuby bin directory, which will have the following content: @echo off  cls call ir %1 pause This will make sure that the console will be paused once we run the script. Now click Run->Run in the Notepad++, it will bring up the run dialog and put the following command in the textbox: riir.bat "$(FULL_CURRENT_PATH)" Click the save which will bring another dialog. Type Iron Ruby and assign the shortcut to ctrl + f5 (Same as Visual Studio Start without Debugging) and click ok. Once you are done you will find the IronRuby in the Run menu. Now press ctrl + f5, we will find the ruby script running in the IronRuby. Now there are one last thing that we would like to add which is poor man’s context sensitive help. First, download the ruby language help file from the Ruby Installer site and extract into a directory. Next we will have to install the Language Help Plug-in of Notepad++, click Plugins->Plugin Manger –>Show Plugin Manager and scroll down until you find the plug-in the list, now check the plug-in and click install. Once it is installed it will prompt you to restart the Notepad++, click yes. When the Notepad++ restarts, click the Plugins –> Language Help –> Options –> add and enter the following details and click ok: The chm file location can be different depending upon where you extracted it. Now when you put your in any of ruby keyword and press ctrl + f1 it will take you to the help topic of that keyword. For example, when my caret is in the each of the following code and I press ctrl + f1, it will take me to the each api doc of Array. def loop_demo (1..10).each{ |n| puts n} end loop_demo That’s it for today. Happy Ruby coding.

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• DESIGNING FOR WIN PHONE 7

  Designing applications for the Win Phone 7 is very similar to designing for print. In my opinion, it feels like a cross between a tri-fold brochure and a poster. I based my prototype designs on Microsofts Metro style guide, with typography as the main focus and stunning imagery for support. Its nice to have fixed factors regulating the design, making it a fun and fresh design experience. Microsoft provides a UI Design Guidelines document that outlines layout sizes, background image size, recommended typefaces and spacing. You know what you are designing for and you know how it will look and act on the win phone 7 platform. Although applications are not required to strictly adhere to the Metro style guide I feel it makes the best use of the panorama view  and navigation. With strong examples of this UI concept in place like their Zune-like music + videos hub, I found it fairly easy to put together a few quick app mockups (see below). In addition to design guidelines, using a ready built design templates, or a win phone 7 specific panorama control like the one by Clarity Consulting will make the process of bringing your designs to life much more efficient. Likes, Dislikes, and Challenges I think the idea of the hub is completely intuitive. This concept clearly breaks down info into more manageable pieces, and greatly helps with organization when designing for the phone. I like the chromeless appearance, allowing the core functionality of the application to take precedence over gradients, textures, bevels, drop shadows, and the complicated animations you see on the web. Although I understand the Win Phone 7 guidelines are a work in progress, I found a few contradictions. I also noticed that certain design specifications did not translate well to the phone emulator . If you use their guidelines as suggested best practices and not as fixed definitions you will have more success. Multi-directional vs Linear The main challenge I had was stepping away from familiar navigational examples seen in other mobile phones. I had to keep reminding myself that the content to the right and to the left of what I was working on didnt necessarily have to have a direct link to one another. I started thinking multi-directional as opposed to linear. Win phone 7 vs IPhone The Metro styling of the Win Phone 7 is similar to the Zune HD and the Windows Media Center UI and offers a different interface paradigm than the IPhone. When navigating an application it feels like you are panning a long seamless page of information in contrast to the multiple panels of an IPhone. I think there is less of an opportunity to overdesign your application, which happens often with IPhone applications. While both interfaces are simple and sleek, win phone 7 really gets down to the basics. IPhone sets a high standard for designing for touch, designing for win phone 7 could improve on that user experience with a consistent and strategic use of white space and staying away from a menu and icon heavy UI. Design Examples for Win Phone 7 Applications Here are some concepts for both generic and brand specific applications for Win Phone 7: View Full Album Resources to get you going with your own Win Phone 7 design: Helpful design templates for Win Phone 7  http://www.shazaml.com/archives/windows-phone-7-ui-templates Here is the interaction design guide for Win Phone 7 http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9713252 Windows has a project template for Blend 4 and Visual Studio 2010 RC1 http://developer.windowsphone.com/ Clarity Consulting developed a panorama control for Win Phone 7 http://blogs.claritycon.com/blogs/design/archive/2010/03/30/building-the-elusive-windows-phone-panorama-control.aspxDid 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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• DESIGNING FOR WIN PHONE 7

