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Oracle at HR Tech: What a Difference a Year Makes

- by Natalia Rachelson

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the famous HR Technology Conference (HR Tech) in my new hometown of Chicago. This annual event, which draws the who of who in the world of HR technology, was by far the biggest. It wasn't just the highest level of attendance that was mind blowing, but also the amazing quality of attendees. Kudos go to the organizers, especially Bill Kutik for pulling together such a phenomenal conference. Conference highlights included Naomi Bloom's (http://infullbloom.us) Masters Panel and Mark Hurd's General Session on the last day of the conference. Naomi managed to do the seemingly impossible -- get all of the industry heavyweights and fierce competitors to travel to Chicago for her panel. Here are the executives she hosted: Our own Steve Miranda Sanjay Poonen, President Global Solutions, SAP Stan Swete, CTO, Workday Mike Capone, VP for Product Development and CIO, ADP John Wookey, EVP, Social Applications, Salesforce.com Adam Rogers, CTO, Ultimate Software I bet you think "WOW" when you look at these names. Just this panel by itself would have been enough of a draw for any tech conference, so Naomi and Bill really scored. TechTarget published a great review of the conference here. And here are a few highlights from Steve. "Steve Miranda, EVP Apps Dev Oracle, said delivering software in the cloud helps vendors shape their products to customer needs more efficiently. "As vendors, we're able to improve the software faster," he said. "We can see in real time what customers are using and not using." Miranda underscored Oracle's commitment to socializing its HCM platform,and named recruiting as an area where social has had a significant impact. "We want to make social a part of the fabric, not a separate piece," he said. "Already, if you're doing recruiting without social, it probably doesn't make any sense."" Having Mark Hurd at the conference was another real treat and everyone took notice. The Business of HR publication covered Mark's participation at HR Tech and the full article is available here. Here is what Business of HR had to say: "In truth, the story of Oracle today is a story similar to many of the current and potential customers they faced at the conference this week. Their business is changing and growing. They've dealt with acquisitions of their own and their competitors continue to nip at their heels. They are dealing with growth (and yes, they are hiring in case you're interested). They have concerns about talent as well. If Oracle feels as strongly about their products as they seem to be, they will be getting their co-president in front of a lot more groups of current and potential customers like they did at the HR Technology Conference this year. And here's hoping this is one executive who won't stop talking about the importance of talent just because he isn't at the HR tech conference anymore." Natalia RachelsonSenior Director, Oracle Applications

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Understanding the Customer Form in Release 12 from an AR Perspective!!

- by user793553

Confused by the Customer Form in Release 12?? Read on, to get some insight into the evolution of this screen, and how it links in with Trading Community Architecture. Historically, the customer data model was owned by Oracle Receivables (AR). However, as the data model changed and more complex relationships and attributes had to be tracked and monitored, the Trading Community Architecture (TCA) product was created. All applications within the E-Business suite that require interaction with a customer integrate with TCA. Customer information is no longer stored in the individual applications but rather in a central repository/registry maintained within TCA. It is important to understand the following entities/concepts stored in TCA: Party: A party is an entity with whom you can have a potential business relationship. A party can be either a Person or an Organization. The Party entity is completely independent of any business relationship; this means that a Party can exist even if you have no transactions with it. The Party is the "umbrella" entity under which you capture all other attributes listed below. Customer: A customer is a party with whom you have an existing business relationship. From an AR perspective, you can simplify the concepts by thinking of a Customer as a Party. This definition however does not apply to all other applications. In the Oracle Receivables Customer form, the information displayed at the Customer level is from TCA's Party information record. Customer Account (also called Account): An account contains information about how you transact business with a particular customer. You can create multiple accounts for a customer. When you create invoices and receipts you associate it to a particular Account of a Customer. Location: A Location is an address. It is a point in space, typically identified by a street number, a street name, a city, a state or province, a country. A location is independent of what it is used for - you do not associate a purpose to a location. Party Site: A Party Site is associated to a Party. It is the location where a party is physically located. When defining sites for a Party, only one can be an identifying address. However, you can define other party sites associated to a party. You can define purposes/usage for Party Sites. Account Site: An Account Site is associated to a Customer Account. It is the location associated to the account you are transacting business with. You can define business purposes (also called site uses) for an Account site. Read more about the Customer Workbench in these notes: Doc ID 1436547.1 Oracle Receivables: Understanding the Customer Form in Release 12 Doc ID 1437866.1 Customer Form - Address: Troubleshooting, Known Issues and Patches Doc ID 1448442.1 Oracle Receivables (AR): Customer Workbench Information Center Do you find this type of blog entry useful? Please add comments to let us know how we can help you more effectively. Thank you!

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Why are you doing this? [closed]

- by NIcholas Lawson

I am working on a story that I am going to be querying to several magazines in my hometown about this work that is being done by the AXR group. This is a group of people who have networked online and are working on developing a higher level syntax structure than CSS and HTML currently offer. I am covering this is as a story because I see potential in this as a human interest story in cosmopolitan society. I have been asked by the group to pose this question to you and would appreciate any and all comments you would have on the following ... To AXR: So when does the internet become finished? At what point does a computer scientist say to himself ... my job here is finished ... the internet is complete? When is the internet ready to be more about the display of content than the uploading of new websites or computer tech? You are embarking on upon a sixty year project every day you work with this internet, what drives you? Why are you spending your hard earned hours working on the code to this computer? I spend thirty hours a week online because I love the writing and I know what would make the internet better ... ease of use ... i know it is difficult to program but I see some very elegant solutions online ... in this early inception phase of your programming development for this HSS prototype ... I would like to know why I do not see you programmers asking questions such as ... What would make the end user's life the easiest when using this code? I know you can solve the problem but an evolution forward would be simple, not simple to a computer scientist but simple to use for a career janitor ... if you could solve the problem of alleviating the stress at using a the computer you could get better content out of the computer ... right now the main problem is that the best content is in the hands of the people least likely to use the computer and the more simple you make the computer to use ... the better the content collection will be in the long run ... That is not what I want to talk about though ... why are you writing code when you could be writing stories? I know the computer is worthless without content so I build content, I know the book is worthless without the combinations of words in them, i know the television is worthless without the television news anchor or the actor, what I want to know from you folks in a very journalistic sense is why are you even bothering to bother to write code for a machine that has only made our lives i would dare say less interesting. why are you feeding the beast your time when you could be writing stories or being an actor or musician or auto mechanic ... why code? why this machine? what do you love about it? what do you hate about it? what do you wonder about it? I want to know so that starting out I know how to further shape my questions with axr ... i want the full story ... i want the real answers ... and i want to know why you are doing this, it would make for great writing if you could elucidate on this point.

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Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool 5.3 now available

