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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-09-07

  - 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. Wednesday September 12, 2012 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Boston Marriott Burlington, One Burlington Mall Road, Burlington, MA 01803 Attend OTN Architect Day in Los Angeles – by Architects, for Architects – October 25 The OTN Architect Day roadshow stops in Boston next week, then it's on to Los Angeles for another all architecture, all day event on Thursday October 25, 2012 at the Sofitel Los Angeles, 555 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048. Like all Architect Day events, this one is absolutley free, so register now. Webcast: Oracle WebCenter in Action: Hitachi Data Systems Catch this live webcast on Thursday, September 13, 2012 (10am PT / 1pm ET) to learn from speakers from Hitachi Data Systems, LingoTek, and Oracle about how Hitachi used Oracle WebCenter to improve the web experience for its international customers. Article Index: Architect Community Column in Oracle Magazine Did you know that Oracle Magazine features a regular column devoted specifically to the architect community? Every column includes insight and expertise from architects who regularly deal with the issues architects face. Click here to see a complete list of articles. ADF EMG Sunday at OOW 2012 (30. Sep 2012) - A day full of content | Frank Nimphius Frank Nimphius's shares details on Chris Muir's ADF EMG series of sessions during User Group Sunday at OOW, Sept 30, in Moscone West room 305. The Role of Oracle VM Server for SPARC in a Virtualization Strategy New OTN article from Matthias Pfützner. Countdown to Oracle OpenWorld 2012 | Oracle WebCenter Blog A helpful list of OOW sessions focused on Oracle WebCenter. Oracle Exalogic X2-2 walkthrough | Jan van Zoggel "For those of us not lucky enough to have one at home," Jan van Zoggel recommends this "very cool" video featuring "a detailed walkthrough explaining each component of a Oracle Exalogic X2-2 machine," presented by Oracle Exalogic VP Development Brad Cameron. September OTN Member Offers | OTN Blog Save big on books from top tech publishers with these discounts for OTN members. Thought for the Day "Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday." — Unknown Source: Quote Garden

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• The Case of the Missing Date/Time Stamp: Reporting Services 2008 R2 Snapshots

  - by smisner

  This week I stumbled upon an undocumented “feature” in SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services as I was preparing a demonstration on how to set up and use report snapshots. If you’re familiar with the main changes in this latest release of Reporting Services, you probably already know that Report Manager got a facelift this time around. Although this facelift was generally a good thing, one of the casualties – in my opinion – is the loss of the snapshot label that served two purposes… First, it flagged the report as a snapshot. Second, it let you know when that snapshot was created. As part of my standard operating procedure when demonstrating report snapshots, I point out this label, so I was rather taken aback when I didn’t see it in the demonstration I was preparing. It sort of upset my routine, and I’m rather partial to my routines. I thought perhaps I wasn’t looking in the right place and changed Report Manager from Tile View to Detail View, but no – that label was still missing. In the grand scheme of life, it’s not an earth-shattering change, but you’ll have to look at the Modified Date in Details View to know when the snapshot was run. Or hope that the report developer included a textbox to show the execution time in the report. (Hint: this is a good time to add this to your list of report development best practices, whether a report gets set up as a report snapshot or not!) A snapshot from the past In case you don’t remember how a snapshot appeared in Report Manager back in the old days (of SQL Server 2008 and earlier), here’s an image I snagged from my Reporting Services 2008 Step by Step manuscript: A snapshot in the present A report server running in SharePoint integrated mode had no such label. There you had to rely on the Report Modified date-time stamp to know the snapshot execution time. So I guess all platforms are now consistent. Here’s a screenshot of Report Manager in the 2008 R2 version. One of these is a snapshot and the rest execute on demand. Can you tell which is the snapshot? Consider descriptions as an alternative So my report snapshot demonstration has one less step, and I’ll need to edit the Denali version of the Step by Step book. Things are simpler this way, but I sure wish we had an easier way to identify the execution methods of the reports. Consider using the description field to alert users that the report is a snapshot. It might save you a few questions about why the data isn’t up-to-date if the users know that something changed in the source of the report. Notice that the full description doesn’t display in Tile View, so keep it short and sweet or instruct users to open Details View to see the entire description.

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• Single Responsibility Principle Implementation

  - by Mike S

  In my spare time, I've been designing a CMS in order to learn more about actual software design and architecture, etc. Going through the SOLID principles, I already notice that ideas like "MVC", "DRY", and "KISS", pretty much fall right into place. That said, I'm still having problems deciding if one of two implementations is the best choice when it comes to the Single Responsibility Principle. Implementation #1: class User getName getPassword getEmail // etc... class UserManager create read update delete class Session start stop class Login main class Logout main class Register main The idea behind this implementation is that all user-based actions are separated out into different classes (creating a possible case of the aptly-named Ravioli Code), but following the SRP to a "tee", almost literally. But then I thought that it was a bit much, and came up with this next implementation class UserView extends View getLogin //Returns the html for the login screen getShortLogin //Returns the html for an inline login bar getLogout //Returns the html for a logout button getRegister //Returns the html for a register page // etc... as needed class UserModel extends DataModel implements IDataModel // Implements no new methods yet, outside of the interface methods // Haven't figured out anything special to go here at the moment // All CRUD operations are handled by DataModel // through methods implemented by the interface class UserControl extends Control implements IControl login logout register startSession stopSession class User extends DataObject getName getPassword getEmail // etc... This is obviously still very organized, and still very "single responsibility". The User class is a data object that I can manipulate data on and then pass to the UserModel to save it to the database. All the user data rendering (what the user will see) is handled by UserView and it's methods, and all the user actions are in one space in UserControl (plus some automated stuff required by the CMS to keep a user logged in or to ensure that they stay out.) I personally can't think of anything wrong with this implementation either. In my personal feelings I feel that both are effectively correct, but I can't decide which one would be easier to maintain and extend as life goes on (despite leaning towards Implementation #1.) So what about you guys? What are your opinions on this? Which one is better? What basics (or otherwise, nuances) of that principle have I missed in either design?

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• Use your own domain email and tired of SPAM? SPAMfighter FTW

