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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 17, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 17, 2010New Projects.NET Essentials Course: .NET Essentials course @ Telerik Academy Training project for the studentsAU/NZ Office 2010 Launch Demos: The AU/NZ Office 2010 Launch Demos are a collection of code samples that were used as part of the Office/SharePoint 2010 launch parties in Australi...CybennyCMS: Very simple CMS system for building sites with ASP.NET with templates for lay-out, content pages with only html content and a xml file for the site...essionPIM: essionPIMGIStance: A library for finding "nearest neighbor" among an in-memory set of positions, in C# and F#. A radius must be specified for making a meaningful s...IP Informer: IP Informer is IP Informer.Kurumsal Ofis Paketi: Kurumsal Ofis Paketi (KOP), Microsoft Ofis 2010 ürünleri için geliştirilmiş eklenti yazılımıdır. KOP, Word ve Excel’de bulunan işlevlerinin genişle...Mockup to XAML: Convert Balsamiq Mockups to XAML. This project supports BMML mockup control conversion using plugins. A standard set of controls are included wit...Open XML Validator: This WPF app give you a brief resume about errors in your Open XML documents.Paint.NET Bulk Image Processor: PDNBulkUpdater is a plug-in for Paint.NET that allows you to efficiently perform operations such as resizing and converting multiple images at the ...PiPiBugNet: PiPiBugNet是一套全新的开源Bug管理系统Roleplay character generator: The roleplay character generator allows the creation of characters for different roleplaying gamesSharePoint User Search WebParts: This project contains SharePoint webparts which provide advanced search configuration and experience for SharePoint 2007. It will be upgrade in few...Spodi: Spodi is created on 22-04-2010TfsPolicyPack: This project will provide a few checkin policies for VS 2010.vccodesandobx: vccodesandobxvccodesandobxvccodesandobxWhiteNile: test project using codeplexNew ReleasesAnimeStore.Net: 1.0.3.0: Build 1.0.3.0 Changes Move some functionality to features (MEF) Filter / Search functionality. Anime hard-copy records storage (e.g Disk Storage ...AU/NZ Office 2010 Launch Demos: Twitter map web part: This is the main twitter map web part download, see the Twitter Map web part page for all the information.Blueset Studio Opensource Projects: 推来: 稳定版本BUtil: BUtil 5.0 Alpha2: The initial implementation of multitasking (except ghost)CassiniDev - Cassini 3.5/4.0 Developers Edition: CassiniDev 3.5.1 and 4.0.1 beta: Beta 2 is released here: url http://cassinidev.codeplex.com/releases/view/45456 New in CassiniDev v3.5.1.0/v4.0.1.0 Added .Net 4 / VS10 build. ...CBM-Command: 2010-05-16: Release Notes - 2010-05-16New Features New navigation options: Page Up, Page Down, Top of Directory, Bottom of Directory. See documentation (http:...CCNet Conditional Plugin: CCNet Conditional for CCNet 1.5: A (quick) build of the plugin for CCNet 1.5 to fix the 17365 bug reported by Beakster. This also adds a new condition "timeCondition"CybennyCMS: Cybenny CMS beta 1: The first beta. Includes a small demo site.Data Extracting SDK: Data Extracting SDK v.1.1 RTM: RTM version of Data Extracting SDK.Duckworth Lewis Professional Edition Calculator: DLcalc 2.0: This software can perform all D/L calculations 100% accurately. From version 2.0 onwards, tables for par scores can also be produced.EPiServer CMS Page Type Builder: Page Type Builder 1.2: Release notes can be found in this blog post.Floe IRC Client: Floe IRC Client 2010-05 R5: - Many new context menu options for @s - Ability to select multiple users in the nick list for some operations (kick, ban) - Bunch of minor bug fix...Graffiti CMS Events Plugin: Version 1.0.1: Minor update to previous version to fix bug where deleted posts were still showing in the calendar.Microsoft Research Boogie: 2010-05-16: Binary release of Boogie and Dafny. (Note, Chalice is not pre-built as part of this binary release. To obtain it, you need to build it yourself f...MSBuild Launch Pad (mPad): 1.0 Beta 2: Basic support for sln, csproj, vbproj, vcxproj, shfbproj, ccproj, oxygene and proj files are added. Basic settings (Show Prompt, and Auto Hide) are...Multi-Language Words Memorizer: Memorizer 1.1: Issues fix, XML db update with new words.NShader - HLSL - GLSL - CG - Shader Syntax Highlighter AddIn for Visual Studio: NShader 1.1: New release of NShader! New : - a Visual Studio 2010 port can be installed through the new extension manager : you just have to download NShaderV...PHPExcel: PHPExcel 1.7.3 Production: Want to contribute?Please refer the Contribute page. DonationsDonate via PayPal. If you want to, we can also add your name / company on our Donati...Rollback - A social backup tool.: Rollback Setup 0.5.1.2 Build 48360: Bug fixes for backing up files which are hidden/system. Changes to make builds on 64 bit Windows 7 using VS 2010 Express edition.Rollback - A social backup tool.: Rollback Setup 0.5.1.3: Updated version number.Shake - C# Make: Shake v0.1.20: New: Simple console logger Changes: Command line params helper writes out syntax and samples (like msbuild) Fixes: Assembly info, file task and r...SharePoint User Search WebParts: v0.1 Friendly MOSS 2007 Search WebPart: Very first version of this webpart. A more stabilized version will follow in few days.Team Deploy: Team Deploy 2010 Beta 1: This is the initial release for Team Deploy 2010 for TFS Team Build 2010. All features from Team Build 2.x are functional in this version. Comp...Team Foundation Server Administration Tool: 2.0: TFS Administration Tool 2.0 TFS Administration Tool 2.0 is built on top of the Team Foundation Server 2008 object model and in order to connect to...The Ping Master: v0.9.0.0: Installer for The Ping Master binariesUseful Office Macros: All Macro Downloads: Please find above the downloads related to this project. Each Excel Workbook below works independently of the others, so you only need to download...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30516.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio DSite: Advanced Digital Board Game (Visual C++ 2008): An advanced digital board game made in visual c 2008.YUI Compressor Custom Tool for Visual Studio: YUI Compressor Custom Tool Full Version: Version 1.0 The following changes have been made: Merged classes to automatically sense if the target file is Javascript or CSS. Cleaned up setu...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelASP.NETMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryPHPExcelBlogEngine.NETRawrMicrosoft Biology FoundationCustomer Portal Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRMWindows Azure Command-line Tools for PHP DevelopersDotNetZip LibraryCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and SilverlightSQL Server PowerShell Extensions

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• How to Achieve OC4J RMI Load Balancing

  - by fip

  This is an old, Oracle SOA and OC4J 10G topic. In fact this is not even a SOA topic per se. Questions of RMI load balancing arise when you developed custom web applications accessing human tasks running off a remote SOA 10G cluster. Having returned from a customer who faced challenges with OC4J RMI load balancing, I felt there is still some confusions in the field how OC4J RMI load balancing work. Hence I decide to dust off an old tech note that I wrote a few years back and share it with the general public. Here is the tech note: Overview A typical use case in Oracle SOA is that you are building web based, custom human tasks UI that will interact with the task services housed in a remote BPEL 10G cluster. Or, in a more generic way, you are just building a web based application in Java that needs to interact with the EJBs in a remote OC4J cluster. In either case, you are talking to an OC4J cluster as RMI client. Then immediately you must ask yourself the following questions: 1. How do I make sure that the web application, as an RMI client, even distribute its load against all the nodes in the remote OC4J cluster? 2. How do I make sure that the web application, as an RMI client, is resilient to the node failures in the remote OC4J cluster, so that in the unlikely case when one of the remote OC4J nodes fail, my web application will continue to function? That is the topic of how to achieve load balancing with OC4J RMI client. Solutions You need to configure and code RMI load balancing in two places: 1. Provider URL can be specified with a comma separated list of URLs, so that the initial lookup will land to one of the available URLs. 2. Choose a proper value for the oracle.j2ee.rmi.loadBalance property, which, along side with the PROVIDER_URL property, is one of the JNDI properties passed to the JNDI lookup.(http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B31017_01/web.1013/b28958/rmi.htm#BABDGFBI) More details below: About the PROVIDER_URL The JNDI property java.name.provider.url's job is, when the client looks up for a new context at the very first time in the client session, to provide a list of RMI context The value of the JNDI property java.name.provider.url goes by the format of a single URL, or a comma separate list of URLs. A single URL. For example: opmn:ormi://host1:6003:oc4j_instance1/appName1 A comma separated list of multiple URLs. For examples:  opmn:ormi://host1:6003:oc4j_instanc1/appName, opmn:ormi://host2:6003:oc4j_instance1/appName, opmn:ormi://host3:6003:oc4j_instance1/appName When the client looks up for a new Context the very first time in the client session, it sends a query against the OPMN referenced by the provider URL. The OPMN host and port specifies the destination of such query, and the OC4J instance name and appName are actually the “where clause” of the query. When the PROVIDER URL reference a single OPMN server Let's consider the case when the provider url only reference a single OPMN server of the destination cluster. In this case, that single OPMN server receives the query and returns a list of the qualified Contexts from all OC4Js within the cluster, even though there is a single OPMN server in the provider URL. A context represent a particular starting point at a particular server for subsequent object lookup. For example, if the URL is opmn:ormi://host1:6003:oc4j_instance1/appName, then, OPMN will return the following contexts: appName on oc4j_instance1 on host1 appName on oc4j_instance1 on host2, appName on oc4j_instance1 on host3,  (provided that host1, host2, host3 are all in the same cluster) Please note that One OPMN will be sufficient to find the list of all contexts from the entire cluster that satisfy the JNDI lookup query. You can do an experiment by shutting down appName on host1, and observe that OPMN on host1 will still be able to return you appname on host2 and appName on host3. When the PROVIDER URL reference a comma separated list of multiple OPMN servers When the JNDI propery java.naming.provider.url references a comma separated list of multiple URLs, the lookup will return the exact same things as with the single OPMN server: a list of qualified Contexts from the cluster. The purpose of having multiple OPMN servers is to provide high availability in the initial context creation, such that if OPMN at host1 is unavailable, client will try the lookup via OPMN on host2, and so on. After the initial lookup returns and cache a list of contexts, the JNDI URL(s) are no longer used in the same client session. That explains why removing the 3rd URL from the list of JNDI URLs will not stop the client from getting the EJB on the 3rd server. About the oracle.j2ee.rmi.loadBalance Property After the client acquires the list of contexts, it will cache it at the client side as “list of available RMI contexts”.  This list includes all the servers in the destination cluster. This list will stay in the cache until the client session (JVM) ends. The RMI load balancing against the destination cluster is happening at the client side, as the client is switching between the members of the list. Whether and how often the client will fresh the Context from the list of Context is based on the value of the  oracle.j2ee.rmi.loadBalance. The documentation at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B31017_01/web.1013/b28958/rmi.htm#BABDGFBI list all the available values for the oracle.j2ee.rmi.loadBalance. Value Description client If specified, the client interacts with the OC4J process that was initially chosen at the first lookup for the entire conversation. context Used for a Web client (servlet or JSP) that will access EJBs in a clustered OC4J environment. If specified, a new Context object for a randomly-selected OC4J instance will be returned each time InitialContext() is invoked. lookup Used for a standalone client that will access EJBs in a clustered OC4J environment. If specified, a new Context object for a randomly-selected OC4J instance will be created each time the client calls Context.lookup(). Please note the regardless of the setting of oracle.j2ee.rmi.loadBalance property, the “refresh” only occurs at the client. The client can only choose from the "list of available context" that was returned and cached from the very first lookup. That is, the client will merely get a new Context object from the “list of available RMI contexts” from the cache at the client side. The client will NOT go to the OPMN server again to get the list. That also implies that if you are adding a node to the server cluster AFTER the client’s initial lookup, the client would not know it because neither the server nor the client will initiate a refresh of the “list of available servers” to reflect the new node. About High Availability (i.e. Resilience Against Node Failure of Remote OC4J Cluster) What we have discussed above is about load balancing. Let's also discuss high availability. This is how the High Availability works in RMI: when the client use the context but get an exception such as socket is closed, it knows that the server referenced by that Context is problematic and will try to get another unused Context from the “list of available contexts”. Again, this list is the list that was returned and cached at the very first lookup in the entire client session.

