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• There are 2 jobs available - which one sounds better all round [closed]

  - by Steve Gates

  I am currently employed at a company where we scrape by each year breaking even, sometimes having a little profit. The development environment is very relaxed and we have a laugh. My colleagues are not interested in improving their knowledge unless they have to, so trying to get them to adopt things like TDD is a non-starter. My development manager is stuck in .Net 2 land and refuses to use things like LINQ. He over complicates architecture and writes very unreadable code, heres an example SortedList<int,<SortedList<int,SortedList<int, MyClass>>>> The MD of the company has no drive and lets the one sales guy bring in the contracts. We are not busy all the time and this allows me time to look at new technology and learn. In terms of using things like TDD, my development manager has no problem with it and can kind of see the purpose of it, he just wont use it himself. This means I am alone in learning new things and am often resorting to StackOverflow to make sure I get things right. The company has a lot of flexibility, I can work from home if needs be and when my daughter was born they let me work from home 1 day a week however they expect this flexibility in return often asking me to travel occasionally on a Friday afternoon for the following week. Sometimes its abroad. We are also pretty much on call 24/5 as we have engineers in various countries. Also we have no testers so most of the testing is done by us developers and some testing by engineers. Either way no-one likes testing! I have been offered a role at a company I worked at 5 years ago. They were quite Victorian in their working practices but it appears to have relaxed now although I suspect still reasonably formal. There is a new team of developers I don't know and they are about to move to new offices. The team lead is a guy that was there when I was and I get the impression he takes his role seriously and likes his formal procedures and documentation. I think some of the Victorian practices may have rubbed off on him. However he did say if things crop up then as long as I can trust the person they can work at home although he prefers people in the office. The team uses SCRUM, TDD and SOLID design principles so they are quite up to date in technology. They are reasonably Microsoft focused. It appears the Technical Director might be the R&D man and research new technology on his own not allowing developers to play with new technology. He possibly might be a super developer and makes all the decisions that no can argue with. They are currently moving to Entity Framework away from NHibernate based on issues that their queries seem to fail sometimes and they feel NHibernate is stagnant. They have analysts and a QA team. The MD is focused and they are an expanding company making profit each year. I'm not sure what the team morale is and whether they have a laugh. When I had a tour around the office they were there in dead silence. I'm really unsure which role is the best for me and going with my gut instinct is useless as I'm not sure what my gut is telling me. Based on the information above which role would you choose and why?

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• Get More From Your Service Request

  - by Get Proactive Customer Adoption Team

  Leveraging Service Request Best Practices Use best practices to get there faster. In the daily conversations I have with customers, they sometimes express frustration over their Service Requests. They often feel powerless to make needed changes, so their sense of frustration grows. To help you avoid some of the frustration you might feel in dealing with your Service Requests (SR), here are a few pointers that come from our best practice discussions. Be proactive. If you can anticipate some of the questions that Support will ask, or the information they may need, try to provide this up front, when you log the SR. This could be output from the Remote Diagnostic Agent (RDA), if this is a database issue, or the output from another diagnostic tool, if you’re an EBS customer. Any information you can supply that helps us understand the situation better, helps us resolve the issue sooner. As you use some of these tools proactively, you might even find the solution to the problem before you log an SR! Be right. Make sure you have the correct severity level. Since you select the initial severity level, it’s easy to accept the default without considering how significant this may be. Business impact is the driving factor, so make sure you take a moment to select the severity level that is appropriate to the situation. Also, make sure you ask us to change the severity level, should the situation dictate. Be responsive! If this is an important issue to you, quickly follow up on any action plan submitted to you by Oracle Support. The support engineer assigned to your Service Request will be able to move the issue forward more aggressively when they have the needed information. This is crucial in resolving your issues in a timely manner. Be thorough. If there are five questions in the action plan, make sure you provide an answer for all five questions in one response, rather than trickling them in one at a time. This will allow the engineer to look at all of the information as a whole and to avoid multiple trips to your SR, saving valuable time and getting you a resolution sooner. Be your own advocate! You know your situation best; make sure Oracle Support understands both how and why this issue is important to you and your company. Use the escalation process if you're concerned that your SR isn't going the right direction, the right pace, or through the right person. Don't wait until you're frustrated and angry. An escalation is as simple as a quick conversation on the phone and can be amazingly effective in getting your issues back on track. The support manager you speak with is empowered to make any needed changes. Be our partner. You can make your support experience better. When your SR has been resolved, you may receive a survey request. This is intended to get your feedback about how your SR went and what we can do to improve your overall support experience. Oracle Support is here to help you. Our goal with any Service Request is to provide the best possible solution as quickly as possible. With your help, we’ll be able to do this with your Service Request too.  

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• Creating a Corporate Data Hub

  - by BuckWoody

  The Windows Azure Marketplace has a rich assortment of data and software offerings for you to use – a type of Software as a Service (SaaS) for IT workers, not necessarily for end-users. Among those offerings is the “Data Hub” – a  codename for a project that ironically actually does what the codename says. In many of our organizations, we have multiple data quality issues. Finding data is one problem, but finding it just once is often a bigger problem. Lots of departments and even individuals have stored the same data more than once, and in some cases, made changes to one of the copies. It’s difficult to know which location or version of the data is authoritative. Then there’s the problem of accessing the data. It’s fairly straightforward to publish a database, share or other location internally to store the data. But then you have to figure out who owns it, how it is controlled, and pass out the various connection strings to those who want to use it. And then you need to figure out how to let folks access the internal data externally – bringing up all kinds of security issues. Finally, in many cases our user community wants us to combine data from the internally sources with external data, bringing up the security, strings, and exploration features up all over again. Enter the Data Hub. This is an online offering, where you assign an administrator and data stewards. You import the data into the service, and it’s available to you - and only you and your organization if you wish. The basic steps for this service are to set up the portal for your company, assign administrators and permissions, and then you assign data areas and import data into them. From there you make them discoverable, and then you have multiple options that you or your users can access that data. You’re then able, if you wish, to combine that data with other data in one location. So how does all that work? What about security? Is it really that easy? And can you really move the data definition off to the Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) that know the particular data stack better than the IT team does? Well, nothing good is easy – but using the Data Hub is actually pretty simple. I’ll give you a link in a moment where you can sign up and try this yourself. Once you sign up, you assign an administrator. From there you’ll create data areas, and then use a simple interface to bring the data in. All of this is done in a portal interface – nothing to install, configure, update or manage. After the data is entered in, and you’ve assigned meta-data to describe it, your users have multiple options to access it. They can simply use the portal – which actually has powerful visualizations you can use on any platform, even mobile phones or tablets.     Your users can also hit the data with Excel – which gives them ultimate flexibility for display, all while using an authoritative, single reference for the data. Since the service is online, they can do this wherever they are – given the proper authentication and permissions. You can also hit the service with simple API calls, like this one from C#: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh921924  You can make HTTP calls instead of code, and the data can even be exposed as an OData Feed. As you can see, there are a lot of options. You can check out the offering here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlazurelabs/labs/data-hub.aspx and you can read the documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh921938

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• The Social Content Conundrum

  - by Mike Stiles

  Here’s the social content conundrum: people who are not entertainers are being asked to entertain. Despite a world of skilled MBAs, marketing savants, technological innovators, analysts, social strategists and consultants, every development in social for brands keeps boomeranging right back to the same unavoidable truth. Success hinges on having content creators who know how to entertain the target audience. You can’t make this all about business-processes. You can’t make this all about technology, though data is critical and helps inform content. This is about having human beings who know the audience, know what they’d love to see, and can create the magic that will draw and hold them. Since showing up in the News Feed is critical for exposition and engagement, and since social ads primarily serve to amplify content that’s performing well, I’m comfortable saying content creators are becoming exponentially recruited and valued. They will no longer be commodities. They’ll be your stars. Social has fundamentally changed the relationship between brand and consumer. No longer can the customer be told to sit down, shut up, and listen to our ads. It’s now all about what consumers are willing to watch or read. Their patience for subjecting themselves to material they aren’t interested in is waning. Therefore, brands must now be producers of entertainment and information content, not merely placers of ads within someone else’s content. Social has given you a huge stage, with an audience sitting out there waiting to see what you’re going to do. What are you putting on that stage? For most corporate environments, entertaining is alien. It’s risky and subjective. Most operate around two foundational principles: control and fear. To entertain and inform with branded content, some control has to go. You control the product. Past that, control is being transferred into the hands of the consumer. The “fear first” culture also has to yield. If you strive to never make waves, you will move absolutely nothing. Because most corporations don’t house entertainers, they must be found then trusted. They’re usually a little weird. The ideas they’ll bring may seem “out there.” But like any business professional, they’ve gone through the training and experiences that make them uniquely good at what they do, even if you don’t quite understand them. It’s okay. It’s what the audience thinks that matters. Get it right, and you’ll be generating one ambassador after another who’s proud to be identified with the brand and will regularly consume and share your content. Entertainment entities are able to shape our culture and succeed beyond their wildest dreams by being beholden to one thing…what the public likes and wants. When brands put the same emphasis on crowd-pleasing content, they too will enjoy brand fame the likes of which they’ve never seen. The stage is yours. Now get out there and go for that applause.