- by user12609056

Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool 5.3 The Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool Team is happy to announce the availability of release 5.3. This release addresses bugs discovered since the release of 5.2 plus enhancements to support Oracle Solaris 11 and updates to Oracle Solaris versions 7 through 10. The packages are available on My Oracle Support - simply search for Patch 13365310 to find the downloadable packages. Release Notes General blast support The blast GUI has been removed and is no longer supported. Oracle Solaris 2.6 Support As of Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool 5.3, support for Oracle Solaris 2.6 has been dropped. If you have systems running Solaris 2.6, you will need to use Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool 5.2 or earlier to read its crash dumps. New Commands Sanity Command Though one can re-run the sanity checks that are run at tool start-up using the coreinfo command, many users were unaware that they were. Though these checks can still be run using that command, a new command, namely sanity, can now be used to re-run the checks at any time. Interface Changes scat_explore -r and -t option The -r option has ben added to scat_explore so that a base directory can be specified and the -t op[tion was added to enable color taggging of the output. The scat_explore sub-command now accepts new options. Usage is: scat --scat_explore [-atv] [-r base_dir] [-d dest] [unix.N] [vmcore.]N Where: -v Verbose Mode: The command will print messages highlighting what it's doing. -a Auto Mode: The command does not prompt for input from the user as it runs. -d dest Instructs scat_explore to save it's output in the directory dest instead of the present working directory. -r base_dir Instructs scat_explore to save it's under the directory base_dir instead of the present working directory. If it is not specified using the -d option, scat_explore names it's output file as "scat_explore_system_name_hostid_lbolt_value_corefile_name." -t Enable color tags. When enabled, scat_explore tags important text with colors that match the level of importance. These colors correspond to the color normally printed when running Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool in interactive mode. Tag Name Definition FATAL An extremely important message which should be investigated. WARNING A warning that may or may not have anything to do with the crash. ERROR An error, usually printer with a suggested command ALERT Used to indicate something the tool discovered. INFO Purely informational message INFO2 A follow-up to an INFO tagged message REDZONE Usually used when prnting memory info showing something is in the kernel's REDZONE. N The number of the crash dump. Specifying unix.N vmcore.N is optional and not required. Example: $ scat --scat_explore -a -v -r /tmp vmcore.0 #Output directory: /tmp/scat_explore_oomph_833a2959_0x28800_vmcore.0 #Tar filename: scat_explore_oomph_833a2959_0x28800_vmcore.0.tar #Extracting crash data... #Gathering standard crash data collections... #Panic string indicates a possible hang... #Gathering Hang Related data... #Creating tar file... #Compressing tar file... #Successful extraction SCAT_EXPLORE_DATA_DIR=/tmp/scat_explore_oomph_833a2959_0x28800_vmcore.0 Sending scat_explore results The .tar.gz file that results from a scat_explore run may be sent using Oracle Secure File Transfer. The Oracle Secure File Transfer User Guide describes how to use it to send a file. The send_scat_explore script now has a -t option for specifying a to address for sending the results. This option is mandatory. Known Issues There are a couple known issues that we are addressing in release 5.4, which you should expect to see soon: Display of timestamps in threads and clock information is incorrect in some cases. There are alignment issues with some of the tables produced by the tool.

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Five Key Trends in Enterprise 2.0 for 2011

- by kellsey.ruppel(at)oracle.com

We recently sat down with Andy MacMillan, an industry veteran and vice president of product management for Enterprise 2.0 at Oracle, to get his take on the year ahead in Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0). He offered us his five predictions about the ways he believes E2.0 technologies will transform business in 2011. 1. Forward-thinking organizations will achieve an unprecedented level of organizational awareness. Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 technologies have already transformed the ways customers, employees, partners, and suppliers communicate and stay informed. But this year we are anticipating that organizations will go to the next step and integrate social activities with business applications to deliver rich contextual "activity streams." Activity streams are a new way for enterprise users to get relevant information as quickly as it happens, by navigating to that information in context directly from their portal. We don't mean syndicating social activities limited to a single application. Instead, we believe back-office systems will be combined with social media tools to drive how users make informed business decisions in brand new ways. For example, an account manager might log into the company portal and automatically receive notification that colleagues are closing business around a certain product in his market segment. With a single click, he can reach out instantly to these colleagues via social media and learn from their successes to drive new business opportunities in his own area. 2. Online customer engagement will become a high priority for CMOs. A growing number of chief marketing officers (CMOs) have created a new direct report called "head of online"--a senior marketing executive responsible for all engagements with customers and prospects via the Web, mobile, and social media. This new field has been dubbed "Web experience management" or "online customer engagement" by firms and analyst organizations. It is likely to rapidly increase demand for a host of new business objectives and metrics from Web content management solutions. As companies interface with customers more and more over the Web, Web experience management solutions will help deliver more targeted interactions to ensure increased customer loyalty while meeting sales and business objectives. 3. Real composite applications will be widely adopted. We expect organizations to move from the concept of a single "uber-portal" that encompasses all the necessary features to a more modular, component-based concept for composite applications. This approach is now possible as IT and power users are empowered to assemble new, purpose-built composite applications quickly from existing components. 4. Records management will drive ECM consolidation. We continue to see a significant shift in the approach to records management. Several years ago initiatives were focused on overlaying records management across a set of electronic repositories and physical storage locations. We believe federated records management will continue, but we also expect to see records management driving conversations around single-platform content management consolidation. 5. Organizations will demand ECM at extreme scale. We have already seen a trend within IT organizations to provide a common, highly scalable infrastructure to consolidate and support content and information needs. But as data sizes grow exponentially, ECM at an extreme scale is likely to spread at unprecedented speeds this year. This makes sense as regulations and transparency requirements rise. The model in which ECM and lightweight CMS systems provide basic content services such as check-in, update, delete, and search has converged around a set of industry best practices and has even been coded into new industry standards such as content management interoperability services. As these services converge and the demand for them accelerates, organizations are beginning to rationalize investments into a single, highly scalable infrastructure. Is your organization ready for Enterprise 2.0 in 2011? Learn more.

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How would I handle input with a Game Component?

- by Aufziehvogel

I am currently having problems from finding my way into the component-oriented XNA design. I read an overview over the general design pattern and googled a lot of XNA examples. However, they seem to be right on the opposite site. In the general design pattern, an object (my current player) is passed to InputComponent::update(Player). This means the class will know what to do and how this will affect the game (e.g. move person vs. scroll text in a menu). Yet, in XNA GameComponent::update(GameTime) is called automatically without a reference to the current player. The only XNA examples I found built some sort of higher-level Keyboard engine into the game component like this: class InputComponent: GameComponent { public void keyReleased(Keys); public void keyPressed(Keys); public bool keyDown(Keys); public void override update(GameTime gameTime) { // compare previous state with current state and // determine if released, pressed, down or nothing } } Some others went a bit further making it possible to use a Service Locator by a design like this: interface IInputComponent { public void downwardsMovement(Keys); public void upwardsMovement(Keys); public bool pausedGame(Keys); // determine which keys pressed and what that means // can be done for different inputs in different implementations public void override update(GameTime); } Yet, then I am wondering if it is possible to design an input class to resolve all possible situations. Like in a menu a mouse click can mean "click that button", but in game play it can mean "shoot that weapon". So if I am using such a modular design with game components for input, how much logic is to be put into the InputComponent / KeyboardComponent / GamepadComponent and where is the rest handled? What I had in mind, when I heard about Game Components and Service Locator in XNA was something like this: use Game Components to run the InputHandler automatically in the loop use Service Locator to be able to switch input at runtime (i.e. let player choose if he wants to use a gamepad or a keyboard; or which shall be player 1 and which player 2). However, now I cannot see how this can be done. First code example does not seem flexible enough, as on a game pad you could require some combination of buttons for something that is possible on keyboard with only one button or with the mouse) The second code example seems really hard to implement, because the InputComponent has to know in which context we are currently. Moreover, you could imagine your application to be multi-layered and let the key-stroke go through all layers to the bottom-layer which requires a different behaviour than the InputComponent would have guessed from the top-layer. The general design pattern with passing the Player to update() does not have a representation in XNA and I also cannot see how and where to decide which class should be passed to update(). At most time of course the player, but sometimes there could be menu items you have to or can click I see that the question in general is already dealt with here, but probably from a more elobate point-of-view. At least, I am not smart enough in game development to understand it. I am searching for a rather code-based example directly for XNA. And the answer there leaves (a noob like) me still alone in how the object that should receive the detected event is chosen. Like if I have a key-up event, should it go to the text box or to the player?