  Designing applications for the Win Phone 7 is very similar to designing for print. In my opinion, it feels like a cross between a tri-fold brochure and a poster. I based my prototype designs on Microsofts Metro style guide, with typography as the main focus and stunning imagery for support. Its nice to have fixed factors regulating the design, making it a fun and fresh design experience. Microsoft provides a UI Design Guidelines document that outlines layout sizes, background image size, recommended typefaces and spacing. You know what you are designing for and you know how it will look and act on the win phone 7 platform. Although applications are not required to strictly adhere to the Metro style guide I feel it makes the best use of the panorama view  and navigation. With strong examples of this UI concept in place like their Zune-like music + videos hub, I found it fairly easy to put together a few quick app mockups (see below). In addition to design guidelines, using a ready built design templates, or a win phone 7 specific panorama control like the one by Clarity Consulting will make the process of bringing your designs to life much more efficient. Likes, Dislikes, and Challenges I think the idea of the hub is completely intuitive. This concept clearly breaks down info into more manageable pieces, and greatly helps with organization when designing for the phone. I like the chromeless appearance, allowing the core functionality of the application to take precedence over gradients, textures, bevels, drop shadows, and the complicated animations you see on the web. Although I understand the Win Phone 7 guidelines are a work in progress, I found a few contradictions. I also noticed that certain design specifications did not translate well to the phone emulator . If you use their guidelines as suggested best practices and not as fixed definitions you will have more success. Multi-directional vs Linear The main challenge I had was stepping away from familiar navigational examples seen in other mobile phones. I had to keep reminding myself that the content to the right and to the left of what I was working on didnt necessarily have to have a direct link to one another. I started thinking multi-directional as opposed to linear. Win phone 7 vs IPhone The Metro styling of the Win Phone 7 is similar to the Zune HD and the Windows Media Center UI and offers a different interface paradigm than the IPhone. When navigating an application it feels like you are panning a long seamless page of information in contrast to the multiple panels of an IPhone. I think there is less of an opportunity to overdesign your application, which happens often with IPhone applications. While both interfaces are simple and sleek, win phone 7 really gets down to the basics. IPhone sets a high standard for designing for touch, designing for win phone 7 could improve on that user experience with a consistent and strategic use of white space and staying away from a menu and icon heavy UI. Design Examples for Win Phone 7 Applications Here are some concepts for both generic and brand specific applications for Win Phone 7: View Full Album Resources to get you going with your own Win Phone 7 design: Helpful design templates for Win Phone 7  http://www.shazaml.com/archives/windows-phone-7-ui-templates Here is the interaction design guide for Win Phone 7 http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9713252 Windows has a project template for Blend 4 and Visual Studio 2010 RC1 http://developer.windowsphone.com/ Clarity Consulting developed a panorama control for Win Phone 7 http://blogs.claritycon.com/blogs/design/archive/2010/03/30/building-the-elusive-windows-phone-panorama-control.aspxDid 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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• Smart Help with UPK

  - by [email protected]

  A short lesson on how awesome Smart Help is. In Oracle UPK speak, there are targeted and non-targeted applications. Targeted applications are Oracle EBS, PeopleSoft, Siebel, JD Edwards, SAP and a few others. Non-targeted applications are either custom built or other third party off the shelf applications. For most targeted applications you'll see better object recognition (during recording) and also Help Integration for that application. Help integration means that someone technical modifies the help link in your application to call up the UPK content that has been created. If you have seen this presented before, this is usually where the term context sensitive help is mentioned and the Do It mode shows off. The fact that UPK builds context sensitive help for its targeted applications automatically is awesome enough, but there is a whole new world out there and it's called "custom and\or third party apps." For the purposes of Smart Help and this discussion, I'm talking about the browser based applications. How does UPK support these apps? It used to be that you had to have your vendor try to modify the Help link to point to UPK or if your company had control over the applications configuration menus, then you get someone on your team to modify this for you. But as you start to use UPK for more than one, two or three applications, the administration of this starts to become daunting. Multiple administrators, multiple player packages, multiple call points, multiple break points, help doesn't always work the same way for every application (picture the black white infomercial with an IT person trying to configure a bunch of wires or something funny like that). Introducing Smart Help! (in color of course, new IT person, probably wearing a blue shirt and smiling). Smart help eliminates the need to configure multiple browser help integration points, and adds a icon to the users browser itself. You're using your browser to read this now correct? Look up at the icons on your browser, you have the home link icon, print icon, maybe an RSS feed icon. Smart Help is icon that gets added to the users browser just like the others. When you click it, it first recognizes which application you're in and then finds the UPK created material for you and returns the best possible match, for (hold on to your seat now) both targeted and non-targeted applications (browser based applications). But wait, there's more. It does this automatically! You don't have to do anything! All you have to do is record content, UPK and Smart Help do the rest! This technology is not new. There are customers out there today that use this for as many as six applications! The real hero here is SMART MATCH. Smart match is the technology that's used to determine which application you're in and where you are when you click on Smart Help. We'll save that for a one-on-one conversation. Like most other awesome features of UPK, it ships with the product. All you have to do is turn it on. To learn more about Smart Help, Smart Match, Targeted and Non-Targeted applications, contact your UPK Sales Consultant or me directly at [email protected]