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• Dependency injection: How to sell it

  - by Mel

  Let it be known that I am a big fan of dependency injection (DI) and automated testing. I could talk all day about it. Background Recently, our team just got this big project that is to built from scratch. It is a strategic application with complex business requirements. Of course, I wanted it to be nice and clean, which for me meant: maintainable and testable. So I wanted to use DI. Resistance The problem was in our team, DI is taboo. It has been brought up a few times, but the gods do not approve. But that did not discourage me. My Move This may sound weird but third-party libraries are usually not approved by our architect team (think: "thou shalt not speak of Unity, Ninject, NHibernate, Moq or NUnit, lest I cut your finger"). So instead of using an established DI container, I wrote an extremely simple container. It basically wired up all your dependencies on startup, injects any dependencies (constructor/property) and disposed any disposable objects at the end of the web request. It was extremely lightweight and just did what we needed. And then I asked them to review it. The Response Well, to make it short. I was met with heavy resistance. The main argument was, "We don't need to add this layer of complexity to an already complex project". Also, "It's not like we will be plugging in different implementations of components". And "We want to keep it simple, if possible just stuff everything into one assembly. DI is an uneeded complexity with no benefit". Finally, My Question How would you handle my situation? I am not good in presenting my ideas, and I would like to know how people would present their argument. Of course, I am assuming that like me, you prefer to use DI. If you don't agree, please do say why so I can see the other side of the coin. It would be really interesting to see the point of view of someone who disagrees. Update Thank you for everyone's answers. It really puts things into perspective. It's nice enough to have another set of eyes to give you feedback, fifteen is really awesome! This are really great answers and helped me see the issue from different sides, but I can only choose one answer, so I will just pick the top voted one. Thanks everyone for taking the time to answer. I have decided that it is probably not the best time to implement DI, and we are not ready for it. Instead, I will concentrate my efforts on making the design testable and attempt to present automated unit testing. I am aware that writing tests is additional overhead and if ever it is decided that the additional overhead is not worth it, personally I would still see it as a win situation since the design is still testable. And if ever testing or DI is a choice in future, the design can easily handle it.

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• Gnome-shell fails to load on 12.10

  - by Githlar

  I'm usually the one answering questions, but in this I'm throughly stumped! My Setup: Ubuntu 12.10 (Dist upgrade form 12.04) ATI M96 [Mobility Radeon HD 4650] Upon the first installation of 12.10 I had all kinds of issues getting the Legacy ATI drivers to install (I guess the source for the drivers isn't kosher with kernel 3.5). So, I added the repository ppa:makson96/fglrx - which has a version of the ATI source patched to work with kernel 3.5. After installation of fglrx-legacy from that PPA, gnome-shell and all my graphics work fine... until today. The Problem I unsuspended my computer today and the screen was black (not off, the black from the gnome lock screen). I'd move my mouse/hit a key and the background would flash and then it'd go back to black. Restarted via VT1 Logged into Gnome (gnome-shell) session, but no gnome-shell! Investigation: First, I went to VT1 and tried export DISPLAY=:0;gnome-shell --replace. It appeared to work fine, switch back to X and nothing. Went back to VT1 and saw this error message: JS ERROR: !!! Exception was: TypeError: Object 0x7fc748129c30 is not a subclass of (null), it's a xO JS ERROR: !!! message = '"Object 0x7fc748129c30 is not a subclass of (null), it's a xO"' JS ERROR: !!! fileName = '"/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/tweener.js"' JS ERROR: !!! lineNumber = '218' JS ERROR: !!! stack = '"()@/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/tweener.js:218 wrapper()@/usr/share/gjs-1.0/lang.js:204 ()@/usr/share/gjs-1.0/lang.js:145 ()@/usr/share/gjs-1.0/lang.js:239 init()@/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/tweener.js:49 init()@/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/environment.js:96 @<main>:1 "' Window manager warning: Log level 32: Execution of main.js threw exception: TypeError: Object 0x7fc748129c30 is not a subclass of (null), it's a xO Note: Everywhere it says "it's a xO", xO is actually garbled and changes every time (I'm thinking memory corruption?) This error is thrown by line 96 of /usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/environment.js: tweener.Init() Did a purge of fglrx-legacy, reboot, reinstall fglrx-legacy, reboot... same thing. Did a ppa-purge of ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3, and reinstalled gnome-shell and ubuntu-desktop from the standard repositores... same thing. I'm really at a loss here. I love gnome-shell and after using it for nearly a year now gnome classic just seems so archaic. Additional Information Apt log from the day I first suspended my machine (these are upgrades from the gnome3-team/gnome3 ppa and ubuntu-wine/ppa ppa): Start-Date: 2012-11-24 17:30:28 Commandline: aptdaemon role='role-commit-packages' sender=':1.618' Install: gkbd-capplet:amd64 (3.6.0-0ubuntu1), gnome-control-center-unity:amd64 (1.0-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.10.1) Upgrade: nautilus:amd64 (3.6.2-0ubuntu0.1~quantal1, 3.6.3-0ubuntu2~ubuntu12.10.1), libgnome-control-center1:amd64 (3.4.2-0ubuntu19, 3.6.3-0ubuntu6~ubuntu12.10.1), wine1.5-i386:i386 (1.5.17-0ubuntu4, 1.5.18-0ubuntu1), wine1.5:amd64 (1.5.17-0ubuntu4, 1.5.18-0ubuntu1), gnome-settings-daemon:amd64 (3.4.2-0ubuntu14, 3.6.3-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.10.1), gnome-control-center-data:amd64 (3.4.2-0ubuntu19, 3.6.3-0ubuntu6~ubuntu12.10.1), gnome-accessibility-themes:amd64 (3.6.0.2-0ubuntu1, 3.6.2-0ubuntu2~ubuntu12.10.1), gnome-themes-standard:amd64 (3.6.0.2-0ubuntu1, 3.6.2-0ubuntu2~ubuntu12.10.1), wine1.5-amd64:amd64 (1.5.17-0ubuntu4, 1.5.18-0ubuntu1), nautilus-data:amd64 (3.6.2-0ubuntu0.1~quantal1, 3.6.3-0ubuntu2~ubuntu12.10.1), gnome-control-center:amd64 (3.4.2-0ubuntu19, 3.6.3-0ubuntu6~ubuntu12.10.1), libnautilus-extension1a:amd64 (3.6.2-0ubuntu0.1~quantal1, 3.6.3-0ubuntu2~ubuntu12.10.1) End-Date: 2012-11-24 17:31:32 fglrxinfo (driver appears to be working): display: :0 screen: 0 OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. OpenGL renderer string: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 OpenGL version string: 3.3.11653 Compatibility Profile Context Does anybody have any further ideas?