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• Inverted schedctl usage in the JVM

  - by Dave

  The schedctl facility in Solaris allows a thread to request that the kernel defer involuntary preemption for a brief period. The mechanism is strictly advisory - the kernel can opt to ignore the request. Schedctl is typically used to bracket lock critical sections. That, in turn, can avoid convoying -- threads piling up on a critical section behind a preempted lock-holder -- and other lock-related performance pathologies. If you're interested see the man pages for schedctl_start() and schedctl_stop() and the schedctl.h include file. The implementation is very efficient. schedctl_start(), which asks that preemption be deferred, simply stores into a thread-specific structure -- the schedctl block -- that the kernel maps into user-space. Similarly, schedctl_stop() clears the flag set by schedctl_stop() and then checks a "preemption pending" flag in the block. Normally, this will be false, but if set schedctl_stop() will yield to politely grant the CPU to other threads. Note that you can't abuse this facility for long-term preemption avoidance as the deferral is brief. If your thread exceeds the grace period the kernel will preempt it and transiently degrade its effective scheduling priority. Further reading : US05937187 and various papers by Andy Tucker. We'll now switch topics to the implementation of the "synchronized" locking construct in the HotSpot JVM. If a lock is contended then on multiprocessor systems we'll spin briefly to try to avoid context switching. Context switching is wasted work and inflicts various cache and TLB penalties on the threads involved. If context switching were "free" then we'd never spin to avoid switching, but that's not the case. We use an adaptive spin-then-park strategy. One potentially undesirable outcome is that we can be preempted while spinning. When our spinning thread is finally rescheduled the lock may or may not be available. If not, we'll spin and then potentially park (block) again, thus suffering a 2nd context switch. Recall that the reason we spin is to avoid context switching. To avoid this scenario I've found it useful to enable schedctl to request deferral while spinning. But while spinning I've arranged for the code to periodically check or poll the "preemption pending" flag. If that's found set we simply abandon our spinning attempt and park immediately. This avoids the double context-switch scenario above. One annoyance is that the schedctl blocks for the threads in a given process are tightly packed on special pages mapped from kernel space into user-land. As such, writes to the schedctl blocks can cause false sharing on other adjacent blocks. Hopefully the kernel folks will make changes to avoid this by padding and aligning the blocks to ensure that one cache line underlies at most one schedctl block at any one time.

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• Workshops, online content show how Oracle infuses simplicity, mobility, extensibility into user experience

  - by mvaughan

  By Kathy Miedema & Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle has made a huge investment into the user experience of its many different software product families, and recent releases showcase big changes and features that aim to promote end user engagement and efficiency by streamlining navigation and simplifying the user interface. But making Oracle’s enterprise software great-looking and usable doesn’t stop when Oracle products go out the door. The Applications User Experience (UX) team recognizes that our customers may need to customize software to fit their work processes. And that’s why we provide tools such as user experience design patterns to help you maintain the Oracle user experience as you tailor your application to fit your business needs. Often, however, customers may need some context around user experience. How has the Oracle user experience been designed and constructed? Why is a good user experience important for users? How does understanding what goes into the user experience benefit the people who purchase the software for users? There’s a short answer to these questions, and you can read about it on Usable Apps. But truly understanding Oracle’s investment and seeing how it applies across product families occasionally requires a deeper dive into the Oracle user experience, especially if you’re an influencer or decision-maker about Oracle products. To help frame these decisions, the Communications & Outreach team has developed several targeted workshops that explore what Oracle means when it talks about user experience, and provides a roadmap into where the Oracle user experience is going. These workshops require non-disclosure agreements, and have been delivered to Oracle sales folks, Oracle partners, Oracle ACE Directors and ACEs, and a few customers. Some of these audience members have been developers or have a technical background; just as many did not. Here’s a breakdown of the kind of training you can get around the Oracle user experience from the OAUX Communications & Outreach team.For Partners: George Papazzian, Principal, Naviscent with Joyce Ohgi, Oracle Oracle Fusion Applications HCM Pre-Sales Seminar:  In concert with Worldwide Alliances  and  Channels under Applications Partner Enablement Director Jonathan Vinoskey’s guidance, the Applications User Experience team delivers a two-day workshop.  Day one focuses on Oracle Fusion Applications HCM and pre-sales strategy, and Day two focuses on positioning and leveraging Oracle’s investment in the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience.  The next workshops will occur on the following dates: December 4-5, 2013 @ Manchester, UK January 29-30, 2014 @ Reston, Virginia February 2014 @ Guadalajara, Mexico (email: Shannon Whiteman) March 11-12, 2014 @ Dubai, United Arab Emirates April 1-2, 2014 @ Chicago, Illinois Partner Advisory Board: A two-day board meeting in the U.S. and U.K. to discuss four main user experience areas for Oracle Fusion Applications: simplicity, visualization & analytics, mobility, & futures. This event is limited to Oracle Diamond Partners, UX bloggers, and key UX influencers and requires legal documentation.  We will be talking about the Oracle applications UX strategy and roadmap. Partner Implementation Training on User Interface: How to Build Great-Looking, Usable Apps:  In this two-day, hands-on workshop built around Oracle’s Application Development Framework, learn how to build desktop and mobile user interfaces and mobile user interfaces based on Oracle’s experience with Fusion Applications. This workshop is for partners with a technology background who are looking for ways to tailor Fusion Applications using ADF, or have built their own custom solutions using ADF. It includes an introduction to UX design patterns and provides tools to build usability-tested UX designs. Nov 5-6, 2013 @ Redwood Shores, CA, USA January 28-29th, 2014 @ Reston, Virginia, USA February 25-26, 2014 @ Guadalajara, Mexico March 9-10, 2014 @ Dubai, United Arab Emirates To register, contact [email protected] Simplified UI Customization & Extensibility:  Pilot workshop:  We will be reviewing the proposed content for communicating the user experience tool kit available with the next release of Oracle Fusion Applications.  Our core focus will be on what toolkit components our system implementors and independent software vendors will need to respond to customer demand, whether they are extending Fusion Applications, or building custom applications, that will need to leverage the simplified UI. Dec 11th, 2013 @ Reading, UK For information: contact [email protected] Private lab tour and demos: Interested in seeing what’s going on in the Apps UX Labs?  If you are headed to the San Francisco Bay Area, let us know. We can arrange a spin through our usability labs at headquarters. OAUX Expo: This open-house forum gives partners a look at what the UX team is working on, and showcases the next-generation user experiences in a demo environment where attendees can see and touch the applications. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For CustomersAngela Johnston, Gozel Aamoth, Teena Singh, and Yen Chan, Oracle Lab tours: See demos of soon-to-be-released products, and take a spin on usability research equipment such as our eye-tracker. Watch this video to get an idea of what you’ll see. Get our newsletter: Learn about newly released products and see where you can meet us at user group conferences. Participate in a feedback session: Join a focus group or customer feedback session to get an early look at user experience designs for the next generation of software, and provide your thoughts on how well it will work. Join the OUAB: The Oracle Usability Advisory Board meets several times a year to discuss trends in the workforce and provide direction on user experience designs. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For Developers (customers, partners, and consultants): Plinio Arbizu, SP Solutions, Richard Bingham, Oracle, Balaji Kamepalli, EiSTechnoogies, Praveen Pillalamarri, EiSTechnologies How to Build Great-Looking, Usable Apps: This workshop is for attendees with a strong technology background who are looking for ways to tailor customer software using ADF. It includes an introduction to UX design patterns and provides tools to build usability-tested UX designs.  See above for dates and times. UX design patterns web site: Cut the length of your project down by months. Use these patterns to build out the task flow you need to develop for your users. The patterns have already been usability-tested and represent the best practices that the Oracle UX research team has found in its studies. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For Oracle Sales Mike Klein, Jeremy Ashley, Brent White, Oracle Contact your local sales person for more information about the Oracle user experience and the training available from the Applications User Experience Communications & Outreach team. See customer-friendly user experience collateral ranging from the new simplified UI in Oracle Fusion Applications Release 7, to E-Business Suite user experience highlights, to Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards user experience highlights.   Receive access to the same pre-sales and implementation training we provide to partners. For Oracle Sales only: Oracle-only training on the Oracle Fusion Applications UX Innovation Sales Kit.

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• Convert DVDs and ISO Files to MKV with MakeMKV

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Looking for a quick and easy way to convert your DVDs or ISOs to MKV files? Today we take a look at the MakeMKV Beta which gets the job done very well. Installing and Using MakeMKV Download and install MakeMKV (See download link below) If converting a DVD, place it into your optical drive. When you open MakeMKV you will be greeted by it’s minimalistic interface. Click on the DVD to hard drive button to open the DVD, or the folder icon on the top menu to browse for an ISO file.   MakeMKV will open the disc or file. Once the disc or file is opened, you’ll see the titles listed in the window on the left. Double-click on the titles to expand the tree structure.   Remove any title or tracks you don’t want to convert by unselecting the check box to the left. On the right side of the window, click the folder icon to select browse for your file output directory. When ready, click the MakeMkv button to begin the conversion process.   Conversion will proceed.   When the conversion is finished. Click OK. That’s all there is to it! Your MKV file is ready to play. Conclusion MakeMKV is currently still in beta and during the beta phase it will rip both DVD and Blu-ray for free. However, the DVD ripping functionality will always remain free. After 30 days if you want to continue ripping Blu-ray discs, you’ll need to purchase a license. DVD rips are very quick…typically around 15-20 minutes depending on the length of the movie. MakeMKV is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and will rip and convert DVDs to MKV files. Not all media players natively support MKV playback, so if you’re having trouble playing MKV files, try downloading VLC Media player, or the latest version of the DivX codec. Download MakeMKV Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Rip DVDs with VLCEasily Change Audio File Formats with XRECODEHow To Convert Video Files to MP3 with VLCConvert PDF Files to Word Documents and Other FormatsConvert DVD to MP4 / H.264 with HD Decrypter and Handbrake 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 DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi LocPDF is a Visual PDF Search Tool Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar

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• Space partitioning when everything is moving

  - by Roy T.

  Background Together with a friend I'm working on a 2D game that is set in space. To make it as immersive and interactive as possible we want there to be thousands of objects freely floating around, some clustered together, others adrift in empty space. Challenge To unburden the rendering and physics engine we need to implement some sort of spatial partitioning. There are two challenges we have to overcome. The first challenge is that everything is moving so reconstructing/updating the data structure has to be extremely cheap since it will have to be done every frame. The second challenge is the distribution of objects, as said before there might be clusters of objects together and vast bits of empty space and to make it even worse there is no boundary to space. Existing technologies I've looked at existing techniques like BSP-Trees, QuadTrees, kd-Trees and even R-Trees but as far as I can tell these data structures aren't a perfect fit since updating a lot of objects that have moved to other cells is relatively expensive. What I've tried I made the decision that I need a data structure that is more geared toward rapid insertion/update than on giving back the least amount of possible hits given a query. For that purpose I made the cells implicit so each object, given it's position, can calculate in which cell(s) it should be. Then I use a HashMap that maps cell-coordinates to an ArrayList (the contents of the cell). This works fairly well since there is no memory lost on 'empty' cells and its easy to calculate which cells to inspect. However creating all those ArrayLists (worst case N) is expensive and so is growing the HashMap a lot of times (although that is slightly mitigated by giving it a large initial capacity). Problem OK so this works but still isn't very fast. Now I can try to micro-optimize the JAVA code. However I'm not expecting too much of that since the profiler tells me that most time is spent in creating all those objects that I use to store the cells. I'm hoping that there are some other tricks/algorithms out there that make this a lot faster so here is what my ideal data structure looks like: The number one priority is fast updating/reconstructing of the entire data structure Its less important to finely divide the objects into equally sized bins, we can draw a few extra objects and do a few extra collision checks if that means that updating is a little bit faster Memory is not really important (PC game)

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• Should I be put off a junior role that uses an online development test?

