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• Ubuntu 12.04 LTS won't install - never finishes please help

  - by Richard Higgins

  Want to try Ubuntu after using Windows for 30 years. Tried to install it 5 times on a Lenovo X120e notebook and twice on a Lenovo M57 desktop. No luck, worse than what Microsoft puts you through. I burned 12.04 LTS to disc. It installs up to the "Who Are You?" screen, then stops. Accepted the recommended computer name and lower case user name. I chose "log me in automatically." After that there is no progress bar, no rotating or pulsing button, nothing to indicate the Ubuntu has not died or fallen asleep. Is that how it is written? Never heard of a program that would take a long time to install while a user looked at a locked, dead screen. I just bought the M57 desktop for my son. It came with Ubuntu 10 something. I wanted to upgrade to 12.04 but it crashed, twice, to a DOS screen saying the pc lacked a certain "init" file. Various help screen commands did not help. On the X120e, I thought a partial-failed Ubuntu install was causing the problem, so I removed the drive and deleted the Ubuntu partition and replaced it. But same result. After I fill in my name, accept computer and user name, the "continue" button does not appear to work. I can go "back" but not forward. I have waited torturous hours. It doesn't take more than two hours to install, does it?any It is my own fault because of the high expectations I had for a sensible, hassle-free installation, but I am immensely disappointed. Thank you for any response

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• Generalist Languages: Dying or Alive and Well?

  - by dsimcha

  Around here, it seems like there's somewhat of a consensus that generalist programming languages (that try to be good at everything, support multiple paradigms, support both very high- and very low-level programming), etc. are a bad idea, and that it's better to pick the right tool for the job and use lots of different languages. I see three major areas where this is flawed: Interfacing multiple languages is always at least a source of friction and is sometimes practically impossible. How severe a problem this is depends on how fine-grained the interfacing is. Near the boundary between the two languages, though, you're basically limited to the intersection of their features, and you have to care about things like binary interfaces that you usually wouldn't. Passing complex data structures (i.e. not just primitives and arrays of primitives) between languages is almost always a hassle. Furthermore, shifting between different syntaxes, different conventions, etc. can be confusing and annoying, though this is a fairly minor complaint. Requirements are never set in stone. I hate picking a language thinking it's the right tool for the job, then realizing that, when some new requirement surfaces, it's actually a terrible choice for that requirement. This has happened to me several times before, usually when working with languages that are very slow, very domain specific and/or has very poor concurrency/parallelism support. When you program in a language for a while, you start to build up a personal toolbox of small utility functions/classes/programs. The value of these goes drastically down if you're forced to use a different language than the one you've accumulated all this code in. What am I missing here? Why shouldn't more focus be placed on generalist languages? Are generalist languages as a category dying or alive and well?

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• DualLayout OpenSourceFood demo site installation instructions

  - by svdoever

  We released DualLayout which enables advanced web design with the power of SharePoint. DualLayout and a demo site can be downloaded from the DualLayout product page. This blogpost contains detailed instructions on installing the demo site. The demo site is based on the site http://opensourcefood.com. The demo site requires internet access because it still links to pages and resources of the real site. Execute the following steps to install the demo site: Copy the OpenSourceFoodDemo.zip file to your SharePoint Server 2010 Make sure that the zip file in “unblocked”, otherwise files are assumed from other computer (right-click on zip file, press “Unblock” button if available) Unzip the OpenSourceFoodDemo.zip to a folder of your choice (c:\OpenSourceFoodDemo) Open the SharePoint  Start->Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products->SharePoint 2010 Management Shell Change directory to the unzip folder (cd c:\OpenSourceFoodDemo) Start install script: .\InstallDemoSite.ps1 Answer the questions, default values in most cases ok. A little guidance: Question: Give credentials for the account that will be used for the application pool Answer: use for example same account as used for the application pool of your SharePoint site (lookup in IIS Manager) Question: Give credentials for the account that will be used for the application pool Answer: Use same account you are currently logged in with The demo site is made available through a backup and restore. The SharePoint Server 2010 installation must be patched to a level equal or higher to the update level on the SharePoint Server used to create the backup. If you get errors with respect to restore check http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff800847.aspx for downloading the latest cumulative update.