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• 2010 April Fools Joke

  - by Dane Morgridge

  I started at my current job at the end of March last year and there were some pretty funny April fools jokes.  Nothing super crazy, but pretty funny.  One guy came in and there was a tree in his cube.  We (me and the rest of my team) were planning for a couple of weeks on what we could do that would be just awesome.  We had a lot of really good ideas but nothing was spectacular.  Then Steve Andrews had a brilliant idea (yes it's true).  Since we have internal DNS servers we could redirect DNS to our internal servers for a site such as cnn.com.  Then we would lift the code from the site and create our own home page that would contain news about people in the company.  Steve was actually laughing so hard when he thought of the idea that it took him almost 30 minutes to spit it out. I thought, "this is perfect". I had enlisted a couple of people to help come up with the stories and at the same time we were trying to figure out how to get everybody to the site the morning of the 1st.  Then it hit me.  We could have the main article be one of my getting picked up by the FBI on hacking charges.  Then Chris (my boss) could send an email out telling everyone that I would not be there today and direct them to the site.  That would for sure get everyone to go to cnn.com first thing and see our prank.  I begun the process of looking for photos I could crop myself into and found the perfect one.  Then my wife took a good pic with our Canon 40D and I went to work.  The night before I didn't have any other stories due to everyone being really busy at work, but I decided to go ahead with just the FBI bust on it's own.  I got everything working and tested and coordinated with Chris for me to come in late so no one would see me at the office until after everyone had seen the joke. And so the morning of April fools came and I was waiting at home and the email was perfect.  Chris told everyone that I wouldn't be in and that not to answer any questions if you got any calls from anybody.  The Photoshop job I did was not perfect, but good enough and I even wrote an article with it that went into more detail about how I had been classified as a terrorist and all kinds of stuff. People at work started getting the emails and a few people didn't realize it was a joke (as I had hoped), including some from senior management (one person in particular who shall remain nameless in this post).  Emails started flying around about how to contain the situation and how to handle bad PR.  He basically bought it hook, line and sinker and then went in to crisis mode.  It was awesome! He did finally realize it was a joke and I will likely print and frame the email he sent out.  In short, April fools this year was a huge success.

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• iPad Impressions

  - by Aaron Lazenby

  So, I spent some quality time with my new iPad on Saturday. Here are things I like/don't like: -- Don't like that it has to sync with iTunes before you use it: I was traveling and left my laptop at home thinking I'd use this iPad thing instead. But the first thing it asked me to do is connect it to a laptop. Ugh. Had to borrow my mother-in-law's MacBook Pro just to get the iPad rolling. -- Like that magazines and newspapers are forever changed: And I think for the better...it's why I bought this thing in the first place. I spent significant time with The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and Popular Science on the iPad. Sliding stories around, jumping from section to section, enlarging images = all excellent experiences. Actually prefer iPad magazine to print, which will require a major shift in editorial strategy, summed up by Popular Science's Mark Jannot in his editor's note "What defines a magazine? Curated expertise--not paper." -- Don't like the screwy human factors: I actually enjoy the virtual keyboard (although I think I'm in the minority), but you have to hunch over to look down at what you're typing. Bad technology ergonomics have already jacked my body in various ways. The iPad just introduced a new one.-- Like the multitouch: In fact, it's awesome. Hands down. Probably will have the most lasting impact on the personal computing industry as a whole.   -- Don't like that it's heavy: If you plan to read in bed, you'd better double up on the creatine and curls. Holding this thing up on your own gets pretty uncomfortable. -- Like the Netfilx app: I wanted to watch "The Big Lebowski," so I did. That is all. -- Don't like that people feel 3G is necessary: For $30 a month? Please. I'm already accustomed to limiting my laptop internet use to readily available free wi-fi. Why do I expect anything different with the iPad? Most anyplace I have time to sit and read/use a computer (cafe, airport, you house, library, etc.) has free wi-fi. I can live without web surfing in your car. That's what the iPhone is for. -- Don't like that not everyone was ready in day one: I'm looking at you Facebook. No iPad app for launch? Lame. iPhone apps scaled-up to work on the iPad look grainy and cheap. Not a quality befitting this beautiful $700 piece of glass.Verdict: I'm bringing it to COLLABORATE 08 and seeing if I can go the whole week using only the iPad. If I can trade this thing for my laptop, I know it's a winner. For now, I'm enjoying Popular Science.

