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• Avoid the “Social Silo” - Learn Why and How

  - by Brian Dayton

  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: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-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} I’m not going to spend any more real estate than needed on this—social media is big. Facebook hit the Billion user mark in October, that’s 1 out of every 7 humans on the planet. This past Summer (in the Northern hemisphere) Twitter passed the 400 Million Tweet/day mark. The list of social properties and data points goes on and on. 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: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-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} With social your customer, prospect, or constituent has pervasive access—through mobile—to a global audience, the ability to influence friends, friends of friends, and even people they will never meet. They also have the unique opportunity to forge a deeper relationship with your business—telling you what they like, what they don’t like, how you can help, and what they’d like to see more of. Are you listening? 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: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-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} What’s the Bottom Line for Business? Businesses need to be where their customers are—on social properties. They need to be available and responsive in those channels—24x7x365. They need to engage and communicate in new ways—sometimes in less than 140 characters and with empathy, not a 1-way megaphone. Finally, businesses need to look at social as an extension of their existing business practices. Not as a silo’d communication channel limited to marketing. Social Can’t Be a Silo – Learn Why @ Oracle CloudWorld When a business is on social networks they represent the whole business. That’s how a customer, constituent, partner or potential candidate sees it. Those organizations that have moved on the opportunity to build closer relationships through social marketing have already made the first step. Social Selling, Service, eCommerce, and Recruiting are external-facing opportunities that leading organizations are moving on right now. This strategy, one of weaving social into and across your business processes—and leveraging social concepts and technologies for internal collaboration—is something you can learn about during an Oracle CloudWorld event in a city near you. You’ll hear and see social relationship management concepts, best-practices, and recommendations woven into topics, discussions, and demonstrations throughout the event—from Marketing and Sales to Service and Human Resources. Stay Tuned and Avoid Potholes By all indications social is here to stay but it’s moving fast and social business strategies are evolving rapidly. At Oracle CloudWorld you’ll also get the opportunity to learn how to avoid some of the potholes on the road to #socialbusiness. Stay tuned to this blog. In future posts I’ll cover some of those potholes including the challenges of Social@Scale and Parallel Processes. Jump-start your social business strategy or learn how to refine and expand what you’re doing already at Oracle CloudWorld. Want to learn more about what Oracle is doing in social? Check out www.oracle.com/social or, if you're looking for a quick read my co-worker, Pat Ma, has a great post on this blog summarizing some popular Social Relationship Management use cases.

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• Oracle's Global Single Schema

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Maximizing business process efficiencies in a heterogeneous environment is very difficult. The difficulty stems from the fact that the various applications across the Information Technology (IT) landscape employ different integration standards, different message passing strategies, and different workflow engines. Vendors such as Oracle and others are delivering tools to help IT organizations manage the complexities introduced by these differences. But the one remaining intractable problem impacting efficient operations is the fact that these applications have different definitions for the same business data. Business data is your business information codified for computer programs to use. A good data model will represent the way your organization does business. The computer applications your organization deploys to improve operational efficiency are built to operate on the business data organized into this schema.  If the schema does not represent how you do business, the applications on that schema cannot provide the features you need to achieve the desired efficiencies. Business processes span these applications. Data problems break these processes rendering them far less efficient than they need to be to achieve organization goals. Thus, the expected return on the investment in these applications is never realized. The success of all business processes depends on the availability of accurate master data.  Clearly, the solution to this problem is to consolidate all the master data an organization uses to run its business. Then clean it up, augment it, govern it, and connect it back to the applications that need it. Until now, this obvious solution has been difficult to achieve because no one had defined a data model sufficiently broad, deep and flexible enough to support transaction processing on all key business entities and serve as a master superset to all other operational data models deployed in heterogeneous IT environments. Today, the situation has changed. Oracle has created an operational data model (aka schema) that can support accurate and consistent master data across heterogeneous IT systems. This is foundational for providing a way to consolidate and integrate master data without having to replace investments in existing applications. This Global Single Schema (GSS) represents a revolutionary breakthrough that allows for true master data consolidation. Oracle has deep knowledge of applications dating back to the early 1990s.  It developed applications in the areas of Supply Chain Management (SCM), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Human Capital Management (HCM), Financials and Manufacturing. In addition, Oracle applications were delivered for key industries such as Communications, Financial Services, Retail, Public Sector, High Tech Manufacturing (HTM) and more. Expertise in all these areas drove requirements for GSS. The following figure illustrates Oracle's unique position that enabled the creation of the Global Single Schema. GSS Requirements Gathering GSS defines all the key business entities and attributes including Customers, Contacts, Suppliers, Accounts, Products, Services, Materials, Employees, Installed Base, Sites, Assets, and Inventory to name just a few. In addition, Oracle delivers GSS pre-integrated with a wide variety of operational applications.  Business Process Automation EBusiness is about maximizing operational efficiency. At the highest level, these 'operations' span all that you do as an organization.  The following figure illustrates some of these high-level business processes. Enterprise Business Processes Supplies are procured. Assets are maintained. Materials are stored. Inventory is accumulated. Products and Services are engineered, produced and sold. Customers are serviced. And across this entire spectrum, Employees do the procuring, supporting, engineering, producing, selling and servicing. Not shown, but not to be overlooked, are the accounting and the financial processes associated with all this procuring, manufacturing, and selling activity. Supporting all these applications is the master data. When this data is fragmented and inconsistent, the business processes fail and inefficiencies multiply. But imagine having all the data under these operational business processes in one place. ·            The same accurate and timely customer data will be provided to all your operational applications from the call center to the point of sale. ·            The same accurate and timely supplier data will be provided to all your operational applications from supply chain planning to procurement. ·            The same accurate and timely product information will be available to all your operational applications from demand chain planning to marketing. You would have a single version of the truth about your assets, financial information, customers, suppliers, employees, products and services to support your business automation processes as they flow across your business applications. All company and partner personnel will access the same exact data entity across all your channels and across all your lines of business. Oracle's Global Single Schema enables this vision of a single version of the truth across the heterogeneous operational applications supporting the entire enterprise. Global Single Schema Oracle's Global Single Schema organizes hundreds of thousands of attributes into 165 major schema objects supporting over 180 business application modules. It is designed for international operations, and extensibility.  The schema is delivered with a full set of public Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and an Integration Repository with modern Service Oriented Architecture interfaces to make data available as a services (DaaS) to business processes and enable operations in heterogeneous IT environments. ·         Key tables can be extended with unlimited numbers of additional attributes and attribute groups for maximum flexibility.  o    This enables model extensions that reflect business entities unique to your organization's operations. ·         The schema is multi-organization enabled so data manipulation can be controlled along organizational boundaries. ·         It uses variable byte Unicode to support over 31 languages. ·         The schema encodes flexible date and flexible address formats for easy localizations. No matter how complex your business is, Oracle's Global Single Schema can hold your business objects and support your global operations. Oracle's Global Single Schema identifies and defines the business objects an enterprise needs within the context of its business operations. The interrelationships between the business objects are also contained within the GSS data model. Their presence expresses fundamental business rules for the interaction between business entities. The following figure illustrates some of these connections.   Interconnected Business Entities Interconnecte business processes require interconnected business data. No other MDM vendor has this capability. Everyone else has either one entity they can master or separate disconnected models for various business entities. Higher level integrations are made available, but that is a weak architectural alternative to data level integration in this critically important aspect of Master Data Management.    