  - by Dave Campbell

  I wouldn't post this if I hadn't tried it... and I paid for it myself, so don't anybody be thinking I'm reviewing something someone sent me! Long ago and far away I got very tired of local ISPs and 2nd phone lines and took the plunge and got hooked up to cable... yeah I know the 2nd phone line concept may be hard for everyone to understand, but that's how it was in 'the old days'. To avoid having to change email addresses all the time, I decided to buy a domain name, get minimal hosting, and use that for all email into the house. That way if I changed providers, all the email addresses wouldn't have to change. Of course, about a dozen domains later, I have LOTS of pop email addresses and even an exchange address to my client's server... times have changed. What also has changed is the fact that we get SPAM... 'back in the day' when I was a beta tester for the first ISP in Phoenix, someone tried sending an ad to all of us, and what he got in return for his trouble was a bunch of core dumps that locked up his email... if you don't know what a core dump is, ask your grandfather. But in today's world, we're all much more civilized than that, and as with many things, the criminals seem to have much more rights than we do, so we get inundated with email offering all sorts of wild schemes that you'd have to be brain-dead to accept, but yet... if people weren't accepting them, they'd stop sending them. I keep hoping that survival of the smartest would weed out the mental midgets that respond and then the jumk email stop, but that hasn't happened yet anymore than finding high-quality hearing aids at the checkout line of Safeway because of all the dimwits playing music too loud inside their car... but that's another whole topic and I digress. So what's the solution for all the spam? And I mean *all*... on that old personal email address, I am now getting over 150 spam messages a day! Yes I know that's why God invented the delete key, but I took it on as a challenge, and it's a matter of principle... why should I switch email addresses, or convert from [email protected] to something else, or have all my email filtered through some service just because some A-Hole somewhere has a site up trying to phish Ma & Pa Kettle (ask your grandfather about that too) out of their retirement money? Well... I got an email from my cousin the other day while I was writing yet another email rule, and there was a banner on the bottom of his email that said he was protected by SPAMfighter. SPAMfighter huh.... so I took a look at their site, and found yet one more of the supposed tools to help us. But... I read that they're a Microsoft Gold Partner... and that doesn't come lightly... so I took a gamble and here's what I found: I installed it, and had to do a couple things: 1) SPAMfighter stuffed the SPAMfighter folder into my client's exchange address... I deleted it, made a new SPAMfighter folder where I wanted it to go, then in the SPAMfighter Clients settings for Outlook, I told it to put all spam there. 2) It didn't seem to be doing anything. There's a ribbon button that you can select "Block", and I did that, wondering if I was 'training' it, but it wasn't picking up duplicates 3) I sent email to support, and wrote a post on the forum (not to self: reply to that post). By the time the folks from the home office responded, it was the next day, and first up, SPAMfighter knocked down everything that came through when Outlook opend... two thumbs up! I disabled my 'garbage collection' rule from Outlook, and told Outlook not to use the junk folder thinking it was interfering. 4) Day 2 seemed to go about like Day 1... but I hung in there. 5) Day 3 is now a whole new day... I had left Outlook open and hadn't looked at the PC since sometime late yesterday afternoon, and when I looked this morning, *every bit* of spam was in the SPAMfighter folder!! I'm a new paying customer After watching SPAMfighter work this morning, I've purchased a 1-year license, and I now can sit and watch as emails come in and disappear from my inbox into the SPAMfighter folder. No more continual tweaking of the rules. I've got SPAMfighter set to 'Very Hard' filtering... personally I'd rather pull the few real emails out of the SPAMfighter folder than pull spam out of the real folders. Yes this is simply another way of using the delete key, but you know what? ... it feels good :) Here's a screenshot of the stats after just about 48 hours of being onboard: Note that all the ones blocked by me were during Day 1 and 2... I've blocked none today, and everything is blocked. Stay in the 'Light!

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• Insufficient memory issue during Build Process Customization

  - by jehan

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US ZH-CN X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} When customizing the Build Process Template in Workflow designer, I came across the OutOfMemoryException errors while performing Save as Image and Copy operations: "Insufficient memory to continue execution of program"   Normal 0 false false false EN-US ZH-CN X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} There is a fix available on Microsoft Connect  which has resolved the issue.

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• Vendors: Partners or Salespeople?

  - by BuckWoody

  I got a great e-mail from a friend that asked about how he could foster a better relationship with his vendors. So many times when you work with a vendor it’s more of a used-car sales experience than a partnership – but you can actually make your vendor more of a partner, as long as you both set some ground-rules at the start. Sit down with your vendor, and have a heart-to-heart talk with them, explain that they won’t win every time, but that you’re willing to work with them in an honest way on both sides. Here’s the advice I sent him verbatim. I hope this post generates lots of comments from both customers and vendors. I don’t expect that you’ve had a great experience with your Microsoft reps, but I happen to work with some of the best sales teams in the business, and our clients tell us that all the time. “The key to this relationship is to keep the audience really small. Ideally there should be one person from your side that is responsible for the relationship, and one from the vendor’s side. Each responsible person should have the authority to make decisions, and to bring in other folks as needed for a given topic, project or decision.   For Microsoft, this is called an “Account Manager” – they aren’t technical, they aren’t sales. They “own” a relationship with a company. They learn what the company does, who does it, and how. They are responsible to understand what the challenges in your company are. While they don’t know the bits and bytes of everything we sell, they know what each thing does, and who to talk to about it. I get a call from an Account Manager every week that has pre-digested an issue at an organization and says to me: “I need you to set up an architectural meeting with their technical staff to get a better read on how we can help with problem X.” I do that and then report back to the Account Manager what we learned.  All through this process there’s the atmosphere of a “team”, not a “sales opportunity” per se. I’ve even recommended that the firm use a rival product, and I’ve never gotten push-back on that decision from my Account Managers.   But that brings up an interesting point. Someone pays an Account Manager and pays me. They expect something in return. At some point, you have to buy something. Not every time, not every situation – sometimes it’s just helping you with what you already bought from us. But the point is that you can’t expect lots of love and never spend any money. That’s the way business works.   Finally, don’t view the vendor as someone with their hand in your pocket – somebody that’s just trying to sell you something and doesn’t care if they ever see you again – unless they deserve it. There are plenty of “love them and leave them” companies out there, and you may have even had this experience with us, but that isn’t the case in the firms I work with. In fact, my customers get a questionnaire that asks them that exact question. “How many times have you seen your account team? Did you like your interaction with them? Can they do better?” My raises, performance reviews and general standing in my group are based on the answers the company gives.  Ask your vendor if they measure their sales and support teams this way – if not, seek another vendor to partner with.   Partnering with someone is a big deal. It involves time and effort on your part, and on the vendor’s part. If either of you isn’t pulling your weight, it just won’t work. You have every right to expect them to treat you as a partner, and they have the same right for your side.” Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Are there any drawbacks to the Major.Minor.YMDD.Build version strategy?

  - by Chu

  I'm trying to come up with a good version strategy to fit our specific needs. We've proposed settling on this and I wanted to ask the question to see if anyone's experience would suggest avoiding this or altering it in any way. Here's our proposal: Versions are released in this format: MAJOR.MINOR.YMDD.BN. Here it is broken out: MAJOR & MINOR are typical; we'll increase MINOR when we feel code and new feature sets warrants it; once every few months most likely. MAJOR will increase ~yearly. YMDD: Y will be the last digit of the current year, so "1" for 2011, "2" for 2012, etc. A non-padded month will be used to keep the number smaller (9 instead of 09 for example). DD of course is the day, padded with a zero for days under 10. BN: BN is the build number and increases by one anytime we make a change to a branch of the code represented by the build, for example: If were to make a build today, our release would be version 5.0.1707.1. I release to QA today and 3 days from now QA finds that a change broke the save functionality on a page. Instead of me changing our current development code, I'd go back to the code that I used to create version 5.0.1707.1, make the fix there, then increase the BN portion of the version and would then re-release 5.0.1707.2 back to QA. In short, anytime a change is made to a branched version that isn't the active dev branch, we'd use the original version number and increase only the BN portion (even if the change happened 3 days, 3 weeks or 3 months from the initial release of that version). Anytime we make a new release from our Active dev branch, we'd come up with a new version based on the M/D of the release using the outlined strategy. We do this once every 2-3 weeks. Are there holes or pitfalls with this? If so, what are they? Thanks EDIT To clarify one point that I didn't get out very well - Oct/Nov/Dec will be two digits, it's only the year that won't be. So 9 for Sept, 10 for Oct, 11 for Nov, etc.