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• Four New Java Champions

  - by Tori Wieldt

  Four luminaries in the Java community have been selected as new Java Champions. The are Agnes Crepet, Lars Vogel, Yara Senger and Martijn Verburg. They were selected for their technical knowledge, leadership, inspiration, and tireless work for the community. Here is how they rock the Java world: Agnes Crepet Agnes Crepet (France) is a passionate technologist with over 11 years of software engineering experience, especially in the Java technologies, as a Developer, Architect, Consultant and Trainer. She has been using Java since 1999, implementing multiple kinds of applications (from 20 days to 10000 men days) for different business fields (banking, retail, and pharmacy). Currently she is a Java EE Architect for a French pharmaceutical company, the homeopathy world leader. She is also the co-founder, with other passionate Java developers, of a software company named Ninja Squad, dedicated to Software Craftsmanship. Agnes is the leader of two Java User Groups (JUG), the Lyon JUG Duchess France and the founder of the Mix-IT Conferenceand theCast-IT Podcast, two projects about Java and Agile Development. She speaks at Java and JUG conferences around the world and regularly writes articles about the Java Ecosystem for the French print Developer magazine Programmez! and for the Duchess Blog. Follow Agnes @agnes_crepet. Lars Vogel Lars Vogel (Germany) is the founder and CEO of the vogella GmbH and works as Java, Eclipse and Android consultant, trainer and book author. He is a regular speaker at international conferences, such as EclipseCon, Devoxx, Droidcon and O'Reilly's Android Open. With more than one million visitors per month, his website vogella.com is one of the central sources for Java, Eclipse and Android programming information. Lars is committer in the Eclipse project and received in 2010 the "Eclipse Top Contributor Award" and 2012 the "Eclipse Top Newcomer Evangelist Award." Follow Lars on Twitter @vogella. Yara Senger Yara Senger (Brazil) has been a tireless Java activist in Brazil for many years. She is President of SouJava and she is an alternate representative of the group on the JCP Executive Committee. Yara has led SouJava in many initiatives, from technical events to social activities. She is co-founder and director of GlobalCode, which trains developers throughout Brazil.  Last year, she was recipient of the Duke Choice's Award, for the JHome embedded environment.  Yara is also an active speaker, giving presentations in many countries, including JavaOne SF, JavaOne Latin Ameria, JavaOne India, JFokus, and JUGs throughout Brazil. Yara is editor of InfoQ Brasil and also frequently posts at http://blog.globalcode.com.br/search/label/Yara. Follow Yara @YaraSenger. Martijn Verburg Martijn Verburg (UK) is the CTO of jClarity (a Java/JVM performance cloud tooling start-up) and has over 12 years experience as a Java/JVM technology professional and OSS mentor in a variety of organisations from start-ups to large enterprises. He is the co-leader of the London Java Community (~2800 developers) and leads the global effort for the Java User Group "Adopt a JSR" and "Adopt OpenJDK" programmes. These programmes encourage day to day Java developer involvement with OpenJDK, Java standards (JSRs), an important relationship for keeping the Java ecosystem relevant to the 9 million Java developers out there today. As a leading expert on technical team optimisation, his talks and presentations are in high demand by major conferences (JavaOne, Devoxx, OSCON, QCon) where you'll often find him challenging the industry status quo via his alter ego "The Diabolical Developer." You can read more in the OTN ariticle "Challenging the Diabolical Developer: A Conversation with JavaOne Rock Star Martijn Verburg." Follow Martijn @karianna. The Java Champions are an exclusive group of passionate Java technology and community leaders who are community-nominated and selected under a project sponsored by Oracle. Java Champions get the opportunity to provide feedback, ideas, and direction that will help Oracle grow the Java Platform. Congratulations to these new Java Champions!

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• SQL SERVER – A Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement

  - by pinaldave

  For the last few weeks, I have been doing Friday Puzzles and I am really loving it. Yesterday I received a very interesting question by Navneet Chaurasia on Facebook Page. He was asked this question in one of the interview questions for job. Please read the original thread for a complete idea of the conversation. I am presenting the same question here. Puzzle Let us assume there is a single column in the table called Gender. The challenge is to write a single update statement which will flip or swap the value in the column. For example if the value in the gender column is ‘male’ swap it with ‘female’ and if the value is ‘female’ swap it with ‘male’. Here is the quick setup script for the puzzle. USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE SimpleTable (ID INT, Gender VARCHAR(10)) GO INSERT INTO SimpleTable (ID, Gender) SELECT 1, 'female' UNION ALL SELECT 2, 'male' UNION ALL SELECT 3, 'male' GO SELECT * FROM SimpleTable GO The above query will return following result set. The puzzle was to write a single update column which will generate following result set. There are multiple answers to this simple puzzle. Let me show you three different ways. I am assuming that the column will have either value ‘male’ or ‘female’ only. Method 1: Using CASE Statement I believe this is going to be the most popular solution as we are all familiar with CASE Statement. UPDATE SimpleTable SET Gender = CASE Gender WHEN 'male' THEN 'female' ELSE 'male' END GO SELECT * FROM SimpleTable GO Method 2: Using REPLACE  Function I totally understand it is the not cleanest solution but it will for sure work in giving situation. UPDATE SimpleTable SET Gender = REPLACE(('fe'+Gender),'fefe','') GO SELECT * FROM SimpleTable GO Method 3: Using IIF in SQL Server 2012 If you are using SQL Server 2012 you can use IIF and get the same effect as CASE statement. UPDATE SimpleTable SET Gender = IIF(Gender = 'male', 'female', 'male') GO SELECT * FROM SimpleTable GO You can read my article series on SQL Server 2012 various functions over here. SQL SERVER – Denali – Logical Function – IIF() – A Quick Introduction SQL SERVER – Detecting Leap Year in T-SQL using SQL Server 2012 – IIF, EOMONTH and CONCAT Function Let us clean up. DROP TABLE SimpleTable GO Question to you: I came up with three simple tricks where there is a single UPDATE statement which swaps the values in the column. Do you know any other simple trick? If yes, please post here in the comments. I will pick two random winners from all the valid answers. Winners will get 1) Print Copy of SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers 2) Free Learning Code for Online Video Courses I will announce the winners on coming Monday. Reference:  Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: CodeProject, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• Silverlight Cream for May 08, 2010 -- #858