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• Consolidation in a Database Cloud

  - by B R Clouse

  Consolidation of multiple databases onto a shared infrastructure is the next step after Standardization.  The potential consolidation density is a function of the extent to which the infrastructure is shared.  The three models provide increasing degrees of sharing: Server: each database is deployed in a dedicated VM. Hardware is shared, but most of the software infrastructure is not. Standardization is often applied incompletely since operating environments can be moved as-is onto the shared platform. The potential for VM sprawl is an additional downside. Database: multiple database instances are deployed on a shared software / hardware infrastructure. This model is very efficient and easily implemented with the features in the Oracle Database and supporting products. Many customers have moved to this model and achieved significant, measurable benefits. Schema: multiple schemas are deployed within a single database instance. The most efficient model, it places constraints on the environment. Usually this model will be implemented only by customers deploying their own applications.  (Note that a single deployment can combine Database and Schema consolidations.) Customer value: lower costs, better system utilization In this phase of the maturity model, under-utilized hardware can be used to host more workloads, or retired and those workloads migrated to consolidation platforms. Customers benefit from higher utilization of the hardware resources, resulting in reduced data center floor space, and lower power and cooling costs. And, the OpEx savings from Standardization are multiplied, since there are fewer physical components (both hardware and software) to manage. Customer value: higher productivity The OpEx benefits from Standardization are compounded since not only are there fewer types of things to manage, now there are fewer entities to manage. In this phase, customers discover that their IT staff has time to move away from "day-to-day" tasks and start investing in higher value activities. Database users benefit from consolidating onto shared infrastructures by relieving themselves of the requirement to maintain their own dedicated servers. Also, if the shared infrastructure offers capabilities such as High Availability / Disaster Recovery, which are often beyond the budget and skillset of a standalone database environment, then moving to the consolidation platform can provide access to those capabilities, resulting in less downtime. Capabilities / Characteristics In this phase, customers will typically deploy fixed-size clusters and consolidate on a cluster until that cluster is deemed "full," at which point a new cluster is built. Customers will define one or a few cluster architectures that are used wherever possible; occasionally there may be deployments which must be handled as exceptions. The "full" policy may be based on number of databases deployed on the cluster, or observed peak workload, etc. IT will own the provisioning of new databases on a cluster, making the decision of when and where to place new workloads. Resources may be managed dynamically, e.g., as a priority workload increases, it may be given more CPU and memory to handle the spike. Users will be charged at a fixed, relatively coarse level; or in some cases, no charging will be applied. Activities / Tasks Oracle offers several tools to plan a successful consolidation. Real Application Testing (RAT) has a feature to help plan and validate database consolidations. Enterprise Manager 12c's Cloud Management Pack for Database includes a planning module. Looking ahead, customers should start planning for the Services phase by defining the Service Catalog that will be made available for database services.

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• Cloud – the forecast is improving

  - by Rob Farley

  There is a lot of discussion about “the cloud”, and how that affects people’s data stories. Today the discussion enters the realm of T-SQL Tuesday, hosted this month by Jorge Segarra. Over the years, companies have invested a lot in making sure that their data is good, and I mean every aspect of it – the quality of it, the security of it, the performance of it, and more. Experts such as those of us at LobsterPot Solutions have helped these companies with this, and continue to work with clients to make sure that data is a strong part of their business, not an oversight. Whether business intelligence systems are being utilised or not, every business needs to be able to rely on its data, and have the confidence in it. Data should be a foundation upon which a business is built. In the past, data had been stored in paper-based systems. Filing cabinets stored vital information. Today, people have server rooms with storage of various kinds, recognising that filing cabinets don’t necessarily scale particularly well. It’s easy to ‘lose’ data in a filing cabinet, when you have people who need to make sure that the sheets of paper are in the right spot, and that you know how things are stored. Databases help solve that problem, but still the idea of a large filing cabinet continues, it just doesn’t involve paper. If something happens to the physical ‘filing cabinet’, then the problems are larger still. Then the data itself is under threat. Many clients have generators in case the power goes out, redundant cables in case the connectivity dies, and spare servers in other buildings just in case they’re required. But still they’re maintaining filing cabinets. You see, people like filing cabinets. There’s something to be said for having your data ‘close’. Even if the data is not in readable form, living as bits on a disk somewhere, the idea that its home is ‘in the building’ is comforting to many people. They simply don’t want to move their data anywhere else. The cloud offers an alternative to this, and the human element is an obstacle. By leveraging the cloud, companies can have someone else look after their filing cabinet. A lot of people really don’t like the idea of this, partly because the administrators of the data, those people who could potentially log in with escalated rights and see more than they should be allowed to, who need to be trusted to respond if there’s a problem, are now a faceless entity in the cloud. But this doesn’t mean that the cloud is bad – this is simply a concern that some people may have. In new functionality that’s on its way, we see other hybrid mechanisms that mean that people can leverage parts of the cloud with less fear. Companies can use cloud storage to hold their backup data, for example, backups that have been encrypted and are therefore not able to be read by anyone (including administrators) who don’t have the right password. Companies can have a database instance that runs locally, but which has its data files in the cloud, complete with Transparent Data Encryption if needed. There can be a higher level of control, making the change easier to accept. Hybrid options allow people who have had fears (potentially very justifiable) to take a new look at the cloud, and to start embracing some of the benefits of the cloud (such as letting someone else take care of storage, high availability, and more) without losing the feeling of the data being close. @rob_farley

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• Migrating VB6 to HTML5 is not a fiction - Customer success story

  - by Webgui

  All of you VB developers in the present or past would probably find it hard to believe that the old VB code can be migrated and modernized into the latest .NET based HTML5 without having to rewrite the application. But we have been working on such tools for the past couple of years and already have several real world applications that were fully 'transposed' from VB6. The solution is called Instant CloudMove and its main tool is called the TranspositionStudio. It is a unique solution that relies on the concept of transposition. Transposition comes from mathematics and music and refers to exchanging elements while everything else remains the same or moving an element as is from one environment to another. This means that we are taking the source code and put it in a modern technological environment with relatively few adjustments.The concept is based on a set of Mapping Expressions which are basically links between an element in the source environment and one in the target environment that has the same functionality. About 95% of the code is usually mapped out-of-the-box and the rest is handled with easy-to-use mapping tools designed for Visual Studio developers providing them with a familiar environment and concepts for completing the mapping and allowing them to extend and customize existing mapping expressions. The solution is also based on a circular workflow that enables developers to make any changes as required until the result is satisfying.As opposed to existing migration solutions that offer automation are usually a “black box” to the user, the transposition concept enables full visibility, flexibility and control over the code and process at all times allowing to also add/change functionalities or upgrade the UI within the process and tools.This is exactly the case with our customer’s aging VB6 PMS (Property Management System) which needed a technological update as well as a design refresh. The decision was to move the VB6 application which had about 1 million lines of code into the latest web technology. Since the application was initially written 13 years ago and had many upgrades since the code must be very patchy and includes unused sections. As a result, the company Mihshuv Group considered rewriting the entire application in Java since it already had the knowledge. Rewrite would allow starting with a clean slate and designing functionality, database architecture, UI without any constraints. On the other hand, rewrite entitles a long and detailed specification work as well as a thorough QA and this translates into a long project with high risk and costs.So the company looked for a migration solution as an alternative; the research lead to Gizmox and after examining the technology it was decided to perform a hybrid project which would include an automatic transposition of the core of the VB6 application (200,000 lines of code) while they redesigning the UI, adding new functionality, deleting unused code and rewriting about 140 reports with Crystal Reports will be done manually using Visual WebGui development tools.The migration part of the project was completed in 65 days by 3 developers from Mihshuv Group guided by Gizmox migration experts while the rewrite and UI upgrade tasks took about the same. So in only a few months period Mihshuv Group generated an up-to-date product, written in the latest Web technology with modern, friendly UI and improved functionality. Guest selection screen of the original VB6 PMS Guest selection screen on the new web–based PMS Compared to the initial plan to rewrite the entire application in Java, the hybrid migration/rewrite approach taken by Mihshuv Group using Gizmox technology proved as a great decision. In terms of time and cost there were substantial savings; from a project that was priced for at least a year (without taking into account the huge risk and uncertainty) it became a few months project only. More about this and other customer stories can be found here

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• How to layout class definition when inheriting from multiple interfaces