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Attending a Career Fair: “Don’t be shy – Be prepared”

- by jessica.ebbelaar

There are a large number of ways to interact with companies nowadays. The career fair is a very effective and personal way to interact with a number of different companies in a very short period of time. Here are some simple tips to help you perform during a career fair. Do research The key to being successful at a career fair is to do research before you go. Make a first selection of the companies you feel could be interesting for you. Include many types of employers. Once you have decided on the list of companies you want to visit, go to their career portal. Inform yourself about what the company does, i.e what roles there are available, how the company culture is described, what impression the testimonials give you. The question that you still have after reviewing this information, are the ones you can discuss with the company on the fair. Sell yourself Visit the companies you have on your top 5 list first, so you will be at your highest energy level to make that first impression. Think in advance about what you are going to tell the recruiter. Prepare a 30-second introduction (including degree, strengths, skills & experience) Be confident when you talk about your experience. Remember to start the conversation with a smile, make good eye contact and give a firm handshake. You could be speaking to your next manager, so be professional! If you already know what jobs you are interested in, relate your skills and experience to the roles that the company has available. If you are not yet sure gather as much information as you can about employment and/or hiring procedures, specific skills necessary for different jobs, training and career paths. Stand out As career fairs are very crowded and the attending companies meet with a lot of potential candidates on one day, you have to make sure you are noticed in a positive way. A good preparation and asking questions that show you have a good understanding of the industry, organization and roles will help you. Be aware of time demands on employers. Do not monopolize an employer's time. Dress appropriately to make a good first impression. Bring your resume Do not forget to bring your resume in print or on a USB-stick to the fair. If you are searching for different types of jobs, bring different versions of your resume. Your resume should be short and professional on white paper that is free of graphics or fancy print styles and containing larger margins for interviewer notes. Follow up After each conversation ask who you can contact for follow-up discussions about the specific roles. Use the back of a business card to record notes that help you remember important details and follow-up instructions. If no card is available, record the contact information and your comments in your notepad or phone. Last but not least, thank everyone you talk to for their time. Follow up as soon as possible with thank you notes that address the companies’ hiring needs, your qualifications, and express your desire for a second interview. What not to do… Do not visit a company with a group of friends. Interact with the companies on your own, to make your own positive impression. Do not walk up to a recruiter and interrupt a current conversation; wait your turn and be polite. What you should absolutely avoid is a grab and run on freebies! Take the time to speak to the company and ask for a freebie at the end of the conversation in case they are not offered to you. Good luck with the preparations for the career fair you will attend. Oracle recruiters look forward to meet you! They will be present on a large number of fairs in the region. For an overview of the fairs go to the Events & Calendar page on http://campus.oracle.com If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact [email protected].

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Organization & Architecture UNISA Studies – Chap 6

- by MarkPearl

Learning Outcomes Discuss the physical characteristics of magnetic disks Describe how data is organized and accessed on a magnetic disk Discuss the parameters that play a role in the performance of magnetic disks Describe different optical memory devices Magnetic Disk The way data is stored on and retried from magnetic disks Data is recorded on and later retrieved form the disk via a conducting coil named the head (in many systems there are two heads) The writ mechanism exploits the fact that electricity flowing through a coil produces a magnetic field. Electric pulses are sent to the write head, and the resulting magnetic patterns are recorded on the surface below with different patterns for positive and negative currents The physical characteristics of a magnetic disk Summarize from book The factors that play a role in the performance of a disk Seek time – the time it takes to position the head at the track Rotational delay / latency – the time it takes for the beginning of the sector to reach the head Access time – the sum of the seek time and rotational delay Transfer time – the time it takes to transfer data RAID The rate of improvement in secondary storage performance has been considerably less than the rate for processors and main memory. Thus secondary storage has become a bit of a bottleneck. RAID works on the concept that if one disk can be pushed so far, additional gains in performance are to be had by using multiple parallel components. Points to note about RAID… RAID is a set of physical disk drives viewed by the operating system as a single logical drive Data is distributed across the physical drives of an array in a scheme known as striping Redundant disk capacity is used to store parity information, which guarantees data recoverability in case of a disk failure (not supported by RAID 0 or RAID 1) Interesting to note that the increase in the number of drives, increases the probability of failure. To compensate for this decreased reliability RAID makes use of stored parity information that enables the recovery of data lost due to a disk failure. The RAID scheme consists of 7 levels… Category Level Description Disks Required Data Availability Large I/O Data Transfer Capacity Small I/O Request Rate Striping 0 Non Redundant N Lower than single disk Very high Very high for both read and write Mirroring 1 Mirrored 2N Higher than RAID 2 – 5 but lower than RAID 6 Higher than single disk Up to twice that of a signle disk for read Parallel Access 2 Redundant via Hamming Code N + m Much higher than single disk Highest of all listed alternatives Approximately twice that of a single disk Parallel Access 3 Bit interleaved parity N + 1 Much higher than single disk Highest of all listed alternatives Approximately twice that of a single disk Independent Access 4 Block interleaved parity N + 1 Much higher than single disk Similar to RAID 0 for read, significantly lower than single disk for write Similar to RAID 0 for read, significantly lower than single disk for write Independent Access 5 Block interleaved parity N + 1 Much higher than single disk Similar to RAID 0 for read, lower than single disk for write Similar to RAID 0 for read, generally lower than single disk for write Independent Access 6 Block interleaved parity N + 2 Highest of all listed alternatives Similar to RAID 0 for read; lower than RAID 5 for write Similar to RAID 0 for read, significantly lower than RAID 5 for write Read page 215 – 221 for detailed explanation on RAID levels Optical Memory There are a variety of optical-disk systems available. Read through the table on page 222 – 223 Some of the devices include… CD CD-ROM CD-R CD-RW DVD DVD-R DVD-RW Blue-Ray DVD Magnetic Tape Most modern systems use serial recording – data is lade out as a sequence of bits along each track. The typical recording used in serial is referred to as serpentine recording. In this technique when data is being recorded, the first set of bits is recorded along the whole length of the tape. When the end of the tape is reached the heads are repostioned to record a new track, and the tape is again recorded on its whole length, this time in the opposite direction. That process continued back and forth until the tape is full. To increase speed, the read-write head is capable of reading and writing a number of adjacent tracks simultaneously. Data is still recorded serially along individual tracks, but blocks in sequence are stored on adjacent tracks as suggested. A tape drive is a sequential access device. Magnetic tape was the first kind of secondary memory. It is still widely used as the lowest-cost, slowest speed member of the memory hierarchy.

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Dell 3721 Wifi problem Ubuntu 13.04

- by Sebastian

I have a Dell 3721 which comes original with windows 8. I managed it to install ubuntu 12.10 on this laptop, even there was no out of the box drivers. With 12.10 I was forces to install this .deb package couple of times. After installing it, it was ok for some weeks before I have to install it again. Maybe some security updates destroy something which made in necessary to install it again... http://jas.gemnetworks.com/debian/pool/main/w/wireless-bcm43142/wireless-bcm43142-dkms_6.20.55.19-1_amd64.deb My problem is, that this package isnt working with ubuntu 13.04 anymore. So I cant use Wifi now. Also my display is almost dark, I cant change the brightness level with ubuntu 13.04. Hope you can give me some advice. Dell:~$ sudo lspci -nn 00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller [8086:0154] (rev 09) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09) 00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller [8086:1e31] (rev 04) 00:16.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 [8086:1e3a] (rev 04) 00:1a.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 [8086:1e2d] (rev 04) 00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller [8086:1e20] (rev 04) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 [8086:1e10] (rev c4) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 [8086:1e12] (rev c4) 00:1d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 [8086:1e26] (rev 04) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation HM76 Express Chipset LPC Controller [8086:1e59] (rev 04) 00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] [8086:1e03] (rev 04) 00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller [8086:1e22] (rev 04) 01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 05) 02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43142 802.11b/g/n [14e4:4365] (rev 01) @Dell:~$ lsusb Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0a5c:21d7 Broadcom Corp. Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:0129 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0c45:64ad Microdia @Dell:~$ lspci -nn | grep VGA 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09) @Dell:~$ sudo lshw -class network *-network Beschreibung: Ethernet interface Produkt: RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller Hersteller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Physische ID: 0 Bus-Informationen: pci@0000:01:00.0 Logischer Name: eth0 Version: 05 Seriennummer: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx Größe: 100Mbit/s Kapazität: 100Mbit/s Breite: 64 bits Takt: 33MHz Fähigkeiten: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation Konfiguration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl_nic/rtl8105e-1.fw ip=192.168.2.103 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s Ressourcen: irq:42 ioport:2000(Größe=256) memory:c0404000-c0404fff memory:c0400000-c0403fff *-network UNGEFORDERT Beschreibung: Network controller Produkt: BCM43142 802.11b/g/n Hersteller: Broadcom Corporation Physische ID: 0 Bus-Informationen: pci@0000:02:00.0 Version: 01 Breite: 64 bits Takt: 33MHz Fähigkeiten: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list Konfiguration: latency=0 Ressourcen: memory:c0500000-c0507fff

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Elo system behaves oddly in program I've created