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Phil Middlemiss, Jaime Rodriguez, Senthil Kumar, Mike Snow, DaveDev, Gergely Orosz, Kirupa, Cheryl Simmons, András Velvárt, Dan Wahlin, Michael D. Brown, and Ben Rush. Shoutouts: Erik Mork and crew have their latest up: This Week In Silverlight – Where’s the Tablet? Chris Rouw has a good link post and instructions on WCF RIA services: Deploying and Configuring Silverlight 4 and WCF RIA Services From SilverlightCream.com: Quick and Easy Sscalable Rounded Bevels Phil Middlemiss duplicates some bevel-edged rectangles in Blend, and they look great. Now you don't have to import all the other PhotoShop bits to get those things looking the way you want! A transparent Windows PHONE FAQ Jaime Rodriguez combined a bunch of information into a WP7 FAQ that he's going to keep up to date, so bookmark the page. He also has links to the Training Kit, on and offline versions. Windows Phone Developer Training Kit April Refresh is now available for Download Thanks to Senthil Kumar, I found out there is an April refresh of the WP7 Training kit at Channel 9 -- go get yours now --- I'll still be here when you get back! Silverlight Tip of the Day #16 – Working with IgnoreImageCache Mike Snow's Tip of the day #16 covers IgnoreImageCache and like many other things in life, until you read Mike's post you may be surprised at how it works. DoodlePad – A fun, free, sketching application for Windows Phone 7 DaveDev has a new WP7 App up that lets you or your kids 'Doodle' on the phone... could be a note, or could be a drawing... good post with all the links you need to get this cranked up on the emulator. Printing in Silverlight: Printing Charts and Auto Scaling Gergely Orosz's latest post is a very useful one on auto-scaling charts to fit a printed page and then getting them to print. Smoothly Scrolling a ListBox Check out the smooth scrolling Kirupa has on the ListBox near the top of his post... all good stuff... you wanna know how to do that! Plus... it's dead simple and all in Blend :) http://www.sparklingclient.com/wheres-the-silverlight-tablet/ Cheryl Simmons has a great tip up at the SilverlightSDK if you haven't burned through to figure it out yet ... changing the watermark on a DatePicker control... looks great! The story of a wicked bug András Velvárt tells a story of a bug that just defied logic or being found. Read how he tracked it down and what it actually was... could save you some time. Story learned: if I have a problem that bad, I'm calling András :) Text Trimming in Silverlight 4 Dan Wahlin gives a quick run-through of what TextBox trimming is, and then by a good real example... check it out and start using it in your projects. Enterprise Patterns with WCF RIA Services Michael D. Brown has an article in MSDN Magazine on RIA Services. Great information and link-packed article, with all the source avialable for download. Building Custom Players with the Silverlight Media Framework Ben Rush has a nice long tutorial on the Silverlight Media Framework up on the MSDN Magazine site ... lots of information in there. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Create Panoramic Photos with Windows Live Photo Gallery