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• Real-time stock market application

  - by Sam

  I'm an amateur programmer. I'd like to develop a software application (like Tradestation), to analyse real-time market data. Please teach me if the following approach is correct, ie the procedures, knowledge or software needed etc: Use a DB to read the real-time feed from data provider: what should be the right DB to use? I know it should be a time serious one. Can I use SQL, Mysql, or others? What database can receive real-time data feed? Do I need to configure the DB to do this? If the real-time data is in ASCII form, how can it be converted to those that can be read by the DB and my application? Should I have to write codes or just use some add-ins? What kind of add-in are needed? How should I code the program to retrieve the changing data from the DB so that the analysis software screen data can also change asynchronously? (like the RTD in excel) Which aspects of programming do I need to learn to develop the above? Are there web resources/ books I can refer to for more information?

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• Must developers understand the business domain or should the specification be sufficient?

  - by Jerome C.

  I work for a company for which the domain is really difficult to understand because it is high technology in electronics, but this is applicable to any software development in a complex domain. The application that I work on displays a lot of information, charts, and metrics which are difficult to understand without experience in the domain. The developer uses a specification to describe what the software must do, such as specifing that a particular chart must display this kind of metrics and this metric is the following arithmetic formula. This way, the developer doesn't really understand the business and what/why he is doing this task. This can be OK if specification is really detailled but when it isn't or when the author has forgotten a use case, this is quite hard for the developer to find a solution. At the other hand, training every developer to all the business aspects can be very long and difficult. Should we give more importance to detailled specification (but as we know, perfect specification does not exist) or should we train all the developers to understand the business domain? EDIT: keep in mind in your answer that the company could used external developpers.

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• Does immutability entirely eliminate the need for locks in multi-processor programming?

  - by GlenPeterson

  Part 1 Clearly Immutability minimizes the need for locks in multi-processor programming, but does it eliminate that need, or are there instances where immutability alone is not enough? It seems to me that you can only defer processing and encapsulate state so long before most programs have to actually DO something. If a program performs actions on multiple processors, something needs to collect and aggregate the results. All this involves multi-process communication before, after, and possibly during some transformations. The start and end state of the machines are different. Can this always be done with no locks just by throwing out each object and creating a new one instead of changing the original (a crude view of immutability)? What cases still require locking? I'm interested in both the theoretical/academic answer and the practical/real-world answer. I know a lot of functional programmers like to talk about "no side effect" but in the "real world" everything has a side effect. Every processor click takes time and electricity and machine resources away from other processes. So I understand that there may be more than one perspective to answer this question from. If immutability is safe, given certain bounds or assumptions, I want to know what the borders of the "safety zone" are exactly. Some examples of possible boundaries: I/O Exceptions/errors Interfaces with programs written in other languages Interfaces with other machines (physical, virtual, or theoretical) Special thanks to @JimmaHoffa for his comment which started this question! Part 2 Multi-processor programming is often used as an optimization technique - to make some code run faster. When is it faster to use locks vs. immutable objects? Given the limits set out in Amdahl's Law, when can you achieve better over-all performance (with or without the garbage collector taken into account) with immutable objects vs. locking mutable ones? Summary I'm combining these two questions into one to try to get at where the bounding box is for Immutability as a solution to threading problems.

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• Jumpstart your MySQL Cluster Knowledge

  - by Antoinette O'Sullivan

  Join companies in the web, gaming, telecoms and mobile areas by learning about MySQL Cluster's distributed, shared-nothing, real-time design. The 3 days, MySQL Cluster course teaches you how to configure and manage the cluster nodes to ensure high availability. Learn how to install different nodes and understand cluster internals. Here is a sample of some events on the schedule for this course:  Location  Date  Delivery Language  Wien, Austria  4 February, 2013 German   Prague, Czech Republic  10 December, 2012 Czech   London, England  12 December, 2012 English   Hamburg, Germany  21 January, 2013  German  Stuttgart, Germany  26 March, 2013  German  Budapest, Hungary  4 December, 2012  Hungarian  Warsaw, Poland  10 December, 2012  Polish  Lisbon, Portugal  3 December, 2012 European Portugese   Barcelona, Spain  19 November, 2012 Spanish   Madrid, Spain  25 February, 2013 Spanish   Jakarta, Indonesia  21 January, 2013 English   Singapore  29 October, 2012 English   Chicago, United States  27 March, 2013  English  Reston, United States  6 February, 2013  English For more information on the authentic MySQL curriculum go to http://oracle.com/education/mysql

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• More than one way to skin an Audit

  - by BuckWoody

  I get asked quite a bit about auditing in SQL Server. By "audit", people mean everything from tracking logins to finding out exactly who ran a particular SELECT statement. In the really early versions of SQL Server, we didn't have a great story for very granular audits, so lots of workarounds were suggested. As time progressed, more and more audit capabilities were added to the product, and in typical database platform fashion, as we added a feature we didn't often take the others away. So now, instead of not having an option to audit actions by users, you might face the opposite problem - too many ways to audit! You can read more about the options you have for tracking users here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc280526(v=SQL.100).aspx  In SQL Server 2008, we introduced SQL Server Audit, which uses Extended Events to really get a simple way to implement high-level or granular auditing. You can read more about that here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd392015.aspx  As with any feature, you should understand what your needs are first. Auditing isn't "free" in the performance sense, so you need to make sure you're only auditing what you need to. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• What is wrong with my game loop/mechanic?