- by adc

Alright, so I'm looking to build a small program (C# and XAML) that, essentially, does this: Generate array of players. Each player has a current rating and a true rating. I set current rating to 1200 as a starting point right now; I've also tried setting it to true rating and the average of the two. True rating is what their skill level actually is. Their true rating is calculated based on percentages from the current League of Legends rating system; generating an array of 970 thousand generates results very similar to the data from here: (removed due to URL limit - but trust me, the results are very similar). This array is of length specified by the user. If need be, sort the array from smallest to largest. Play X number of games, again specified by the user. This is done by taking the array of players (which is sorted by Current Rating after being created) and running through it in groups of 10. The first five are on team one, the second five are on team two. It then takes the True Rating of these players and calculates an expected chance to win using the Elo system. It generates a random double and compares it to the expected chance to win; if the number is lower, team one wins - otherwise team two wins. I then update the rating of the players via, again, the Elo system - giving the winning team a score of 1 and the losing team a score of 0. I use a K value of 36 (but have tried 12, 24, and even higher ones) and an F value of 400. After going through the entire loop of players (which I have conveniently forced to be a multiple of ten), it sorts the array - again via current rating. This, if my understanding of the Elo system is correct, runs properly. However, it doesn't seem to work. I have a running test telling me how many players of the full array are within 100 current rating of their true rating. I would expect some portion of the population to be outside this range (as probability is not always going to go in their favor), but a full 40-45% of the population is outside of this range. I also have it outputting the maximum difference between true and current rating - and I have never seen this drop below 500! It hovers between 550-600, occasionally going over or under. I'm at a loss as to what to change - I've fiddled with the K and F values, where I start all the players, etc. but nothing changes the fact that eventually a good 40% of the population is outside the range. And it isn't that I have it playing too few games - it's now run through over 60 thousand games and the problem never disappears or really fluctuates. The full C# code, including everything except the XAML file and the Player class (pastebin is being very slow and I can only post two links, so I can't link to the XAML file): http://pastebin.com/rFcZRL84 The Player class: http://pastebin.com/4cJTdTRu I guess my question is did I do anything wrong? Is there a problem with the way I implemented the system, or is it just that Riot uses a significantly modified Elo system? I don't think it's the latter, as that still wouldn't explain the massive true and current rating differences to me, however.

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No external microphone Acer AO722

- by Leeghwater

The ACER AO722 comes with an external mic input, and this input is not recognised by Alsa mixer or Sound (in System Settings). There are various comments on this problem, but no real solutions. For example External Mic not working but Internal Mic works on an Acer Aspiron AO722. Using the internal mic is not an option, as I need to use skype professionally. I have tried everything in alsamixer (accessible through the Terminal Ctrl+Alt+t, command: alsamixer), and in Sound (under System Settings). I have also installed Pulseaudio. But to no avail. The headset is working normally under Skype in Windows. My AO722 came with Windows 7 on it, so I have installed Skype there too. My headset has separate connectors for ears and mic, and these go into the respective output and input on the right side of the laptop. This location: http://bernaerts.dyndns.org/linux/202-ubuntu-acer-ao722 sounds like an effective solution but it is for Ubuntu Natty 11.04. The solution suggested sounds drastic to me: replace the kernel 2.6.38-13 with version 2.6.38-12. I use Ubuntu 12.04, and my kernel is 3.2.0-30-generic-pae. Question: could I try this solution with Ubuntu 12.04? Is this a risky thing to do? I have found harware work around this problem. The audio output seems to be a combi output with also a microphone connection. I have made an adapter for this output. I used a 4 contacts 3,5 mm audio jack plug. To this plug I have soldered 2 female (common stereo) connectors, one for ears and one for the mic of my headset. The 4 contacts jack, which goes into the laptop (in audio OUTput) is wired as follows: tip = hot audio right; first sleeve after tip = hot audio left; second sleeve = common earth (for both ears and microphone); the 3rd sleeve = microphone signal input. In the connector which I could buy, the 3rd sleeve is not so much a sleeve, but part of the metal base of the connector; normally you would expect this one to be connect to earth. But connecting the mic signal to it works. Maybe ready made adapters of this kind and even headsets with a combi jack can simply be purchased; I didn't check. When I plug in the 4 contacts jack, Sound and Alsamixer immediately recognise an external microphone (even if no mic is connected to the adapter). In Sound, under the Input tab, 'Settings for internal microphone' changes into 'Setting for microphone'. The microphone comes through loud and clear, however there is a constant noise in the background. Others have reported this too. If I disconnect the external mic from the adapter, or shortcircuit the external microphone, the noise gets less but does not disappear. Therefore, it is not background noise from the room, but it comes from the computer itself. However, if you talk directly in the microphone of the headset, the noise level is acceptable for VOIP. The headset of my mobile phone Nokia C1 mobile comes wwith a 4 contacts combi 3,5mm jack plug. However, this one works (ear and mic) with the AO722 only if not inserted fully. Possibly the wiring of this headset jack is different. I cannot find detailed specs of the AO722, and don't know whether the audio 'output' was actually designed as a combi input/output. I have seen that at least one other AO model has a combi connector only. In any case, I do not believe that connecting your headset in this way will harm your computer. I would still appreciate a software solution. This must be possible, because the proper microphone input connector works under MS Windows.

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Conflict Minerals - Design to Compliance

- by C. Chadwick

Dr. Christina Schröder - Principal PLM Consultant, Enterprise PLM Solutions EMEA What does the Conflict Minerals regulation mean? Conflict Minerals has recently become a new buzz word in the manufacturing industry, particularly in electronics and medical devices. Known as the "Dodd-Frank Section 1502", this regulation requires SEC listed companies to declare the origin of certain minerals by 2014. The intention is to reduce the use of tantalum, tungsten, tin, and gold which originate from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and adjoining countries that are controlled by violent armed militia abusing human rights. Manufacturers now request information from their suppliers to see if their raw materials are sourced from this region and which smelters are used to extract the metals from the minerals. A standardized questionnaire has been developed for this purpose (download and further information). Soon, even companies which are not directly affected by the Conflict Minerals legislation will have to collect and maintain this information since their customers will request the data from their suppliers. Furthermore, it is expected that the public opinion and consumer interests will force manufacturers to avoid the use of metals with questionable origin. Impact for existing products Several departments are involved in the process of collecting data and providing conflict minerals compliance information. For already marketed products, purchasing typically requests Conflict Minerals declarations from the suppliers. In order to address requests from customers, technical operations or product management are usually responsible for keeping track of all parts, raw materials and their suppliers so that the required information can be provided. For complex BOMs, it is very tedious to maintain complete, accurate, up-to-date, and traceable data. Any product change or new supplier can, in addition to all other implications, have an effect on the Conflict Minerals compliance status. Influence on product development It makes sense to consider compliance early in the planning and design of new products. Companies should evaluate which metals are needed or contained in supplier parts and if these could originate from problematic sources. The answer influences the cost and risk analysis during the development. If it is known early on that a part could be non-compliant with respect to Conflict Minerals, alternatives can be evaluated and thus costly changes at a later stage can be avoided. Integrated compliance management Ideally, compliance data for Conflict Minerals, but also for other regulations like REACH and RoHS, should be managed in an integrated supply chain system. The compliance status is directly visible across the entire BOM at any part level and for the finished product. If data is missing, a request to the supplier can be triggered right away without having to switch to another system. The entire process, from identification of the relevant parts, requesting information, handling responses, data entry, to compliance calculation is fully covered end-to-end while being transparent for all stakeholders. Agile PLM Product Governance and Compliance (PG&C) The PG&C module extends Agile PLM with exactly this integrated functionality. As with the entire Agile product suite, PG&C can be configured according to customer requirements: data fields, attributes, workflows, routing, notifications, and permissions, etc… can be quickly and easily tailored to a customer’s needs. Optionally, external databases can be interfaced to query commercially available sources of Conflict Minerals declarations which obviates the need for a separate supplier request in many cases. Suppliers can access the system directly for data entry through a special portal. The responses to the standard EICC-GeSI questionnaire can be imported by the supplier or internally. Manual data entry is also supported. A set of compliance-specific dashboards and reports complement the functionality Conclusion The increasing number of product compliance regulations, for which Conflict Minerals is just one example, requires companies to implement an efficient data and process management in this area. Consumer awareness in this matter increases as well so that an integrated system from development to production also provides a competitive advantage. Follow this link to learn more about Agile's PG&C solution