  - by Matthew Guay

  Have you ever wanted to capture the view from a mountain or the full size of a building?  Here’s how you can stitch multiple shots together into the perfect panoramic picture for free with Windows Live Photo Gallery. Getting Started First, make sure you have Windows Live Photo Gallery installed (link below).  Live Photo Gallery is part of the Windows Live Essentials suite, you can select other programs to install along with it if you want. Make sure to uncheck setting your home page to MSN and setting your search provider as Bing if you don’t want them changed.   Now, make sure you have pictures that will work good for a panorama.  These need to be taken from the same spot, and the edges of the pictures need to overlap so the program can find where the pictures connect.  Here we have taken pictures inside a building with a cell phone camera. Make your Panorama Open Live Photo Gallery, and find the pictures you want to use in your panorama.  It will automatically index and display all of the photos in your Pictures folder or Library if you’re using Windows 7. If your pictures are saved elsewhere, add that folder to Photo Gallery.  Click File, Include a folder in the gallery, and select the correct folder at the prompt. Now select all of the pictures that you will use in your panorama.  You can easily do this by clicking the checkbox on each picture that appears when you hover over it.    Once all of the pictures are selected, click Make in the menu bar and select Create panoramic photo… Alternately, right-click on any of the pictures you’ve selected, and click Create panoramic photo… Live Photo Gallery will analyze your photos and compost them together to create a panorama.  The amount of time it takes will vary depending on the number of photos, size of the pictures, and computer speed. When it’s finished making the panorama, you’ll be prompted to enter a file name and save the picture. Your new panorama picture will open as soon as it’s saved.  Depending on your shots, the picture may have quite a bit of black space around the edges where each picture didn’t cover the exact same amount of area. To correct this, click Fix on the menu bar, and then select Crop Photo in the sidebar that opens. Select the center of the picture with the crop tool, and click Apply when you’ve got the selection you want. Live Photo Gallery automatically saves your picture changes, and you can revert back to the original picture if you wish. Now you’ve got a nice panoramic shot, trimmed and ready to print, share, and more. Conclusion Panoramic shots are great ways to capture your whole surroundings, whether it’s a sports stadium, mall, or a scenic mountain view.  They can also be a great way to capture more with low-resolution cameras. Link Download Windows Live Photo Gallery Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Family Fun: Share Photos with Photo Gallery and Windows Live SpacesLearning Windows 7: Manage Photos with Live Photo GalleryEasily Re-Size Photos in Windows Vista or XPInstall Windows Live Essentials In Windows 7Convert Photos to Flash for Your Website TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like) Build Great Charts in Excel with Chart Advisor tinysong gives a shortened URL for you to post on Twitter (or anywhere)

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• Technology vs. Antiquated Methods

  - by AreYouSerious

  So Here I am talking with my Program lead, about technology, and how while my father is the VP of a major company, he still doesn't have a blackberry, or a smart phone. and I think it's funny. Most people would say it's a generational thing. That because he's older, he dosen't accept technology, and that's why. I have trouble swallowing that because this is the same man, who bought a satellite radio for his car, and made sure that the printer for the house was networked so that his and my mom's laptop could print wirelessly from the living room through their wireless network. I think it has to do with more with necessity, and partially with finical responsibility. My father is very financially conciencious. Think about it yourself. you pay for internet at your home. You have internet access at your office. But if you get a smart phone you're going to pay almost the same amount just for that access. A lot of people take it as just another fixed cost... I'm one of those. I don't even think about it, as I check my facebook from the bus, train, or even while sitting in traffic... The convience of having connection everywhere outweigh the financial responsible person screaming at in the back of my mind. However This conversation lead us to another venue of discussion.... what happens when the power dies. if you left your charger at home, or you phone or navi just stops working... are you going to be able to continue on as you did when it was working... let take the navi as an example... if your navi stops working, how many of you know how to use a map, and navigate? can you even find where you are on a map using the cross streets that your stopped at? This is a skill that unfortunatelly is overlooked these days in the child rearing process. Most people don't see the value, while some others can't do it themselves, so how can they teach their offspring? Take another example.... what if your phone gets lost... or stolen, or you drive over it? do you have the numbers in their memorized? are they recorded somewhere? I know that if it weren't for google sync I wouldn't have them backed up... not sufficiently. And what good does that do if you're in timbuckto and your phone dies, think you can get on the internet to look up those numbers? Don't get me wrong. I'm the first to see the value in technology, and am willing to pay the price to not have to wait for prices to come down. I will pay extra to have that newest thing right now. but let me tell you what.... I know that should I ever procreate it will be a requirement for my offspring (children) to learn how to do something manually before I'll let them use technology. Food for thought?? Let everyone else know what you think.... just sayin'

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• Application Performance Episode 2: Announcing the Judges!