  - by elias94xx

  I'm currently working on a 2d sidescrolling game prototype in HTML5 canvas. My implementations so far include a sprite, vector, loop and ticker class/object. Which can be viewed here: http://elias-schuett.de/apps/_experiments/2d_ssg/js/ So my game essentially works well on todays lowspec PC's and laptops. But it does not on an older win xp machine I own and on my Android 2.3 device. I tend to get ~10 FPS with these devices which results in a too high delta value, which than automaticly gets fixed to 1.0 which results in a slow loop. Now I know for a fact that there is a way to implement a super smooth 60 or 30 FPS loop on both devices. Best example would be: http://playbiolab.com/ I don't need all the chunk and debugging technology impact.js offers. I could even write a super simple game where you just control a damn square and it still wouldn't run on a equally fast 30 or 60 fps. Here is the Loop class/object I'm using. It requires a requestAnimationFrame unify function. Both devices I've tested my game on support requestAnimationFrame, so there is no interval fallback. var Loop = function(callback) { this.fps = null; this.delta = 1; this.lastTime = +new Date; this.callback = callback; this.request = null; }; Loop.prototype.start = function() { var _this = this; this.request = requestAnimationFrame(function(now) { _this.start(); _this.delta = (now - _this.lastTime); _this.fps = 1000/_this.delta; _this.delta = _this.delta / (1000/60) > 2 ? 1 : _this.delta / (1000/60); _this.lastTime = now; _this.callback(); }); }; Loop.prototype.stop = function() { cancelAnimationFrame(this.request); };

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-09-06

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Oracle Technology Network Architect Day - Boston, MA - 9/12/2012 Sure, you could ask a voodoo priestess for help in improving your solution architecture skills. But there's the whole snake thing, and the zombie thing, and other complications. So why not keep it simple and register for Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Boston, MA. There's no magic, just a full day of technical sessions covering Cloud, SOA, Engineered Systems, and more. Registration is free, but seating is limited. You'll curse yourself if you miss this one. Register now. Adding a runtime LOV for a taskflow parameter in WebCenter | Yannick Ongena Oracle ACE Yannick Ongena illustrates how to customize the parameters tab for a taskflow in WebCenter. Tips on Migrating from AquaLogic .NET Accelerator to WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET | Scott Nelson "It has been a very winding path and this blog entry is intended to share both the lessons learned and relevant approaches that led to those learnings," says Scott Nelson. "Like most journeys of discovery, it was not a direct path, and there are notes to let you know when it is practical to skip a section if you are in a hurry to get from here to there." Using FMAP and AnalyticsRes in a Oracle BI High Availability Implementation | Christian Screen "The fmap syntax has been used for a long time in Oracle BI / Siebel Analytics when referencing images inherent in the application as well as custom images," says Oracle ACE Christian Screen. "This syntax is used on Analysis requests an dashboards." More on Embedded Business Intelligence | David Haimes David Haimes give an example of Timeliness as "one of the three key attributes required for BI to be considered embedded BI." Thought for the Day "Architect: Someone who knows the difference between that which could be done and that which should be done. " — Larry McVoy Source: Quotes for Software Engineers

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• Using EC2 instance as main development platform

  - by David

  My problem I am working as a consultant for various companies. Each company provides me with a laptop where with their software on and I also have my own where I have my development environment. I tend to buy a new laptop every second year and find myself spending lots of time configuring and installing software. I also sometimes spend a lot of time waiting for my laptop to process things. To solve all these issues, I am now considering using EC2 (running windows instances) as my main development platform and just access this from any PC I happen to be at. I calculated that running the High-CPU On-Demand Instances (medium) for 8 hours a day for a year costs me 580$, which is acceptable. I imagine that when I approach the workplace each day, I will make a single click my phone to fire up the instance, so it is ready when I get to work. I should have different icons on my phone to fire up the various instance types. The same software should of course automatically be loaded on the various hardware (sometimes I would even need their instance with 68.4 GB of memory). Another advantage is that if I am having a specific problem with my instance, I could fire up another instance and have someone look into the problem and update the image. My question: Does anyone have experience with such a setup on EC2? What kind of problems do you forsee?