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• Managing Your First SharePoint Project or Team

  - by Mark Rackley

  (*editor’s note* If you have proper SharePoint Training, know the difference between a site and a site collection, and have the utmost respect for the knowledge of your SharePoint team skip this blog and go directly to meetdux.com, do not pass go, do not collect $200… otherwise, please proceed) Dear Mr. or Mrs. I-know-nothing-about-SharePoint-but-hey,-I-have-manager-in-my-title-so-I’ll-tell-you-how-to-your-job, Thank you so much for joining the Acme corporation. We appreciate your eagerness and willingness to jump in and help us accomplish all of our goals here at acme (these roadrunner rockets don’t make themselves). You may have noticed that we have this thing called SharePoint lying around and we have invested some time in money to make it not a complete piece of garbage. So, I thought I’d give you some pointers to help make your stay here enjoyable and productive. Yeah… you don’t really know SharePoint Just because you had a mysite at your last organization or had a SharePoint 2003 team site does NOT mean you comprehend the vastness that is SharePoint. You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. You don’t know what should and should not be done. No, we CAN’T just query the SQL database directly. Yes, it really does take that long. No, we can’t do that out-of-the-box. Your experience doesn’t mean as much as you think it means… Yes, I’m aware that you co-created the internet with Al Gore and have been managing projects since I was blowing up GI Joe figures with firecrackers, however SharePoint is not like anything you have worked with before from a management perspective. Please don’t tell us the proper way to do our job or tell us how “you” would do it, and PLEASE don’t utter the words “I used to do some .NET development so let me know if you get stuck and need some guidance.” It MAY be possible for a incredible project manager to manage a SharePoint project and not understand the technology, but if you force your ideas on us or treat us like we don’t really know what we’re doing then you will prove yourself to NOT be one of those types. Oh no you didn’t… Please don’t tell us how you can bring in a group of guys of Kazakhstan to do the project for $20/hr. There are many companies out there who can do some really crappy SharePoint work and we don’t want to be stuck maintaining their junk. Do you know what it means to deploy a solution? Neither do some of those companies out there. However, there are are few AWESOME consulting firms out there but $150/hr is cheap for these guys. Believe me, it’s worth it though. You get what you pay for! Show us some respect We truly do appreciate and value your opinion and experience, but when we tell you something is different in SharePoint don’t be condescending and dismiss OUR experience and opinions. We have spent a lot of time and energy learning a very complicated technology that can open up a world of possibilities when used properly. We just want to make sure it is used properly. It’s not the same as .NET development. It’s not like a regular web application. There’s more going on behind the scenes than you can possibly fathom. Have a little faith in us please and listen when we talk. You may actually learn a thing or two. Take some time to learn the technology There is hope… you don’t have to be totally worthless. Take some time to learn SharePoint. Learn what it is and what it can do. Invest some time in learning our SharePoint environment. What’s our logical architecture and taxonomy? What governance do we have in place? If you just thought “huh?” then yes, I’m talking to you. Sincerely, Your SharePoint Team (This rant is not pointed at any particular organization or person. If you think it’s about you, you are wrong. This is just a general rant based upon things people have told me and things I’ve seen. If you don’t think it applies to you, please move on. If you think you might be guilty of handling your SharePoint team the wrong way, then just please listen, learn, and have a little faith in your team. You all have the same goal in mind. Also, take the time to learn something about SharePoint, you will all be less frustrated with each other.)

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for July 2, 2013

  - by Bob Rhubart

  One Week To Go: OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing - July 9, 2013, Redwood Shores, CA. The first OTN Architect Day event of 2013 happens in just one week, on Tuesday July 9 at the Oracle Conference Center in Redwood Shores, CA. Registration is free and you get three sessions by three experts on cloud computing in the real world — plus a panel Q&A for answers to all of your questions. Register now! Oracle Database 12c: Flashback Moving Forward | Lucas Jellema Oracle ACE Director Lucas Jellema's latest of several recent blog posts dealing with various aspects of the recently released Oracle Database 12c. Detroit, Embracing New Auto Technologies, Seeks App Builders This story from the New York Times paints a rosy picture indeed for app developers as the internet of things continues to evolve. Advanced View Criteria Implementation in ADF BC | Andrejus Baranovskis Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis' post focuses on advanced declarative View Criteria features. JDeveloper: Showing a Popup when Selecting an af:selectOneRadio | Timo Hahn Oracle ACE Timo Hahn illustrates a use case in which a popup is displayed each time the user clicks on one of the radio buttons of a button group. Can Technology Innovation Save The New York Times? One of the standout keynotes from the recent QCon New York event, this presentation by New York Times Sr. VP/CIO Marc Frons and CTO/VP Rajiv Pant paints a detailed portrait of the complete transformation of an organization -- not just the IT. Enterprise architects will find this particularly interesting. Video: Meet Growing IT Demand for Databases with Private DBaaS Do you understand the difference between traditional database deployment and database as a service? If not, you'll want to check out this video, which includes an overview of Oracle Enterprise Manager's capabilities for rapid deployment of DBaaS. S Webcast: Zero-Downtime Migration to Oracle Exadata Using Oracle GoldenGate: A Customer Case Study Presenters Alok Pareek (VP, Product Management/Development, Oracle Data Integration) and John F. Martin (CEO of Emerging Markets and CTO IQNavigator) discuss how IQNavigator is using Oracle GoldenGate with Oracle Exadata. Free eBook: Building a Database Cloud for Dummies This free quick-reference guide, organized into six short chapters and supplemented with helpful illustrations, provides a clear overview of the cloud and step-by-step instructions on deploying database as a service. (Registration required.) Thought for the Day "My motto is: Live every day to the fullest – in moderation." — Lindsay Lohan (Born July 2, 1986) Source: brainyquote.com

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• Remote Workers...We're Not That Bad!