  - by Ninefingers

  I've applied for a junior development role, or rather been found by a recruiter looking for a developer. In order to get to a telephone interview stage I've been asked to sit one of those online coding assessments. This wasn't quite what I expected. I consider myself a fairly good developer for my age and experience, but I've no illusions about being Don Knuth or anything. The test was a series of incredibly obtuse questions asking about the results of various obscure evaluations. About 30 minutes in I was thinking to myself I hadn't intended to enter an obfuscated code contest/code golf exercise. After my last telephone interview I was asked to build something. I did. That seemed fair. Go away and work this out is more my in office experience of programming than "please evaluate this combination of lambdas, filters, maps, lists, tuples etc". So I'm a little put off, to be honest. I never claimed to know the language inside out or all the little corner cases. My questions, then: Should I be put off? Why? Why not? Are these kinds of tests what I should be expecting for junior roles? Should I learn stuff exam style? That seems to be the objective of these tests, for which you are timed and not supposed to use references or books? Normally, in the course of development I have a fairly good idea of basic types, rules, flow control and whatever. Occasionally I'll come up on something I need to use a regex for and have to go and remind myself of the exact piece of syntax I need if trying what I think should work doesn't. Or I'll come up against a module I've not used before and go and look it up. For example, if I wanted to write a server using sockets in C right now, I'd probably check the last piece of code I wrote doing that (and or the various books I have) and work from there. Chances are I probably couldn't do it exactly from scratch and from memory, although I can tell you you'd need a socket(), bind(), listen() and accept() call and you might also want select() depending on whether you intend to pthread_create or not. So I know what the calls are, but not their specific parameter list. What are your experiences if you are a recruiting manager? Are you after programmers who can quote you the API or do you not mind if your programmers have a few books on their desk and google function calls every so often?

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• New Features and Changes in OIM11gR2

  - by Abhishek Tripathi

  WEB CONSOLEs in OIM 11gR2 ** In 11gR1 there were 3 Admin Web Consoles : ·         Self Service Console ·         Administration Console and ·         Advanced Administration Console accessible Whereas in OIM 11gR2 , Self Service and Administration Console have are now combined and now called as Identity Self Service Console http://host:port/identity  This console has 3 features in it for managing self profile (My Profile), Managing Requests like requesting for App Instances and Approving requests (Requests) and General Administration tasks of creating/managing users, roles, organization, attestation etc (Administration) ** In OIM 11gR2 – new console sysadmin has been added Administrators which includes some of the design console functions apart from general administrations features. http://host:port/sysadmin   Application Instances Application instance is the object that is to be provisioned to a user. Application Instances are checked out in the catalog and user can request for application instances via catalog. ·         In OIM 11gR2 resources and entitlements are bundled in Application Instance which user can select and request from catalog.  ·         Application instance is a combination of IT Resource and RO. So, you cannot create another App Instance with the same RO & IT Resource if it already exists for some other App Instance. One of these ( RO or IT Resource) must have a different name. ·         If you want that users of a particular Organization should be able to request for an Application instances through catalog then App Instances must be attached to that particular Organization. ·         Application instance can be associated with multiple organizations. ·         An application instance can also have entitlements associated with it. Entitlement can include Roles/Groups or Responsibility. ·         Application Instance are published to the catalog by a scheduled task “Catalog Synchronization Job” ·         Application Instance can have child/ parent application instance where child application instance inherits all attributes of parent application instance. Important point to remember with Application Instance If you delete the application Instance in OIM 11gR2 and create a new one with the same name, OIM will not allow doing so. It throws error saying Application Instance already exists with same Resource Object and IT resource. This is because there is still some reference that is not removed in OIM for deleted application Instance.  So to completely delete your application Instance from OIM, you must: 1. Delete the app Instance from sysadmin console. 2. Run the App Instance Post Delete Processing Job in Revoke/Delete mode. 3. Run the Catalog Synchronization job. Once done, you should be able to create a new App instance with the previous RO & IT Resouce name.   Catalog  Catalog allows users to request Roles, Application Instance, and Entitlements in an Application. Catalog Items – Roles, Application Instance and Entitlements that can be requested via catalog are called as catalog items. Detailed Information ( attributes of Catalog item)  Category – Each catalog item is associated with one and only one category. Catalog Administrators can provide a value for catalog item. ·         Tags – are search keywords helpful in searching Catalog. When users search the Catalog, the search is performed against the tags. To define a tag, go to Catalog->Search the resource-> select the resource-> update the tag field with custom search keyword. Tags are of three types: a) Auto-generated Tags: The Catalog synchronization process auto-tags the Catalog Item using the Item Type, Item Name and Item Display Name b) User-defined Tags: User-defined Tags are additional keywords entered by the Catalog Administrator. c) Arbitrary Tags: While defining a metadata if user has marked that metadata as searchable, then that will also be part of tags.   Sandbox  Sanbox is a new feature introduced in OIM11gR2. This serves as a temporary development environment for UI customizations so that they don’t affect other users before they are published and linked to existing OIM UI. All UI customizations should be done inside a sandbox, this ensures that your changes/modifications don’t affect other users until you have finalized the changes and customization is complete. Once UI customization is completed, the Sandbox must be published for the customizations to be merged into existing UI and available to other users. Creating and activating a sandbox is mandatory for customizing the UI by .Without an active sandbox, OIM does not allow to customize any page. a)      Before you perform any activity in OIM (like Create/Modify Forms, Custom Attribute, creating application instances, adding roles/attributes to catalog) you must create a Sand Box and activate it. b)      One can create multiple sandboxes in OIM but only one sandbox can be active at any given time. c)      You can export/import the sandbox to move the changes from one environment to the other. Creating Sandbox To create sandbox, login to identity manager self service (/identity) or System Administration (/sysadmin) and click on top right of link “Sandboxes” and then click on Create SandBox. Publishing Sandbox Before you publish a sandbox, it is recommended to backup MDS. Use /EM to backup MDS by following the steps below : Creating MDS Backup 1.      Login to Oracle Enterprise Manager as the administrator. 2.      On the landing page, click oracle.iam.console.identity.self-service.ear(V2.0). 3.      From the Application Deployment menu at the top, select MDS configuration. 4.      Under Export, select the Export metadata documents to an archive on the machine where this web browser is running option, and then click Export. All the metadata is exported in a ZIP file.   Creating Password Policy through Admin Console : In 11gR1 and previous versions password policies could be created & applied via OIM Design Console only. From OIM11gR2 onwards, Password Policies can be created and assigned using Admin Console as well.  

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• People, Process & Engagement: WebCenter Partner Keste

  - by Michael Snow

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Within the WebCenter group here at Oracle, discussions about people, process and engagement cross over many vertical industries and products. Amidst our growing partner ecosystem, the community provides us insight into great customer use cases every day. Such is the case with our partner, Keste, who provides us a guest post on our blog today with an overview of their innovative solution for a customer in the transportation industry. Keste is an Oracle software solutions and development company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. As a Platinum member of the Oracle® PartnerNetwork, Keste designs, develops and deploys custom solutions that automate complex business processes. Seamless Customer Self-Service Experience in the Trucking Industry with Oracle WebCenter Portal  Keste, Oracle Platinum Partner Customer Overview Omnitracs, Inc., a Qualcomm company provides mobility solutions for trucking fleets to companies in the transportation industry. Omnitracs’ mobility services include basic communications such as text as well as advanced monitoring services such as GPS tracking, temperature tracking of perishable goods, load tracking and weighting distribution, and many others. Customer Business Needs Already the leading provider of mobility solutions for large trucking fleets, they chose to target smaller trucking fleets as new customers. However their existing high-touch customer support method would not be a cost effective or scalable method to manage and service these smaller customers. Omnitracs needed to provide several self-service features to make customer support more scalable while keeping customer satisfaction levels high and the costs manageable. The solution also had to be very intuitive and easy to use. The systems that Omnitracs sells to these trucking customers require professional installation and smaller customers need to track and schedule the installation. Information captured in Oracle eBusiness Suite needed to be readily available for new customers to track these purchases and delivery details. Omnitracs wanted a high impact User Interface to significantly improve customer experience with the ability to integrate with EBS, provisioning systems as well as CRM systems that were already implemented. Omnitracs also wanted to build an architecture platform that could potentially be extended to other Portals. Omnitracs’ stated goal was to deliver an “eBay-like” or “Amazon-like” experience for all of their customers so that they could reach a much broader market beyond their large company customer base. Solution Overview In order to manage the increased complexity, the growing support needs of global customers and improve overall product time-to-market in a cost-effective manner, IT began to deliver a self-service model. This self service model not only transformed numerous business processes but is also allowing the business to keep up with the growing demands of the (internal and external) customers. This solution was a customer service Portal that provided self service capabilities for large and small customers alike for Activation of mobility products, managing add-on applications for the devices (much like the Apple App Store), transferring services when trucks are sold to other companies as well as deactivation all without the involvement of a call service agent or sending multiple emails to different Omnitracs contacts. This is a conceptual view of the Customer Portal showing the details of the components that make up the solution. 12.00 The portal application for transactions was entirely built using ADF 11g R2. Omnitracs’ business had a pressing requirement to have a portal available 24/7 for its customers. Since there were interactions with EBS in the back-end, the downtimes on the EBS would negate this availability. Omnitracs devised a decoupling strategy at the database side for the EBS data. The decoupling of the database was done using Oracle Data Guard and completely insulated the solution from any eBusiness Suite down time. The customer has no knowledge whether eBS is running or not. Here are two sample screenshots of the portal application built in Oracle ADF. Customer Benefits The Customer Portal not only provided the scalability to grow the business but also provided the seamless integration with other disparate applications. Some of the key benefits are: Improved Customer Experience: With a modern look and feel and a Portal that has the aspects of an App Store, the customer experience was significantly improved. Page response times went from several seconds to sub-second for all of the pages. Enabled new product launches: After successfully dominating the large fleet market, Omnitracs now has a scalable solution to sell and manage smaller fleet customers giving them a huge advantage over their nearest competitors. Dozens of new customers have been acquired via this portal through an onboarding process that now takes minutes Seamless Integrations Improves Customer Support: ADF 11gR2 allowed Omnitracs to bring a diverse list of applications into one integrated solution. This provided a seamless experience for customers to route them from Marketing focused application to a customer-oriented portal. Internally, it also allowed Sales Representatives to have an integrated flow for taking a prospect through the various steps to onboard them as a customer. Key integrations included: Unity Core Salesforce.com Merchant e-Solution for credit card Custom Omnitracs Applications like CUPS and AUTO Security utilizing OID and OVD Back end integration with EBS (Data Guard) and iQ Database Business Impact Significant business impacts were realized through the launch of customer portal. It not only allows the business to push through in underserved segments, but also reduces the time it needs to spend on customer support—allowing the business to focus more on sales and identifying the market for new products. Some of the Immediate Benefits are The entire onboarding process is now completely automated and now completes in minutes. This represents an 85% productivity improvement over their previous processes. And it was 160 times faster! With the success of this self-service solution, the business is now targeting about 3X customer growth in the next five years. This represents a tripling of their overall customer base and significant downstream revenue for the ongoing services. 90%+ improvement of customer onboarding and management process by utilizing, single sign on integration using OID/OAM solution, performance improvements and new self-service functionality Unified login for all Customers, Partners and Internal Users enables login to a common portal and seamless access to all other integrated applications targeted at the respective audience Significantly improved customer experience with a better look and feel with a more user experience focused Portal screens. Helped sales of the new product by having an easy way of ordering and activating the product. Data Guard helped increase availability of the Portal to 99%+ and make it independent of EBS downtime. This gave customers the feel of high availability of the portal application. Some of the anticipated longer term Benefits are: Platform that can be leveraged to launch any new product introduction and enable all product teams to reach new customers and new markets Easy integration with content management to allow business owners more control of the product catalog Overall reduced TCO with standardization of the Oracle platform Managed IT support cost savings through optimization of technology skills needed to support and modify this solution ------------------------------------------------------------ 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 -"/ /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}

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• What do you do when you encounter an idiotic interview question?