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• Recap: Oracle Fusion Middleware Strategies Driving Business Innovation

  - by Harish Gaur

  Hasan Rizvi, Executive Vice President of Oracle Fusion Middleware & Java took the stage on Tuesday to discuss how Oracle Fusion Middleware helps enable business innovation. Through a series of product demos and customer showcases, Hassan demonstrated how Oracle Fusion Middleware is a complete platform to harness the latest technological innovations (cloud, mobile, social and Fast Data) throughout the application lifecycle. Fig 1: Oracle Fusion Middleware is the foundation of business innovation This Session included 4 demonstrations to illustrate these strategies: 1. Build and deploy native mobile applications using Oracle ADF Mobile 2. Empower business user to model processes, design user interface and have rich mobile experience for process interaction using Oracle BPM Suite PS6. 3. Create collaborative user experience and integrate social sign-on using Oracle WebCenter Portal, Oracle WebCenter Content, Oracle Social Network & Oracle Identity Management 11g R2 4. Deploy and manage business applications on Oracle Exalogic Nike, LA Department of Water & Power and Nintendo joined Hasan on stage to share how their organizations are leveraging Oracle Fusion Middleware to enable business innovation. Managing Performance in the Wrld of Social and Mobile How do you provide predictable scalability and performance for an application that monitors active lifestyle of 8 million users on a daily basis? Nike’s answer is Oracle Coherence, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Exadata. Fig 2: Oracle Coherence enabled data grid improves performance of Nike+ Digital Sports Platform Nicole Otto, Sr. Director of Consumer Digital Technology discussed the vision of the Nike+ platform, a platform which represents a shift for NIKE from a  "product"  to  a "product +" experience.  There are currently nearly 8 million users in the Nike+ system who are using digitally-enabled Nike+ devices.  Once data from the Nike+ device is transmitted to Nike+ application, users access the Nike+ website or via the Nike mobile applicatoin, seeing metrics around their daily active lifestyle and even engage in socially compelling experiences to compare, compete or collaborate their data with their friends. Nike expects the number of users to grow significantly this year which will drive an explosion of data and potential new experiences. To deal with this challenge, Nike envisioned building a shared platform that would drive a consumer-centric model for the company. Nike built this new platform using Oracle Coherence and Oracle Exadata. Using Coherence, Nike built a data grid tier as a distributed cache, thereby provide low-latency access to most recent and relevant data to consumers. Nicole discussed how Nike+ Digital Sports Platform is unique in the way that it utilizes the Coherence Grid.  Nike takes advantage of Coherence as a traditional cache using both cache-aside and cache-through patterns.  This new tier has enabled Nike to create a horizontally scalable distributed event-driven processing architecture. Current data grid volume is approximately 150,000 request per minute with about 40 million objects at any given time on the grid. Improving Customer Experience Across Multiple Channels Customer experience is on top of every CIO's mind. Customer Experience needs to be consistent and secure across multiple devices consumers may use.  This is the challenge Matt Lampe, CIO of Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) was faced with. Despite being the largest utilities company in the country, LADWP had been relying on a 38 year old customer information system for serving its customers. Their prior system  had been unable to keep up with growing customer demands. Last year, LADWP embarked on a journey to improve customer experience for 1.6million LA DWP customers using Oracle WebCenter platform. Figure 3: Multi channel & Multi lingual LADWP.com built using Oracle WebCenter & Oracle Identity Management platform Matt shed light on his efforts to drive customer self-service across 3 dimensions – new website, new IVR platform and new bill payment service. LADWP has built a new portal to increase customer self-service while reducing the transactions via IVR. LADWP's website is powered Oracle WebCenter Portal and is accessible by desktop and mobile devices. By leveraging Oracle WebCenter, LADWP eliminated the need to build, format, and maintain individual mobile applications or websites for different devices. Their entire content is managed using Oracle WebCenter Content and secured using Oracle Identity Management. This new portal automated their paper based processes to web based workflows for customers. This includes automation of Self Service implemented through My Account -  like Bill Pay, Payment History, Bill History and Usage Analysis. LADWP's solution went live in April 2012. Matt indicated that LADWP's Self-Service Portal has greatly improved customer satisfaction.  In a JD Power Associates website satisfaction survey, results indicate rankings have climbed by 25+ points, marking a remarkable increase in user experience. Bolstering Performance and Simplifying Manageability of Business Applications Ingvar Petursson, Senior Vice Preisdent of IT at Nintendo America joined Hasan on-stage to discuss their choice of Exalogic. Nintendo had significant new requirements coming their way for business systems, both internal and external, in the years to come, especially with new products like the WiiU on the horizon this holiday season. Nintendo needed a platform that could give them performance, availability and ease of management as they deploy business systems. Ingvar selected Engineered Systems for two reasons: 1. High performance  2. Ease of management Figure 4: Nintendo relies on Oracle Exalogic to run ATG eCommerce, Oracle e-Business Suite and several business applications Nintendo made a decision to run their business applications (ATG eCommerce, E-Business Suite) and several Fusion Middleware components on the Exalogic platform. What impressed Ingvar was the "stress” testing results during evaluation. Oracle Exalogic could handle their 3-year load estimates for many functions, which was better than Nintendo expected without any hardware expansion. Faster Processing of Big Data Middleware plays an increasingly important role in Big Data. Last year, we announced at OpenWorld the introduction of Oracle Data Integrator for Hadoop and Oracle Loader for Hadoop which helps in the ability to move, transform, load data to and from Big Data Appliance to Exadata.  This year, we’ve added new capabilities to find, filter, and focus data using Oracle Event Processing. This product can natively integrate with Big Data Appliance or runs standalone. Hasan briefly discussed how NTT Docomo, largest mobile operator in Japan, leverages Oracle Event Processing & Oracle Coherence to process mobile data (from 13 million smartphone users) at a speed of 700K events per second before feeding it Hadoop for distributed processing of big data. Figure 5: Mobile traffic data processing at NTT Docomo with Oracle Event Processing & Oracle Coherence    