  - by Michaela Murray

  The story so far… We’re writing a new book for ASP.NET developers, and we want you to be a part of it! If you work with ASP.NET applications, and have top tips, hard-won lessons, or sage advice for avoiding, finding, and fixing performance problems, we want to hear from you! And if your app uses SQL Server, even better – interaction with the database is critical to application performance, so we’re looking for database top tips too. There’s a Microsoft Surface apiece for the person who comes up with the best tip for SQL Server and the best tip for .NET. Of course, if your suggestion is selected for the book, you’ll get full credit, by name, Twitter handle, GitHub repository, or whatever you like. To get involved, just email your nuggets of performance wisdom to [email protected] – there are examples of what we’re looking for and full competition details at Application Performance: The Best of the Web. Enter the judges… As mentioned in my last blogpost, we have a mystery panel of celebrity judges lined up to select the prize-winning performance pointers. We’re now ready to reveal their secret identities! Judging your ASP.NET  tips will be: Jean-Phillippe Gouigoux, MCTS/MCPD Enterprise Architect and MVP Connected System Developer. He’s a board member at French software company MGDIS, and teaches algorithms, security, software tests, and ALM at the Université de Bretagne Sud. Jean-Philippe also lectures at IT conferences and writes articles for programming magazines. His book Practical Performance Profiling is published by Simple-Talk. Nik Molnar,  a New Yorker, ASP Insider, and co-founder of Glimpse, an open source ASP.NET diagnostics and debugging tool. Originally from Florida, Nik specializes in web development, building scalable, client-centric solutions. In his spare time, Nik can be found cooking up a storm in the kitchen, hanging with his wife, speaking at conferences, and working on other open source projects. Mitchel Sellers, Microsoft C# and DotNetNuke MVP. Mitchel is an experienced software architect, business leader, public speaker, and educator. He works with companies across the globe, as CEO of IowaComputerGurus Inc. Mitchel writes technical articles for online and print publications and is the author of Professional DotNetNuke Module Programming. He frequently answers questions on StackOverflow and MSDN and is an active participant in the .NET and DotNetNuke communities. Clive Tong, Software Engineer at Red Gate. In previous roles, Clive spent a lot of time working with Common LISP and enthusing about functional languages, and he’s worked with managed languages since before his first real job (which was a long time ago). Long convinced of the productivity benefits of managed languages, Clive is very interested in getting good runtime performance to keep managed languages practical for real-world development. And our trio of SQL Server specialists, ready to select your top suggestion, are (drumroll): Rodney Landrum, a SQL Server MVP who writes regularly about Integration Services, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services. He’s authored SQL Server Tacklebox, three Reporting Services books, and contributes regularly to SQLServerCentral, SQL Server Magazine, and Simple–Talk. His day job involves overseeing a large SQL Server infrastructure in Orlando. Grant Fritchey, Product Evangelist at Red Gate and SQL Server MVP. In an IT career spanning more than 20 years, Grant has written VB, VB.NET, C#, and Java. He’s been working with SQL Server since version 6.0. Grant volunteers with the Editorial Committee at PASS and has written books for Apress and Simple-Talk. Jonathan Allen, leader and founder of the PASS SQL South West user group. He’s been working with SQL Server since 1999 and enjoys performance tuning, development, and using SQL Server for business solutions. He’s spoken at SQLBits and SQL in the City, as well as local user groups across the UK. He’s also a moderator at ask.sqlservercentral.com.

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• Part 9: EBS Customizations, how to track

  - by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com

  In the previous blogs we were concentrating on the preparation tasks. We have defined standards, we know about the tools and techniques we will start with. Additionally, we have defined the modification strategy, and how to handle such topics best. Now we are ready to take the requirements! Such requirements coming over in spreadsheets, word files (like GAP documents), or in any other format. As we have to assign some attributes, we start numbering all that and assign a short name to each of these requirements (=CEMLI reference). We may also have already a Functional person assigned, and we might involve someone from the tech team to estimate, and we like to assign a status such as 'planned', 'estimated' etc. All these data are usually kept in spreadsheets, but I would put them into a database (yes, I am from Oracle :). If you don't have any good looking and centralized application already, please give a try with Oracle APEX. It should be up and running in a day and the imported sheets are than manageable concurrently!  For one of my clients I have created this CEMLI-DB; in between enriched with a lot of additional functionality, but initially it was just a simple centralized CEMLI tracking application. Why I am pointing out again the centralized method to manage such data? Well, your data quality will dramatically increase, if you let your project members see (also review and update) "your" data.  APEX allows you to filter, sort, print, and also export. And if you can spend some time to define proper value lists, everyone will gain from. APEX allows you to work in 'agile' mode, means you can improve your application step by step. Let's say you like to reference a document, or even upload the same, you can do that. Or, you need to classify the CEMLIs by release, just add this release field, same for business area or CEMLI type. One CEMLI record may then look like this: Prepare one or two (online) reports, to be ready to present your "workload" to the project management. Use such extracts also when you work offline (to prioritize etc.). But as soon as you are again connected, feed the data back into the central application. Note: I have combined this application with an additional issue tracker.  Here the most important element is the CEMLI reference, which acts as link to any other application (if you are not using APEX also as issue tracker :).  Please spend a minute to define such a reference (see blog Part 8: How to name Customizations).   Summary: Building the bridge from Gap analyse to the development has to be done in a controlled way. Usually the information is provided differently, but it is suggested to collect all requirements centrally. Oracle APEX is a great solution to enter and maintain such information in a structured, but flexible way. APEX helped me a lot to work with distributed development teams during the complete development cycle.