  - by gabr

  Given two interface definitions ... IOmniWorkItem = interface ['{3CE2762F-B7A3-4490-BF22-2109C042EAD1}'] function GetData: TOmniValue; function GetResult: TOmniValue; function GetUniqueID: int64; procedure SetResult(const value: TOmniValue); // procedure Cancel; function DetachException: Exception; function FatalException: Exception; function IsCanceled: boolean; function IsExceptional: boolean; property Data: TOmniValue read GetData; property Result: TOmniValue read GetResult write SetResult; property UniqueID: int64 read GetUniqueID; end; IOmniWorkItemEx = interface ['{3B48D012-CF1C-4B47-A4A0-3072A9067A3E}'] function GetOnWorkItemDone: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; function GetOnWorkItemDone_Asy: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; procedure SetOnWorkItemDone(const Value: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate); procedure SetOnWorkItemDone_Asy(const Value: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate); // property OnWorkItemDone: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate read GetOnWorkItemDone write SetOnWorkItemDone; property OnWorkItemDone_Asy: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate read GetOnWorkItemDone_Asy write SetOnWorkItemDone_Asy; end; ... what are your ideas of laying out class declaration that inherits from both of them? My current idea (but I don't know if I'm happy with it): TOmniWorkItem = class(TInterfacedObject, IOmniWorkItem, IOmniWorkItemEx) strict private FData : TOmniValue; FOnWorkItemDone : TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; FOnWorkItemDone_Asy: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; FResult : TOmniValue; FUniqueID : int64; strict protected procedure FreeException; protected //IOmniWorkItem function GetData: TOmniValue; function GetResult: TOmniValue; function GetUniqueID: int64; procedure SetResult(const value: TOmniValue); protected //IOmniWorkItemEx function GetOnWorkItemDone: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; function GetOnWorkItemDone_Asy: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; procedure SetOnWorkItemDone(const Value: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate); procedure SetOnWorkItemDone_Asy(const Value: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate); public constructor Create(const data: TOmniValue; uniqueID: int64); destructor Destroy; override; public //IOmniWorkItem procedure Cancel; function DetachException: Exception; function FatalException: Exception; function IsCanceled: boolean; function IsExceptional: boolean; property Data: TOmniValue read GetData; property Result: TOmniValue read GetResult write SetResult; property UniqueID: int64 read GetUniqueID; public //IOmniWorkItemEx property OnWorkItemDone: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate read GetOnWorkItemDone write SetOnWorkItemDone; property OnWorkItemDone_Asy: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate read GetOnWorkItemDone_Asy write SetOnWorkItemDone_Asy; end; As noted in answers, composition is a good approach for this example but I'm not sure it applies in all cases. Sometimes I'm using multiple inheritance just to split read and write access to some property into public (typically read-only) and private (typically write-only) part. Does composition still apply here? I'm not really sure as I would have to move the property in question out from the main class and I'm not sure that's the correct way to do it. Example: // public part of the interface interface IOmniWorkItemConfig = interface function OnExecute(const aTask: TOmniBackgroundWorkerDelegate): IOmniWorkItemConfig; function OnRequestDone(const aTask: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate): IOmniWorkItemConfig; function OnRequestDone_Asy(const aTask: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate): IOmniWorkItemConfig; end; // private part of the interface IOmniWorkItemConfigEx = interface ['{42CEC5CB-404F-4868-AE81-6A13AD7E3C6B}'] function GetOnExecute: TOmniBackgroundWorkerDelegate; function GetOnRequestDone: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; function GetOnRequestDone_Asy: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; end; // implementing class TOmniWorkItemConfig = class(TInterfacedObject, IOmniWorkItemConfig, IOmniWorkItemConfigEx) strict private FOnExecute : TOmniBackgroundWorkerDelegate; FOnRequestDone : TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; FOnRequestDone_Asy: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; public constructor Create(defaults: IOmniWorkItemConfig = nil); public //IOmniWorkItemConfig function OnExecute(const aTask: TOmniBackgroundWorkerDelegate): IOmniWorkItemConfig; function OnRequestDone(const aTask: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate): IOmniWorkItemConfig; function OnRequestDone_Asy(const aTask: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate): IOmniWorkItemConfig; public //IOmniWorkItemConfigEx function GetOnExecute: TOmniBackgroundWorkerDelegate; function GetOnRequestDone: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; function GetOnRequestDone_Asy: TOmniWorkItemDoneDelegate; end;

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• HTML, JavaScript, and CSS in a NetBeans Platform Application

  - by Geertjan

  I broke down the code I used yesterday, to its absolute bare minimum, and then realized I'm not using HTML 5 at all: <html> <head> <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" type="text/css" media="all" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.3/jquery.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.16/jquery-ui.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="script.js"></script> </head> <body> <div id="logo"> </div> <div id="infobox"> <h2 id="statustext"/> </div> </body> </html> Here's the script.js file referred to above: $(function(){ var banana = $("#logo"); var statustext = $("#statustext"); var defaulttxt = "Drag the banana!"; var dragtxt = "Dragging the banana!"; statustext.text(defaulttxt); banana.draggable({ drag: function(event, ui){ statustext.text(dragtxt); }, stop: function(event, ui){ statustext.text(defaulttxt); } }); }); And here's the stylesheet: body { background:#3B4D61 repeat 0 0; margin:0; padding:0; } h2 { color:#D1D8DF; display:block; font:bold 15px/10px Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif; text-align:center; } #infobox { position:absolute; width:300px; bottom:20px; left:50%; margin-left:-150px; padding:0 20px; background:rgba(0,0,0,0.5); -webkit-border-radius:15px; -moz-border-radius:15px; border-radius:15px; z-index:999; } #logo { position:absolute; width:450px; height:150px; top:40%; left: 30%; background:url(bananas.png) no-repeat 0 0; cursor:move; z-index:700; } However, I've replaced the content of the HTML file with a few of the samples from here, without any problem; in other words, if the HTML 5 canvas were to be needed, it could seamlessly be incorporated into my NetBeans Platform application: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Canvas_tutorial/Basic_usage

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• Introducing the Metro User Interface on Windows 2012

  - by andywe

  Although I am a big fan of using PowerShell to do many of my server operations, that aspect is well covered by those far more knowledgeable than I, and there is vast information around the web already on that. The new Metro interface, and getting around both Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 though is relatively new, even for those whop ran the previews. What is this? A blank Desktop!   Where did the start button go? Well, it is still there...sort of. It is hidden, and acts like an auto hidden component that appear only when the mouse is hovered over the lower left corner of the screen. Those familiar with Gnome or OSX can relate this to the "Hot Corners" functions. To get to the start button, hover your mouse in the very left corner of the task bar. Let it sit there a moment, and a small blue square with colored tiles in it called start will appear. Click it. I clicked it and now I have all the tiles..What is this?   Welcome to the Metro interface. This is a much more modern look, and although at first seems weird and cumbersome, I have actually found that it is a bit more extensible, allowing greater organization and customization than the older explorer desktop. If you look closely, you'll see each box represents either a program, or program group. First, a few basics about using the start view. First and foremost, a right mouse click will bring up a bar on the bottom, with an icon towards the right. Notice it is titled “All Apps”. An even easier way in many places is to hover your mouse in the exact opposite corner, in the upper right. A sidebar will open and expose what used to be a widget bar (remember Vista?), and there are options for Search, Start, and Settings.   Ok Great, but where is everything? It’s all there…Click the All Apps icon.   Look better? Notice the scroll bar at the bottom. Move it right..your desktop is sized to your content..so you can have a smaller, or larger amount of programs exposed. Each icon can be secondary clicked (right mouse click for most of us, and an options bar at the bottom, rather than the old small context menu, is opened with some very familiar options.   Notice the top of the Windows Explorer window has some new features. You still have your right mouse click functions, but since the shortcuts for these items already exist..just copy them. There are many ways, but here is a long way to show you more of the interface. 1. Right mouse click a program icon, and select the Open File Location option. 2. Trusty file manager opens…but if you look closely up at top edge of the window, you’ll see a nifty enhancement. An orange colored box that is titled Shortcut Tools and another lavender box Title Application tools. Each of these adds options at the top of the file manager window to make selection easy. Of course, you can still secondary click an item in the listing window too. 3. Click shortcut tools, right click your app shortcut and copy it. Then simply paste it into the desktop outside the File Explorer window Also note some of the newer features. The large icons up top below the menu that has many common operations. The options change as you select each menu item. Well, that’s it for this installment. I hope this helps you out.