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• The Internet of Things Is Really the Internet of People

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By Mark Hurd - Originally Posted on LinkedIn As I speak with CEOs around the world, our conversations invariably come down to this central question: Can we change our corporate cultures and the ways we train and reward our people as rapidly as new technology is changing the work we do, the products we make and how we engage with customers? It’s a critical consideration given today’s pace of disruption, which already is straining traditional management models and HR strategies. Winning companies will bring innovation and vision to their employees and partners by attracting people who will thrive in this emerging world of relentless data, predictive analytics and unlimited what-if scenarios. So, where are we going to find employees who are as familiar with complex data as I am with orderly financial statements and business plans? I’m not just talking about high-end data scientists who most certainly will sit at or near the top of the new decision-making pyramid. Global organizations will need creative and motivated people who will devote their time to manipulating, reviewing, analyzing, sorting and reshaping data to drive business and delight customers. This might seem evident, but my conversations with business people across the globe indicate that only a small number of companies get it. In the past few years, executives have been busy keeping pace with seismic upheavals, including the rise of social customer engagement, the rapid acceleration of product-development cycles and the relentless move to mobile-first. But all of that, I think, is the start of an uphill climb to the top of a roller-coaster. Today, about 10 billion devices across the globe are connected to the Internet. In a couple of years, that number will probably double, and not because we will have bought 10 billion more computers, smart phones and tablets. This unprecedented explosion of Big Data is being triggered by the Internet of Things, which is another way of saying that the numerous intelligent devices touching our everyday lives are all becoming interconnected. Home appliances, food, industrial equipment, pets, pharmaceutical products, pallets, cars, luggage, packaged goods, athletic equipment, even clothing will be streaming data. Some data will provide important information about how to run our businesses and lead healthier lives. Much of it will be extraneous. How does a CEO cope with this unimaginable volume and velocity of data, much less harness it to excite and delight customers? Here are three things CEOs must do to tackle this challenge: 1) Take care of your employees, take care of your customers. Larry Ellison recently noted that the two most important priorities for any CEO today revolve around people: Taking care of your employees and taking care of your customers. Companies in today’s hypercompetitive business environment simply won’t be able to survive unless they’ve got world-class people at all levels of the organization. CEOs must demonstrate a commitment to employees by becoming champions for HR systems that empower every employee to fully understand his or her job, how it ties into the corporate framework, what’s expected of them, what training is available, and how they can use an embedded social network to communicate, collaborate and excel. Over the next several years, many of the world’s top industrialized economies will see a turnover in the workforce on an unprecedented scale. Across the United States, Europe, China and Japan, the “baby boomer” generation will be retiring and, by 2020, we’ll see turnovers in those regions ranging from 10 to 30 percent. How will companies replace all that brainpower, experience and know-how? How will CEOs perpetuate the best elements of their corporate cultures in the midst of this profound turnover? The challenge will be daunting, but it can be met with world-class HR technology. As companies begin replacing up to 30 percent of their workforce, they will need thousands of new types of data-native workers to exploit the Internet of Things in the service of the Internet of People. The shift in corporate mindset here can’t be overstated. The CEO has to be at the forefront of this new way of recruiting, training, motivating, aligning and developing truly 21-century talent. 2) Start thinking today about the Internet of People. Some forward-looking companies have begun pursuing the “democratization of data.” This allows more people within a company greater access to data that can help them make better decisions, move more quickly and keep pace with the changing interests and demands of their customers. As a result, we’ve seen organizations flatten out, growing numbers of well-informed people authorized to make decisions without corporate approval and a movement of engagement away from headquarters to the point of contact with the customer. These are profound changes, and I’m a huge proponent. As I think about what the next few years will bring as companies become deluged with unprecedented streams of data, I’m convinced that we’ll need dramatically different organizational structures, decision-making models, risk-management profiles and reward systems. For example, if a car company’s marketing department mines incoming data to determine that customers are shifting rapidly toward neon-green models, how many layers of approval, review, analysis and sign-off will be needed before the factory starts cranking out more neon-green cars? Will we continue to have organizations where too many people are empowered to say “No” and too few are allowed to say “Yes”? If so, how will those companies be able to compete in a world in which customers have more choices, instant access to more information and less loyalty than ever before? That’s why I think CEOs need to begin thinking about this problem right now, not in a year or two when competitors are already reshaping their organizations to match the marketplace’s new realities. 3) Partner with universities to help create a new type of highly skilled workers. Several years ago, universities introduced new undergraduate as well as graduate-level programs in analytics and informatics as the business need for deeper insights into the booming world of data began to explode. Today, as the growth rate of data continues to soar, we know that the Internet of Things will only intensify that growth. Moreover, as Big Data fuels insights that can be shaped into products and services that generate revenue, the demand for data scientists and data specialists will go on unabated. Beyond that top-level expertise, companies are going to need data-native thinkers at all levels of the organization. Where will this new type of worker come from? I think it’s incumbent on the business community to collaborate with universities to develop new curricula designed to turn out graduates who can capitalize on the data-driven world that the Internet of Things is surely going to create. These new workers will create opportunities to help their companies in fields as diverse as product design, customer service, marketing, manufacturing and distribution. They will become innovative leaders in fashioning an entirely new type of workforce and organizational structure optimized to fully exploit the Internet of Things so that it becomes a high-value enabler of the Internet of People. Mark Hurd is President of Oracle Corporation and a member of the company's Board of Directors. He joined Oracle in 2010, bringing more than 30 years of technology industry leadership, computer hardware expertise, and executive management experience to his role with the company. As President, Mr. Hurd oversees the corporate direction and strategy for Oracle's global field operations, including marketing, sales, consulting, alliances and channels, and support. He focuses on strategy, leadership, innovation, and customers.