  - by Senthil

  I was interviewing with a "too proud of my java skills"-looking person. He asked me "What is your knowledge on Java IO classes.. say.. hash maps?" He asked me to write a piece of java code on paper - instantiate a class and call one of the instance's methods. When I was done, he said my program wouldn't run. After 5 minutes of serious thinking, I gave up and asked why. He said I didn't write a main function so it wouldn't run. ON PAPER. [I am too furious to continue with the stupidity...] Believe me it wasn't trick questions or a psychic or anger management evaluation thing. I can tell from his face, he was proud of these questions. That "developer" was supposed to "judge" the candidates. I can think of several things: Hit him with a chair (which I so desperately wanted to) and walk out. Simply walk out. Ridicule him saying he didn't make sense. Politely let him know that he didn't make sense and go on to try and answer the questions. Don't tell him anything, but simply go on to try and answer the questions. So far, I have tried just 4 and 5. It hasn't helped. Unfortunately many candidates seem to do the same and remain polite but this lets these kind of "developers" just keep ascending up the corporate ladder, gradually getting the capacity to pi** off more and more people. How do you handle these interviewers without bursting your veins? What is the proper way to handle this, yet maintain your reputation if other potential employers were to ever get to know what happened here? Is there anything you can do or should you even try to fix this? P.S. Let me admit that my anger has been amplified many times by the facts: He was smiling like you wouldn't believe. I got so many (20 or so) calls from that company the day before, asking me to come to the interview, that I couldn't do any work that day. I wasted a paid day off.

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• Silverlight Cream for May 12, 2010 -- #860

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Miroslav Miroslavov(-2-), Mike Snow(-2-, -3-), Paul Sheriff, Fadi Abdelqader, Jeremy Likness, Marlon Grech, and Victor Gaudioso. Shoutouts: Andy Beaulieu has a cool WP7 game up and is looking for opinions/comments: Droppy Pop: A Windows Phone 7 Game Karl Shifflett has code and video tutorials up for the app he wrote for the WPF LOB tour he just did: Stuff – WPF Line of Business Using MVVM Video Tutorial From SilverlightCream.com: Flipping panels I had missed this 3rd part of the CompleteIT explanation. In this post Miroslav Miroslavov describes the page flipping they're doing. Great explanation and all the code included. Flying objects against you The 4th part of the CompleteIT explanation is blogged by Miroslav Miroslavov where he is discussing the screen elements 'flying toward' the user. Silverlight Tip of the Day #17 – Double Click Mike Snow's Tip of the Day 17 is showing how to implement mouse double-clicks either for an individual control or for an entire app. Silverlight Tip of the Day #18 – Elastic Scrolling In Mike Snow's Tip of the Day 18, he's talking about and showing some 'elastic' scrolling in his image viewer application. He's asking for opinions and suggestions. Silverlight Tip of the Day #19 – Using Bing Maps in Silverlight Mike Snow's Tips are getting more elaborate :) ... Number 19 is about using the BingMap control in your Silverlight app. Control to Control Binding in WPF/Silverlight Paul Sheriff demonstrates control to control binding... saving a bunch of code behind in the process. Project included. Your First Step to the Silverlight Voice/Video Chatting Client/Server Fadi Abdelqader has a post up at CodeProject using the WebCam and Mic features of Silverlight 4 to setup a voice & video chatting app. MVVM Coding by Convention (Convention over Configuration) Jeremy Likness discusses Convention over Configuration and gives up some good MVVM nuggets along the way... check out his nice long post and grab the source for the project too... and also check out the external links he has in there. MEFedMVVM changes >> from cool to cooler Marlon Grech has refactored MEFedMVVM, and in addition is working with other MVVM framework folks to use some of the same MEF techniques in theirs... code on CodePlex New Silverlight Video Tutorial: How to Create a Silverlight Paging System to Load new Pages In Victor Gaudioso's latest video tutorial he builds a ContentHolder UserControl that will load any page on demand into your MainPage.xaml 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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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for July 3, 2013

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Industrial SOA Chapter 5: Enterprise Service Bus Enterprise Service Bus, the fifth and latest addition to the Industrial SOA article series, answers some of the most important questions surrounding the use of an ESB. Industrial SOA Chapter 4: SOA Maturity The fourth article in the Industrial SOA series, SOA Maturity offers "an exploration of the fundamentals of applying a factory approach to modern service-oriented software development." Using the Exalytics Summary Advisor and Oracle BI Apps 7.9.6.4 | Mark Rittman Oracle ACE Director Mark Rittman's post revisits "the use of the Summary Advisor, with my BI Apps installation bumped-up to version 7.9.6.4, and the Exalytics environment patched up to 11.1.1.6.9, the latest patch release we’ve applied to that environment." Part 1 - 12c Database and WLS - Overview | Steve Felts Steve Felts shares a handy table that "maps the Oracle 12c Database features supported with various combinations of currently available WLS releases, 11g and 12c Drivers, and 11g and 12c Databases." Developers WebCast: Deploy Highly-Available Custom Services on Your Data Grid Products - July 11 Oracle Coherence Sr. Architect Brian Oliver hosts this free July 11 webcast for developers to show you how to "create and deploy customized, highly-available services for your data grid, and how real-time data processing will allow you to provide unmatched end-user experiences." A checklist for OIM go live | Daniel Gralewski FMW A-Team solution architect Daniel Gralewski's list is intended to complement Oracle Identity Manager. His post "provides tips on a few topics that are not part of the documentation." How Many ODI Master Repositories Should We Have? | Christophe Dupupet FMW solution architect Christophe Dupupet provides a simple along with best practices for the architecture of ODI repositories in a corporate environment. Distinguish EA from enterprise wide solution architecture | John Wu My buddy Tony Meyer, who did a great presentation recently at the Cleveland-area Enterprise Architect / Solution Architect Meet-up, recommends this Toolbox article by John Wu. YouTube: Oracle Fusion Applications Developer Tips If you work with Fusion Applications you'll want to check out the tips and tricks for building extensions, customizations, and integrations now available on the new Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer Relations YouTube channel. The CX Factor: Wooing and wowing customers in the digital age "There was a time when 'customer experience' was limited to what happened to you when you walked into a store, restaurant, or other place of business or when you called a business on the telephone. But that was back when you could still smoke on airplanes." Thought for the Day "If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.' " — Dave Barry (Born July 3, 1947) Source: brainyquote.com

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• Consuming the Amazon S3 service from a Win8 Metro Application

  - by cibrax

  As many of the existing Http APIs for Cloud Services, AWS also provides a set of different platform SDKs for hiding many of complexities present in the APIs. While there is a platform SDK for .NET, which is open source and available in C#, that SDK does not work in Win8 Metro Applications for the changes introduced in WinRT. WinRT offers a complete different set of APIs for doing I/O operations such as doing http calls or using cryptography for signing or encrypting data, two aspects that are absolutely necessary for consuming AWS. All the I/O APIs available as part of WinRT are asynchronous, and uses the TPL model for .NET applications (HTML and JavaScript Metro applications use a model based in promises, which is similar concept).  In the case of S3, the http Authorization header is used for two purposes, authenticating clients and make sure the messages were not altered while they were in transit. For doing that, it uses a signature or hash of the message content and some of the headers using a symmetric key (That's just one of the available mechanisms). Windows Azure for example also uses the same mechanism in many of its APIs. There are three challenges that any developer working for first time in Metro will have to face to consume S3, the new WinRT APIs, the asynchronous nature of them and the complexity introduced for generating the Authorization header. Having said that, I decided to write this post with some of the gotchas I found myself trying to consume this Amazon service. 1. Generating the signature for the Authorization header All the cryptography APIs in WinRT are available under Windows.Security.Cryptography namespace. Many of operations available in these APIs uses the concept of buffers (IBuffer) for representing a chunk of binary data. As you will see in the example below, these buffers are mainly generated with the use of static methods in a WinRT class CryptographicBuffer available as part of the namespace previously mentioned. private string DeriveAuthToken(string resource, string httpMethod, string timestamp) { var stringToSign = string.Format("{0}\n" + "\n" + "\n" + "\n" + "x-amz-date:{1}\n" + "/{2}/", httpMethod, timestamp, resource); var algorithm = MacAlgorithmProvider.OpenAlgorithm("HMAC_SHA1"); var keyMaterial = CryptographicBuffer.CreateFromByteArray(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(this.secret)); var hmacKey = algorithm.CreateKey(keyMaterial); var signature = CryptographicEngine.Sign( hmacKey, CryptographicBuffer.CreateFromByteArray(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(stringToSign)) ); return CryptographicBuffer.EncodeToBase64String(signature); } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } The algorithm that determines the information or content you need to use for generating the signature is very well described as part of the AWS documentation. In this case, this method is generating a signature required for creating a new bucket. A HmacSha1 hash is computed using a secret or symetric key provided by AWS in the management console. 2. Sending an Http Request to the S3 service WinRT also ships with the System.Net.Http.HttpClient that was first introduced some months ago with ASP.NET Web API. This client provides a rich interface on top the traditional WebHttpRequest class, and also solves some of limitations found in this last one. There are a few things that don't work with a raw WebHttpRequest such as setting the Host header, which is something absolutely required for consuming S3. Also, HttpClient is more friendly for doing unit tests, as it receives a HttpMessageHandler as part of the constructor that can fake to emulate a real http call. This is how the code for consuming the service with HttpClient looks like, public async Task<S3Response> CreateBucket(string name, string region = null, params string[] acl) { var timestamp = string.Format("{0:r}", DateTime.UtcNow); var auth = DeriveAuthToken(name, "PUT", timestamp); var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Put, "http://s3.amazonaws.com/"); request.Headers.Host = string.Format("{0}.s3.amazonaws.com", name); request.Headers.TryAddWithoutValidation("Authorization", "AWS " + this.key + ":" + auth); request.Headers.Add("x-amz-date", timestamp); var client = new HttpClient(); var response = await client.SendAsync(request); return new S3Response { Succeed = response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.OK, Message = (response.Content != null) ? await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync() : null }; } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } You will notice a few additional things in this code. By default, HttpClient validates the values for some well-know headers, and Authorization is one of them. It won't allow you to set a value with ":" on it, which is something that S3 expects. However, that's not a problem at all, as you can skip the validation by using the TryAddWithoutValidation method. Also, the code is heavily relying on the new async and await keywords to transform all the asynchronous calls into synchronous ones. In case you would want to unit test this code and faking the call to the real S3 service, you should have to modify it to inject a custom HttpMessageHandler into the HttpClient. The following implementation illustrates this concept, In case you would want to unit test this code and faking the call to the real S3 service, you should have to modify it to inject a custom HttpMessageHandler into the HttpClient. The following implementation illustrates this concept, public class FakeHttpMessageHandler : HttpMessageHandler { HttpResponseMessage response; public FakeHttpMessageHandler(HttpResponseMessage response) { this.response = response; } protected override Task<HttpResponseMessage> SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, System.Threading.CancellationToken cancellationToken) { var tcs = new TaskCompletionSource<HttpResponseMessage>(); tcs.SetResult(response); return tcs.Task; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } You can use this handler for injecting any response while you are unit testing the code.