  - by user12601034

  I work from home a lot – my team is located in different cities and countries, my manager is in a different city, and most of our work is done via conference calls, email and collaboration through Oracle Social Network. We’ve figured out how to be effective and involve team members, regardless of where we are all located. When I mention that I work from home, a lot of my friends will laugh, roll their eyes or use their fingers to make quotation marks around “work from home.” Their belief is that I’m sitting at home, eating bon-bons and watching television. The attempts at humor only multiply when they know that my husband also mostly works from home. So, it was with great joy that I read the Lifehacker article Why Remote Workers Are More (Yes, More) Engaged. I’m not going to re-write the article for you, but four highlights from the article include: Proximity breeds complacency –because communicating with employees sitting next to you is so easy, you may not do it well. Absence makes people try harder to connect – because you have to make an effort to connect to your team, you tend to pay better attention when you do connect Leaders of virtual team make better use of tools – when working remotely, you will use technology (many different forms of it) to connect with your team. This daily use of the tools makes you more proficient with those tools Leaders of far-flung teams maximize the time spent together – getting together takes effort, time and money, so leaders tend to filter out distractions when teams do get together. These points made me happy because I’ve seen the same things play out in my team located around the world. And I’m not saying that a virtual team is more effective than a co-located team – but my virtual team doesn’t have the option of filing into a conference room for a face-to-face meeting whenever we want. Instead, we have to figure out how to work effectively without meeting face-to-face. Am I more engaged as a remote worker? I’d like to think that I am. I’ve been on calls with colleagues at 3am – this would never happen if my only option was to be in the office. I can leave my “office” to pick up my kids from school…and I’m willingly back online after kids are in bed to finish up anything I need to. Oracle Social Network lets me use my iPad to engage with my teammates when I’m waiting at music lessons, the doctor’s office or any place else with a network connection. I feel like I’m more connected with my team, and I feel like I’m more connected with my family life. So yes, I am a remote worker, and I am engaged. If you lead a virtual team, I challenge you to increase the ways that you communicate to effectively engage your team. If you are on a virtual team, I challenge you to think about how you might interact with team members to keep both them and yourself engaged in your work. And if you have some great ideas on how to make virtual teams (and workers) effective and engaged, please share those ideas in the comments! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get a bon-bon...   :) Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Becoming the well-integrated content company (and combating AIUTLVFS)

  - by Lance Shaw

  Every single day, each of us create more and more content. Sometimes it is brand new material and many times it is iterations of existing content, but no one would argue that information and content growth is growing at an almost exponential rate. With all this content being created and stored, a number of problems naturally arise. One of the most common issues that users run into is "Am I Using The Latest Version of this File Syndrome", or AIUTLVFS. This insidious syndrome is all too common and results in ineffective, poor or downright wrong business decisions being made.  When content or files are unavailable or incorrect within the scope of key business processes, the chance for erroneous and costly business decisions is magnified even further. For many companies, the ideal scenario is to be able to connect multiple business systems, both old and new, into one common content repository.  Not only does this reduce content duplication, it also helps guarantee that everyone in various departments is working off the proverbial "same page".  Sounds simple - but for many organizations, the proliferation of file shares, SharePoint sites, and other storage silos of content keep the dream of a more efficient business a distant one. We've created some online assets to help you in your evaluation and eventual improvement of your current content management and delivery systems. Take a few minutes to check out our Online Assessment Tool.  It's quick, easy and just might provide you with insights into how you can improve your current content ecosystem. While you are there, check out our new Infographic that outlines common issues faced by companies today. Feel free to save our informative Infographic PDF and share it with business colleagues and your management to help them understand the business costs and impact of inaction. Together we can stop AIUTLVFS in its tracks and run our businesses more effectively than ever. Additionally, we hope you will take a few minutes to visit our new and informative webpages dedicated to the value of a well connected, fully integrated content management system. It's a great place to learn more about how integrating WebCenter Content into your infrastructure can lower your operational costs while boosting process and worker efficiency.

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• What to do when opensource project starts to tear apart? (or a manager tries to write code and than shouts at the team)

  - by Kabumbus

  Imagine there is an open source cross-platform project on Google code. It has lots of revisions (1000). It concentrates in itself lots technological stuff - rare stuff - it mixes top tech. It contains server, and more than one client. The project was created by a well-connected team of developers (friends) and a manager that was sponsoring project at its start up during its first few months (project now is more than a year old-sponsoring oss project is a big good deal- also gave the idea of project to developers). The project was growing in complexity and effort reqiered to continue development. Once upon a time a manager - team leader started trying to write code (he was a programmer in some other projects - not the best, but he felt like he was one). He started because one of the developers suggested an idea at the team meeting and he felt he just needed to do it on his own. He failed, and he told the dev team about it. The dev team did what he failed to do in a few days. After that, the manager feels that team codes with out him perfectly and gets the job done in short time. He felt sorry and lost and he started to crash like an old bad PC. Firstly, he started to scream (in forms of messages not in voice) he tried to tell developers that what they were doing was a bad, not-needed thing - developers kindly told him that his "beginnings" were not compilable while dev team product worked as needed. He told the developers that all work they do should be firstly discussed with him. Here is the part where we need to mention that all team members are "project owners" and logically have equal rights. The team leader suggested to the developers these options: change their dev process to go through him, or be moved from project owners to contributers. So what are our options as developers? What arguments we can provide to the team leader/manager for him to calm down? Is it possible to save the project or is it better to fork out now? An important issue is that lately we had no active ticket system, and I personally think that this was the reason the mess appeared. So... any ideas?

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• NEW: Oracle Certification Exam Preparation Seminars

  - by Harold Green

  Hi Everyone, I am really excited about a new offering that we are announcing this week - Oracle Certification Exam Preparation Seminars. These are something that will make a big difference for many of you in your efforts to become certified and move your career forward. They are also something that have previously only been available (but very popular) to the limited number of customers who have attended our annual conferences in San Francisco (Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne). These are the first in a series of offerings that we are releasing over the next few months. So for those of you either preparing or considering Oracle certification - keep watching here on the blog, Facebook, Twitter and the Oracle Certification website for additional announcements related to our most popular certification areas. Details of the new Exam Preparation Seminars are found below: NEW: ORACLE CERTIFICATION EXAM PREPARATION SEMINARS Becoming Oracle certified is a great way to build your career, gain additional credibility and improve your earning power. We know that the decision to become certified is not trivial. Our surveys indicate that people consider their time investment a critical factor in their decision to become certified. Your time is important. In order to help candidates maximize the efficiency of their study time we are releasing a new series of video-based seminars called Exam Preparation Seminars. These seminars are patterned after the extremely popular Exam Cram sessions that until now have only been available at our annual customer conferences (Oracle Open World and JavaOne). Beginning today they are now available to anyone, anywhere as a part of this Exam Prep Seminar series. Features: Fast-paced objective by objective review of the exam topics - led by top Oracle University instructors 24/7 access through Oracle University's training on demand platform. Ability to re-watch all or part of the the seminar. All the conveniences of video-based training: start, stop, fast-forward, skip, rewind, review. Tips that will help you better understand what you need to know to pass the exam. The Exam Preparation Seminars are meant to help anyone with a working knowledge of the technology get that extra boost to help them finalize their preparation, and will help anyone who wants a better understanding of the the depth and breadth of the exam topics and objectives. Benefits: Save time by understanding what you should study. Makes you efficient because you will understand the breadth and depth of each of the exam topics. Helps you create a better, more efficient study plan. Improves your confidence in your skills and ability to pass the certification exam. Exam Preparation Seminars are available individually, or in convenient Value Packages (which include the Exam Preparation Seminar, and an exam voucher which includes one free-retake if you need it). Currently we are releasing two seminars - one for DBA SQL and one for DBA Administration I. Additional offerings are in process. Find out more: General WEB: Oracle Certification Exam Preparation Seminars VIDEO: Exam Preparation Seminars Promo (1:27) Oracle Database Administration I (11g, 10g) VIDEO: Instructor Introduction (1:08) VIDEO: Sample Video (2:16) Oracle Database SQL VIDEO: Instructor Introduction (1:08) VIDEO: Sample Video (2:16)

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• Is there a pedagogical game engine?