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• Windows 8 Launch&ndash;Why OEM and Retailers Should STFU

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Microsoft has gotten a lot of flack for the Surface from OEM/hardware partners who create Windows-based devices and I’m sure, to an extent, retailers who normally stock and sell Windows-based devices. I mean we all know how this is supposed to work – Microsoft makes the OS, partners make the hardware, retailers sell the hardware. Now Microsoft is breaking the rules by not only offering their own hardware but selling them via online and through their Microsoft branded stores! The thought has been that Microsoft is trying to set a standard for the other hardware companies to reach for. Maybe. I hope, at some level, Microsoft may be covertly responding to frustrations associated with trusting the OEMs and Retailers to deliver on their part of the supply chain. I know as a consumer, I’m very frustrated with the Windows 8 launch. Aside from the Surface sales, there’s nothing happening at the retail level. Let me back up and explain. Over the weekend I visited a number of stores in hopes of trying out various Windows 8 devices. Out of three retailers (Staples, Best Buy, and Future Shop), not *one* met my expectations. Let me be honest with you Staples, I never really have high expectations from your computer department. If I need paper or pens, whatever, but computers – you’re not the top of my list for price or selection. Still, considering you flaunted Win 8 devices in your flyer I expected *something* – some sign of effort that you took the Windows 8 launch seriously. As I entered the 1910 Pembina Highway location in Winnipeg, there was nothing – no signage, no banners – nothing that would suggest Windows 8 had even launched. I made my way to the laptops. I had to play with each machine to determine which ones were running Windows 8. There wasn’t anything on the placards that made it obvious which were Windows 8 machines and which ones were Windows 7. Likewise, there was no easy way to identify the touch screen laptop (the HP model) from the others without physically touching the screen to verify. Horrible experience. In the same mall as the Staples I mentioned above, there’s a Future Shop. Surely they would be more on the ball. I walked in to the 1910 Pembina Highway location and immediately realized I would not get a better experience. Except for the sign by the front door mentioning Windows 8, there was *nothing* in the computer department pointing you to the Windows 8 devices. Like in Staples, the Win 8 laptops were mixed in with the Win 7 ones and there was nothing notable calling out which ones were running Win 8. I happened to hit up the St. James Street location today, thinking since its a busier store they must have more options. To their credit, they did have two staff members decked out in Windows 8 shirts and who were helping a customer understand Windows 8. But otherwise, there was nothing highlighting the Windows 8 devices and they were again mixed in with the rest of the Win 7 machines. Finally, we have the St. James Street Best Buy location here in Winnipeg. I’m sure Best Buy will have their act together. Nope, not even close. Same story as the others: minimal signage (there was a sign as you walked in with a link to this schedule of demo days), Windows 8 hardware mixed with the rest of the PC offerings, and no visible call-outs identifying which were Win 8 based. This meant that, like Future Shop and Staples, if you wanted to know which machine had Windows 8 you had to go and scrutinize each machine. Also, there was nothing identifying which ones were touch based and which were not. Just Another Day… To these retailers, it seemed that the Windows 8 launch was just another day, with another product to add to the showroom floor. Meanwhile, Apple has their dedicated areas *in all three stores*. It was dead simple to find where the Apple products were compared to the Windows 8 products. No wonder Microsoft is starting to push their own retail stores. No wonder Microsoft is trying to funnel orders through them instead of relying on these bloated retail big box stores who obviously can’t manage a product launch. It’s Not Just The Retailers… Remember when the Acer CEO, Founder, and President of Computer Global Operations all weighed in on how Microsoft releasing the Surface would have a “huge negative impact for the ecosystem and other brands may take a negative reaction”? Also remember the CEO stating “[making hardware] is not something you are good at so please think twice”? Well the launch day has come and gone, and so far Microsoft is the only one that delivered on having hardware available on the October 26th date. Oh sure, there are laptops running Windows 8 – but all in one desktop PCs? I’ve only seen one or two! And tablets are *non existent*, with some showing an early to late November availability on Best Buy’s website! So while the retailers could be doing more to make it easier to find Windows 8 devices, the manufacturers could help by *getting devices into stores*! That’s supposedly something that these companies are good at, according to the Acer CEO. So Here’s What the Retailers and Manufacturers Need To Do… Get Product Out The pivotal timeframe will be now to the end of November. We need to start seeing all these fantastic pieces of hardware ship – including the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro, the Acer Iconia, the Asus TAICHI 21, and the sexy Samsung Series 7 27” desktop. It’s not enough to see product announcements, we need to see actual devices. Make It Easy For Customers To Find Win8 Devices You want to make it easy to sell these things? Make it easy for people to find them! Have staff on hand that really know how these devices run and what can be done with them. Don’t just have a single demo day, have people who can demo it every day! Make It Easy to See the Features There’s touch screen desktops, touch screen laptops, tablets, non-touch laptops, etc. People need to easily find the features for each machine. If I’m looking for a touch-laptop, I shouldn’t need to sift through all the non-touch laptops to find them – at the least, I need to quickly be able to see which ones are touch. I feel silly even typing this because this should be retail 101 and I have no retail background (but I do have an extensive background as a customer). In Summary… Microsoft launching the Surface and selling them through their own channels isn’t slapping its OEM and retail partners in the face; its slapping them to wake the hell up and stop coasting through Windows launch events like they don’t matter. Unless I see some improvements from vendors and retailers in November, I may just hold onto my money for a Surface Pro even if I have to wait until early 2013. Your move OEM/Retailers. *Update – While my experience has been in Winnipeg, similar experiences have been voiced from colleagues in Calgary and Edmonton.