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Asynchrony in C# 5 (Part I)

- by javarg

I’ve been playing around with the new Async CTP preview available for download from Microsoft. It’s amazing how language trends are influencing the evolution of Microsoft’s developing platform. Much effort is being done at language level today than previous versions of .NET. In these post series I’ll review some major features contained in this release: Asynchronous functions TPL Dataflow Task based asynchronous Pattern Part I: Asynchronous Functions This is a mean of expressing asynchronous operations. This kind of functions must return void or Task/Task<> (functions returning void let us implement Fire & Forget asynchronous operations). The two new keywords introduced are async and await. async: marks a function as asynchronous, indicating that some part of its execution may take place some time later (after the method call has returned). Thus, all async functions must include some kind of asynchronous operations. This keyword on its own does not make a function asynchronous thought, its nature depends on its implementation. await: allows us to define operations inside a function that will be awaited for continuation (more on this later). Async function sample: Async/Await Sample async void ShowDateTimeAsync() { while (true) { var client = new ServiceReference1.Service1Client(); var dt = await client.GetDateTimeTaskAsync(); Console.WriteLine("Current DateTime is: {0}", dt); await TaskEx.Delay(1000); } } The previous sample is a typical usage scenario for these new features. Suppose we query some external Web Service to get data (in this case the current DateTime) and we do so at regular intervals in order to refresh user’s UI. Note the async and await functions working together. The ShowDateTimeAsync method indicate its asynchronous nature to the caller using the keyword async (that it may complete after returning control to its caller). The await keyword indicates the flow control of the method will continue executing asynchronously after client.GetDateTimeTaskAsync returns. The latter is the most important thing to understand about the behavior of this method and how this actually works. The flow control of the method will be reconstructed after any asynchronous operation completes (specified with the keyword await). This reconstruction of flow control is the real magic behind the scene and it is done by C#/VB compilers. Note how we didn’t use any of the regular existing async patterns and we’ve defined the method very much like a synchronous one. Now, compare the following code snippet in contrast to the previuous async/await: Traditional UI Async void ComplicatedShowDateTime() { var client = new ServiceReference1.Service1Client(); client.GetDateTimeCompleted += (s, e) => { Console.WriteLine("Current DateTime is: {0}", e.Result); client.GetDateTimeAsync(); }; client.GetDateTimeAsync(); } The previous implementation is somehow similar to the first shown, but more complicated. Note how the while loop is implemented as a chained callback to the same method (client.GetDateTimeAsync) inside the event handler (please, do not do this in your own application, this is just an example). How it works? Using an state workflow (or jump table actually), the compiler expands our code and create the necessary steps to execute it, resuming pending operations after any asynchronous one. The intention of the new Async/Await pattern is to let us think and code as we normally do when designing and algorithm. It also allows us to preserve the logical flow control of the program (without using any tricky coding patterns to accomplish this). The compiler will then create the necessary workflow to execute operations as the happen in time.

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Going by the eBook

- by Tony Davis

The book and magazine publishing world is rapidly going digital, and the industry is faced with making drastic changes to their ways of doing business. The sudden take-up of digital readers by the book-buying public has surprised even the most technological-savvy of the industry. Printed books just aren't selling like they did. In contrast, eBooks are doing well. The ePub file format is the standard around which all publishers are converging. ePub is a standard for formatting book content, so that it can be reflowed for various devices, with their widely differing screen-sizes, and can be read offline. If you unzip an ePub file, you'll find familiar formats such as XML, XHTML and CSS. This is both a blessing and a curse. Whilst it is good to be able to use familiar technologies that have been developed to a level of considerable sophistication, it doesn't get us all the way to producing a viable publication. XHTML is a page-description language, not a book-description language, as we soon found out during our initial experiments, when trying to specify headers, footers, indexes and chaptering. As a result, it is difficult to predict how any particular eBook application will decide to render a book. There isn't even a consensus as to how the cover image is specified. All of this is awkward for the publisher. Each book must be created and revised in a form from which can be generated a whole range of 'printed media', from print books, to Mobi for kindles, ePub for most Tablets and SmartPhones, HTML for excerpted chapters on websites, and a plethora of other formats for other eBook readers, each with its own idiosyncrasies. In theory, if we can get our content into a clean, semantic XML form, such as DOCBOOKS, we can, from there, after every revision, perform a series of relatively simple XSLT transformations to output anything from a HTML article, to an ePub file for reading on an iPad, to an ICML file (an XML-based file format supported by the InDesign tool), ready for print publication. As always, however, the task looks bigger the closer you get to the detail. On the way to the utopian world of an XML-based book format that encompasses all the diverse requirements of the different publication media, ePub looks like a reasonable format to adopt. Its forthcoming support for HTML 5 and CSS 3, with ePub 3.0, means that features, such as widow-and-orphan controls, multi-column flow and multi-media graphics can be incorporated into eBooks. This starts to make it possible to build an "app-like" experience into the eBook and to free publishers to think of putting context before container; to think of what content is required, be it graphical, textual or audio, from the point of view of the user, rather than what's possible in a given, traditional book "Container". In the meantime, there is a gap between what publishers require and what current technology can provide and, of course building this app-like experience is far from plain sailing. Real portability between devices is still a big challenge, and achieving the sort of wizardry seen in the likes of Theodore Grey's "Elements" eBook will require some serious device-specific programming skills. Cheers, Tony.

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Perm SSIS Developer Urgently Required

- by blakmk

Job Role To provide dedicated data services support to the company, by designing, creating, maintaining and enhancing database objects, ensuring data quality, consistency and integrity. Migrating data from various sources to central SQL 2008 data warehouse will be the primary function. Migration of data from bespoke legacy database’s to SQL 2008 data warehouse. Understand key business requirements, Liaising with various aspects of the company. Create advanced transformations of data, with focus on data cleansing, redundant data and duplication. Creating complex business rules regarding data services, migration, Integrity and support (Best Practices). Experience · Minimum 3 year SSIS experience, in a project or BI Development role and involvement in at least 3 full ETL project life cycles, using the following methodologies and tools o Excellent knowledge of ETL concepts including data migration & integrity, focusing on SSIS. o Extensive experience with SQL 2005 products, SQL 2008 desirable. o Working knowledge of SSRS and its integration with other BI products. o Extensive knowledge of T-SQL, stored procedures, triggers (Table/Database), views, functions in particular coding and querying. o Data cleansing and harmonisation. o Understanding and knowledge of indexes, statistics and table structure. o SQL Agent – Scheduling jobs, optimisation, multiple jobs, DTS. o Troubleshoot, diagnose and tune database and physical server performance. o Knowledge and understanding of locking, blocks, table and index design and SQL configuration. · Demonstrable ability to understand and analyse business processes. · Experience in creating business rules on best practices for data services. · Experience in working with, supporting and troubleshooting MS SQL servers running enterprise applications · Proven ability to work well within a team and liaise with other technical support staff such as networking administrators, system administrators and support engineers. · Ability to create formal documentation, work procedures, and service level agreements. · Ability to communicate technical issues at all levels including to a non technical audience. · Good working knowledge of MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and Project. Location Based in Crawley with possibility of some remote working Contact me for more info: http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/blakmk/contact.aspx

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A developer’s WBS – 3 factors of 5