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• Wireless drops on HP ENVY dv6 with RT3290 wireless, worked without problem prior to upgrading to Ubuntu 13.10, can it be fixed?

  - by Tim

  I have a HP ENVY dv6 Notebook PC with an AMD A10 quad core and RT3290 wireless. Since I upgraded from Ubuntu 13.04 to 13.10, the wireless connects, but then drops after a few minutes or longer, whether or not I am running openconnect to get through a VPN. If I attempt to run a remote X client (e.g. remote xterm) it drops. If I don't run an X client, it disconnects after a while, requiring a reload of the driver and reconnect. Wireless info... sudo lshw -c network *-network description: Wireless interface product: RT3290 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe vendor: Ralink corp. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0 logical name: wlan0 version: 00 serial: 68:94:23:a7:09:cb width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800pci driverversion=3.11.0-12-generic firmware=0.37 ip=192.168.1.115 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn resources: irq:55 memory:f0210000-f021ffff I have successfully built and installed the MediaTek driver with no luck on connecting, then the system hangs on reboot and I have to recover/undo the changes to boot successfully.

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• Changing website Url - Am I making an SEO mistake

  - by Denis

  I have a webiste with a .com domain that is a year old. The business is a shop based in Ireland and I have purchased a .ie domain. I plan to move the website over to the new domain, SEO Good or Bad idea? Old Url - SmythsOfTerenure.com | New Url - SmythsComputerRepair.ie (I am using Fake names and fictional business in the example Url's) The new domain has my main keyword in it. The old domain has my family name and business location (city district) It currently ranks high for lots of relevant keywords in Google with low traffic and low competition. Current website traffic is about 80 session per week. 80% of that traffic is Organic from Google. I am changing domain in an attempt to help SEO long term by having a CC TLD (.ie rather than .com) and having my main Keyword in the domain. I plan to do 301 re-directs from old to new and update GW Tools and G Analytics but am I making a mistake changing it at all as I know rankings may fall in the sort term. Homepage PR=0 and very few inbound links. Should I just leave it on the old domain? Or after a few months should I be back up ranking as well as I am now?

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• What scenarios are implementations of Object Management Group (OMG) Data Distribution Service best suited for?

  - by mindcrime

  I've always been a big fan of asynchronous messaging and pub/sub implementations, but coming from a Java background, I'm most familiar with using JMS based messaging systems, such as JBoss MQ, HornetQ, ActiveMQ, OpenMQ, etc. I've also loosely followed the discussion of AMQP. But I recently became aware of the Data Distribution Service Specification from the Object Management Group, and found there are a couple of open-source implementations: OpenSplice OpenDDS It sounds like this stuff is focused on the kind of high-volume scenarios one tends to associate with financial trading exchanges and what-not. My current interest is more along the lines of notifications related to activity stream processing (think Twitter / Facebook) and am wondering if the DDS servers are worth looking into further. Could anyone who has practical experience with this technology, and/or a deep understanding of it, comment on how useful it is, and what scenarios it is best suited for? How does it stack up against more "traditional" JMS servers, and/or AMQP (or even STOMP or OpenWire, etc?) Edit: FWIW, I found some information at this StackOverflow thread. Not a complete answer, but anybody else finding this question might also find that thread useful, hence the added link.

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• Technical Integration Roadmap for OBI11g and Oracle Hyperion EPM System

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  There is an excellent technical whitepaper on the integration roadmap for Oracle business intelligence enterprise edition and the Oracle Hyperion enterprise performance management system  (download at this link).  This document lists the integration points among all current releases of Oracle BI EE with EPM System releases: with live links to other relevant documentation also provided. You may also be interested in the overall Hyperion EPM System Documentation Resources which can be found from the Doc Portal. And, there are two new tools for EPM @ MyOracleSupport  {this needs your oracle logon} : Cumulative Feature Overview Tool This new tool offers a simple way to determine the features developed between releases to assist you in your upgrade implementations. The tool helps you to plan your upgrades by providing concise descriptions of new and enhanced solutions and functionality that are added between your current and target releases. With the Cumulative Feature Overview Tool, you can quickly and easily find information about new features for each EPM System product. Defects Fixed Finder Tool This new tool provides an efficient way to review the defects fixed in patch set updates, patch set exceptions, and patch sets for major releases, starting with Release 11.1.1. The tool helps you plan patch implementations by providing concise descriptions of defects fixed after your current release. The Defects Fixed Finder enables you to easily find information about defects fixed for each EPM System product.