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• Rapid Evolution of Society & Technology

  - by Michael Snow

  We caught up with Brian Solis on the phone the other day and Christie Flanagan had a chance to chat with him and learn a bit more about him and some of the concepts he'll be addressing in our Social Business Thought Leaders Webcast on Thursday 12/13/12. «--- Interview with Brian Solis  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast- mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Be sure and register for this week's webcast ---» ------------------- Guest post by Brian Solis. Reposted (Borrowed) from his posting of May 24, 2012 Dear [insert business name], what’s your promise? - Brian Solis You say you want to get closer to customers, but your actions are different than your words. You say you want to “surprise and delight” customers, but your product development teams are too busy building against a roadmap without consideration of the 5th P of marketing…people. Your employees are your number one asset, however the infrastructure of the organization has turned once optimistic and ambitious intrapreneurs into complacent cogs or worse, your greatest detractors. You question the adoption of disruptive technology by your internal champions yet you’ve not tried to find the value for yourself. You’re a change agent and you truly wish to bring about change, but you’ve not invested time or resources to answer “why” in your endeavors to become a connected or social business. If we are to truly change, we must find purpose. We must uncover the essence of our business and the value it delivers to traditional and connected consumers. We must rethink the spirit of today’s embrace and clearly articulate how transformation is going to improve customer and employee experiences and relationships now and over time. Without doing so, any attempts at evolution will be thwarted by reality. In an era of Digital Darwinism, no business is too big to fail or too small to succeed. These are undisciplined times which require alternative approaches to recognize and pursue new opportunities. But everything begins with acknowledging the 360 view of the world that you see today is actually a filtered view of managed and efficient convenience. Today, many organizations that were once inspired by innovation and engagement have fallen into a process of marketing, operationalizing, managing, and optimizing. That might have worked for the better part of the last century, but for the next 10 years and beyond, new vision, leadership and supporting business models will be written to move businesses from rigid frameworks to adaptive and agile entities. I believe that today’s executives will undergo a great test; a test of character, vision, intention, and universal leadership. It starts with a simple, but essential question…what is your promise? Notice, I didn’t ask about your brand promise. Nor did I ask for you to cite your mission and vision statements. This is much more than value propositions or manufactured marketing language designed to hook audiences and stakeholders. I asked for your promise to me as your consumer, stakeholder, and partner. This isn’t about B2B or B2C, but instead, people to people, person to person. It is this promise that will breathe new life into an organization that on the outside, could be misdiagnosed as catatonic by those who are disrupting your markets. A promise, for example, is meant to inspire. It creates alignment. It serves as the foundation for your vision, mission, and all business strategies and it must come from the top to mean anything. For without it, we cannot genuinely voice what it is we stand for or stand behind. Think for a moment about the definition of community. It’s easy to confuse a workplace or a market where everyone simply shares common characteristics. However, a community in this day and age is much more than belonging to something, it’s about doing something together that makes belonging matter The next few years will force a divide where companies are separated by intention as measured by actions and words. But, becoming a social business is not enough. Becoming more authentic and transparent doesn’t serve as a mantra for a renaissance. A promise is the ink that inscribes the spirit of the relationship between you and me. A promise serves as the words that influence change from within and change beyond the halls of our business. It is the foundation for a renewed embrace, one that must then find its way to every aspect of the organization. It’s the difference between a social business and an adaptive business. While an adaptive business can also be social, it is the culture of the organization that strives to not just use technology to extend current philosophies or processes into new domains, but instead give rise to a new culture where striving for relevance is among its goals. The tools and networks simply become enablers of a greater mission You are reading this because you believe in something more than what you’re doing today. While you fight for change within your organization, remember to aim for a higher purpose. Organizations that strive for innovation, imagination, and relevance will outperform those that do not. Part of your job is to lead a missionary push that unites the groundswell with a top down cascade. Change will only happen because you and other internal champions see what others can’t and will do what other won’t. It takes resolve. It takes the ability to translate new opportunities into business value. And, it takes courage. “This is a very noisy world, so we have to be very clear what we want them to know about us”-Steve Jobs ----------------------------------------------------------------- So -- where do you begin to evaluate the kind of experience you are delivering for your customers, partners, and employees?  Take a look at this White Paper: Creating a Successful and Meaningful Customer Experience on the Web and then have a cup of coffee while you listen to the sage advice of Guy Kawasaki in a short video below.   An interview with Guy Kawasaki on Maximizing Social Media Channels 

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• ffserver-2.2 - streaming an ASF video as Webm output with ffserver on Debian 7.5