- by johndoucette

As a development manager, I have requested work breakdown structures (WBS) many times from the dev leads. Everyone has their own approach and why it takes sometimes days to get this simple list is often frustrating. Here is a simple way to get that elusive WBS done in 30 minutes and have 125 items in your list – well, 126. The WBS is made up of parent-child entities representing the overall outcome of the project. At the bottom of the hierarchical list should be the task item that a developer would perform in support of the branch in the list or WBS. Because I work with different dev leads on every project, I always ask the “what time value would you like to see at the lowest task in order to assign it to a developer and ensure it gets done within the timeframe”. I am particular to a task being 8 hours. Some like 8 to 24 hours. Stay away from tasks defaulting to 1 week. The task becomes way to vague and hard to manage completeness, especially on short budgets. As a developer, your focus is identifying the tasks you to accomplish in order to deliver the product. As a project manager, you will take the developer's WBS and add all the “other stuff” like quality testing, meetings, documentation, transition to maintenance, etc… Start your exercise with the name of the product you are delivering as a result of the project. You should be able to represent what you are building and deploying with one to three words. Example; XYZ Public Website Middleware BizTalk Application The reason you start with that single identifier is to always see the list as the product. It helps during each of the next three passes. Now, choose 5 tasks which in their entirety represent the product you will be delivering and add them to list under the product name you created earlier; Public Website Security Sites Infrastructure Publishing Creative Continue this concept of seeing the list as the complete picture and decompose it one more level. You should have 25 items. Public Website Security Authentication Login Control Administration DRM Workflow Sites Masterpages Page Layouts Web Parts (RIA, Multimedia) Content Types Structures Infrastructure ... Publishing ... Creative ... And one more time for a total of 125 items. The top item makes the list 126. Public Website Security Authentication Install (AD/ADAM/LDAP/SQL) Configuration Management Web App Configuration Implement Provider Login Control Login Form Login/Logoff pw change pw recover/forgot email verification Administration ... DRM ... Workflow ... Sites Masterpages Page Layouts Web Parts (RIA, Multimedia) Content Types Structures Infrastructure ... Publishing ... Creative ... The next step is to make sure the task at the bottom of every branch represents the “time value” you planned for the project. You can add more to the WBS and of course if you can’t find 5 items, 4 is fine. If a task can be done in a fraction of the time value you determined for the project, try to roll it up into a larger task. In the task actions (later when the iteration is being planned), decompose the details back to the simple tasks. Now, go estimate!

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Where Twitter Stands Heading Into 2013

- by Mike Stiles

As Twitter continued throughout 2012 to be a stage on which global politics and culture played itself out, the company itself underwent some adjustments that give us a good indication of what users and brands can expect from the platform in 2013. The power of the network did anything but fade. Celebrities continued to use it to connect one-on-one. Even the Pope signed on this year. It continued to fuel revolutions. It played an exponentially large factor in this US Presidential election. And around the world, the freedom to speak was challenged as users were fired, sued, sometimes even jailed for their tweets. Expect more of the same in 2013, as Twitter has entrenched itself, for individuals, causes and brands, as the fastest, easiest, most efficient way to message the masses so some measure of impact can come from it. It’s changed everything, and it’s not finished. These fun facts reveal the position of strength with which Twitter enters 2013: It now generates a billion tweets every 2.5 days It has 500 million+ users The average Twitter user has tweeted 307 times 32% of everyone using the Internet uses Twitter It’s expected to bring in $540 million in ad revenue by 2014 11 new accounts are created every second High-level Executive Summary: people love it, people use it, and they’re going to keep loving and using it. Whether or not outside developers love it is a different matter. 2012 marked a shift from welcoming the third party support that played at least some role in Twitter being so warmly embraced, to discouraging anything that replicates what Twitter can do itself…or plans to do itself. It’s not the open playground it once was. Now Twitter must spend 2013 proving it can innovate in-house and keep us just as entranced. Likewise, Twitter is distancing itself from Facebook. Images from the #1 platform’s Instagram don’t work on Twitter anymore, and Twitter’s rolling out their own photo filter product. Where the two have lived in a “plenty of room for everybody” symbiosis up to now, 2013 could see the giants ramping up a full-on rivalry. Twitter is exhibiting a deliberate strategy. Updates have centered on more visually appealing search results, and making finding and sharing content easier. Deals have been cut with some media entities so their content stands out. CEO Dick Costolo has said tweets aren’t the attraction, they’re what leads you to content. Twitter aims to be a key distributor of media and info. Add the addition of former News Corp. President Peter Chernin to the board, and their hashtag landing page experience for events, and their media behemoth ambitions get pretty clear. There are challenges ahead and Costolo has also laid those out; entry into China, figuring out how to have Twitter deliver both comprehensive and relevant, targeted experiences, and the visualization of big data. What does this mean for corporations? They can expect a more media-rich evolution and growing emphases on imagery. They can expect more opportunities to create great media content and leverage Twitter for its distribution. And they can expect new ways to surface in searches. Are brands diving in? 56% of customer tweets to companies get completely and totally ignored. Ugh. A study Twitter recently conducted with Compete shows people who see tweets from retailers are more likely to buy a product. And, the more retailer tweets they see, the more likely they are to purchase on the retail site. As more of those tweets point to engaging media content from the brand, the results should get even better. Twitter appears ready for 2013. Enterprise brands have some work to do. @mikestilesPhoto Stuart Miles, freedigitalphotos.net

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Why do I need two Instances in Windows Azure?

- by BuckWoody

Windows Azure as a Platform as a Service (PaaS) means that there are various components you can use in it to solve a problem: Compute “Roles” - Computers running an OS and optionally IIS - you can have more than one "Instance" of a given Role Storage - Blobs, Tables and Queues for Storage Other Services - Things like the Service Bus, Azure Connection Services, SQL Azure and Caching It’s important to understand that some of these services are Stateless and others maintain State. Stateless means (at least in this case) that a system might disappear from one physical location and appear elsewhere. You can think of this as a cashier at the front of a store. If you’re in line, a cashier might take his break, and another person might replace him. As long as the order proceeds, you as the customer aren’t really affected except for the few seconds it takes to change them out. The cashier function in this example is stateless. The Compute Role Instances in Windows Azure are Stateless. To upgrade hardware, because of a fault or many other reasons, a Compute Role's Instance might stop on one physical server, and another will pick it up. This is done through the controlling fabric that Windows Azure uses to manage the systems. It’s important to note that storage in Azure does maintain State. Your data will not simply disappear - it is maintained - in fact, it’s maintained three times in a single datacenter and all those copies are replicated to another for safety. Going back to our example, storage is similar to the cash register itself. Even though a cashier leaves, the record of your payment is maintained. So if a Compute Role Instance can disappear and re-appear, the things running on that first Instance would stop working. If you wrote your code in a Stateless way, then another Role Instance simply re-starts that transaction and keeps working, just like the other cashier in the example. But if you only have one Instance of a Role, then when the Role Instance is re-started, or when you need to upgrade your own code, you can face downtime, since there’s only one. That means you should deploy at least two of each Role Instance not only for scale to handle load, but so that the first “cashier” has someone to replace them when they disappear. It’s not just a good idea - to gain the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for our uptime in Azure it’s a requirement. We point this out right in the Management Portal when you deploy the application: (Click to enlarge) When you deploy a Role Instance you can also set the “Upgrade Domain”. Placing Roles on separate Upgrade Domains means that you have a continuous service whenever you upgrade (more on upgrades in another post) - the process looks like this for two Roles. This example covers the scenario for upgrade, so you have four roles total - One Web and one Worker running the "older" code, and one of each running the new code. In all those Roles you want at least two instances, and this example shows that you're covered for High Availability and upgrade paths: The take-away is this - always plan for forward-facing Roles to have at least two copies. For Worker Roles that do background processing, there are ways to architect around this number, but it does affect the SLA if you have only one.