  - by K.G.

  I'm looking for a book, website, or other resource that gives modern 3D game engines the same treatment as Operating Systems: Design and Implementation gave operating systems. I have read Jason Gregory's Game Engine Architecture, which I enjoyed. However, by intent the author treated components of the architecture as atomic units, whereas what I'm interested in is the plumbing between those units that makes a coherent whole out of ideally loosely coupled parts. In books such as these, one usually reads that "that's academic," but that's the point! I have also read Julian Gold's Object-oriented Game Development, which likewise was good, but I feel is beginning to show its age. Since even mobile platforms these days are multicore and have fast video memory, those kinds of things (concurrency, display item buffering) would ideally be covered. There are other resources, such as the Doom 3 source code, which is highly instructive for its being a shipped product. The problem with those is as follows: float Q_rsqrt( float number ) { long i; float x2, y; const float threehalfs = 1.5F; x2 = number * 0.5F; y = number; i = * ( long * ) &y; // evil floating point bit level hacking i = 0x5f3759df - ( i >> 1 ); // what the f***? y = * ( float * ) &i; y = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) ); // 1st iteration // y = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) ); // 2nd iteration, this can be removed return y; } To wit, while brilliant, this kind of source requires more enlightenment than I can usually muster upon first read. In summary, here's my white whale: For an adult reader with experience in programming. I wish I could save all the trees killed by every. Single. Game Programming book ever devoting the first two chapters to "Now just what is a variable anyway?" In C or C++, very preferably C++. Languages that are more concise are fantastic for teaching, except for when what you want to learn is how to cope with a verbose language. There is also the benefit of the guardrails that C++ doesn't provide, such as garbage collection. Platform agnostic. I'm sincerely afraid that this book is out there and it's Visual C++/DirectX oriented. I'm a Linux guy, and I'd do what it takes, but I would very much like to be able to use OpenGL. Thanks for everything! Before anyone gets on my case about it, Fast inverse square root was from Quake III Arena, not Doom 3!

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• How to update off screen bitmap in a surfaceview thread

  - by DKDiveDude

  I have a Surfaceview thread and an off canvas texture bitmap that is being generated (changed), first row (line), every frame and then copied one position (line) down on regular surfaceview bitmap to make a scrolling effect, and I then continue to draw other things on top of that. Well that is what I really want, however I can't get it to work even though I am creating a separate canvas for off screen bitmap. It is just not scrolling at all. I other words I have a memory bitmap, same size as Surfaceview canvas, which I need to scroll (shift) down one line every frame, and then replace top line with new random texture, and then draw that on regular Surfaceview canvas. Here is what I thought would work; My surfaceChanged where I specify bitmap and canvasses and start thread: @Override public void surfaceCreated(SurfaceHolder holder) { intSurfaceWidth = mSurfaceView.getWidth(); intSurfaceHeight = mSurfaceView.getHeight(); memBitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(intSurfaceWidth, intSurfaceHeight, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888); memCanvas = new Canvas(memCanvas); myThread = new MyThread(holder, this); myThread.setRunning(true); blnPause = false; myThread.start(); } My thread, only showing essential middle running part: @Override public void run() { while (running) { c = null; try { // Lock canvas for drawing c = myHolder.lockCanvas(null); synchronized (mSurfaceHolder) { // First draw off screen bitmap to off screen canvas one line down memCanvas.drawBitmap(memBitmap, 0, 1, null); // Create random one line(row) texture bitmap memTexture = Bitmap.createBitmap(imgTexture, 0, rnd.nextInt(intTextureImageHeight), intSurfaceWidth, 1); // Now add this texture bitmap to top of off screen canvas and hopefully bitmap memCanvas.drawBitmap(textureBitmap, intSurfaceWidth, 0, null); // Draw above updated off screen bitmap to regular canvas, at least I thought it would update (save changes) shifting down and add the texture line to off screen bitmap the off screen canvas was pointing to. c.drawBitmap(memBitmap, 0, 0, null); // Other drawing to canvas comes here } finally { // do this in a finally so that if an exception is thrown // during the above, we don't leave the Surface in an // inconsistent state if (c != null) { myHolder.unlockCanvasAndPost(c); } } } } For my game Tunnel Run. Right now I have a working solution where I instead have an array of bitmaps, size of surface height, that I populate with my random texture and then shift down in a loop for each frame. I get 50 frames per second, but I think I can do better by instead scrolling bitmap.

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• Using jQuery to Make a Field Read Only in SharePoint

  - by Mark Rackley

  Okay… this will be my shortest blog post EVER. Very little rambling.. I promise, and I’m sure this has been blogged more than once, so I apologize for adding to the noise, but like I always say, I blog for myself so I have a global bookmark. So,let’s say you have a field on a SharePoint Form and you want to make it read only. You COULD just open it up in SPD and easily make it read only, but some people are purists and don’t like use SPD or modify the default new/edit/disp forms. Put me in the latter camp, I try to avoid modifying these forms and it seemed like such a simple task that I didn’t want to create a new un-ghosted form.  So.. how do you do it? It’s only one line of jQuery. All you need to do is find the id for your input field and capture the keypress on it so that it cannot be modified (you should probably capture clicks for dropdowns/checkboxes/etc. but I didn’t need to).  Anyway, here’s the entire script: <script src="jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> jQuery(document).ready(function($){ //capture keypress on our read only field and return false $('#idOfInputField').keypress(function() { return false; }); }) </script>   You can find the ID of your input field by viewing the source, this ID stays consistent as long as you don’t muck with the list or form in the wrong way.  Please note, you CANNOT disable the input field as an alternative to capturing the keypress. If you do this and save the form, any data in the disabled fields will be wiped out. There are probably a dozen ways to make a field read-only and if all you are using jQuery for is to make a field read-only, then you might want to question your use of adding the overhead (although it’s really not that much). Hey.. it’s another tool for your tool belt.

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• Provocative Tweets From the Dachis Social Business Summit