  - by Emmanuel Brunet

  I'm trying to stream an IP webcam ASF live stream to a ffserver to output a webm video format. The server starts successfully but the ffserver commands used to feed the ffserver fails and generates a core dump. Input stream $ ffprobe http://account:password@webcam/videostream.asf Input #0, asf, from 'http://account:password@webcam/videostream.asf': Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 32 kb/s Stream #0:0: Video: mjpeg (MJPG / 0x47504A4D), yuvj422p(pc), 640x480, 25 tbr, 1k tbn, 1k tbc Stream #0:1: Audio: adpcm_ima_wav ([17][0][0][0] / 0x0011), 8000 Hz, 1 channels, s16p, 32 kb/s ffserver configuration my ffserver configuration is : Port 8091 RTSPPort 554 BindAddress 192.168.1.62 MaxHTTPConnections 1000 MaxClients 100 MaxBandwidth 1000 CustomLog - <Feed webcam.ffm> File /tmp/webcam.ffm FileMaxSize 500M ACL allow localhost ACL allow 192.168.0.0 192.168.255.255 </Feed> <Stream webcam.webm> # Output stream URL definition Feed webcam.ffm # Feed from which to receive video Format webm # Audio settings AudioCodec vorbis AudioBitRate 64 # Audio bitrate # Video settings VideoCodec libvpx VideoSize 640x480 # Video resolution VideoFrameRate 25 # Video FPS AVOptionVideo flags +global_header # Parameters passed to encoder # (same as ffmpeg command-line parameters) AVOptionVideo cpu-used 0 AVOptionVideo qmin 10 AVOptionVideo qmax 42 AVOptionVideo quality good AVOptionAudio flags +global_header PreRoll 15 StartSendOnKey # VideoBitRate 32 # Video bitrate </Stream> <Stream status.html> Format status # Only allow local people to get the status ACL allow localhost ACL allow 192.168.0.0 192.168.255.255 </Stream> ffmpeg feed I run the following command that fails $ ffmpeg -i http://account:password@webcam/videostream.asf http://ffserver_ip:port/webcam.ffm http://192.168.1.62:8091/webcam.ffm Input #0, asf, from 'http://account:password@webcam/videostream.asf': Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 32 kb/s Stream #0:0: Video: mjpeg (MJPG / 0x47504A4D), yuvj422p(pc), 640x480, 25 tbr, 1k tbn, 1k tbc Stream #0:1: Audio: adpcm_ima_wav ([17][0][0][0] / 0x0011), 8000 Hz, mono, s16p, 32 kb/s [swscaler @ 0x36a80c0] deprecated pixel format used, make sure you did set range correctly Segmentation fault I tryed $ ffmpeg -i http://account:password@webcam/videostream.asf -pix_fmt yuv420p http://ffserver_ip:port/webcam.ffm But it raises the same error. Thanks for your help Edit For an easy testing (I thought), I tried to publish the whole ASF stream as is, meaning connecting the ASF webcam output stream to the ffserver that outputs ASF format too. And thus with mirrored encoding so I changed the ffserver configuration to ... <Stream webcam.asf> Feed webcam.ffm Format asf VideoFrameRate 25 VideoSize 640X480 VideoBitRate 256 VideoBufferSize 1000 VideoGopSize 30 AudioBitRate 32 StartSendOnKey </Stream> ... And the output is now : Input #0, asf, from 'http://admin:alpha1237@webcam/videostream.asf': Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 32 kb/s Stream #0:0: Video: mjpeg (MJPG / 0x47504A4D), yuvj422p(pc), 640x480, 1k tbr, 1k tbn, 1k tbc Stream #0:1: Audio: adpcm_ima_wav ([17][0][0][0] / 0x0011), 8000 Hz, mono, s16p, 32 kb/s [swscaler @ 0x3d620c0] deprecated pixel format used, make sure you did set range correctly Output #0, ffm, to 'http://192.168.1.62:8091/webcam.ffm': Metadata: creation_time : now encoder : Lavf55.40.100 Stream #0:0: Audio: wmav2, 22050 Hz, mono, fltp, 32 kb/s Metadata: encoder : Lavc55.64.100 wmav2 Stream #0:1: Video: msmpeg4v3 (msmpeg4), yuv420p, 640x480, q=2-31, 256 kb/s, 1k fps, 1000k tbn, 1k tbc Metadata: Stream mapping: Stream #0:1 -> #0:0 (adpcm_ima_wav -> wmav2) Stream #0:0 -> #0:1 (mjpeg -> msmpeg4) Press [q] to stop, [?] for help Segmentation fault I can't even forward the stream. Thanks for your help again.

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• Oracle OpenWorld 2013 – Wrap up by Sven Bernhardt