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An Actionable Common Approach to Federal Enterprise Architecture

- by TedMcLaughlan

The recent “Common Approach to Federal Enterprise Architecture” (US Executive Office of the President, May 2 2012) is extremely timely and well-organized guidance for the Federal IT investment and deployment community, as useful for Federal Departments and Agencies as it is for their stakeholders and integration partners. The guidance not only helps IT Program Planners and Managers, but also informs and prepares constituents who may be the beneficiaries or otherwise impacted by the investment. The FEA Common Approach extends from and builds on the rapidly-maturing Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) and its associated artifacts and standards, already included to a large degree in the annual Federal Portfolio and Investment Management processes – for example the OMB’s Exhibit 300 (i.e. Business Case justification for IT investments).A very interesting element of this Approach includes the very necessary guidance for actually using an Enterprise Architecture (EA) and/or its collateral – good guidance for any organization charged with maintaining a broad portfolio of IT investments. The associated FEA Reference Models (i.e. the BRM, DRM, TRM, etc.) are very helpful frameworks for organizing, understanding, communicating and standardizing across agencies with respect to vocabularies, architecture patterns and technology standards. Determining when, how and to what level of detail to include these reference models in the typically long-running Federal IT acquisition cycles wasn’t always clear, however, particularly during the first interactions of a Program’s technical and functional leadership with the Mission owners and investment planners. This typically occurs as an agency begins the process of describing its strategy and business case for allocation of new Federal funding, reacting to things like new legislation or policy, real or anticipated mission challenges, or straightforward ROI opportunities (for example the introduction of new technologies that deliver significant cost-savings).The early artifacts (i.e. Resource Allocation Plans, Acquisition Plans, Exhibit 300’s or other Business Case materials, etc.) of the intersection between Mission owners, IT and Program Managers are far easier to understand and discuss, when the overlay of an evolved, actionable Enterprise Architecture (such as the FEA) is applied. “Actionable” is the key word – too many Public Service entity EA’s (including the FEA) have for too long been used simply as a very highly-abstracted standards reference, duly maintained and nominally-enforced by an Enterprise or System Architect’s office. Refreshing elements of this recent FEA Common Approach include one of the first Federally-documented acknowledgements of the “Solution Architect” (the “Problem-Solving” role). This role collaborates with the Enterprise, System and Business Architecture communities primarily on completing actual “EA Roadmap” documents. These are roadmaps grounded in real cost, technical and functional details that are fully aligned with both contextual expectations (for example the new “Digital Government Strategy” and its required roadmap deliverables - and the rapidly increasing complexities of today’s more portable and transparent IT solutions. We also expect some very critical synergies to develop in early IT investment cycles between this new breed of “Federal Enterprise Solution Architect” and the first waves of the newly-formal “Federal IT Program Manager” roles operating under more standardized “critical competency” expectations (including EA), likely already to be seriously influencing the quality annual CPIC (Capital Planning and Investment Control) processes. Our Oracle Enterprise Strategy Team (EST) and associated Oracle Enterprise Architecture (OEA) practices are already engaged in promoting and leveraging the visibility of Enterprise Architecture as a key contributor to early IT investment validation, and we look forward in particular to seeing the real, citizen-centric benefits of this FEA Common Approach in particular surface across the entire Public Service CPIC domain - Federal, State, Local, Tribal and otherwise. Read more Enterprise Architecture blog posts for additional EA insight!

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Personal Financial Management – The need for resuscitation

- by Salil Ravindran

Until a year or so ago, PFM (Personal Financial Management) was the blue eyed boy of every channel banking head. In an age when bank account portability is still fiction, PFM was expected to incentivise customers to switch banks. It still is, in some emerging economies, but if the state of PFM in matured markets is anything to go by, it is in a state of coma and badly requires resuscitation. Studies conducted around the year show an alarming decline and stagnation in PFM usage in mature markets. A Sept 2012 report by Aite Group – Strategies for PFM Success shows that 72% of users hadn’t used PFM and worse, 58% of them were not kicked about using it. Of the rest who had used it, only half did on a bank site. While there are multiple reasons for this lack of adoption, some are glaringly obvious. While pretty graphs and pie charts are important to provide a visual representation of my income and expense, it is simply not enough to encourage me to return. Static representation of data without any insightful analysis does not help me. Budgeting and Cash Flow is important but when I have an operative account, a couple of savings accounts, a mortgage loan and a couple of credit cards help me with what my affordability is in specific contexts rather than telling me I just busted my budget. Help me with relative importance of each budget category so that I know it is fine to go over budget on books for my daughter as against going over budget on eating out. Budget over runs and spend analysis are post facto and I am informed of my sins only when I return to online banking. That too, only if I decide to come to the PFM area. Fundamentally, PFM should be a part of my banking engagement rather than an analysis tool. It should be contextual so that I can make insight based decisions. So what can be done to resuscitate PFM? Amalgamation with banking activities – In most cases, PFM tools are integrated into online banking pages and they are like chapter 37 of a long story. PFM needs to be a way of banking rather than a tool. Available balances should shift to Spendable Balances. Budget and goal related insights should be integrated with transaction sessions to drive pre-event financial decisions. Personal Financial Guidance - Banks need to think ground level and see if their PFM offering is really helping customers achieve self actualisation. Banks need to recognise that most customers out there are non-proficient about making the best value of their money. Customers return when they know that they are being guided rather than being just informed on their finance. Integrating contextual financial offers and financial planning into PFM is one way ahead. Yet another way is to help customers tag unwanted spending thereby encouraging sound savings habits. Mobile PFM – Most banks have left all those numbers on online banking. With access mostly having moved to devices and the success of apps, moving PFM on to devices will give it a much needed shot in the arm. This is not only about presenting the same wine in a new bottle but also about leveraging the power of the device in pushing real time notifications to make pre-purchase decisions. The pursuit should be to analyse spend, budgets and financial goals real time and push them pre-event on to the device. So next time, I should know that I have over run my eating out budget before walking into that burger joint and not after. Increase participation and collaboration – Peer group experiences and comments are valued above those offered by the bank. Integrating social media into PFM engagement will let customers share and solicit their financial management experiences with their peer group. Peer comparisons help benchmark one’s savings and spending habits with those of the peer group and increases stickiness. While mature markets have gone through this learning in some way over the last one year, banks in maturing digital banking economies increasingly seem to be falling into this trap. Best practices lie in profiling and segmenting customers, being where they are and contextually guiding them to identify and achieve their financial goals. Banks could look at the likes of Simple and Movenbank to draw inpiration from.

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The Latest Major Release of AutoVue is Now Available!

- by Pam Petropoulos

Click here to read the full press release. To learn more about AutoVue 20.2, check out the What's New in AutoVue 20.2 Datasheet AutoVue 20.2 continues to set the standard for enterprise level visualization with Augmented Business Visualization, a new paradigm which reconciles information and business data from multiple sources into a single view, providing rich and actionable visual decision-making environments. The release also includes; capabilities that enhance end-to-end approval workflow; solutions to visually enable the mobile workforce; and support for the latest manufacturing and high tech formats. New capabilities in release 20.2 include: · Enhancements to the Augmented Business Visualization framework o Creation of 2D hotspots has been extended in 2D drawings, PDF and image files and can now be defined as regional boxes, rather than just text strings o New 3D Hotspot links in models and drawings. Parts or components of 3D models can be selected to create hotspot links. · Enhanced end-to-end approval workflows with digital stamping and batch stamping improvements · Solutions that visually enable the mobile workforce and extend enterprise visualization to mobile devices, including iPads through OVDI (Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) · Enhancements to AutoVue enterprise readiness: reliability and performance improvements, as well as security enhancements which adhere to Oracle’s Software Security Assurance standards · Timely support for new MCAD, ECAD, and Office formats · New 20.2 versions of AutoVue Document Print Services and Integration SDK (iSDK) · New Dutch language availability The press release also contains terrific supporting quotes from AutoVue customers and partners. “AutoVue’s stamping enhancements will greatly benefit our building permit management processes,” said Ties Kremer, Information Manager, Noordenveld Municipality, Netherlands. “The ability to batch stamp documents will speed up our approval processes, enable us to save time and money, and help us meet our regulatory compliance obligations.” “AutoVue provides our non-technical teams in marketing and sales with access to customer order requirements and supporting CAD documents and drawings,” said James Lim, Regional Technical Systems Manager at Molex Incorporated. “AutoVue 20.2 has enabled us to refine our quotation process, and reduce order errors.” “We are excited about our use of AutoVue’s Augmented Business Visualization framework, which will offer Meridian users enhanced access to related technical documentation,” said Edwin van Dijk, Director of Product Management, BlueCielo. “By including AutoVue’s new regional hotspot capabilities within BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise, the context of engineering information is carried over into the visual representation of complex assets, thereby helping us to improve productivity and operational excellence.”

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Chalk Talk with John: What Does User Experience Mean to You?