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• Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 4: Application Development Considerations

  - by Tim Murphy

  This is the final part in a series of posts based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. Application Development Considerations Now we get to the actual building of your solutions.  What are the skills and resources that will be needed in order to develop a smartphone application in the enterprise? Language Knowledge One of the first things you need to consider when you are deciding which platform language do you either have the most in house skill base or can you easily acquire.  If you already have developers who know Java or C# you may want to use either Android or Windows Phone.  You should also take into consideration the market availability of developers.  If your key developer leaves how easy is it to find a knowledgeable replacement? A second consideration when it comes to programming languages is the qualities exposed by the languages of a particular platform.  How well does that development language and its associated frameworks support things like security and access to the features of the smartphone hardware?  This will play into your overall cost of ownership if you have to create this infrastructure on your own. Manage Limited Resources Everything is limited on a smartphone: battery, memory, processing power, network bandwidth.  When developing your applications you will have to keep your footprint as small as possible in every way.  This means not running unnecessary processes in the background that will drain the battery or pulling more data over the airwaves than you have to.  You also want to keep your on device in as compact a format as possible. Mobile Design Patterns There are a number of design patterns that have either come to life because of smartphone development or have been adapted for this use.  The main pattern in the Windows Phone environment is the MVVM (Model-View-View-Model).  This is great for overall application structure and separation of concerns.  The fun part is trying to keep that separation as pure as possible.  Many of the other patterns may or may not have strict definitions, but some that you need to be concerned with are push notification, asynchronous communication and offline data storage. Real estate is limited on smartphones and even tablets. You are also limited in the type of controls that can be represented in the UI. This means rethinking how you modularize your application. Typing is also much harder to do so you want to reduce this as much as possible.  This leads to UI patterns.  While not what we would traditionally think of as design patterns the guidance each platform has for UI design is critical to the success of your application.  If user find the application difficult navigate they will not use it. Development Process Because of the differences in development tools required, test devices and certification and deployment processes your teams will need to learn new way of working together.  This will include the need to integrate service contracts of back-end systems with mobile applications.  You will also want to make sure that you present consistency across different access points to corporate data.  Your web site may have more functionality than your smartphone application, but it should have a consistent core set of functionality.  This all requires greater communication between sub-teams of your developers. Testing Process Testing of smartphone apps has a lot more to do with what happens when you lose connectivity or if the user navigates away from your application. There are a lot more opportunities for the user or the device to perform disruptive acts.  This should be your main testing concentration aside from the main business requirements.  You will need to do things like setting the phone to airplane mode and seeing what the application does in order to weed out any gaps in your handling communication interruptions. Need For Outside Experts Since this is a development area that is new to most companies the need for experts is a lot greater. Whether these are consultants, vendor representatives or just development community forums you will need to establish expert contacts. Nothing is more dangerous for your project timelines than a lack of knowledge.  Make sure you know who to call to avoid lengthy delays in your project because of knowledge gaps. Security Security has to be a major concern for enterprise applications. You aren't dealing with just someone's game standings. You are dealing with a companies intellectual property and competitive advantage. As such you need to start by limiting access to the application itself.  Once the user is in the app you need to ensure that the data is secure at all times.  This includes both local storage and across the wire.  This means if a platform doesn’t natively support encryption for these functions you will need to find alternatives to secure your data.  You also need to keep secret (encryption) keys obfuscated or locked away outside of the application. People can disassemble the code otherwise and break your encryption. Offline Capabilities As we discussed earlier one your biggest concerns is not having connectivity.  Because of this a good portion of your code may be dedicated to handling loss of connection and reconnection situations.  What do you do if you lose the network?  Back up all your transactions and store of any supporting data so that operations can continue off line. In order to support this you will need to determine the available flat file or local data base capabilities of the platform.  Any failed transactions will need to support a retry mechanism whether it is automatic or user initiated.  This also includes your services since they will need to be able to roll back partially completed transactions.  What ever you do, don’t ignore this area when you are designing your system. Deployment Each platform has different deployment capabilities. Some are more suited to enterprise situations than others. Apple's approach is probably the most mature at the moment. Prior to the current generation of smartphone platforms it would have been Windows CE. Windows Phone 7 has the limitation that the app has to be distributed through the same network as public facing applications. You mark them as private which means that they are only accessible by a direct URL. Unfortunately this does not make them undiscoverable (although it is very difficult). This will change with Windows Phone 8 where companies will be able to certify their own applications and distribute them.  Given this Windows Phone applications need to be more diligent with application access in order to keep them restricted to the company's employees. My understanding of the Android deployment schemes is that it is much less standardized then either iOS or Windows Phone. Someone would have to confirm or deny that for me though since I have not yet put the time into researching this platform further. Given my limited exposure to the iOS and Android platforms I have not been able to confirm this, but there are varying degrees of user involvement to install and keep applications updated. At one extreme the user just goes to a website to do the install and in other case they may need to download files and perform steps to install them. Future Bluetooth Today we use Bluetooth for keyboards, mice and headsets.  In the future it could be used to interrogate car computers or manufacturing systems or possibly retail machines by service techs.  This would open smartphones to greater use as a almost a Star Trek Tricorder.  You would get you all your data as well as being able to use it as a universal remote for just about any device or machine. Better corporation controlled deployment At least in the Windows Phone world the upcoming release of Windows Phone 8 will include a private certification and deployment option that is currently not available with Windows Phone 7 (Mango). We currently have to run the apps through the Marketplace certification process and use a targeted distribution method. Platform independent approaches HTML5 and JavaScript with Web Service has become a popular topic lately for not only creating flexible web site, but also creating cross platform mobile applications.  I’m not yet convinced that this lowest common denominator approach is viable in most cases, but it does have it’s place and seems to be growing.  Be sure to keep an eye on it. Summary From my perspective enterprise smartphone applications can offer a great competitive advantage to many companies.  They are not cheap to build and should be approached cautiously.  Understand the factors I have outlined in this series, do you due diligence and see if there is a portion of your business that can benefit from the mobile experience. del.icio.us Tags: Architecture,Smartphones,Windows Phone,iOS,Android