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• Pinterest and the Rising Power of Imagery

  - by Mike Stiles

  If images keep you glued to a screen, you’re hardly alone. Countless social users are letting their eyes do the walking, waiting for that special photo to grab their attention. And perhaps more than any other social network, Pinterest has been giving those eyes plenty of room to walk. Pinterest came along in 2010. Its play was that users could simply create topic boards and pin pictures to the appropriate boards for sharing. Yes there are some words, captions mostly, but not many. The speed of its growth raised eyebrows. Traffic quadrupled in the last quarter of 2011, with 7.51 million unique visitors in December alone. It now gets 1.9 billion monthly page views. And it was sticky. In the US, the average time a user spends strolling through boards and photos on Pinterest is 15 minutes, 50 seconds. Proving the concept of browsing a catalogue is not dead, it became a top 5 referrer for several apparel retailers like Land’s End, Nordstrom, and Bergdorfs. Now a survey of online shoppers by BizRate Insights says that Pinterest is responsible for more purchases online than Facebook. Over 70% of its users are going there specifically to keep up with trends and get shopping ideas. And when they buy, the average order value is $179. Pinterest is also scoring better in terms of user engagement. 66% of pinners regularly follow and repin retailers, whereas 17% of Facebook fans turn to that platform for purchase ideas. (Facebook still wins when it comes to reach and driving traffic to 3rd-party sites by the way). Social posting best practices have consistently shown that posts with photos are rewarded with higher engagement levels. You may be downright Shakespearean in your writing, but what makes images in the digital world so much more powerful than prose? 1. They transcend language barriers. 2. They’re fun and addictive to look at. 3. They can be consumed in fractions of a second, important considering how fast users move through their social content (admit it, you do too). 4. They’re efficient gateways. A good picture might get them to the headline. A good headline might then get them to the written content. 5. The audience for them surpasses demographic limitations. 6. They can effectively communicate and trigger an emotion. 7. With mobile use soaring, photos are created on those devices and easily consumed and shared on them. Pinterest’s iPad app hit #1 in the Apple store in 1 day. Even as far back as 2009, over 2.5 billion devices with cameras were on the streets generating in just 1 year, 10% of the number of photos taken…ever. But let’s say you’re not a retailer. What if you’re a B2B whose products or services aren’t visual? Should you worry about your presence on Pinterest? As with all things, you need a keen awareness of who your audience is, where they reside online, and what they want to do there. If it doesn’t make sense to put a tent stake in Pinterest, fine. But ignore the power of pictures at your own peril. If not visually, how are you going to attention-grab social users scrolling down their News Feeds at top speed? You’re competing with every other cool image out there from countless content sources. Bore us and we’ll fly right past you.

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• Software Center seems to freeze system when installing, syslog has "blocked for more than 120 seconds" errors

  - by nbm

  12.04 (precise) 64-bit Kernel Linux 3.2.0-39 3.6GB memory Intel Core 2 Duo CPU @ 2.40GHz x2 WUBI-installed Ubuntu running on a MacBook Pro 7.1 with OSX running Vista via Boot Camp (hey, I like lots of OS's m'kay?) When installing from Ubuntu software center my system very frequently freezes. This has happened 4 of the last 5 installs. Most recently I was installing the Google Earth .deb from Google's website: clicking the .deb file automatically opens Software Center (otherwise I would have used Synaptic, as I've grown to expect Software Center to freeze my system and I'm rather tired of it.) By "freeze" I mean nothing works: no dash, no launcher, no mouse movement, no alt-tab, can't open terminal (keyboard does not work). Software center does show the "installing" icon but after that it greys out and I can't click anything. REISUB has no effect but a cold power-down and restart is possible. Occasionally, after 5-10 minutes, I'll be able to move the mouse / use the keyboard and run a launcher command or two, although other open apps (Chrome and Software Center) will still be greyed-out/frozen. (I've never waited longer than that - if still unresponsive after 15 minutes I just power down and restart.) Most recently, which is why I am finally posting a question, I waited about 15 minutes and was finally able to open System Monitor while this was going on. Processes tells me that System Monitor is using about 20% of CPU, and nothing else is using much (zeros mostly). In fact I didn't even see Software Center listed? However at this point the system finally partially unfroze, the installation completed, and while I wasn't about to close Software Center I was able to do a system shutdown and fresh restart and I went and took a look at the syslog. In /var/log/syslog I see a lot of ":blocked for more than 120 seconds" messages. Similar to ubuntu hang out with this message :blocked for more than 120 seconds Which has not been answered, and I'm not running a virtual machine. My full syslog with stack traces looks very, very similar to this: Why do tasks on Amazon Xen instance block for over 120 seconds causing server to hang? Note that that question was solved, but that's because the problem was being caused by Amazon and Amazon fixed the bug. I'm not running anything Amazon-related. My syslog does look very similar, however. My question is also similar to this: Troubleshooting server hang But the referenced "duplicate" in that question is about how to kill processes/restart when the system freezes. I know how to kill processes and restart. I want to figure out what is causing the problem so I can try to fix it. I realize that I could just use Synaptic instead of Ubuntu Software Center, but I'd like to try to solve the problem if possible. I'm thinking I should perhaps submit a bug report, but I wanted to first see if anyone else was having any similar problems, and if so what you all did to fix it. I see a number of questions about Software Center freezing and others, including those I linked, about the "blocked for more than 120 seconds" log error, but I didn't see any question that links the two. I did save a copy of the syslog report if anyone wants to see it, but as mentioned it's quite similar to the one posted in the Amazon-related question...and I didn't want to take up even more space unnecessarily as, my apologies - this question has already become extremely verbose!

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• I.T. Chargeback : Core to Cloud Computing

  - by Anand Akela

  Contributed by Mark McGill Consolidation and Virtualization have been widely adopted over the years to help deliver benefits such as increased server utilization, greater agility and lower cost to the I.T. organization. These are key enablers of cloud, but in themselves they do not provide a complete cloud solution. Building a true enterprise private cloud involves moving from an admin driven world, where the I.T. department is ultimately responsible for the provisioning of servers, databases, middleware and applications, to a world where the consumers of I.T. resources can provision their infrastructure, platforms and even complete application stacks on demand. Switching from an admin-driven provisioning model to a user-driven model creates some challenges. How do you ensure that users provisioning resources will not provision more than they need? How do you encourage users to return resources when they have finished with them so that others can use them? While chargeback has existed as a concept for many years (especially in mainframe environments), it is the move to this self-service model that has created a need for a new breed of chargeback applications for cloud. Enabling self-service without some form of chargeback is like opening a shop where all of the goods are free. A successful chargeback solution will be able to allocate the costs of shared I.T. infrastructure based on the relative consumption by the users. Doing this creates transparency between the I.T. department and the consumers of I.T. When users are able to understand how their consumption translates to cost they are much more likely to be prudent when it comes to their use of I.T. resources. This also gives them control of their I.T. costs, as moderate usage will translate to a lower charge at the end of the month. Implementing Chargeback successfully create a win-win situation for I.T. and the consumers. Chargeback can help to ensure that I.T. resources are used for activities that deliver business value. It also improves the overall utilization of I.T. infrastructure as I.T. resources that are not needed are not left running idle. Enterprise Manager 12c provides an integrated metering and chargeback solution for Enterprise Manager Targets. This solution is built on top of the rich configuration and utilization information already available in Enterprise Manager. It provides metering not just for virtual machines, but also for physical hosts, databases and middleware. Enterprise Manager 12c provides metering based on the utilization and configuration of the following types of Enterprise Manager Target: Oracle VM Host Oracle Database Oracle WebLogic Server Using Enterprise Manager Chargeback, administrators are able to create a set of Charge Plans that are used to attach prices to the various metered resources. These plans can contain fixed costs (eg. $10/month/database), configuration based costs (eg. $10/month if OS is Windows) and utilization based costs (eg. $0.05/GB of Memory/hour) The self-service user provisioning these resources is then able to view a report that details their usage and helps them understand how this usage translates into cost. Armed with this information, the user is able to determine if the resources are delivering adequate business value based on what is being charged. Figure 1: Chargeback in Self-Service Portal Enterprise Manager 12c provides a variety of additional interfaces into this data. The administrator can access summary and trending reports. Summary reports allow the administrator to drill-down through the cost center hierarchy to identify, for example, the top resource consumers across the organization. Figure 2: Charge Summary Report Trending reports can be used for I.T. planning and budgeting as they show utilization and charge trends over a period of time. Figure 3: CPU Trend Report We also provide chargeback reports through BI Publisher. This provides a way for users who do not have an Enterprise Manager login (such as Line of Business managers) to view charge and usage information. For situations where a bill needs to be produced, chargeback can be integrated with billing applications such as Oracle Billing and Revenue Management (BRM). Further information on Enterprise Manager 12c’s integrated metering and chargeback: White Paper Screenwatch Cloud Management on OTN

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• Identity in .NET 4.5&ndash;Part 3: (Breaking) changes