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• Consuming the Amazon S3 service from a Win8 Metro Application

  - by cibrax

  As many of the existing Http APIs for Cloud Services, AWS also provides a set of different platform SDKs for hiding many of complexities present in the APIs. While there is a platform SDK for .NET, which is open source and available in C#, that SDK does not work in Win8 Metro Applications for the changes introduced in WinRT. WinRT offers a complete different set of APIs for doing I/O operations such as doing http calls or using cryptography for signing or encrypting data, two aspects that are absolutely necessary for consuming AWS. All the I/O APIs available as part of WinRT are asynchronous, and uses the TPL model for .NET applications (HTML and JavaScript Metro applications use a model based in promises, which is similar concept).  In the case of S3, the http Authorization header is used for two purposes, authenticating clients and make sure the messages were not altered while they were in transit. For doing that, it uses a signature or hash of the message content and some of the headers using a symmetric key (That's just one of the available mechanisms). Windows Azure for example also uses the same mechanism in many of its APIs. There are three challenges that any developer working for first time in Metro will have to face to consume S3, the new WinRT APIs, the asynchronous nature of them and the complexity introduced for generating the Authorization header. Having said that, I decided to write this post with some of the gotchas I found myself trying to consume this Amazon service. 1. Generating the signature for the Authorization header All the cryptography APIs in WinRT are available under Windows.Security.Cryptography namespace. Many of operations available in these APIs uses the concept of buffers (IBuffer) for representing a chunk of binary data. As you will see in the example below, these buffers are mainly generated with the use of static methods in a WinRT class CryptographicBuffer available as part of the namespace previously mentioned. private string DeriveAuthToken(string resource, string httpMethod, string timestamp) { var stringToSign = string.Format("{0}\n" + "\n" + "\n" + "\n" + "x-amz-date:{1}\n" + "/{2}/", httpMethod, timestamp, resource); var algorithm = MacAlgorithmProvider.OpenAlgorithm("HMAC_SHA1"); var keyMaterial = CryptographicBuffer.CreateFromByteArray(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(this.secret)); var hmacKey = algorithm.CreateKey(keyMaterial); var signature = CryptographicEngine.Sign( hmacKey, CryptographicBuffer.CreateFromByteArray(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(stringToSign)) ); return CryptographicBuffer.EncodeToBase64String(signature); } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } The algorithm that determines the information or content you need to use for generating the signature is very well described as part of the AWS documentation. In this case, this method is generating a signature required for creating a new bucket. A HmacSha1 hash is computed using a secret or symetric key provided by AWS in the management console. 2. Sending an Http Request to the S3 service WinRT also ships with the System.Net.Http.HttpClient that was first introduced some months ago with ASP.NET Web API. This client provides a rich interface on top the traditional WebHttpRequest class, and also solves some of limitations found in this last one. There are a few things that don't work with a raw WebHttpRequest such as setting the Host header, which is something absolutely required for consuming S3. Also, HttpClient is more friendly for doing unit tests, as it receives a HttpMessageHandler as part of the constructor that can fake to emulate a real http call. This is how the code for consuming the service with HttpClient looks like, public async Task<S3Response> CreateBucket(string name, string region = null, params string[] acl) { var timestamp = string.Format("{0:r}", DateTime.UtcNow); var auth = DeriveAuthToken(name, "PUT", timestamp); var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Put, "http://s3.amazonaws.com/"); request.Headers.Host = string.Format("{0}.s3.amazonaws.com", name); request.Headers.TryAddWithoutValidation("Authorization", "AWS " + this.key + ":" + auth); request.Headers.Add("x-amz-date", timestamp); var client = new HttpClient(); var response = await client.SendAsync(request); return new S3Response { Succeed = response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.OK, Message = (response.Content != null) ? await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync() : null }; } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } You will notice a few additional things in this code. By default, HttpClient validates the values for some well-know headers, and Authorization is one of them. It won't allow you to set a value with ":" on it, which is something that S3 expects. However, that's not a problem at all, as you can skip the validation by using the TryAddWithoutValidation method. Also, the code is heavily relying on the new async and await keywords to transform all the asynchronous calls into synchronous ones. In case you would want to unit test this code and faking the call to the real S3 service, you should have to modify it to inject a custom HttpMessageHandler into the HttpClient. The following implementation illustrates this concept, In case you would want to unit test this code and faking the call to the real S3 service, you should have to modify it to inject a custom HttpMessageHandler into the HttpClient. The following implementation illustrates this concept, public class FakeHttpMessageHandler : HttpMessageHandler { HttpResponseMessage response; public FakeHttpMessageHandler(HttpResponseMessage response) { this.response = response; } protected override Task<HttpResponseMessage> SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, System.Threading.CancellationToken cancellationToken) { var tcs = new TaskCompletionSource<HttpResponseMessage>(); tcs.SetResult(response); return tcs.Task; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } You can use this handler for injecting any response while you are unit testing the code.

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• Configurable Objects - Introduction

  - by Anthony Shorten

  One of the interesting facilities in the framework is Configurable Object functionality (it is also known as Task Optimization and also known as Cool Tools). The idea is that any implementation can create their own views of the base product objects and services and implement functionality against those new views. For example, in Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, there is a Person object. That object is used to store and manage information about individuals as well as companies. In the base product you would use the Person Maintenance screen and fill in some of the screen when you wanted to register or maintain and individual as well and fill out other parts of the screen when you wanted to register or maintain a company. This can be somewhat confusing to some customers. Using Configurable Objects this can be simplified. A business object can be created that is a view of the any object. For example, you could create a Human business object which would cover the aspects of the Person object pertaining to an individual and a Company business object to cover the aspects unique to a company. Even the tag names (i.e. Field Names) in the object can be changed to be more what the implementation is familiar with. The object can also restructure the object. For example, a common identifier for an individual in the USA is the Social Security number, this value is a Person Identifier (as this varies in each country). In the new Human object you can remap the Person Identifier as a Social Security number. To define a Business Object you use a schema editor built into the browser user interface and use a mapping language to setup the business objects. An example of the language is shown below in an extract of the schema for the Human business object. As you can see there are mapping as well as formatting and other tags. This information can be built manually or using a wizard which generates the base structure for you to alter. This is all stored as meta data when saved. Once a Business object is built it can be used as basis for code, other business objects (we support inheritance), called by a screen (called a UI Map) or even as a Web Service. This is just a start with Configurable Objects as you can also create views of base services called Business Services, Service Scripts used for non-object or complex object processing (as well as other things), UI Maps used for screens and Data Areas to reuse definitions across multiple objects. Configurable Objects are powerful and I only really touched on them here. Over the next few months I hope to add lots more entries about them.

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• How To Disable Individual Plug-ins in Google Chrome

  - by The Geek

  Have you ever wondered how to disable useless or insecure browser plug-ins in Google Chrome? Here’s the lowdown on how to get rid of Java, Acrobat, Silverlight, and the rest of the plugins you probably want to get rid of. Disabling Plugins in Google Chrome If you head to about:plugins in your address bar, you’ll probably see a list of plugins, but won’t be able to disable them yet. What you’ll need to do is switch over to the Dev channel of Chrome, which gives you access to all the latest features—though you might be warned that sometimes the dev channel might be less stable than the release or beta channels. Ready to proceed? Head to the Dev Channel page, and then click the link to run the installer. You’ll be prompted to restart Chrome when you’re done. Note that Mac and Windows users can both run an installer to switch. Linux users will have to install a package. Note: Once you’ve switched to the Dev channel, you can’t really switch to the stable channel. You’ll have to uninstall Chrome and then reinstall the regular version. Now that you’ve switched to the dev channel and restarted your browser, head to about:plugins in the address bar, and then just disable each plugin you really don’t need. Plugins you can generally live without?  Java, Acrobat, Microsoft Office, Windows Presentation Foundation, Silverlight. These will be on a case-by-case basis, of course, but the vast majority of large websites don’t require any of those. When it comes right down to it, the only plugin that most people require is Flash… and leave the “Default Plug-in” alone too. Special thanks to @jordanconway for pointing out the solution. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Disable YouTube Comments while using ChromeHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default BrowserSubscribe to RSS Feeds in Chrome with a Single ClickAdd Notes to Google Notebook from ChromeAccess Google Chrome’s Special Pages the Easy Way 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 DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi LocPDF is a Visual PDF Search Tool Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar

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• 5 Best Practices - Laying the Foundation for WebCenter Projects

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Today’s guest post comes from Oracle WebCenter expert John Brunswick. John specializes in enterprise portal and content management solutions and actively contributes to the enterprise software business community and has authored a series of articles about optimal business involvement in portal, business process management and SOA development, examining ways of helping organizations move away from monolithic application development. We’re happy to have John join us today! Maximizing success with Oracle WebCenter portal requires a strategic understanding of Oracle WebCenter capabilities.  The following best practices enable the creation of portal solutions with minimal resource overhead, while offering the greatest flexibility for progressive elaboration. They are inherently project agnostic, enabling a strong foundation for future growth and an expedient return on your investment in the platform.  If you are able to embrace even only a few of these practices, you will materially improve your deployment capability with WebCenter. 1. Segment Duties Around 3Cs - Content, Collaboration and Contextual Data "Agility" is one of the most common business benefits touted by modern web platforms.  It sounds good - who doesn't want to be Agile, right?  How exactly IT organizations go about supplying agility to their business counterparts often lacks definition - hamstrung by ambiguity. Ultimately, businesses want to benefit from reduced development time to deliver a solution to a particular constituent, which is augmented by as much self-service as possible to develop and manage the solution directly. All done in the absence of direct IT involvement. With Oracle WebCenter's depth in the areas of content management, pallet of native collaborative services, enterprise mashup capability and delegated administration, it is very possible to execute on this business vision at a technical level. To realize the benefits of the platform depth we can think of Oracle WebCenter's segmentation of duties along the lines of the 3 Cs - Content, Collaboration and Contextual Data.  All three of which can have their foundations developed by IT, then provisioned to the business on a per role basis. Content – Oracle WebCenter benefits from an extremely mature content repository.  Work flow, audit, notification, office integration and conversion capabilities for documents (HTML & PDF) make this a haven for business users to take control of content within external and internal portals, custom applications and web sites.  When deploying WebCenter portal take time to think of areas in which IT can provide the "harness" for content to reside, then allow the business to manage any content items within the site, using the content foundation to ensure compliance with business rules and process.  This frees IT to work on more mission critical challenges and allows the business to respond in short order to emerging market needs. Collaboration – Native collaborative services and WebCenter spaces are a perfect match for business users who are looking to enable document sharing, discussions and social networking.  The ability to deploy the services is granular and on the basis of roles scoped to given areas of the system - much like the first C “content”.  This enables business analysts to design the roles required and IT to provision with peace of mind that users leveraging the collaborative services are only able to do so in explicitly designated areas of a site. Bottom line - business will not need to wait for IT, but cannot go outside of the scope that has been defined based on their roles. Contextual Data – Collaborative capabilities are most powerful when included within the context of business data.  The ability to supply business users with decision shaping data that they can include in various parts of a portal or portals, just as they would with content items, is one of the most powerful aspects of Oracle WebCenter.  Imagine a discussion about new store selection for a retail chain that re-purposes existing information from business intelligence services about various potential locations and or custom backend systems - presenting it directly in the context of the discussion.  If there are some data sources that are preexisting in your enterprise take a look at how they can be made into discrete offerings within the portal, then scoped to given business user roles for inclusion within collaborative activities. 2. Think Generically, Execute Specifically Constructs.  Anyone who has spent much time around me knows that I am obsessed with this word.  Why? Because Constructs offer immense power - more than APIs, Web Services or other technical capability. Constructs offer organizations the ability to leverage a platform's native characteristics to offer substantial business functionality - without writing code.  This concept becomes more powerful with the additional understanding of the concepts from the platform that an organization learns over time.  Let's take a look at an example of where an Oracle WebCenter construct can substantially reduce the time to get a subscription-based site out the door and into the hands of the end consumer. Imagine a site that allows members to subscribe to specific disciplines to access information and application data around that various discipline.  A space is a collection of secured pages within Oracle WebCenter.  Spaces are not only secured, but also default content stored within it to be scoped automatically to that space. Taking this a step further, Oracle WebCenter’s Activity Stream surfaces events, discussions and other activities that are scoped to the given user on the basis of their space affiliations.  In order to have a portal that would allow users to "subscribe" to information around various disciplines - spaces could be used out of the box to achieve this capability and without using any APIs or low level technical work to achieve this. 3. Make Governance Work for You Imagine driving down the street without the painted lines on the road.  The rules of the road are so ingrained in our minds, we often do not think about the process, but seemingly mundane lane markers are critical enablers. Lane markers allow us to travel at speeds that would be impossible if not for the agreed upon direction of flow. Additionally and more importantly, it allows people to act autonomously - going where they please at any given time. The return on the investment for mobility is high enough for people to buy into globally agreed up governance processes. In Oracle WebCenter we can use similar enablers to lane markers.  Our goal should be to enable the flow of information and provide end users with the ability to arrive at business solutions as needed, not on the basis of cumbersome processes that cannot meet the business needs in a timely fashion. How do we do this? Just as with "Segmentation of Duties" Oracle WebCenter technologies offer the opportunity to compartmentalize various business initiatives from each other within the system due to constructs and security that are available to use within the platform. For instance, when a WebCenter space is created, any content added within that space by default will be secured to that particular space and inherits meta data that is associated with a folder created for the space. Oracle WebCenter content uses meta data to support a broad range of rich ECM functionality and can automatically impart retention, workflow and other policies automatically on the basis of what has been defaulted for that space. Depending on your business needs, this paradigm will also extend to sub sections of a space, offering some interesting possibilities to enable automated management around content. An example may be press releases within a particular area of an extranet that require a five year retention period and need to the reviewed by marketing and legal before release.  The underlying content system will transparently take care of this process on the basis of the above rules, enabling peace of mind over unstructured data - which could otherwise become overwhelming. 4. Make Your First Project Your Second Imagine if Michael Phelps was competing in a swimming championship, but told right before his race that he had to use a brand new stroke.  There is no doubt that Michael is an outstanding swimmer, but chances are that he would like to have some time to get acquainted with the new stroke. New technologies should not be treated any differently.  Before jumping into the deep end it helps to take time to get to know the new approach - even though you may have been swimming thousands of times before. To quickly get a handle on Oracle WebCenter capabilities it can be helpful to deploy a sandbox for the team to use to share project documents, discussions and announcements in an effort to help the actual deployment get under way, while increasing everyone’s knowledge of the platform and its functionality that may be helpful down the road. Oracle Technology Network has made a pre-configured virtual machine available for download that can be a great starting point for this exercise. 5. Get to Know the Community If you are reading this blog post you have most certainly faced a software decision or challenge that was solved on the basis of a small piece of missing critical information - which took substantial research to discover.  Chances were also good that somewhere, someone had already come across this information and would have been excited to share it. There is no denying the power of passionate, connected users, sharing key tips around technology.  The Oracle WebCenter brand has a rich heritage that includes industry-leading technology and practitioners.  With the new Oracle WebCenter brand, opportunities to connect with these experts has become easier. Oracle WebCenter Blog Oracle Social Enterprise LinkedIn WebCenter Group Oracle WebCenter Twitter Oracle WebCenter Facebook Oracle User Groups Additionally, there are various Oracle WebCenter related blogs by an excellent grouping of services partners.