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• Low-level game engine renderer design

  - by Mark Ingram

  I'm piecing together the beginnings of an extremely basic engine which will let me draw arbitrary objects (SceneObject). I've got to the point where I'm creating a few sensible sounding classes, but as this is my first outing into game engines, I've got the feeling I'm overlooking things. I'm familiar with compartmentalising larger portions of the code so that individual sub-systems don't overly interact with each other, but I'm thinking more of the low-level stuff, starting from vertices working up. So if I have a Vertex class, I can combine that with a list of indices to make a Mesh class. How does the engine determine identical meshes for objects? Or is that left to the level designer? Once we have a Mesh, that can be contained in the SceneObject class. And a list of SceneObject can be placed into the Scene to be drawn. Right now I'm only using OpenGL, but I'm aware that I don't want to be tying OpenGL calls right in to base classes (such as updating the vertices in the Mesh, I don't want to be calling glBufferData etc). Are there any good resources that discuss these issues? Are there any "common" heirachies which should be used?

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• There is No Scrum without Agile

  - by John K. Hines

  It's been interesting for me to dive a little deeper into Scrum after realizing how fragile its adoption can be.  I've been particularly impressed with James Shore's essay "Kaizen and Kaikaku" and the Net Objectives post "There are Better Alternatives to Scrum" by Alan Shalloway.  The bottom line: You can't execute Scrum well without being Agile. Personally, I'm the rare developer who has an interest in project management.  I think the methodology to deliver software is interesting, and that there are many roles whose job exists to make software development easier.  As a project lead I've seen Scrum deliver for disciplined, highly motivated teams with solid engineering practices.  It definitely made my job an order of magnitude easier.  As a developer I've experienced huge rewards from having a well-defined pipeline of tasks that were consistently delivered with high quality in short iterations.  In both of these cases Scrum was an addition to a fundamentally solid process and a huge benefit to the team. The question I'm now facing is how Scrum fits into organizations withot solid engineering practices.  The trend that concerns me is one of Scrum being mandated as the single development process across teams where it may not apply.  And we have to realize that Scurm itself isn't even a development process.  This is what worries me the most - the assumption that Scrum on its own increases developer efficiency when it is essentially an exercise in project management. Jim's essay quotes Tobias Mayer writing, "Scrum is a framework for surfacing organizational dysfunction."  I'm unsure whether a Vice President of Software Development wants to hear that, reality nonwithstanding.  Our Scrum adoption has surfaced a great deal of dysfunction, but I feel the original assumption was that we would experience increased efficiency.  It's starting to feel like a blended approach - Agile/XP techniques for developers, Scrum for project managers - may be a better fit.  Or at least, a better way of framing the conversation. The blended approach. Technorati tags: Agile Scrum

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• Copying photos from camera stalls - how to track down issue?