  - by Mike Stiles

  On June 20, all who follow social business and how social is changing how we do business and internal business structures, gathered in London for the Dachis Social Business Summit. In addition to Oracle SVP Product Development, Reggie Bradford, brands and thought leaders posed some thought-provoking ideas and figures. Here are some of the most oft-tweeted points, and our thoughts that they provoked. Tweet: The winners will be those who use data to improve performance.Thought: Everyone is dwelling on ROI. Why isn’t everyone dwelling on the opportunity to make their product or service better (as if that doesn’t have an effect on ROI)? Big data can improve you…let it. Tweet: High performance hinges on integrated teams that interact with each other.Thought: Team members may work well with each other, but does the team as a whole “get” what other teams are doing? That’s the key to an integrated, companywide workforce. (Internal social platforms can facilitate that by the way). Tweet: Performance improvements come from making the invisible visible.Thought: Many of the factors that drive customer behavior and decisions are invisible. Through social, customers are now showing us what we couldn’t see before…if we’re paying attention. Tweet: Games have continuous feedback, which is why they’re so engaging.  Apply that to business operations.Thought: You think your employees have an obligation to be 100% passionate and engaged at all times about making you richer. Think again. Like customers, they must be motivated. Visible insight that they’re advancing on their goals helps. Tweet: Who can add value to the data?  Data will tend to migrate to where it will be most effective.Thought: Not everybody needs all the data. One team will be able to make sense of, use, and add value to data that may be irrelevant to another team. Like a strategized football play, the data has to get sent to the spot on the field where it’s needed most. Tweet: The sale isn’t the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s the start of a new marketing cycle.Thought: Another reason the ROI question is fundamentally flawed. The sale is not the end of the potential return on investment. After-the-sale service and nurturing begins where the sales “victory” ends. Tweet: A dead sale is one that’s not shared.  People must be incentivized to share.Thought: Guess what, customers now know their value to you as marketers on your behalf. They’ll tell people about your product, but you’ve got to answer, “Why should I?” And you’ve got to answer it with something substantial, not lame trinkets. Tweet: Social user motivations are competition, affection, excellence and curiosity.Thought: Your followers will engage IF; they can get something for doing it, love your culture so much they want you to win, are consistently stunned at the perfection and coolness of your products, or have been stimulated enough to want to know more. Tweet: In Europe, 92% surveyed said they couldn’t care less about brands.Thought: Oh well, so much for loving you or being impressed enough with your products & service that they want you to win. We’ve got a long way to go. Tweet: A complaint is a gift.Thought: Our instinct where complaints are concerned is to a) not listen, b) dismiss the one who complains as a kook, c) make excuses, and d) reassure ourselves with internal group-think that they’re wrong and we’re right. It’s the perfect recipe for how to never, ever grow or get better. In a way, this customer cares more than you do. Tweet: 78% of consumers think peer recommendation is the best form of advertising.  Eventually, engagement is going to eat advertising.Thought: Why is peer recommendation best? Trust. If a friend tells me how great a movie was, I believe him. He has credibility with me. He’s seen it, and he could care less if I buy a ticket. He’s telling me it was awesome because he sincerely believes that it was.  That’s gold. Tweet: 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience. Thought: This “how mad can we make our customers without losing them” strategy has to end. The customer experience has actual monetary value, money you’re probably leaving on the table. @mikestilesPhoto: stock.xchng

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• C-states and P-states : confounding factors for benchmarking

  - by Dave

  I was recently looking into a performance issue in the java.util.concurrent (JUC) fork-join pool framework related to particularly long latencies when trying to wake (unpark) threads in the pool. Eventually I tracked the issue down to the power & scaling governor and idle-state policies on x86. Briefly, P-states refer to the set of clock rates (speeds) at which a processor can run. C-states reflect the possible idle states. The deeper the C-state (higher numerical values) the less power the processor will draw, but the longer it takes the processor to respond and exit that sleep state on the next idle to non-idle transition. In some cases the latency can be worse than 100 microseconds. C0 is normal execution state, and P0 is "full speed" with higher Pn values reflecting reduced clock rates. C-states are P-states are orthogonal, although P-states only have meaning at C0. You could also think of the states as occupying a spectrum as follows : P0, P1, P2, Pn, C1, C2, ... Cn, where all the P-states are at C0. Our fork-join framework was calling unpark() to wake a thread from the pool, and that thread was being dispatched onto a processor at deep C-state, so we were observing rather impressive latencies between the time of the unpark and the time the thread actually resumed and was able to accept work. (I originally thought we were seeing situations where the wakee was preempting the waker, but that wasn't the case. I'll save that topic for a future blog entry). It's also worth pointing out that higher P-state values draw less power and there's usually some latency in ramping up the clock (P-states) in response to offered load. The issue of C-states and P-states isn't new and has been described at length elsewhere, but it may be new to Java programmers, adding a new confounding factor to benchmarking methodologies and procedures. To get stable results I'd recommend running at C0 and P0, particularly for server-side applications. As appropriate, disabling "turbo" mode may also be prudent. But it also makes sense to run with the system defaults to understand if your application exhibits any performance sensitivity to power management policies. The operating system power management sub-system typically control the P-state and C-states based on current and recent load. The scaling governor manages P-states. Operating systems often use adaptive policies that try to avoid deep C-states for some period if recent deep idle episodes proved to be very short and futile. This helps make the system more responsive under bursty or otherwise irregular load. But it also means the system is stateful and exhibits a memory effect, which can further complicate benchmarking. Forcing C0 + P0 should avoid this issue.

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• Grub rescue - error: unknown filesystem

  - by user53817

  I have a multiboot system set up. The system has three drives. Multiboot is configured with Windows XP, Windows 7, and Ubuntu - all on the first drive. I had a lot of unpartitioned space left on the drive and was reserving it for adding other OSes and for storing files there in the future. One day I went ahead and downloaded Partition Wizard and created a logical NTFS partition from within Windows 7, still some unpartitioned space left over. Everything worked fine, until I rebooted the computer a few days later. Now I'm getting: error: unknown filesystem. grub rescue First of all I was surprised not to find any kind of help command, by trying: help, ?, man, --help, -h, bash, cmd, etc. Now I'm stuck with non-bootable system. I have started researching the issue and finding that people usually recommend to boot to a Live CD and fix the issue from there. Is there a way to fix this issue from within grub rescue without the need for Live CD? UPDATE By following the steps from persist commands typed to grub rescue, I was able to boot to initramfs prompt. But not anywhere further than that. So far from reading the manual on grub rescue, I was able to see my drives and partitions using ls command. For the first hard drive I see the following: (hd0) (hd0,msdos6) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1) I now know that (hd0,msdos6) contains Linux on it, since ls (hd0,msdos6)/ lists directories. Others will give "error: unknown filesystem." UPDATE 2 After the following commands I am now getting to the boot menu and can boot into Windows 7 and Ubuntu, but upon reboot I have to repeat these steps. ls ls (hd0,msdos6)/ set root=(hd0,msdos6) ls / set prefix=(hd0,msdos6)/boot/grub insmod /boot/grub/linux.mod normal UPDATE 3 Thanks Shashank Singh, with your instructions I have simplified my steps to the following. I have learned from you that I can replace msdos6 with just a 6 and that I can just do insmod normal instead of insmod /boot/grub/linux.mod. Now I just need to figure out how to save this settings from within grub itself, without booting into any OS. set root=(hd0,6) set prefix=(hd0,6)/boot/grub insmod normal normal UPDATE 4 Well, it seems like it is a requirement to boot into Linux. After booting into Ubuntu I have performed the following steps described in the manual: sudo update-grub udo grub-install /dev/sda This did not resolve the issue. I still get the grub rescue prompt. What do I need to do to permanently fix it? I have also learned that drive numbers as in hd0 need to be translated to drive letters as in /dev/sda for some commands. hd1 would be sdb, hd2 would be sdc, and so on. Partitions listed in grub as (hd0,msdos6) would be translated to /dev/sda6.