  - by JuergenKress

  OOW 2013 is over and we’re heading home, so it is time to lean back and reflecting about the impressions we have from the conference. First of all: OOW was great! It was a pleasure to be a part of it. As already mentioned in our last blog article: It was the biggest OOW ever. Parallel to the conference the America’s Cup took place in San Francisco and the Oracle Team America won. Amazing job by the team and again congratulations from our side Back to the conference. The main topics for us are: Oracle SOA / BPM Suite 12c Adaptive Case management (ACM) Big Data Fast Data Cloud Mobile Below we will go a little more into detail, what are the key takeaways regarding the mentioned points: Oracle SOA / BPM Suite 12c During the five days at OOW, first details of the upcoming major release of Oracle SOA Suite 12c and Oracle BPM Suite 12c have been introduced. Some new key features are: Managed File Transfer (MFT) for transferring big files from a source to a target location Enhanced REST support by introducing a new REST binding Introduction of a generic cloud adapter, which can be used to connect to different cloud providers, like Salesforce Enhanced analytics with BAM, which has been totally reengineered (BAM Console now also runs in Firefox!) Introduction of templates (OSB pipelines, component templates, BPEL activities templates) EM as a single monitoring console OSB design-time integration into JDeveloper (Really great!) Enterprise modeling capabilities in BPM Composer These are only a few points from what is coming with 12c. We are really looking forward for the new realese to come out, because this seems to be really great stuff. The suite becomes more and more integrated. From 10g to 11g it was an evolution in terms of developing SOA-based applications. With 12c, Oracle continues it’s way – very impressive. Adaptive Case Management Another fantastic topic was Adaptive Case Management (ACM). The Oracle PMs did a great job especially at the demo grounds in showing the upcoming Case Management UI (will be available in 11g with the next BPM Suite MLR Patch), the roadmap and the differences between traditional business process modeling. They have been very busy during the conference because a lot of partners and customers have been interested Big Data Big Data is one of the current hype themes. Because of huge data amounts from different internal or external sources, the handling of these data becomes more and more challenging. Companies have a need for analyzing the data to optimize their business. The challenge is here: the amount of data is growing daily! To store and analyze the data efficiently, it is necessary to have a scalable and flexible infrastructure. Here it is important that hardware and software are engineered to work together. Therefore several new features of the Oracle Database 12c, like the new in-memory option, have been presented by Larry Ellison himself. From a hardware side new server machines like Fujitsu M10 or new processors, such as Oracle’s new M6-32 have been announced. The performance improvements, when using one of these hardware components in connection with the improved software solutions were really impressive. For more details about this, please take look at our previous blog post. Regarding Big Data, Oracle also introduced their Big Data architecture, which consists of: Oracle Big Data Appliance that is preconfigured with Hadoop Oracle Exdata which stores a huge amount of data efficently, to achieve optimal query performance Oracle Exalytics as a fast and scalable Business analytics system Analysis of the stored data can be performed using SQL, by streaming the data directly from Hadoop to an Oracle Database 12c. Alternatively the analysis can be directly implemented in Hadoop using “R”. In addition Oracle BI Tools can be used to analyze the data. Fast Data Fast Data is a complementary approach to Big Data. A huge amount of mostly unstructured data comes in via different channels with a high frequency. The analysis of these data streams is also important for companies, because the incoming data has to be analyzed regarding business-relevant patterns in real-time. Therefore these patterns must be identified efficiently and performant. To do so, in-memory grid solutions in combination with Oracle Coherence and Oracle Event Processing demonstrated very impressive how efficient real-time data processing can be. One example for Fast Data solutions that was shown during the OOW was the analysis of twitter streams regarding customer satisfaction. The feeds with negative words like “bad” or “worse” have been filtered and after a defined treshold has been reached in a certain timeframe, a business event was triggered. Cloud Another key trend in the IT market is of course Cloud Computing and what it means for companies and their businesses. Oracle announced their Cloud strategy and vision – companies can focus on their real business while all of the applications are available via Cloud. This also includes Oracle Database or Oracle Weblogic, so that companies can also build, deploy and run their own applications within the cloud. Three different approaches have been introduced: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Platform as a Service (PaaS) Software as a Service (SaaS) Using the IaaS approach only the infrastructure components will be managed in the Cloud. Customers will be very flexible regarding memory, storage or number of CPUs because those parameters can be adjusted elastically. The PaaS approach means that besides the infrastructure also the platforms (such as databases or application servers) necessary for running applications will be provided within the Cloud. Here customers can also decide, if installation and management of these infrastructure components should be done by Oracle. The SaaS approach describes the most complete one, hence all applications a company uses are managed in the Cloud. Oracle is planning to provide all of their applications, like ERP systems or HR applications, as Cloud services. In conclusion this seems to be a very forward-thinking strategy, which opens up new possibilities for customers to manage their infrastructure and applications in a flexible, scalable and future-oriented manner. As you can see, our OOW days have been very very interresting. We collected many helpful informations for our projects. The new innovations presented at the confernce are great and being part of this was even greater! We are looking forward to next years’ conference! Links: http://www.oracle.com/openworld/index.html http://thecattlecrew.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/first-impressions-from-oracle-open-world-2013 SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: cattleCrew,Sven Bernhard,OOW2013,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Five Key Strategies in Master Data Management

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Here is a very interesting Profit Magazine article on MDM: A recent customer survey reveals the deleterious effects of data fragmentation. by Trevor Naidoo, December 2010   Across industries and geographies, IT organizations have grown in complexity, whether due to mergers and acquisitions, or decentralized systems supporting functional or departmental requirements. With systems architected over time to support unique, one-off process needs, they are becoming costly to maintain, and the Internet has only further added to the complexity. Data fragmentation has become a key inhibitor in delivering flexible, user-friendly systems. The Oracle Insight team conducted a survey assessing customers' master data management (MDM) capabilities over the past two years to get a sense of where they are in terms of their capabilities. The responses, by 27 respondents from six different industries, reveal five key areas in which customers need to improve their data management in order to get better financial results. 1. Less than 15 percent of organizations surveyed understand the sources and quality of their master data, and have a roadmap to address missing data domains. Examples of the types of master data domains referred to are customer, supplier, product, financial and site. Many organizations have multiple sources of master data with varying degrees of data quality in each source -- customer data stored in the customer relationship management system is inconsistent with customer data stored in the order management system. Imagine not knowing how many places you stored your customer information, and whether a customer's address was the most up to date in each source. In fact, more than 55 percent of the respondents in the survey manage their data quality on an ad-hoc basis. It is important for organizations to document their inventory of data sources and then profile these data sources to ensure that there is a consistent definition of key data entities throughout the organization. Some questions to ask are: How do we define a customer? What is a product? How do we define a site? The goal is to strive for one common repository for master data that acts as a cross reference for all other sources and ensures consistent, high-quality master data throughout the organization. 2. Only 18 percent of respondents have an enterprise data management strategy to ensure that data is treated as an asset to the organization. Most respondents handle data at the department or functional level and do not have an enterprise view of their master data. The sales department may track all their interactions with customers as they move through the sales cycle, the service department is tracking their interactions with the same customers independently, and the finance department also has a different perspective on the same customer. The salesperson may not be aware that the customer she is trying to sell to is experiencing issues with existing products purchased, or that the customer is behind on previous invoices. The lack of a data strategy makes it difficult for business users to turn data into information via reports. Without the key building blocks in place, it is difficult to create key linkages between customer, product, site, supplier and financial data. These linkages make it possible to understand patterns. A well-defined data management strategy is aligned to the business strategy and helps create the governance needed to ensure that data stewardship is in place and data integrity is intact. 3. Almost 60 percent of respondents have no strategy to integrate data across operational applications. Many respondents have several disparate sources of data with no strategy to keep them in sync with each other. Even though there is no clear strategy to integrate the data (see #2 above), the data needs to be synced and cross-referenced to keep the business processes running. About 55 percent of respondents said they perform this integration on an ad hoc basis, and in many cases, it is done manually with the help of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. For example, a salesperson needs a report on global sales for a specific product, but the product has different product numbers in different countries. Typically, an analyst will pull all the data into Excel, manually create a cross reference for that product, and then aggregate the sales. The exact same procedure has to be followed if the same report is needed the following month. A well-defined consolidation strategy will ensure that a central cross-reference is maintained with updates in any one application being propagated to all the other systems, so that data is synchronized and up to date. This can be done in real time or in batch mode using integration technology. 4. Approximately 50 percent of respondents spend manual efforts cleansing and normalizing data. Information stored in various systems usually follows different standards and formats, making it difficult to match the data. A customer's address can be stored in different ways using a variety of abbreviations -- for example, "av" or "ave" for avenue. Similarly, a product's attributes can be stored in a number of different ways; for example, a size attribute can be stored in inches and can also be entered as "'' ". These types of variations make it difficult to match up data from different sources. Today, most customers rely on manual, heroic efforts to match, cleanse, and de-duplicate data -- clearly not a scalable, sustainable model. To solve this challenge, organizations need the ability to standardize data for customers, products, sites, suppliers and financial accounts; however, less than 10 percent of respondents have technology in place to automatically resolve duplicates. It is no wonder, therefore, that we get communications about products we don't own, at addresses we don't reside, and using channels (like direct mail) we don't like. An all-too-common example of a potential challenge follows: Customers end up receiving duplicate communications, which not only impacts customer satisfaction, but also incurs additional mailing costs. Cleansing, normalizing, and standardizing data will help address most of these issues. 5. Only 10 percent of respondents have the ability to share data that was mastered in a master data hub. Close to 60 percent of respondents have efforts in place that profile, standardize and cleanse data manually, and the output of these efforts are stored in spreadsheets in various parts of the organization. This valuable information is not easily shared with the rest of the organization and, more importantly, this enriched information cannot be sent back to the source systems so that the data is fixed at the source. A key benefit of a master data management strategy is not only to clean the data, but to also share the data back to the source systems as well as other systems that need the information. Aside from the source systems, another key beneficiary of this data is the business intelligence system. Having clean master data as input to business intelligence systems provides more accurate and enhanced reporting.  Characteristics of Stellar MDM When deciding on the right master data management technology, organizations should look for solutions that have four main characteristics: enterprise-grade MDM performance complete technology that can be rapidly deployed and addresses multiple business issues end-to-end MDM process management with data quality monitoring and assurance pre-built MDM business relevant applications with data stores and workflows These master data management capabilities will aid in moving closer to a best-practice maturity level, delivering tremendous efficiencies and savings as well as revenue growth opportunities as a result of better understanding your customers.  Trevor Naidoo is a senior director in Industry Strategy and Insight at Oracle. 