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  I recently started porting a private build of Thinktecture.IdentityModel to .NET 4.5 and noticed a number of changes. The good news is that I can delete large parts of my library because many features are now in the box. Along the way I found some other nice additions. ClaimsIdentity now has methods to query the claims collection, e.g. HasClaim(), FindFirst(), FindAll(). ClaimsPrincipal has those methods as well. But they work across all contained identities. Nice! ClaimsPrincipal.Current retrieves the ClaimsPrincipal from Thread.CurrentPrincipal. Combined with the above changes, no casting necessary anymore. SecurityTokenHandler now has read and write methods that work directly with strings. This makes it much easier to deal with non-XML tokens like SWT or JWT. A new session security token handler that uses the ASP.NET machine key to protect the cookie. This makes it easier to get started in web farm scenarios. No need for a custom service host factory or the federation behavior anymore. WCF can be switched into “WIF mode” with the useIdentityConfiguration switch (odd name though). Tooling has become better and the new test STS makes it very easy to get started. On the other hand – and that was kind of expected – to bring claims into the core framework, there are also some breaking changes for WIF code. If you want to migrate (and I would recommend that), most changes to your code are mechanical. The following is a brain dump of the changes I encountered. Assembly Microsoft.IdentityModel is gone. The new functionality is now in mscorlib, System.IdentityModel(.Services) and System.ServiceModel. All the namespaces have changed as well. No IClaimsPrincipal and IClaimsIdentity anymore. Configuration section has been split into <system.identityModel /> and <system.identityModel.services />. WCF configuration story has changed as well. Claim.ClaimType is now Claim.Type. ClaimCollection is now IEnumerable<Claim>. IsSessionMode is now IsReferenceMode. Bootstrap token handling is different now. ClaimsPrincipalHttpModule is gone. This is not really needed anymore, apart from maybe claims transformation (see here). Various factory methods on ClaimsPrincipal are gone (e.g. ClaimsPrincipal.CreateFromIdentity()). SecurityTokenHandler.ValidateToken now returns a ReadOnlyCollection<ClaimsIdentity>. Some lower level helper classes are gone or internal now (e.g. KeyGenerator). The WCF WS-Trust bindings are gone. I think this is a pity. They were *really* useful when doing work with WSTrustChannelFactory. Since WIF is part of the Windows operating system and also supported in future versions of .NET, there is no urgent need to migrate to the 4.5 claims model. But obviously, going forward, at some point you want to make the move.

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• glutPostRedisplay() does not update display

  - by A D

  I am currently drawing a rectangle to the screen and would like to move it by using the arrow keys. However, when I press an arrow key the vertex data changes but the display does refresh to reflect these changes, even though I am calling glutPostRedisplay(). Is there something else that I must do? My code: #include <GL/glew.h> #include <GL/freeglut.h> #include <GL/freeglut_ext.h> #include <iostream> #include "Shaders.h" using namespace std; const int NUM_VERTICES = 6; const GLfloat POS_Y = -0.1; const GLfloat NEG_Y = -0.01; struct Vertex { GLfloat x; GLfloat y; Vertex() : x(0), y(0) {} Vertex(GLfloat givenX, GLfloat givenY) : x(givenX), y(givenY) {} }; Vertex left_paddle[NUM_VERTICES]; void init() { glClearColor(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); left_paddle[0] = Vertex(-0.95f, 0.95f); left_paddle[1] = Vertex(-0.95f, 0.0f); left_paddle[2] = Vertex(-0.85f, 0.95f); left_paddle[3] = Vertex(-0.85f, 0.95f); left_paddle[4] = Vertex(-0.95f, 0.0f); left_paddle[5] = Vertex(-0.85f, 0.0f); GLuint vao; glGenVertexArrays( 1, &vao ); glBindVertexArray( vao ); GLuint buffer; glGenBuffers(1, &buffer); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, buffer); glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(left_paddle), NULL, GL_STATIC_DRAW); GLuint program = init_shaders( "vshader.glsl", "fshader.glsl" ); glUseProgram( program ); GLuint loc = glGetAttribLocation( program, "vPosition" ); glEnableVertexAttribArray( loc ); glVertexAttribPointer( loc, 2, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, 0); glBindVertexArray(vao); } void movePaddle(Vertex* array, GLfloat change) { for(int i = 0; i < NUM_VERTICES; i++) { array[i].y = array[i].y + change; } glutPostRedisplay(); } void special( int key, int x, int y ) { switch ( key ) { case GLUT_KEY_DOWN: movePaddle(left_paddle, NEG_Y); break; } } void display() { glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 6); glutSwapBuffers(); } int main(int argc, char **argv) { glutInit(&argc, argv); glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_RGB); glutInitWindowSize(500,500); glutCreateWindow("Rectangle"); glewInit(); init(); glutDisplayFunc(display); glutSpecialFunc(special); glutMainLoop(); return 0; }

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• Is my implementation of A* wrong?

  - by Bloodyaugust

  I've implemented the A* algorithm in my program. However, it would seem to be functioning incorrectly at times. Below is a screenshot of one such time. The obviously shorter line is to go immediately right at the second to last row. Instead, they move down, around the tower, and continue to their destination (bottom right from top left). Below is my actual code implementation: nodeMap.prototype.findPath = function(p1, p2) { var openList = []; var closedList = []; var nodes = this.nodes; for (var i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++) { //reset heuristics and parents for nodes var curNode = nodes[i]; curNode.f = 0; curNode.g = 0; curNode.h = 0; curNode.parent = null; if (curNode.pathable === false) { closedList.push(curNode); } } openList.push(this.getNode(p1)); while(openList.length > 0) { // Grab the lowest f(x) to process next var lowInd = 0; for(i=0; i<openList.length; i++) { if(openList[i].f < openList[lowInd].f) { lowInd = i; } } var currentNode = openList[lowInd]; if (currentNode === this.getNode(p2)) { var curr = currentNode; var ret = []; while(curr.parent) { ret.push(curr); curr = curr.parent; } return ret.reverse(); } closedList.push(currentNode); for (i = 0; i < openList.length; i++) { //remove currentNode from openList if (openList[i] === currentNode) { openList.splice(i, 1); break; } } for (i = 0; i < currentNode.neighbors.length; i++) { if(closedList.indexOf(currentNode.neighbors[i]) !== -1 ) { continue; } if (currentNode.neighbors[i].isPathable === false) { closedList.push(currentNode.neighbors[i]); continue; } var gScore = currentNode.g + 1; // 1 is the distance from a node to it's neighbor var gScoreIsBest = false; if (openList.indexOf(currentNode.neighbors[i]) === -1) { //save g, h, and f then save the current parent gScoreIsBest = true; currentNode.neighbors[i].h = currentNode.neighbors[i].heuristic(this.getNode(p2)); openList.push(currentNode.neighbors[i]); } else if (gScore < currentNode.neighbors[i].g) { //current g better than previous g gScoreIsBest = true; } if (gScoreIsBest) { currentNode.neighbors[i].parent = currentNode; currentNode.neighbors[i].g = gScore; currentNode.neighbors[i].f = currentNode.neighbors[i].g + currentNode.neighbors[i].h; } } } return false; } Towers block pathability. Is there perhaps something I am missing here, or does A* not always find the shortest path in a situation such as this? Thanks in advance for any help.

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• SDL Bullet Movement

  - by Code Assasssin

  I'm currently working on my first space shooter, and I'm in the process of making my ship shoot some bullets/lasers. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time getting the bullets to fly vertically. I'm a total noob when it comes to this so you might have a hard time understanding my code :/ // Position Bullet Function projectilex = x + 17; projectiley = y + -20; if(keystates[SDLK_SPACE]) { alive = true; } And here's my show function if(alive) { if(frame == 2) { frame = 0; } apply_surface(projectilex,projectiley,ShootStuff,screen,&lazers[frame]); frame++; projectiley + 1; } I'm trying to get the bullet to fly vertically... and I have no clue how to do that. I've tried messing with the y coordinate but that makes things worse. The laser/bullet just follows the ship :( How would I get it to fire at the starting position and keep going in a vertical line without it following the ship? int main( int argc, char* args[] ) { Player p; Timer fps; bool quit = false; if( init() == false ) { return 1; } //Load the files if( load_files() == false ) { return 1; } clip[ 0 ].x = 0; clip[ 0 ].y = 0; clip[ 0 ].w = 30; clip[ 0 ].h = 36; clip[ 1 ].x = 31; clip[ 1 ].y = 0; clip[ 1 ].w = 39; clip[ 1 ].h = 36; clip[ 2 ].x = 71; clip[ 2 ].y = 0; clip[ 2 ].w = 29; clip[ 2 ].h = 36; lazers [ 0 ].x = 0; lazers [ 0 ].y = 0; lazers [ 0 ].w = 3; lazers [ 0 ].h = 9; lazers [ 1 ].x = 5; lazers [ 1 ].y = 0; lazers [ 1 ].w = 3; lazers [ 1 ].h = 7; while( quit == false ) { fps.start(); //While there's an event to handle while( SDL_PollEvent( &event ) ) { p.handle_input(); //If a key was pressed //If the user has Xed out the window if( event.type == SDL_QUIT ) { //Quit the program quit = true; } } //Scroll background bgX -= 8; //If the background has gone too far if( bgX <= -GameBackground->w ) { //Reset the offset bgX = 0; } p.move(); apply_surface( bgX, bgY,GameBackground, screen ); apply_surface( bgX + GameBackground->w, bgY, GameBackground, screen ); apply_surface(0,0, FullHealthBar,screen); p.shoot(); p.show(); //Apply the message //Update the screen if( SDL_Flip( screen ) == -1 ) { return 1; } SDL_Flip(GameBackground); if( fps.get_ticks() < 1000 / FRAMES_PER_SECOND ) { SDL_Delay( ( 1000 / FRAMES_PER_SECOND ) - fps.get_ticks() ); } } //Clean up clean_up(); return 0; }