- by Tanu Sood

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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Author: John Brunswick The "Chalk Talk with John" series will explore the practical value of Middleware in the context of two fictional communities, shared through analogies aligned to enterprise technology. This format offers business stakeholders and IT a common language for understanding the benefits of technology in support of their business initiatives, regardless of their current level of technical knowledge. I will endeavor to showcase an episode highlighting business use cases and how technology plays a role in business on a bi-weekly basis. The debut episode highlights the benefits of user experience capabilities supplied by Portal technologies, by juxtaposing the communities of Middleware Fields and Codeaway Valley with regard to the time and effort their residents spend performing everyday tasks. This comparison provides insight into the benefits of leveraging a common user experience foundation to support the tasks that our employees, customers and partners engage in on a daily basis with our organizations. Take a look and let me know your thoughts! 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} About me: Hi, I am John Brunswick, an Oracle Enterprise Architect. As an Oracle Enterprise Architect, I focus on the alignment of technical capabilities in support of business vision and objectives, as well as the overall business value of technology. Before coming to Oracle, I was a Practice Manager within BEA System's Business Interaction Division consulting organization, orchestrating enterprise systems in support of line of business goals. Connect with me on Twitter and visit my site for Oracle Fusion Middleware related tips.

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Part 6: Extensions vs. Modifications

- by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com

Customizations = Extensions + Modifications In the EBS terminology, a customization can be an extension or a modification. Extension means that you mainly create your own code from scratch. You may utilize existing views, packages and java classes, but your code is unique. Modifications are quite different, because here you take existing code and change or enhance certain areas to achieve a slightly different behavior. Important is that it doesn't matter if you place your code at the same or at another place – it is a modification. It is also not relevant if you leave the original code enabled or not! Why? Here is the answer: In case the original code piece you have taken as your base will get patched, you need to copy the source again and apply all your changes once more. If you don't do that, you may get different results or write different data compared to the standard – this causes a high risk! Here are some guidelines how to reduce the risk: Invest a bit longer when searching for objects to select data from. Rather choose a view than a table. In case Oracle development changes the underlying tables, the view will be more stable and is therefore a better choice. Choose rather public APIs over internal APIs. Same background as before: although internal structure might change, the public API is more stable. Use personalization and substitution rather than modification. Spend more time to check if the requirement can be covered with such techniques. Build a project code library, avoid that colleagues creating similar functionality multiple times. Otherwise you have to review lots of similar code to determine the need for correction. Use the technique of “flagged files”. Flagged files is a way to mark a standard deployment file. If you run the patch analyse (within Application Manager), the analyse result will list flagged standard files in case they will be patched. If you maintain a cross reference to your own CEMLIs, you can easily determine which CEMLIs have to be reviewed. Implement a code review process. This can be done by utilizing team internal or external persons. If you implement such a team internal process, your team members will come up with suggestions how to improve the code quality by themselves. Review heavy customizations regularly, to identify options to reduce complexity; let's say perform this every 6th month. You may not spend days for such a review, but a high level cross check if the customization can be reduced is suggested. De-install customizations which are no more required. Define a process for this. Add a section into the technical documentation how to uninstall and what are possible implications. Maintain a cross reference between CEMLIs and between CEMLIs, EBS modules and business processes. Keep this list up to date! Share this list! By following these guidelines, you are able to improve product stability. Although we might not be able to avoid modifications completely, we can give a much better advise to developers and to our test team. Summary: Extensions and Modifications have to be handled differently during their lifecycle. Modifications implicate a much higher risk and should therefore be reviewed more frequently. Good cross references allow you to give clear advise for the testing activities.

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PaaS, DBaaS and the Oracle Database Cloud Service

- by yaldahhakim

v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} 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-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} As with many widely hyped areas, there is much more variation within the broad spectrum of products referred to as “Cloud” that is immediately apparent. This variation is evident in one of the key misunderstandings about the Oracle Database Cloud Service. People could be forgiven for thinking that the Database Cloud Service was a Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS), but this is actually not true. The Database Cloud Service is a Platform-as-a-Service, which presents a different user and developer interface and has a different set of qualities. A good way to think about the difference between these two varieties of Cloud offerings is that you, the customer, have to deal with things at the level of the offering, but not for anything below it. In practice, this means that you do not have to deal with hardware or system software, including installation and maintenance, for DBaaS. You also do not have much control over configuration of these options. For PaaS, you don’t have to deal with hardware, system software, or database software – and also do not have control over these levels in the stack. So you cannot modify configuration parameters for the database with the Database Cloud Service – your interface is through SQL and PL/SQL, with Application Express, included in the Database Cloud Service, or through JDBC for Java apps running in the Java Cloud Service, or through RESTful Web Services. You will notice what is not mentioned there – SQL*Net. You cannot access your Oracle Database Cloud Service by changing an entry in the TNSNames file and using SQL*Net. So the effort involved in migrating an existing Oracle Database in your data center to the Database Cloud Service may be prohibitive. The good news is that Application Express and the RESTful Web Services wizard in the Database Cloud Service allow you to develop new applications very quickly, and, of course, the provisioning of the entire Database Cloud Service takes only minutes.

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Getting FEATURE_LEVEL_9_3 to work in DX11

- by Dominic

Currently I'm going through some tutorials and learning DX11 on a DX10 machine (though I just ordered a new DX11 compatible computer) by means of setting the D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_ setting to 10_0 and switching the vertex and pixel shader versions in D3DX11CompileFromFile to "vs_4_0" and "ps_4_0" respectively. This works fine as I'm not using any DX11-only features yet. I'd like to make it compatible with DX9.0c, which naively I thought I could do by changing the feature level setting to 9_3 or something and taking the vertex/pixel shader versions down to 3 or 2. However, no matter what I change the vertex/pixel shader versions to, it always fails when I try to call D3DX11CompileFromFile to compile the vertex/pixel shader files when I have D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_9_3 enabled. Maybe this is due to the the vertex/pixel shader files themselves being incompatible for the lower vertex/pixel shader versions, but I'm not expert enough to say. My shader files are listed below: Vertex shader: cbuffer MatrixBuffer { matrix worldMatrix; matrix viewMatrix; matrix projectionMatrix; }; struct VertexInputType { float4 position : POSITION; float2 tex : TEXCOORD0; float3 normal : NORMAL; }; struct PixelInputType { float4 position : SV_POSITION; float2 tex : TEXCOORD0; float3 normal : NORMAL; }; PixelInputType LightVertexShader(VertexInputType input) { PixelInputType output; // Change the position vector to be 4 units for proper matrix calculations. input.position.w = 1.0f; // Calculate the position of the vertex against the world, view, and projection matrices. output.position = mul(input.position, worldMatrix); output.position = mul(output.position, viewMatrix); output.position = mul(output.position, projectionMatrix); // Store the texture coordinates for the pixel shader. output.tex = input.tex; // Calculate the normal vector against the world matrix only. output.normal = mul(input.normal, (float3x3)worldMatrix); // Normalize the normal vector. output.normal = normalize(output.normal); return output; } Pixel Shader: Texture2D shaderTexture; SamplerState SampleType; cbuffer LightBuffer { float4 ambientColor; float4 diffuseColor; float3 lightDirection; float padding; }; struct PixelInputType { float4 position : SV_POSITION; float2 tex : TEXCOORD0; float3 normal : NORMAL; }; float4 LightPixelShader(PixelInputType input) : SV_TARGET { float4 textureColor; float3 lightDir; float lightIntensity; float4 color; // Sample the pixel color from the texture using the sampler at this texture coordinate location. textureColor = shaderTexture.Sample(SampleType, input.tex); // Set the default output color to the ambient light value for all pixels. color = ambientColor; // Invert the light direction for calculations. lightDir = -lightDirection; // Calculate the amount of light on this pixel. lightIntensity = saturate(dot(input.normal, lightDir)); if(lightIntensity > 0.0f) { // Determine the final diffuse color based on the diffuse color and the amount of light intensity. color += (diffuseColor * lightIntensity); } // Saturate the final light color. color = saturate(color); // Multiply the texture pixel and the final diffuse color to get the final pixel color result. color = color * textureColor; return color; }

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