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• Is throwing an error in unpredictable subclass-specific circumstances a violation of LSP?

  - by Motti Strom

  Say, I wanted to create a Java List<String> (see spec) implementation that uses a complex subsystem, such as a database or file system, for its store so that it becomes a simple persistent collection rather than an basic in-memory one. (We're limiting it specifically to a List of Strings for the purposes of discussion, but it could extended to automatically de-/serialise any object, with some help. We can also provide persistent Sets, Maps and so on in this way too.) So here's a skeleton implementation: class DbBackedList implements List<String> { private DbBackedList() {} /** Returns a list, possibly non-empty */ public static getList() { return new DbBackedList(); } public String get(int index) { return Db.getTable().getRow(i).asString(); // may throw DbExceptions! } // add(String), add(int, String), etc. ... } My problem lies with the fact that the underlying DB API may encounter connection errors that are not specified in the List interface that it should throw. My problem is whether this violates Liskov's Substitution Principle (LSP). Bob Martin actually gives an example of a PersistentSet in his paper on LSP that violates LSP. The difference is that his newly-specified Exception there is determined by the inserted value and so is strengthening the precondition. In my case the connection/read error is unpredictable and due to external factors and so is not technically a new precondition, merely an error of circumstance, perhaps like OutOfMemoryError which can occur even when unspecified. In normal circumstances, the new Error/Exception might never be thrown. (The caller could catch if it is aware of the possibility, just as a memory-restricted Java program might specifically catch OOME.) Is this therefore a valid argument for throwing an extra error and can I still claim to be a valid java.util.List (or pick your SDK/language/collection in general) and not in violation of LSP? If this does indeed violate LSP and thus not practically usable, I have provided two less-palatable alternative solutions as answers that you can comment on, see below. Footnote: Use Cases In the simplest case, the goal is to provide a familiar interface for cases when (say) a database is just being used as a persistent list, and allow regular List operations such as search, subList and iteration. Another, more adventurous, use-case is as a slot-in replacement for libraries that work with basic Lists, e.g if we have a third-party task queue that usually works with a plain List: new TaskWorkQueue(new ArrayList<String>()).start() which is susceptible to losing all it's queue in event of a crash, if we just replace this with: new TaskWorkQueue(new DbBackedList()).start() we get a instant persistence and the ability to share the tasks amongst more than one machine. In either case, we could either handle connection/read exceptions that are thrown, perhaps retrying the connection/read first, or allow them to throw and crash the program (e.g. if we can't change the TaskWorkQueue code).

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Comparer&lt;T&gt;.Default

  - by James Michael Hare

  I’ve been working with a wonderful team on a major release where I work, which has had the side-effect of occupying most of my spare time preparing, testing, and monitoring.  However, I do have this Little Wonder tidbit to offer today. Introduction The IComparable<T> interface is great for implementing a natural order for a data type.  It’s a very simple interface with a single method: 1: public interface IComparer<in T> 2: { 3: // Compare two instances of same type. 4: int Compare(T x, T y); 5: }  So what do we expect for the integer return value?  It’s a pseudo-relative measure of the ordering of x and y, which returns an integer value in much the same way C++ returns an integer result from the strcmp() c-style string comparison function: If x == y, returns 0. If x > y, returns > 0 (often +1, but not guaranteed) If x < y, returns < 0 (often –1, but not guaranteed) Notice that the comparison operator used to evaluate against zero should be the same comparison operator you’d use as the comparison operator between x and y.  That is, if you want to see if x > y you’d see if the result > 0. The Problem: Comparing With null Can Be Messy This gets tricky though when you have null arguments.  According to the MSDN, a null value should be considered equal to a null value, and a null value should be less than a non-null value.  So taking this into account we’d expect this instead: If x == y (or both null), return 0. If x > y (or y only is null), return > 0. If x < y (or x only is null), return < 0. But here’s the problem – if x is null, what happens when we attempt to call CompareTo() off of x? 1: // what happens if x is null? 2: x.CompareTo(y); It’s pretty obvious we’ll get a NullReferenceException here.  Now, we could guard against this before calling CompareTo(): 1: int result; 2:  3: // first check to see if lhs is null. 4: if (x == null) 5: { 6: // if lhs null, check rhs to decide on return value. 7: if (y == null) 8: { 9: result = 0; 10: } 11: else 12: { 13: result = -1; 14: } 15: } 16: else 17: { 18: // CompareTo() should handle a null y correctly and return > 0 if so. 19: result = x.CompareTo(y); 20: } Of course, we could shorten this with the ternary operator (?:), but even then it’s ugly repetitive code: 1: int result = (x == null) 2: ? ((y == null) ? 0 : -1) 3: : x.CompareTo(y); Fortunately, the null issues can be cleaned up by drafting in an external Comparer.  The Soltuion: Comparer<T>.Default You can always develop your own instance of IComparer<T> for the job of comparing two items of the same type.  The nice thing about a IComparer is its is independent of the things you are comparing, so this makes it great for comparing in an alternative order to the natural order of items, or when one or both of the items may be null. 1: public class NullableIntComparer : IComparer<int?> 2: { 3: public int Compare(int? x, int? y) 4: { 5: return (x == null) 6: ? ((y == null) ? 0 : -1) 7: : x.Value.CompareTo(y); 8: } 9: }  Now, if you want a custom sort -- especially on large-grained objects with different possible sort fields -- this is the best option you have.  But if you just want to take advantage of the natural ordering of the type, there is an easier way.  If the type you want to compare already implements IComparable<T> or if the type is System.Nullable<T> where T implements IComparable, there is a class in the System.Collections.Generic namespace called Comparer<T> which exposes a property called Default that will create a singleton that represents the default comparer for items of that type.  For example: 1: // compares integers 2: var intComparer = Comparer<int>.Default; 3:  4: // compares DateTime values 5: var dateTimeComparer = Comparer<DateTime>.Default; 6:  7: // compares nullable doubles using the null rules! 8: var nullableDoubleComparer = Comparer<double?>.Default;  This helps you avoid having to remember the messy null logic and makes it to compare objects where you don’t know if one or more of the values is null. This works especially well when creating say an IComparer<T> implementation for a large-grained class that may or may not contain a field.  For example, let’s say you want to create a sorting comparer for a stock open price, but if the market the stock is trading in hasn’t opened yet, the open price will be null.  We could handle this (assuming a reasonable Quote definition) like: 1: public class Quote 2: { 3: // the opening price of the symbol quoted 4: public double? Open { get; set; } 5:  6: // ticker symbol 7: public string Symbol { get; set; } 8:  9: // etc. 10: } 11:  12: public class OpenPriceQuoteComparer : IComparer<Quote> 13: { 14: // Compares two quotes by opening price 15: public int Compare(Quote x, Quote y) 16: { 17: return Comparer<double?>.Default.Compare(x.Open, y.Open); 18: } 19: } Summary Defining a custom comparer is often needed for non-natural ordering or defining alternative orderings, but when you just want to compare two items that are IComparable<T> and account for null behavior, you can use the Comparer<T>.Default comparer generator and you’ll never have to worry about correct null value sorting again.     Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Little Wonders,BlackRabbitCoder,IComparable,Comparer

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• How to implement efficient Fog of War?

  - by Cambrano

  I've asked a question how to implement Fog Of War(FOW) with shaders. Well I've got this working. I use the vertex color to identify the alpha of a single vertex. I guess the most of you know what the FOW of Age of Empires was like, anyway I'll shortly explain it: You have a map. Everything is unexplored(solid black / 100% transparency) at the beginning. When your NPC's / other game units explore the world (by moving around mostly) they unshadow the map. That means. Everything in a specific radius (viewrange) around a NPC is visible (0%transparency). Anything that is out of viewrange but already explored is visible but shadowed (50% transparency). So yeah, AoE had relatively huge maps. Requirements was something around 100mhz etc. So it should be relatively easy to implement something to solve this problem - actually. Okay. I'm currently adding planes above my world and set the color per vertex. Why do I use many planes ? Unity has a vertex limit of 65.000 per mesh. According to the size of my tiles and the size of my map I need more than one plane. So I actually need a lot of planes. This is obviously pita for my FPS. Well so my question is, what are simple (in sense of performance) techniques to implement a FOW shader? Okay some simplified code what I'm doin so far: // Setup for (int x = 0; x < (Map.Dimension/planeSize); x++) { for (int z = 0; z < (Map.Dimension/planeSize); z++) { CreateMeshAt(x*planeSize, 3, z*planeSize) } } // Explore (is called from NPCs when walking for example) for (int x = ((int) from.x - radius); x < from.x + radius; x ++) { for (int z = ((int) from.z - radius); z < from.z + radius; z ++) { if (from.Distance(x, 1, z) > radius) continue; _transparency[x/tileSize, z/tileSize] = 0.5f; } } // Update foreach(GameObject plane in planes){ foreach(Vector3 vertex in vertices){ Vector3 worldPos = GetWorldPos(vertex); vertex.Color = new Color(0,0,0, _transparency[worldPos.x/tileSize, worldPos.z/tileSize]); } } My shader just sets the transparency of the vertex now, which comes from the vertex color channel