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• Certification Notes: 70-583 Designing and Developing Windows Azure Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  Last Updated: 02/01/2011 It’s time for another certification, and we’ve just release the 70-583 exam on Windows Azure. I’ve blogged my “study plans” here before on other certifications, so I thought I would do the same for this one. I’ll also need to take exam 70-513 and 70-516; but I’ll post my notes on those separately. None of these are “brain dumps” or any questions from the actual tests - just the books, links and notes I have from my studies. I’ll update these references as I’m studying, so bookmark this site and watch my Twitter and Facebook posts for when I’ll update them, or just subscribe to the RSS feed. A “Green” color on the check-block means I’ve done that part so far, red means I haven’t. First, I need to refresh my memory on some basic coding, so along with the Azure-specific information I’m reading the following general programming books: Introducing Microsoft .NET (Pro-Developer): link   Head First C#, 2E: A Learner's Guide to Real-World Programming with Visual C# and .NET: link Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Step by Step: link  c The first place to start is at the official site for the certification. link c On that page you’ll find several resources, and the first you should follow is the “Save to my learning” so you have a place to track everything. Then click the “Related Learning Plans” link and follow the videos and read the documentation in each of those bullets. There are six areas on the learning plan that you should focus on - make sure you open the learning plan to drill into the specifics. c Designing Data Storage Architecture (18%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Optimizing Data Access and Messaging (17%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Designing the Application Architecture (19%) Books I’m Reading: Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform: link Links: My Notes: c Preparing for Application and Service Deployment (15%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Investigating and Analyzing Applications (16%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Designing Integrated Solutions (15%) Books I’m Reading: Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform (2nd mention) Links: My Notes:

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• Hiring New IT Employees versus Promoting Internally for IT Positions

  Recently I was asked my opinion regarding the hiring of IT professionals in regards to the option of hiring new IT employees versus promoting internally for IT positions. After thinking a little more about this question regarding staffing, specifically pertaining to promoting internally verses new employees; I think my answer to this question is that it truly depends on the situation. However, in most cases I would side with promoting internally. The key factors in this decision should be based on a company/department’s current values, culture, attitude, and existing priorities.  For example if a company values retaining all of its hard earned business knowledge then they would tend to promote existing employees internal over hiring a new employee. Moreover, the company will have to pay to train an existing employee to learn a new technology and the learning curve for some technologies can be very steep. Conversely, if a company values new technologies and technical proficiency over business knowledge then a company would tend to hire new employees because they may already have experience with a technology that the company is planning on using. In this scenario, the company would have to take on the additional overhead of allowing a new employee to learn how the business operates prior to them being fully effective. To illustrate my points above let us look at contractor that builds in ground pools for example.  He has the option to hire employees that are very strong but use small shovels to dig, or employees weak in physical strength but use large shovels to dig. Which employee should the contractor use to dig a hole for a new in ground pool? If we compare the possible candidates for this job we will find that they are very similar to hiring someone internally verses a new hire. The first example represents the existing workers that are very strong regarding the understanding how the business operates and the reasons why in a specific manner. However this employee could be potentially weaker than an outsider pertaining to specific technologies and would need some time to build their technical prowess for a new position much like the strong worker upgrading their shovels in order to remove more dirt at once when digging. The other employee is very similar to hiring a new person that may already have the large shovel but will need to increase their strength in order to use the shovel properly and efficiently so that they can move a maximum amount of dirt in a minimal amount of time. This can be compared to new employ learning how a business operates before they can be fully functional and integrated in the company/department. Another key factor in this dilemma pertains to existing employee and their passion for their work, their ability to accept new responsibility when given, and the willingness to take on responsibilities when they see a need in the business. As much as possible should be considered in this decision down to the mood of the team, the quality of existing staff, learning cure for both technology and business, and the potential side effects of the existing staff.  In addition, there are many more consideration based on the current team/department/companies culture and mood. There are several factors that need to be considered when promoting an individual or hiring new blood for a team. They both can provide great benefits as well as create controversy to a group. Personally, staffing especially in the IT world is like building a large scale system in that all of the components and modules must fit together and preform as one cohesive system in the same way a team must come together using their individually acquired skills so that they can work as one team.  If a module is out of place or is nonexistent then the rest of the team will suffer until the all of its issues are addressed and resolved. Benefits of Promoting Internally Internal promotions give employees a reason to constantly upgrade their technology, business, and communication skills if they want to further their career Employees can control their own destiny based on personal desires Employee already knows how the business operates Companies can save money by promoting internally because the initial overhead of allowing new hires to learn how a company operates is very expensive Newly promoted employees can assist in training their replacements while transitioning to their new role within a company. Existing employees already have a proven track record in regards fitting in with the business culture; this is always an unknown with all new hires Benefits of a New Hire New employees can energize and excite existing employees New employees can bring new ideas and advancements in technology New employees can offer a different perspective on existing issues based on their past experience. As you can see the decision to promote an existing employee from within a company verses hiring a new person should be based on several factors that should ultimately place the business in the best possible situation for the immediate and long term future. How would you handle this situation? Would you hire a new employee or promote from within?

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• My Feelings About Microsoft Surface

  - by Valter Minute

  Advice: read the title carefully, I’m talking about “feelings” and not about advanced technical points proved in a scientific and objective way I still haven’t had a chance to play with a MS Surface tablet (I would love to, of course) and so my ideas just came from reading different articles on the net and MS official statements. Remember also that the MVP motto begins with “Independent” (“Independent Experts. Real World Answers.”) and this is just my humble opinion about a product and a technology. I know that, being an MS MVP you can be called an “MS-fanboy”, I don’t care, I hope that people can appreciate my opinion, even if it doesn’t match theirs. The “Surface” brand can be confusing for techies that knew the “original” surface concept but I think that will be a fresh new brand name for most of the people out there. But marketing department are here to confuse people… so I can understand this “recycle” of an existing name. So Microsoft is entering the hardware arena… for me this is good news. Microsoft developed some nice hardware in the past: the xbox, zune (even if the commercial success was quite limited) and, last but not least, the two arc mices (old and new model) that I use and appreciate. In the past Microsoft worked with OEMs and that model lead to good and bad things. Good thing (for microsoft, at least) is market domination by windows-based PCs that only in the last years has been reduced by the return of the Mac and tablets. Google is also moving in the hardware business with its acquisition of Motorola, and Apple leveraged his control of both the hardware and software sides to develop innovative products. Microsoft can scare OEMs and make them fly away from windows (but where?) or just lead the pack, showing how devices should be designed to compete in the market and bring back some of the innovation that disappeared from recent PC products (look at the shelves of your favorite electronics store and try to distinguish a laptop between the huge mass of anonymous PCs on displays… only Macs shine out there…). Having to compete with MS “official” hardware will force OEMs to develop better product and bring back some real competition in a market that was ruled only by prices (the lower the better even when that means low quality) and no innovative features at all (when it was the last time that a new PC surprised you?). Moving into a new market is a big and risky move, but with Windows 8 Microsoft is playing a crucial move for its future, trying to be back in the innovation run against apple and google. MS can’t afford to fail this time. I saw the new devices (the WinRT and Pro) and the specifications are scarce, misleading and confusing. The first impression is that the device looks like an iPad with a nice keyboard cover… Using “HD” and “full HD” to define display resolution instead of using the real figures and reviving the “ClearType” brand (now dead on Win8 as reported here and missed by people who hate to read text on displays, like myself) without providing clear figures (couldn’t you count those damned pixels?) seems to imply that MS was caught by surprise by apple recent “retina” displays that brought very high definition screens on tablets.Also there are no specifications about the processors used (even if some sources report NVidia Tegra for the ARM tablet and i5 for the x86 one) and expected battery life (a critical point for tablets and the point that killed Windows7 x86 based tablets). Also nothing about the price, and this will be another critical point because other platform out there already provide lots of applications and have a good user base, if MS want to enter this market tablets pricing must be competitive. There are some expansion ports (SD and USB), so no fixed storage model (even if the specs talks about 32-64GB for RT and 128-256GB for pro). I like this and don’t like the apple model where flash memory (that it’s dirt cheap used in thumdrives or SD cards) is as expensive as gold (or cocaine to have a more accurate per gram measurement) when mounted inside a tablet/phone. For big files you’ll be able to use external media and an SD card could be used to store files that don’t require super-fast SSD-like access times, I hope. To be honest I really don’t like the marketplace model and the limitation of Windows RT APIs (no local database? from a company that based a good share of its success on VB6+Access!) and lack of desktop support on the ARM (even if the support is here and has been used to port office). It’s a step toward the consumer market (where competitors are making big money), but may impact enterprise (and embedded) users that may not appreciate Windows 8 new UI or the limitations of the new app model (if you aren’t connected you are dead ). Not having compatibility with the desktop will require brand new applications and honestly made all the CPU cycles spent to convert .NET IL into real machine code in the past like a huge waste of time… as soon as a new processor architecture is supported by Windows you still have to rewrite part of your application (and MS is pushing HTML5+JS and native code more than .NET in my perception). On the other side I believe that the development experience provided by Visual Studio is still miles (or kilometres) ahead of the competition and even the all-uppercase menu of VS2012 hasn’t changed this situation. The new metro UI got mixed reviews. On my side I should say that is very pleasant to use on a touch screen, I like the minimalist design (even if sometimes is too minimal and hides stuff that, in my opinion, should be visible) but I should also say that using it with mouse and keyboard is like trying to pick your nose with boxing gloves… Metro is also very interesting for embedded devices where touch screen usage is quite common and where having an application taking all the screen is the norm. For devices like kiosks, vending machines etc. this kind of UI can be a great selling point. I don’t need a new tablet (to be honest I’m pretty happy with my wife’s iPad and with my PC), but I may change my opinion after having a chance to play a little bit with those new devices and understand what’s hidden under all this mysterious and generic announcements and specifications!