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• Multiple Zend application code organisation

  - by user966936

  For the past year I have been working on a series of applications all based on the Zend framework and centered on a complex business logic that all applications must have access to even if they don't use all (easier than having multiple library folders for each application as they are all linked together with a common center). Without going into much detail about what the project is specifically about, I am looking for some input (as I am working on the project alone) on how I have "grouped" my code. I have tried to split it all up in such a way that it removes dependencies as much as possible. I'm trying to keep it as decoupled as I logically can, so in 12 months time when my time is up anyone else coming in can have no problem extending on what I have produced. Example structure: applicationStorage\ (contains all applications and associated data) applicationStorage\Applications\ (contains the applications themselves) applicationStorage\Applications\external\ (application grouping folder) (contains all external customer access applications) applicationStorage\Applications\external\site\ (main external customer access application) applicationStorage\Applications\external\site\Modules\ applicationStorage\Applications\external\site\Config\ applicationStorage\Applications\external\site\Layouts\ applicationStorage\Applications\external\site\ZendExtended\ (contains extended Zend classes specific to this application example: ZendExtended_Controller_Action extends zend_controller_Action ) applicationStorage\Applications\external\mobile\ (mobile external customer access application different workflow limited capabilities compared to full site version) applicationStorage\Applications\internal\ (application grouping folder) (contains all internal company applications) applicationStorage\Applications\internal\site\ (main internal application) applicationStorage\Applications\internal\mobile\ (mobile access has different flow and limited abilities compared to main site version) applicationStorage\Tests\ (contains PHP unit tests) applicationStorage\Library\ applicationStorage\Library\Service\ (contains all business logic, services and servicelocator; these are completely decoupled from Zend framework and rely on models' interfaces) applicationStorage\Library\Zend\ (Zend framework) applicationStorage\Library\Models\ (doesn't know services but is linked to Zend framework for DB operations; contains model interfaces and model datamappers for all business objects; examples include Iorder/IorderMapper, Iworksheet/IWorksheetMapper, Icustomer/IcustomerMapper) (Note: the Modules, Config, Layouts and ZendExtended folders are duplicated in each application folder; but i have omitted them as they are not required for my purposes.) For the library this contains all "universal" code. The Zend framework is at the heart of all applications, but I wanted my business logic to be Zend-framework-independent. All model and mapper interfaces have no public references to Zend_Db but actually wrap around it in private. So my hope is that in the future I will be able to rewrite the mappers and dbtables (containing a Models_DbTable_Abstract that extends Zend_Db_Table_Abstract) in order to decouple my business logic from the Zend framework if I want to move my business logic (services) to a non-Zend framework environment (maybe some other PHP framework). Using a serviceLocator and registering the required services within the bootstrap of each application, I can use different versions of the same service depending on the request and which application is being accessed. Example: all external applications will have a service_auth_External implementing service_auth_Interface registered. Same with internal aplications with Service_Auth_Internal implementing service_auth_Interface Service_Locator::getService('Auth'). I'm concerned I may be missing some possible problems with this. One I'm half-thinking about is a config.ini file for all externals, then a separate application config.ini overriding or adding to the global external config.ini. If anyone has any suggestions I would be greatly appreciative. I have used contextswitching for AJAX functions within the individual applications, but there is a big chance both external and internal will get web services created for them. Again, these will be separated due to authorization and different available services. \applicationstorage\Applications\internal\webservice \applicationstorage\Applications\external\webservice

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• The new direction of the gaming industry

  - by raccoon_tim

  Just recently I read a great blog post by David Darling, the founder of Codemasters: http://www.develop-online.net/blog/347/Jurassic-consoles-could-become-extinct. In the blog post he talks about how traditional retail games are experiencing a downfall thanks to the increasing popularity of digital distribution. I personally think of retail games as being relics of the past. It does not really make much sense to still keep distributing boxed games when the same game can be elegantly downloaded and updated over the air through a digital distribution channel. The world is not all rainbows, however. One big issue with mixing digital distribution with boxed retail games is that resellers will not condone you selling your game for 10€ digitally while their selling the same game for 70€. The only way to get around this issue is to move to full digital distribution. This has the added benefit of minimizing piracy as the game can be tightly bound to the service you downloaded the game from. Many players are, however, complaining about not being able to play the games offline. Having games tightly bound to the internet is a problem when games are bought from a retailer as we tend to expect that once we have the product we can use it anywhere because we physically own it. The truth is that we don’t actually own the product. Instead, the typical EULA actually states that we only have a license to use the product. We’re not, for instance, allowed to disassemble the product, which the owner is indeed permitted to do. Digital distribution allows us to provide games as services, instead of selling them as standalone products. This means that for a service to work you have to be connected to the internet but you still have the same rights to use the product. It’s really straightforward; if you downloaded a client from the internet you are expected to have an internet connection so you’re able to connect to the server. A game distributed digitally that is built using a client-server architecture has the added benefit of allowing you to play anywhere as long as you have the client installed and you are able to log in with your user information. Your save games can be backed up and your game can continue anywhere. Another development we’re seeing in the gaming industry is the increasing popularity of free-to-play games. These are games that let you play for free but allow you to boost your gaming experience with real world money. The nature of these games is that players are constantly rewarded with new content and the game can evolve according to their way of playing and their wishes can be incorporated into the product. Free-to-play games can quickly gain a large player basis and monetization is done by providing players valuable things to buy making their gaming experience more fun. I am personally very excited about free-to-play games as it’s possible to start building the game together with your players and there is no need to work on the game for 5 years from start to finish and only then see if it’s actually something the players like. This is a typical problem with big movie-like retail games and recent news about Radical Entertainment practically closing its doors paints a clear picture of what can happen when the risk does not pay off: http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/25874/Prototype-Developer-Radical-Entertainment-Closes/.

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• Is changing my job now a wise decision? [closed]

  - by FlaminPhoenix

  First a little background about myself. I am a javascript programmer with 3.8 years of experience. I joined my current company a year and 3 months ago, and I was recruited as a javascript programmer. I was under the impression I was a programmer in a programming team but this was not the case. No one else except me and my manager knows anything about programming in my team. The other two teammates, copy paste stuff from websites into excel sheets. I was told I was being recruited for a new project, and it was true. The only problem was that the server side language they were using was PHP. They were using a popular library with PHP, and I had never worked with PHP before. Nevertheless, I learnt it well enough to get things working, and received high praise from my boss's boss on whichever project I worked on. Words like "wow" , "This looks great, the clients gonna be impressed with this." were sprinkled every now and then on reviewing my work. They even managed to sell my work to a couple of clients and as I understand, both of my projects are going to fetch them a pretty buck. The problem: I was asked to move into a project which my manager was handling. I asked them for training on the project which never came, and sure enough I couldnt complete my first task on the new project without shortcomings. I told my manager there were things I didnt know how to get done in the new project due to lack of training. His project had 0 documentation. I was told he would "take care" of everything relating to those shortcomings. In the meantime, I was asked to switch to another project. My manager made the necessary changes and later told me that the build had "broken" on the production server and that I needed to "test" my changes before saying things were done. I never deployed it on the production server. He did. I never saw / had the opportunity to see the final build before it went to production. He called me for a separate meeting and started pointing fingers at me, but I took full responsibility even if I didnt have to. He later on got on a call with his boss, in my presence, and gave him the impression that it was all my fault. I did not confront him about this so far. I have worked late / done overtime without them asking a lot, but last week, I just got home from work, and I got calls asking me to solve an issue which till then they had kept quiet about even though they were informed about it. I asked my manager why I hadnt been tasked with this when I was in office. He started telling me which statements to put where, as if to mock me, and that this "is hardly an overtime issue" and this pissed me off. Also, during the previous meeting, he was constantly talking highly about his work, at the same time trying to demean mine. In the meantime, I have attended an interview with another MNC, and the interviewers there were fully respectful of my decision to leave my current company. Its a software company, so I can expect my colleagues to know a lot more than me. Im told I can expect their offer anytime this week. My questions: Is my anger towards my manager justified? While leaving, do I tell him that its because of his actions that Im leaving? Do I erupt in anger and tell him that he shouldnt have put the blame on me since he was the one doing the deployment? This is going to be my second resignation to this company. The first time I wanted to resign, I was asked to stay back and my manager promised a lot of changes, a couple of which were made. How do I keep myself from getting into such situations with my employers in the future?