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, August 03, 2014

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, August 03, 2014Popular ReleasesBoxStarter: Boxstarter 2.4.76: Running the Setup.bat file will install Chocolatey if not present and then install the Boxstarter modules.GMare: GMare Beta 1.2: Features Added: - Instance painting by holding the alt key down while pressing the left mouse button - Functionality to the binary exporter so that backgrounds from image files can be used - On the binary exporter background information can be edited manually now - Update to the GMare binary read GML script - Game Maker Studio export - Import from GMare project. Multiple options to import desired properties of a .gmpx - 10 undo/redo levels instead of 5 is now the default - New preferences dia...Json.NET: Json.NET 6.0 Release 4: New feature - Added Merge to LINQ to JSON New feature - Added JValue.CreateNull and JValue.CreateUndefined New feature - Added Windows Phone 8.1 support to .NET 4.0 portable assembly New feature - Added OverrideCreator to JsonObjectContract New feature - Added support for overriding the creation of interfaces and abstract types New feature - Added support for reading UUID BSON binary values as a Guid New feature - Added MetadataPropertyHandling.Ignore New feature - Improv...SQL Server Dialog: SQL Server Dialog: Input server, user and password Show folder and file in treeview Customize icon Filter file extension Skip system generate folder and fileAitso-a platform for spatial optimization and based on artificial immune systems: Aitso_0.14.08.01: Aitso0.14.08.01Installer.zipVidCoder: 1.5.24 Beta: Added NL-Means denoiser. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 6254. Added extra error handling to DVD player code to avoid a crash when the player was moved.AutoUpdater.NET : Auto update library for VB.NET and C# Developer: AutoUpdater.NET 1.3: Fixed problem in DownloadUpdateDialog where download continues even if you close the dialog. Added support for new url field for 64 bit application setup. AutoUpdater.NET will decide which download url to use by looking at the value of IntPtr.Size. Added German translation provided by Rene Kannegiesser. Now developer can handle update logic herself using event suggested by ricorx7. Added italian translation provided by Gianluca Mariani. Fixed bug that prevents Application from exiti...SEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.041.012 Release 1: Added voxel material textures to read in with mods. Fixed missing texture replacements for mods. Fixed rounding issue in raytrace code. Fixed repair issue with corrupt checkpoint file. Fixed issue with updated SE binaries 01.041.012 using new container configuration.Magick.NET: Magick.NET 6.8.9.601: Magick.NET linked with ImageMagick 6.8.9.6 Breaking changes: - Changed arguments for the Map method of MagickImage. - QuantizeSettings uses Riemersma by default.Multiple Threads TCP Server: Project: this Project is based on VS 2013, .net freamwork 4.0, you can open it by vs 2010 or laterAricie Shared: Aricie.Shared Version 1.8.00: Version 1.8.0 - Release Notes New: Expression Builder to design Flee Expressions New: Cryptographic helpers and configuration classes Improvement: Many fixes and improvements with property editor Improvement: Token Replace Property explorer now has a restricted mode for additional security Improvement: Better variables, types and object manipulation Fixed: smart file and flee bugs Fixed: Removed Exception while trying to read unsuported files Improvement: several performance twe...Accesorios de sitios Torrent en Español para Synology Download Station: Pack de Torrents en Español 6.0.0: Agregado los módulos de DivXTotal, el módulo de búsqueda depende del de alojamiento para bajar las series Utiliza el rss: http://www.divxtotal.com/rss.php DbEntry.Net (Leafing Framework): DbEntry.Net 4.2: DbEntry.Net is a lightweight Object Relational Mapping (ORM) database access compnent for .Net 4.0+. It has clearly and easily programing interface for ORM and sql directly, and supoorted Access, Sql Server, MySql, SQLite, Firebird, PostgreSQL and Oracle. It also provide a Ruby On Rails style MVC framework. Asp.Net DataSource and a simple IoC. DbEntry.Net.v4.2.Setup.zip include the setup package. DbEntry.Net.v4.2.Src.zip include source files and unit tests. DbEntry.Net.v4.2.Samples.zip ...Azure Storage Explorer: Azure Storage Explorer 6 Preview 1: Welcome to Azure Storage Explorer 6 Preview 1 This is the first release of the latest Azure Storage Explorer, code-named Phoenix. What's New?Here are some important things to know about version 6: Open Source Now being run as a full open source project. Full source code on CodePlex. Collaboration encouraged! Updated Code Base Brand-new code base (WPF/C#/.NET 4.5) Visual Studio 2013 solution (previously VS2010) Uses the Task Parallel Library (TPL) for asynchronous background operat...Wsus Package Publisher: release v1.3.1407.29: Updated WPP to recognize the very latest console version. Some files was missing into the latest release of WPP which lead to crash when trying to make a custom update. Add a workaround to avoid clipboard modification when double-clicking on a label when creating a custom update. Add the ability to publish detectoids. (This feature is still in a BETA phase. 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TodoList web application is created using MVC - 4 architecture, code-first Entity Framework (ORM) and Jqgrid for displaying the data.Waterfox: Waterfox 31.0 Portable: New features in Waterfox 31.0: Added support for Unicode 7.0 Experimental support for WebCL New features in Firefox 31.0:New Add the search field to the new tab page Support of Prefer:Safe http header for parental control mozilla::pkix as default certificate verifier Block malware from downloaded files Block malware from downloaded files audio/video .ogg and .pdf files handled by Firefox if no application specified Changed Removal of the CAPS infrastructure for specifying site-sp...SuperSocket, an extensible socket server framework: SuperSocket 1.6.3: The changes below are included in this release: fixed an exception when collect a server's status but it has been stopped fixed a bug that can cause an exception in case of sending data when the connection dropped already fixed the log4net missing issue for a QuickStart project fixed a warning in a QuickStart projectYnote Classic: Ynote Classic 2.8.5 Beta: Several Changes - Multiple Carets and Multiple Selections - Improved Startup Time - Improved Syntax Highlighting - Search Improvements - Shell Command - Improved StabilityNew ProjectsCreek: Creek is a Collection of many C# Frameworks and my ownSpeaking Speedometer (android): Simple speaking speedometerT125Protocol { Alpha version }: implement T125 Protocol for communicate with a mainframe.Unix Time: This library provides a System.UnixTime as a new Type providing conversion between Unix Time and .NET DateTime.

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• how to define a field of view for the entire map for shadow?

  - by Mehdi Bugnard

  I recently added "Shadow Mapping" in my XNA games to include shadows. I followed the nice and famous tutorial from "Riemers" : http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/XNA/Csharp/Series3/Shadow_map.php . This code work nice and I can see my source of light and shadow. But the problem is that my light source does not match the field of view that I created. I want the light covers the entire map of my game. I don't know why , but the light only affect 2-3 cubes of my map. ScreenShot: (the emission of light illuminates only 2-3 blocks and not the full map) Here is my code i create the fieldOfView for LightviewProjection Matrix: Vector3 lightDir = new Vector3(10, 52, 10); lightPos = new Vector3(10, 52, 10); Matrix lightsView = Matrix.CreateLookAt(lightPos, new Vector3(105, 50, 105), new Vector3(0, 1, 0)); Matrix lightsProjection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.PiOver2, 1f, 20f, 1000f); lightsViewProjectionMatrix = lightsView * lightsProjection; As you can see , my nearPlane and FarPlane are set to 20f and 100f . So i don't know why the light stop after 2 cubes. it's should be bigger Here is set the value to my custom effect HLSL in the shader file /* SHADOW VALUE */ effectWorld.Parameters["LightDirection"].SetValue(lightDir); effectWorld.Parameters["xLightsWorldViewProjection"].SetValue(Matrix.Identity * .lightsViewProjectionMatrix); effectWorld.Parameters["xWorldViewProjection"].SetValue(Matrix.Identity * arcadia.camera.View * arcadia.camera.Projection); effectWorld.Parameters["xLightPower"].SetValue(1f); effectWorld.Parameters["xAmbient"].SetValue(0.3f); Here is my custom HLSL shader effect file "*.fx" // This sample uses a simple Lambert lighting model. float3 LightDirection = normalize(float3(-1, -1, -1)); float3 DiffuseLight = 1.25; float3 AmbientLight = 0.25; uniform const float3 DiffuseColor = 1; uniform const float Alpha = 1; uniform const float3 EmissiveColor = 0; uniform const float3 SpecularColor = 1; uniform const float SpecularPower = 16; uniform const float3 EyePosition; // FOG attribut uniform const float FogEnabled ; uniform const float FogStart ; uniform const float FogEnd ; uniform const float3 FogColor ; float3 cameraPos : CAMERAPOS; texture Texture; sampler Sampler = sampler_state { Texture = (Texture); magfilter = LINEAR; minfilter = LINEAR; mipfilter = LINEAR; AddressU = mirror; AddressV = mirror; }; texture xShadowMap; sampler ShadowMapSampler = sampler_state { Texture = <xShadowMap>; magfilter = LINEAR; minfilter = LINEAR; mipfilter = LINEAR; AddressU = clamp; AddressV = clamp; }; /* *************** */ /* SHADOW MAP CODE */ /* *************** */ struct SMapVertexToPixel { float4 Position : POSITION; float4 Position2D : TEXCOORD0; }; struct SMapPixelToFrame { float4 Color : COLOR0; }; struct SSceneVertexToPixel { float4 Position : POSITION; float4 Pos2DAsSeenByLight : TEXCOORD0; float2 TexCoords : TEXCOORD1; float3 Normal : TEXCOORD2; float4 Position3D : TEXCOORD3; }; struct SScenePixelToFrame { float4 Color : COLOR0; }; float DotProduct(float3 lightPos, float3 pos3D, float3 normal) { float3 lightDir = normalize(pos3D - lightPos); return dot(-lightDir, normal); } SSceneVertexToPixel ShadowedSceneVertexShader(float4 inPos : POSITION, float2 inTexCoords : TEXCOORD0, float3 inNormal : NORMAL) { SSceneVertexToPixel Output = (SSceneVertexToPixel)0; Output.Position = mul(inPos, xWorldViewProjection); Output.Pos2DAsSeenByLight = mul(inPos, xLightsWorldViewProjection); Output.Normal = normalize(mul(inNormal, (float3x3)World)); Output.Position3D = mul(inPos, World); Output.TexCoords = inTexCoords; return Output; } SScenePixelToFrame ShadowedScenePixelShader(SSceneVertexToPixel PSIn) { SScenePixelToFrame Output = (SScenePixelToFrame)0; float2 ProjectedTexCoords; ProjectedTexCoords[0] = PSIn.Pos2DAsSeenByLight.x / PSIn.Pos2DAsSeenByLight.w / 2.0f + 0.5f; ProjectedTexCoords[1] = -PSIn.Pos2DAsSeenByLight.y / PSIn.Pos2DAsSeenByLight.w / 2.0f + 0.5f; float diffuseLightingFactor = 0; if ((saturate(ProjectedTexCoords).x == ProjectedTexCoords.x) && (saturate(ProjectedTexCoords).y == ProjectedTexCoords.y)) { float depthStoredInShadowMap = tex2D(ShadowMapSampler, ProjectedTexCoords).r; float realDistance = PSIn.Pos2DAsSeenByLight.z / PSIn.Pos2DAsSeenByLight.w; if ((realDistance - 1.0f / 100.0f) <= depthStoredInShadowMap) { diffuseLightingFactor = DotProduct(xLightPos, PSIn.Position3D, PSIn.Normal); diffuseLightingFactor = saturate(diffuseLightingFactor); diffuseLightingFactor *= xLightPower; } } float4 baseColor = tex2D(Sampler, PSIn.TexCoords); Output.Color = baseColor*(diffuseLightingFactor + xAmbient); return Output; } SMapVertexToPixel ShadowMapVertexShader(float4 inPos : POSITION) { SMapVertexToPixel Output = (SMapVertexToPixel)0; Output.Position = mul(inPos, xLightsWorldViewProjection); Output.Position2D = Output.Position; return Output; } SMapPixelToFrame ShadowMapPixelShader(SMapVertexToPixel PSIn) { SMapPixelToFrame Output = (SMapPixelToFrame)0; Output.Color = PSIn.Position2D.z / PSIn.Position2D.w; return Output; } /* ******************* */ /* END SHADOW MAP CODE */ /* ******************* */ / For rendering without instancing. technique ShadowMap { pass Pass0 { VertexShader = compile vs_2_0 ShadowMapVertexShader(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 ShadowMapPixelShader(); } } technique ShadowedScene { /* pass Pass0 { VertexShader = compile vs_2_0 VSBasicTx(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PSBasicTx(); } */ pass Pass1 { VertexShader = compile vs_2_0 ShadowedSceneVertexShader(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 ShadowedScenePixelShader(); } } technique SimpleFog { pass Pass0 { VertexShader = compile vs_2_0 VSBasicTx(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PSBasicTx(); } } I edited my fx file , for show you only information and functions about the shadow ;-)