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• Microsoft Cloud Day - the ups and downs

  - by Charles Young

  The term ‘cloud’ can sometimes obscure the obvious.  Today’s Microsoft Cloud Day conference in London provided a good example.  Scott Guthrie was halfway through what was an excellent keynote when he lost network connectivity.  This proved very disruptive to his presentation which centred on a series of demonstrations of the Azure platform in action.  Great efforts were made to find a solution, but no quick fix presented itself.  The venue’s IT facilities were dreadful – no WiFi, poor 3G reception (forget 4G…this is the UK) and, unbelievably, no-one on hand from the venue staff to help with infrastructure issues.  Eventually, after an unscheduled break, a solution was found and Scott managed to complete his demonstrations.  Further connectivity issues occurred during the day. I can say that the cause was prosaic.  A member of the venue staff had interfered with a patch board and inadvertently disconnected Scott Guthrie’s machine from the network by pulling out a cable. I need to state the obvious here.  If your PC is disconnected from the network it can’t communicate with other systems.  This could include a machine under someone’s desk, a mail server located down the hall, a server in the local data centre, an Internet search engine or even, heaven forbid, a role running on Azure. Inadvertently disconnecting a PC from the network does not imply a fundamental problem with the cloud or any specific cloud platform.  Some of the tweeted comments I’ve seen today are analogous to suggesting that, if you accidently unplug your microwave from the mains, this suggests some fundamental flaw with the electricity supply to your house.   This is poor reasoning, to say the least. As far as the conference was concerned, the connectivity issue in the keynote, coupled with some later problems in a couple of presentations, served to exaggerate the perception of poor organisation.   Software problems encountered before the conference prevented the correct set-up of a smartphone app intended to convey agenda information to attendees.  Although some information was available via this app, the organisers decided to print out an agenda at the last moment.  Unfortunately, the agenda sheet did not convey enough information, and attendees were forced to approach conference staff through the day to clarify locations of the various presentations. Despite these problems, the overwhelming feedback from conference attendees was very positive.  There was a real sense of excitement in the morning keynote.  For many, this was their first sight of new Azure features delivered in the ‘spring’ release.  The most common reaction I heard was amazement and appreciation that Azure’s new IaaS features deliver built-in template support for several flavours of Linux from day one.  This coupled with open source SDKs and several presentations on Azure’s support for Java, node.js, PHP, MongoDB and Hadoop served to communicate that the Azure platform is maturing quickly.  The new virtual network capabilities also surprised many attendees, and the much improved portal experience went down very well. So, despite some very irritating and disruptive problems, the event served its purpose well, communicating the breadth and depth of the newly upgraded Azure platform.  I enjoyed the day very much.

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• Customizing UPK outputs (Part 1)

  - by [email protected]

  If you are familiar with Oracle's User Productivity Kit, you are aware that UPK is a great product for rapidly developing application training. Did you know that you can also customize the UPK outputs to incorporate your company's logo, colors, and preferred styles? There are several areas that support customization: Logo - Within the developer, you can change the logo for all outputs at one time. Player - The player output uses a style sheet that can be updated to change colors, graphics and other visual branding. Documentation - The print documentation uses a Word-based template that can be modified to match your corporate standards. I'll discuss the first one today, and we'll cover the others in subsequent blogs. Before you begin: If you are working in a multi-user environment, ensure that you have "Modify" permissions for the Styles directory under the Publishing folder. Make a copy of the current styles. This recommendation is for backup purposes. If something goes wrong, you will have a way to recover. Consider creating your own category by creating a new folder under the Styles directory, and then copying the styles into your new folder. When you upgrade to future versions, the system will overwrite the standard styles with any new feature additions and updates that have been made. With your own category, all of your customizations will remain intact. To update the logos in all outputs: From the Tools Menu, choose Customize Logo. Select the category if necessary. Browse to select your logo. You can use any size logo, in any graphic format (*.bmp, *.gif, *.jpeg, *.jpg, *.png, or *.tif). The system will make a copy of your logo and add it to each of the publishing styles. Choose OK, and the update process begins. It may take a few minutes. Helpful hints: The logo you select is used "as is" - no resizing or cropping occurs during this process. The Customize Logo process automates replacing all the logo graphics for online deployment (small_logo.gif and large_logo.gif) and the headers in the documentation outputs. You can manually replace these graphics on an individual style basis if you prefer. The recommended logo size is 230 pixels wide x 44 pixels high. Prior to updating the logos, the system will display the size of the selected logo. If you use a logo that is much larger than the recommended size, the heading area will resize to fit the new logo, but that will impact the space available for your training material. If you are using a multi-user environment, the system will check out the publishing styles to you for the logo updates. After you review the styles, remember to check them in so the rest of your team can access the new changes. I'd be interested in hearing (or seeing) how you brand your UPK. Feel free to share in the comments! --Maria Cozzolino, Manager of Requirements & UI for UPK Product Development PS. For those of you who want to customize the player and documentation NOW, check out the detailed instructions in the Publishing Content chapter of the Content Development Guide.

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