  - by Hamish Downer

  When I copy files from my camera (connected via USB) to the SSD in my laptop a few files get copied and then the copy stalls. I'm not sure why, any ideas or things to investigate appreciated, or bug reports to go and look at. I have read this answer - the camera (Canon 40D in case that matters) mounts fine using gvfs. I can see the photos in Nautilus, or in the terminal (in /run/user/username/gvfs/... ) and I can copy a few photos, but not many. Using the terminal or Nautilus the process hangs until the camera goes to sleep. Digikam fails to copy any at all, as does Rapid Photo Downloader. Shotwell did manage it in the end, but that is very much a work around for me. I have disabled thumbnail generation by nautilus. Load average stays about 1 while this is happening, while CPU usage is half idle, half wait (and a little user/sys for other programs). None of the programs at the top of the cpu list in top are related to copying photos. There is not much in the logs - from /var/log/syslog Dec 2 16:20:52 mishtop dbus[945]: [system] Activating service name='org.freedesktop.UDisks' (using servicehelper) Dec 2 16:20:52 mishtop dbus[945]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.UDisks' Dec 2 16:21:24 mishtop kernel: [ 2297.180130] usb 2-2: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci_hcd Dec 2 16:21:24 mishtop kernel: [ 2297.314272] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=04a9, idProduct=3146 Dec 2 16:21:24 mishtop kernel: [ 2297.314278] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0 Dec 2 16:21:24 mishtop kernel: [ 2297.314283] usb 2-2: Product: Canon Digital Camera Dec 2 16:21:24 mishtop kernel: [ 2297.314287] usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Canon Inc. Dec 2 16:21:24 mishtop mtp-probe: checking bus 2, device 4: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-2" Dec 2 16:21:24 mishtop mtp-probe: bus: 2, device: 4 was not an MTP device This problem has only started recently and I've had all the hardware for ages. I have also recently upgraded to 12.10, though I'm not sure if the problem started when I upgraded or after the upgrade. I also note this similar question but it is currently unanswered and I'm providing more detail

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• HTML5 video capture and streaming?

  - by Shyatic

  I'm working on kind of an educational site, where there are teachers and students around the world (potentially). Since it's a non-profit site, and I don't have the need for it to be done tomorrow (kind of a side project of something bigger), I wanted to know the best way to figure out how to do this. I'm not a programmer by trade, I've been on the systems side of things for years, but I understand most technology and the question here is more how to gauge what to do so I can get the right resources in place. That said... here's what I am looking at. I figure the future is HTML5, and that's probably where I'd rather spend my efforts given that it will be cross platform and without the need for plugins. It will work on mobile as well. Question is, how well does HTML5 handle input media, say desktop capture and camera, or on mobile perhaps, where I'd want to use the user's phone camera, etc. Second question is dynamic streaming... I've read about MPEG DASH, then there are technologies like Smooth Streaming (which I think given the way Silverlight is going is going to be gone or useless), then also Apple and Flash, but if I'm doing HTML5 it doesn't benefit me. Any ideas here would be really helpful, and the more detail the better! :) That's about it... there are free chat services out there like using the MSN Web Chat controls (how good they are, I don't know, but worldwide most people have a Hotmail/MSN account) so I can use that for chat. I don't know its limitations of course, but that's something if people know or have suggestions, then I'm all ears. Thanks for the help, I greatly appreciate it!

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• 3D zooming technique to maintain the relative position of an object on screen

  - by stark

  Is it possible to zoom to a certain point on screen by modifying the field of view and rotating the view of the camera as to keep that point/object in the same place on screen while zooming ? Changing the camera position is not allowed. I projected the 3D pos of the object on screen and remembered it. Then on each frame I calculate the direction to it in camera space and then I construct a rotation matrix to align this direction to Z axis (in cam space). After this, I calculate the direction from the camera to the object in world space and transform this vector with the matrix I obtained earlier and then use this final vector as the camera's new direction. And it's actually "kinda working", the problem is that it is more/less off than the camera's rotation before starting to zoom depending on the area you are trying to zoom in (larger error on edges/corners). It looks acceptable, but I'm not settling for only this. Any suggestions/resources for doing this technique perfectly? If some of you want to explain the math in detail, be my guest, I can understand these things well.