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• links for 2011-02-21

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Calling all enterprise architects | Enterprise architecture - InfoWorld Nominations are now open for the 2011 InfoWorld Enterprise Architecture Award, honoring companies whose enterprise architecture initiatives made a difference (tags: ping.fm) Red Tape, Part II : OTN Garage "How do you back up all of that storage? Tape: really fast tape. And, lots of it. This creates a whole variety of very interesting challenges today, elevating the topic to – at the very least – glamorous, but I think it qualifies as being downright hot!" - Kemer Thomson (tags: oracle entarch datastorage) The Buttso Blathers: Using Secure Config Files with the WebLogic Maven Plugin "WebLogic Server has long had a mechanism to provide a more secure way of connecting to the Administration Server from client utilities such that the username and password do not need to be specified and therefore can’t be seen from the process list or command shell history." (tags: oracle weblogic) World-class EA | Open Group Blog "World-class Enterprise Architecture is all about creating definitive collateral that defines how the architecture delivers value for societal value." - Mick Adams (tags: enterprisearchitecture entarch opengroup) Enterprise Process Maps: A Process Picture worth a Million Words (Telecommunications Architecture Corner) "Every BPM project (holistic BPM kick-off, enterprise system implementation, Service-oriented Architecture, business process transformation, corporate performance management, etc.) should be begin with a clear understanding of the business environment..." - Raul Goycoolea (tags: oracle otn telecommunications businessprocess entarch bpm) Andrejus Baranovskis's Blog: WebCenter PS3 Customization Manager- Long Awaited Feature for MDS Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovski shares "really great news for those of you who are working on MDS personalization and customization support in Oracle Fusion Middleware applications." (tags: oracle otn oracleace webcenter enterprise2.0) Oracle WebCenter: Common User Experience Architecture (Oracle Enterprise 2.0 Blog) Kellsey Ruppel describes "how the new release of Oracle WebCenter delivers a Common User Experience Architecture." (tags: oracle otn webcenter enterprise2.0) Java / Oracle SOA blog: Do your SOA deployments & configuration with AIA Oracle ACE Edwin Biemond illustrates the use of the SOA Suite / FMW deployment framework, "one of the Application Integration Architecture (AIA) hidden gems." (tags: oracle oracleace soa otn fusionmiddleware) Enterprise Software Development with Java: Clustering Stateful Session Beans with GlassFish 3.1 Oracle ACE Director Markus Eisele describes what he did "to get a Stateful Session Bean failover scenario working with two instances on one node." (tags: oracle otn oracleace glassfish) Enhanced REST Support in Oracle Service Bus 11gR1 (SOA Thinker) Jeff Davies illustrates how to re-implement the REST-ful Products services using query strings for passing parameter information. (tags: oracle otn soa REST)

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• Create Auto Customization Criteria OAF Search Page

  - by PRajkumar

  1. Create a New Workspace and Project Right click Workspaces and click create new OAworkspace and name it as PRajkumarCustSearch. Automatically a new OA Project will also be created. Name the project as CustSearchDemo and package as prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.custsearchdemo   2. Create a New Application Module (AM) Right Click on CustSearchDemo > New > ADF Business Components > Application Module Name -- CustSearchAM Package -- prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.custsearchdemo.server   3. Enable Passivation for the Root UI Application Module (AM) Right Click on CustSearchAM > Edit SearchAM > Custom Properties > Name – RETENTION_LEVEL Value – MANAGE_STATE Click add > Apply > OK   4. Create Test Table and insert data some data in it (For Testing Purpose)   CREATE TABLE xx_custsearch_demo (   -- ---------------------     -- Data Columns     -- ---------------------     column1                  VARCHAR2(100),     column2                  VARCHAR2(100),     column3                  VARCHAR2(100),     column4                  VARCHAR2(100),     -- ---------------------     -- Who Columns     -- ---------------------     last_update_date    DATE         NOT NULL,     last_updated_by     NUMBER   NOT NULL,     creation_date          DATE         NOT NULL,     created_by               NUMBER   NOT NULL,     last_update_login   NUMBER  );   INSERT INTO xx_custsearch_demo VALUES('v1','v2','v3','v4',SYSDATE,0,SYSDATE,0,0); INSERT INTO xx_custsearch_demo VALUES('v1','v3','v4','v5',SYSDATE,0,SYSDATE,0,0); INSERT INTO xx_custsearch_demo VALUES('v2','v3','v4','v5',SYSDATE,0,SYSDATE,0,0); INSERT INTO xx_custsearch_demo VALUES('v3','v4','v5','v6',SYSDATE,0,SYSDATE,0,0); Now we have 4 records in our custom table   5. Create a New Entity Object (EO) Right click on SearchDemo > New > ADF Business Components > Entity Object Name – CustSearchEO Package -- prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.custsearchdemo.schema.server Database Objects -- XX_CUSTSEARCH_DEMO   Note – By default ROWID will be the primary key if we will not make any column to be primary key   Check the Accessors, Create Method, Validation Method and Remove Method   6. Create a New View Object (VO) Right click on CustSearchDemo > New > ADF Business Components > View Object Name -- CustSearchVO Package -- prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.custsearchdemo.server   In Step2 in Entity Page select CustSearchEO and shuttle them to selected list   In Step3 in Attributes Window select columns Column1, Column2, Column3, Column4, and shuttle them to selected list   In Java page deselect Generate Java file for View Object Class: CustSearchVOImpl and Select Generate Java File for View Row Class: CustSearchVORowImpl   7. Add Your View Object to Root UI Application Module Select Right click on CustSearchAM > Application Modules > Data Model Select CustSearchVO and shuttle to Data Model list   8. Create a New Page Right click on CustSearchDemo > New > Web Tier > OA Components > Page Name -- CustSearchPG Package -- prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.custsearchdemo.webui   9. Select the CustSearchPG and go to the strcuture pane where a default region has been created   10. Select region1 and set the following properties: ID -- PageLayoutRN Region Style -- PageLayout AM Definition -- prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.custsearchdemo.server.CustSearchAM Window Title – AutoCustomize Search Page Window Title – AutoCustomization Search Page Auto Footer -- True   11. Add a Query Bean to Your Page Right click on PageLayoutRN > New > Region Select new region region1 and set following properties ID – QueryRN Region Style – query Construction Mode – autoCustomizationCriteria Include Simple Panel – False Include Views Panel – False Include Advanced Panel – False   12. Create a New Region of style table Right Click on QueryRN > New > Region Using Wizard Application Module – prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.custsearchdemo.server.CustSearchAM Available View Usages – CustSearchVO1   In Step2 in Region Properties set following properties Region ID – CustSearchTable Region Style – Table   In Step3 in View Attributes shuttle all the items (Column1, Column2, Column3, Column4) available in “Available View Attributes” to Selected View Attributes: In Step4 in Region Items page set style to “messageStyledText” for all items   13. Select CustSearchTable in Structure Panel and set property Width to 100%   14. Include Simple Search Panel Right Click on QueryRN > New > simpleSearchPanel Automatically region2 (header Region) and region1 (MessageComponentLayout Region) created Set Following Properties for region2 Id – SimpleSearchHeader Text -- Simple Search   15. Now right click on message Component Layout Region (SimpleSearchMappings) and create two message text input beans and set the below properties to each   Message TextInputBean1 Id – SearchColumn1 Search Allowed – True Data Type – VARCHAR2 Maximum Length – CSS Class – OraFieldText Prompt – Column1   Message TextInputBean2 Id – SearchColumn2 Search Allowed -- True Data Type – VARCHAR2 Maximum Length – 100 CSS Class – OraFieldText Prompt – Column2   16. Now Right Click on query Components and create simple Search Mappings. Then automatically SimpleSearchMappings and QueryCriteriaMap1 created   17.  Now select the QueryCriteriaMap1 and set the below properties Id – SearchColumn1Map Search Item – SearchColumn1 Result Item – Column1   18. Now again right click on simpleSearchMappings -> New -> queryCriteriaMap, and then set the below properties Id – SearchColumn2Map Search Item – SearchColumn2 Result Item – Column2   19. Congratulation you have successfully finished Auto Customization Search page. Run Your CustSearchPG page and Test Your Work            

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• Webcast Q&A: Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  Last Thursday we had the second webcast in our WebCenter in Action webcast series, "Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter, where customer Michael Chander from Qualcomm and Vince Casarez & Gourav Goyal from Oracle Partner Keste shared how Oracle WebCenter is powering Qualcomm’s externally facing website and providing a seamless experience for their customers. In case you missed it, here's a recap of the Q&A.   Mike Chandler, Qualcomm Q: Did you run into any issues when integrating all of the different applications together?A: Definitely, our main challenges were in the area of user provisioning and security propagation, all the standard stuff you might expect when hooking up SSO for authentication and authorization. In addition, we spent several iterations getting the UI’s in sync. While everyone was given the same digital material to build too, each team interpreted and implemented it their own way. Initially as a user navigated, if you were looking for it, you could slight variations in color or font or width , stuff like that. So we had to pull all the developers responsible for the UI together and get pixel level agreement on a lot of things so we could ensure seamless transitions across applications. Q: What has been the biggest benefit your end users have seen?A: Wow, there have been several. An SSO enabled environment was huge a win for our users. The portal application that this replaced had not really been invested in by the business. With this project, we had full business participation and backing, and it really showed in some key areas like the shopping experience. For example, while ordering in the previous site, the items did not have any pictures or really usable descriptions. A tremendous amount of work was done to try and make the site more intuitive and user friendly. Site performance has also drastically improved thanks to new hardware, improved database design, and of course the fact that ADF has made great strides in runtime performance. Q: Was there any resistance internally when implementing the solution? If so, how did you overcome that?A: Within a large company, I’m sure there is always going to be competition for large projects, as there was here. Once we got through the technical analysis and settled on the technology choices, it was actually no resistance to implementing the solution. This project was fully driven by the business with the aim of long term growth. I can confidently say that the fact that this project was given the utmost importance by both the business and IT really help put down any resistance that you would typically see while implementing a new solution. Q: Given the performance, what do you estimate to be the top end capacity of the system? A:I think our top end capacity is really only limited by our hardware. I’m comfortable saying we could grow 10x on our current hardware, both in terms of transactions and users. We can easily spin up new JVM instances if needed. We already use less JVM’s than we had planned. In addition, ADF is doing a very good job with his connection pooling and application module pooling, so we see a very good ratio of users connected to the systems vs db connections, without impacting performace. Q: What's the overview or summary of feedback from the users interacting with the site?A: Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from both the business and our customers. They’re very happy with the new SSO environment , the new LAF, and the performance of the site. Of course, it’s not all roses. No matter what, there are always going to be people that don’t like the layout or the color scheme, etc. By and large though, customers are happy and the business is happy. Q: Can you describe the impressions about the site before and after the project within Qualcomm?A: Before the project, the site worked and people were using it, but most people were not happy with it. It was slow and tended to be a bit tempermental, for example a user would perform a transaction and the system would throw and unexpected error. The user could back up and retry the steps and things would work fine, so why didn’t work the first time?. From a UI perspective, we’d hear comments like it looked like it was built by a high school student.  Vince Casarez & Gourav Goyal, Keste Q: Did you run into any obstacles when implementing the solution?A: It's interesting some people call them "obstacles" on this project we just called them "dependencies".  There were both technical and business related dependencies that we had to work out. Mike points out the SSO dependencies and the coordination and synchronization between the teams to have a seamless login experience and a seamless end user experience.  There was also a set of dependencies on the User Acceptance testing to make sure that everyone understood the use cases for how the system would be used.  With a branching into a new market and trying to match a simple user experience as many consumer sites have today, there was always a tendency for the team members to provide their suggestions on how things could be simpler.  But with all the work up front on the user design and getting the business driving this set of experiences, this minimized the downstream suggestions that tend to distract a team.  In this case, all the work up front allowed us to enumerate the "dependencies" and keep the distractions to a minimum. Q: Was there a lot of custom work that needed to be done for this particular solution?A: The focus for this particular solution was really on the custom processes. The interesting thing is that with the data flows and the integration with applications, there are some pre-built integrations, but realistically for the process flow, we had to build those. The framework and tooling we used made things easier so we didn’t have to implement core functionality, like transitioning from screen to screen or from flow to flow. The design feature of Task Flows really helped speed the development and keep the component infrastructure in line with the dynamic processes.  Task flows and other elements like Skins are core to the infrastructure or technology stack of Oracle. This then allowed the team to center the project focus around the business flows and use cases to meet the core requirements and keep the project on time. Q: What do you think were the keys to success for rolling out WebCenter?A:  The 5 main keys to success were: 1) Sponsorship from the whole organization around this project from senior executive agreement, business owners driving functionality, and IT development alignment; 2) Upfront design planning and use case definition to clearly define the project scope and requirements; 3) Focussed development and project management aligned with the top level goals and drivers; 4) User acceptance and usability testing along the way to identify potential issues and direct resolution of the issues;  and 5) Constant prioritization of the issues for development to fix by the business.  It also helps to have great team chemistry and really smart people working on the project. If you missed the webcast, be sure to catch the replay to see a live demonstration of WebCenter in action!  Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter from Oracle WebCenter

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