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• 12.10 unable to install or even run from Live CD with nVidia GTX 580

  - by user99056

  I've used Ubuntu in the past (set up as web server, etc over in Iraq), so I'm not a 100% Linux Noob, however, I'm running into a brick wall here. I've got a machine I built when I got back to the US earlier this year, running Windows 7 Ultimate on it, and I've now got some free time and would like to transition over to Ubuntu full time. I've searched around in the forums, and there seems to be an issue with the nVidia graphics cards, so I've tried going to the EVGA site to see if I could find a new BIOS update for it and had no luck, so I'm back searching the forums here again and decided to just go ahead and post my question. My apologies if this is covered in another post and I was just unable to find it. I've found a few 'similar' posts, but nothing as bad as my issue. With the history aside, here is the actual detailed issue: I purchased a new SSD (Intel 520 SSD), arrived today, and I disconnect my old Windows 7 SSD. I had pre downloaded the ubuntu-12.10-desktop-amd64 earlier today and burned it to DVD. Upon inserting the Live CD into the computer and booting up, everything was fine up to the 'Run From Live CD' or 'Install Ubuntu Now' buttons. As I was sure I wanted to go ahead and make the switch, I selected the 'Install Now' from the right hand side. CD Spins up, black window pops up, and then the errors started: date/time GPU Lockup date/time Failed to idle channel 1 date/time PFIFO - playlist update failed date/time Failed to idle channel 2 date/time PFIFO - playlist update failed Thinking it might correct itself, I let it run and it would swap over to a GUI Screen that was locked up with major blurring/etc, then back to the command line with the errors. Eventually it said something along the lines of 'unknown status' and switched back to the GUI and froze. So, that's when I tried to see if I could find a BIOS upgrade for the nVidia GTX580 cards, and had no luck. So I thought, why not try to just run it from the Live CD and see if I can at least get a look at it, maybe if I could get it running try to do some sort of install from there and fix the driver issue. I rebooted, brought up the Live CD, and this time chose the left option / run from the CD. It brought me all the way in to the desktop, I saw my drives, the other icons, could move the mouse, etc for about 30 seconds and then it locked up completely. I've tried this a couple of times and get the same results every time. Hardware: Intel i7-3930K CPU @ 3.2GHz (12 CPUs) / MSI MS-7760 Motherboard / 32GB RAM / 2 x EVGA (nVidia) GeForce GTX 580 (4GB Ram each) So the question is: Is there any way to install 12.10 if you can't even get the Live CD to run (for more than 30 seconds)? My current hardware configuration is both of the GTX 580 cards have an SLI jumper on them, and I have 2 monitors on each card. (Ubuntu info obviously only shows on the main monitor from the failed installation and the attempt at running the Live CD). Perhaps opening the machine back up and removing the SLI Jumper and removing the other 3 monitors (so it only would have 1 video card with one monitor on it) would actually allow me to get 12.10 installed, then I could work on an nVidia Video Driver fix for the GTX 580, and then possibly hook up the other video card and monitors? Or is this something that they are currently aware of and may update with a future release in the next few days/weeks? Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as I can't even try to fix the issue (assuming it is the nVidia drivers) if I can't even get it to install at all.

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• A programmer who doesn't get to program - where to turn? [closed]

  - by Just an Anon

  I'm in my mid 20's, and have been working as a full time programmer / developer for the last ~6 years, with several years of part-time freelancing before this, and three straight years of freelancing in the middle of this short career. I work mostly with PHP and the Drupal framework. By and large, I focus on programming custom pieces of functionality; these, of course, vary greatly from project to project. I've got years of solid experience with OOP (have done some Java & C# years ago, too) including intensive experience with front-end development, and even some design work. I've lead small teams (2-4 people) of developers. And of course, given the large amount of freelancing, I've got decent project- & client-management skills. My problem is staying motivated at any place of employment. In the time mentioned I've worked (full-time) at six local companies. The longest I've stayed at any company was just over a year. I find that I'll get hired and be very excited and motivated for the first few months, but the work quickly gets "stale." By that I mean that the interesting components (ie. the programming) get done, and the rest of the work turns into boring cleanup (move a button, add text, change colours, add a field). I don't get challenged, and I don't feel like I'm learning anything new. This happens repeatedly time and time again, and I always end up leaving for either a new opportunity, or to freelance. I'm wondering if perhaps I've painted myself into a corner with the rather niche work market (although with very high demand and good compensation) and need to explore other career choices. Another possibility is that I may be choosing the wrong places of employment, mostly small agencies, and need to look into working for a larger, more established firm. I find programming, writing code, and architecting solutions very rewarding. When I'm working on an interesting problem I lose all sense of time and 14-16 hours can fly by like minutes. I get the same exciting feeling when I'm doing high-level planning of a complex system, breaking up the work and figuring out how everything will tie-in together. I absolutely hate doing small, "stupid" changes that pose no challenge, yet seem to make up more and more of my work. I want to find a workplace where I will get to work on such tasks, be challenged, and improve in all areas of product development. This maybe a programming job, management, architecture of desktop apps, or may be managing a taco stand on a beach in Mexico - I don't know, and I need some advice and real-world feedback. What are some job areas worth exploring? The requirements are fairly simple: working with computers interacting with others challenging decent pay (I'm making just short of 90k / year with a month of vacation & some benefits, and would like to stay in this range, but am willing to take a temporary cut in pay for a more interesting position) Any advice would be much appreciated!

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• SQL Server Licensing in a VMware vSphere Cluster

  - by Helvick

  If I have SQL Server 2008 instances running in virtual machines on a VMware vSphere cluster with vMotion\DRS enabled so that the VM's can (potentially) run on any one of the physical servers in the cluster what precisely are the license requirements? For example assume that I have 4 physical ESX Hosts with dual physical CPU's and 3 separate single vCPU Virtual Machines running SQL Server 2008 running in that cluster. How many SQL Standard Processor licenses would I need? Is it 3 (one per VM) or 12 (one per VM on each physical host) or something else? How many SQL Enterprise Processor licenses would I need? Is it 3 (one per VM) or 8 (one for each physical CPU in the cluster) or, again, something else? The range in the list prices for these options goes from $17k to $200k so getting it right is quite important. Bonus question: If I choose the Server+CAL licensing model do I need to buy multiple Server instance licenses for each of the ESX hosts (so 12 copies of the SQL Server Standard server license so that there are enough licenses on each host to run all VM's) or again can I just license the VM and what difference would using Enterprise per server licensing make? Edited to Add Having spent some time reading the SQL 2008 Licensing Guide (63 Pages! Includes Maps!*) I've come across this: • Under the Server/CAL model, you may run unlimited instances of SQL Server 2008 Enterprise within the server farm, and move those instances freely, as long as those instances are not running on more servers than the number of licenses assigned to the server farm. • Under the Per Processor model, you effectively count the greatest number of physical processors that may support running instances of SQL Server 2008 Enterprise at any one time across the server farm and assign that number of Processor licenses And earlier: ..For SQL Server, these rule changes apply to SQL Server 2008 Enterprise only. By my reading this means that for my 3 VM's I only need 3 SQL 2008 Enterprise Processor Licenses or one copy of Server Enterprise + CALs for the cluster. By implication it means that I have to license all processors if I choose SQL 2008 Standard Processor licensing or that I have to buy a copy of SQL Server 2008 Standard for each ESX host if I choose to use CALs. *There is a map to demonstrate that a Server Farm cannot extend across an area broader than 3 timezones unless it's in the European Free Trade Area, I wasn't expecting that when I started reading it.

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