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• Architecture for a template-building, WYSIWIG application

  - by Sam Selikoff

  I'm building a WYSIWYG designer in Ember.js. The designer will allow users to create campaigns - think MailChimp. To build a campaign, users will choose an existing template. The template will have a defined layout. The user will then be taken to the designer, where he will be able to edit the text and style, and additionally change some layout options. I've been thinking about how best to go about structuring this app, and there are a few hurdles. Specifically, the output of the campaign will be dynamic: eventually, it will be published somewhere, and when the consumers (not my users, but the people clicking on the campaign that my user created) visit the campaign, certain pieces of data will change, depending on the type of consumer viewing the campaign. That means the ultimate output of the designer will be a dynamic site. The data that is dynamic for this site - the end product - will not be manipulated by the user in the designer. However, the data that will be manipulated by the user in the designer are things like copy, styles, layout options, etc. I'll call the first set of variables server-side data, and the second client-side data. It seems, then, that the process will go something like this: I'll need to create templates for this designer that have two dynamic segments. For instance, the server-side data could be Liquid expressions, and the client-side data Handlebars expressions. When the user creates a campaign, I would compile the template on the back end using some dummy data for the server-side variables, and serve up a handlebars template to the Ember app. The user would then edit the template, and the Ember app would save all his edits to the JS variables that were powering the template. This way he'd be able to preview the template. When he saves, he'll send back the selected template, along with all the data and options he's made. When it comes time to publish, the back-end system will have to do two things: compile the template with Handlebars using the campaign data, and then compile the template with Liquid using the server-side data Is my thinking roughly accurate about this, or is there a simpler way?

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• MySQL Connect in Only 5 Days – Some Fun Stuff!

  - by Bertrand Matthelié

  72 1024x768 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} We’ve recently blogged about the various MySQL Connect sessions focused on MySQL Cluster, InnoDB, the MySQL Optimizer and MySQL Replication. But we also wanted to draw your attention to some great opportunities to network and have fun! That’s also part of what makes a good conference... MySQL Connect Reception San Francisco Hilton - Continental Ballroom 6:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m. A great opportunity to network with Oracle’s MySQL engineers, partners having a booth in the exhibition hall and just about everyone at MySQL Connect. Long time MySQL users will see many familiar faces, and new users will be able to build valuable relationships. A must attend reception for sure! Taylor Street Open House 7:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m. After two intense days at MySQL Connect, you’ll get the chance to relax and continue networking at the Taylor Street Café Open House on Sunday evening. Perhaps recharging batteries for a full week at Oracle OpenWorld… The Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival Starting on Sunday eve and running through the entire duration of Oracle OpenWorld, the first Oracle OpenWorld Musical Festival features some of today’s breakthrough musicians. It’s five nights of back-to-back performances in the heart of San Francisco. Registered Oracle conference attendees get free admission, so remember your badge when you head to a show. More information here. You can check out the full MySQL Connect program here as well as in the September edition of the MySQL newsletter. Not registered yet? You can still save US$ 300 over the on-site fee – Register Now!

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• Lookup Viewer

  - by Geertjan

  The Maven integrated view that I showed yesterday I was able to create because I happened to know that an implementation of SubprojectProvider and LogicalViewProvider are in the Lookup of Maven projects. With that knowledge, I was able to use and even delegate to those implementations. But what if you don't know that those implementations are in the Lookup of the Project object? In the case of the Maven Project implementation, you could look in the source code of the Maven Project implementation, at the "getLookup" method. However, any other module could be putting its own objects into that Lookup, dynamically, i.e., at runtime. So there's no way of knowing what's in the Lookup of any Project object or any other object with a Lookup. But now imagine that you have a Lookup Viewer, as a tool during development, which you would exclude when distributing the application. Whenever new objects are found in the Lookup, the viewer displays them. You could install the Lookup Viewer into NetBeans IDE, or any other NetBeans Platform application, and then get a quick impression of what's actually in the Lookup when you select a different item in the application during development. Here it is (though I vaguely remember someone else writing something similar): Above, a Maven Project is selected. The Lookup Window shows that, among many other classes, an implementation of SubprojectProvider and LogicalViewProvider are found in the Lookup when the Maven Project is selected. If an item in the Lookup Window has its own Lookup, the content of that Lookup is displayed as child nodes of the Lookup, etc, i.e., you can explore all the way down the Lookup of each item found within objects found within the current selection. (What's especially fun is seeing the SaveCookieImpl being added and removed from the Lookup Window when you make/save a change in a document.) Another example is below, showing the Lookup Window installed in a custom application created during a course at MIT in Boston: A small trick I had to apply is that I always show the previous Lookup, since the current Lookup, when you select one of the Nodes in the Lookup Window, would be the Lookup of the Lookup Window itself! If anyone is interested in this, I can publish the NetBeans module providing the above window to the NetBeans update center. 

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