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• Touchpad right click doesn't work on HP Envy 14 beats

  - by jdrageme01

  I have Ubuntu 12.04 lts 64 bits on my HP envy 14 beats. When I try to click with the right click button it doesn't work. Only works click in the touchpad directly and with usb mouse. 00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller [8086:0104] (rev 09) 00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port [8086:0101] (rev 09) 00:01.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port [8086:0105] (rev 09) 00:01.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port [8086:0109] (rev 09) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0116] (rev 09) 00:16.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 [8086:1c3a] (rev 04) 00:1a.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 [8086:1c2d] (rev 05) 00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller [8086:1c20] (rev 05) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 [8086:1c10] (rev b5) 00:1c.4 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 5 [8086:1c18] (rev b5) 00:1c.7 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 8 [8086:1c1e] (rev b5) 00:1d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 [8086:1c26] (rev 05) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller [8086:1c49] (rev 05) 00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller [8086:1c03] (rev 05) 00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller [8086:1c22] (rev 05) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Whistler [AMD Radeon HD 6600M Series] [1002:6741] 09:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 [8086:4238] (rev 3e) 0a:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR8151 v2.0 Gigabit Ethernet [1969:1083] (rev c0) 0b:00.0 USB controller [0c03]: NEC Corporation uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host Controller [1033:0194] (rev 04)

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• MVC + 3 tier; where ViewModels come into play?

  - by mikhairu

  I'm designing a 3-tiered application using ASP.NET MVC 4. I used the following resources as a reference. CodeProject: MVC + N-tier + Entity Framework Separating data access in ASP.NET MVC I have the following desingn so far. Presentation Layer (PL) (main MVC project, where M of MVC was moved to Data Access Layer): MyProjectName.Main Views/ Controllers/ ... Business Logic Layer (BLL): MyProjectName.BLL ViewModels/ ProjectServices/ ... Data Access Layer (DAL): MyProjectName.DAL Models/ Repositories.EF/ Repositories.Dapper/ ... Now, PL references BLL and BLL references DAL. This way lower layer does not depend on the one above it. In this design PL invokes a service of the BLL. PL can pass a View Model to BLL and BLL can pass a View Model back to PL. Also, BLL invokes DAL layer and DAL layer can return a Model back to BLL. BLL can in turn build a View Model and return it to PL. Up to now this pattern was working for me. However, I've ran into a problem where some of my ViewModels require joins on several entities. In the plain MVC approach, in the controller I used a LINQ query to do joins and then select new MyViewModel(){ ... }. But now, in the DAL I do not have access to where ViewModels are defined (in the BLL). This means I cannot do joins in DAL and return it to BLL. It seems I have to do separate queries in DAL (instead of joins in one query) and BLL would then use the result of these to build a ViewModel. This is very inconvenient, but I don't think I should be exposing DAL to ViewModels. Any ideas how I can solve this dilemma? Thanks.

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• Speaking in Sweden in April

  - by Fabrice Marguerie

  As this is my first post in 2011, I wish you all the best for this new year. I don't know for you, but it will be a year of changes for me. I'll tell you more about that when the time comes. For the time being, I just wanted to announce my next speaking engagement: I'll be presenting at SDC2011, the Scandinavian Developer Conference. This event will take place on April 4 and 5 in Göteborg, Sweden. My session will be based on my article about memory leaks: How to detect and avoid memory and resources leaks in .NET applicationsDuring this session we will analyze the most common leak sources in .NET applications and we will see how to detect them in practice. We will demonstrate with live examples several tools that can help you to troubleshoot your applications. The goal of this session is to help you fix and avoid leaks in your .NET applications, whether they are built with Windows Forms, WPF, Silverlight, ASP.NET, or as console or Windows services. You will also get advices on how to improve your applications so they become less greedy. I hope to see you there if you're around in April :-)

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• Reinventing the Wheel, why should I?

  - by Mercfh

  So I have this problem, it may be my OCD (i have OCD it's not severe.....but It makes me very..lets say specific about certain things, programming being one of them) or it may be the fact that I graduated college and still feel "meh" at programming. Reading This made me think "OH thats me!" but thats not really my main problem. My big problem is....anytime im using a high level language/API/etc. I always think to myself that im not really "programming". I know I know...it sounds stupid. But Like I feel like....if i can't figure out how to do it at the lowest level then Im not really "understanding" it. I do this for just about every new technology I learn. I look at the lowest level and try to understand it. Sometimes I do.....most of the time I don't, I mean i've only really been programming for 4 years (at college, if you even call it programming.....our university's program was "meh"). For instance I do a little bit of embedded programming (with the Atmel AVR 8bits/Arduino stuff). And I can't bring myself to use the C compiler, even though it's 8 million times easier than using assembly......it's stupid I know... Anyone else feel like this, I think it's just my OCD that makes me feel this way....but has anyone else ever felt like they need to go down to the lowest level of the language to even be satisfied with using it? I apologize for the very very odd question, but I think it really hinders me in getting deep seeded into a programming language and making a real application of my own. (it's silly I know)

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