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• hostapd running on Ubuntu Server 13.04 only allows single station to connect when using wpa

  - by user450688

  Problem Only a single station can connect to hostapd at a time. Any single station can connect (W8, OSX, iOS, Nexus) but when two or more hosts are connected at the same time the first client loses its connectivity. However there are no connectivity issues when WPA is not used. Setup Linux (Ubuntu server 13.04) wireless router (with separate networks for wired WAN, wired LAN, and Wireless LAN. iptables-save output: *nat :PREROUTING ACCEPT [0:0] :INPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :POSTROUTING ACCEPT [0:0] -A POSTROUTING -s 10.0.0.0/24 -o p4p1 -j MASQUERADE -A POSTROUTING -s 10.0.1.0/24 -o p4p1 -j MASQUERADE COMMIT *mangle :PREROUTING ACCEPT [13:916] :INPUT ACCEPT [9:708] :FORWARD ACCEPT [4:208] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [9:3492] :POSTROUTING ACCEPT [13:3700] COMMIT *filter :INPUT DROP [0:0] :FORWARD DROP [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [9:3492] -A INPUT -i p4p1 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -i p4p1 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -i eth0 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -i wlan0 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT -A FORWARD -i p4p1 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A FORWARD -i eth0 -j ACCEPT -A FORWARD -i wlan0 -j ACCEPT -A FORWARD -i lo -j ACCEPT COMMIT /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf #Wireless Interface interface=wlan0 driver=nl80211 ssid=<removed> hw_mode=g channel=6 max_num_sta=15 auth_algs=3 ieee80211n=1 wmm_enabled=1 wme_enabled=1 #Configure Hardware Capabilities of Interface ht_capab=[HT40+][SMPS-STATIC][GF][SHORT-GI-20][SHORT-GI-40][RX-STBC12] #Accept all MAC address macaddr_acl=0 #Shared Key Authentication wpa=1 wpa_passphrase=<removed> wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK wpa_pairwise=CCMP rsn_pairwise=CCMP ###IPad Connectivevity Repair ieee8021x=0 eap_server=0 Wireless Card #lshw output product: RT2790 Wireless 802.11n 1T/2R PCIe vendor: Ralink corp. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0 logical name: mon.wlan0 version: 00 serial: <removed> width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list logical wireless ethernet physical configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800pci driverversion=3.8.0-25-generic firmware=0.34 ip=10.0.1.254 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn #iw list output Band 1: Capabilities: 0x272 HT20/HT40 Static SM Power Save RX Greenfield RX HT20 SGI RX HT40 SGI RX STBC 2-streams Max AMSDU length: 3839 bytes No DSSS/CCK HT40 Maximum RX AMPDU length 65535 bytes (exponent: 0x003) Minimum RX AMPDU time spacing: 2 usec (0x04) HT RX MCS rate indexes supported: 0-15, 32 TX unequal modulation not supported HT TX Max spatial streams: 1 HT TX MCS rate indexes supported may differ Frequencies: * 2412 MHz [1] (27.0 dBm) * 2417 MHz [2] (27.0 dBm) * 2422 MHz [3] (27.0 dBm) * 2427 MHz [4] (27.0 dBm) * 2432 MHz [5] (27.0 dBm) * 2437 MHz [6] (27.0 dBm) * 2442 MHz [7] (27.0 dBm) * 2447 MHz [8] (27.0 dBm) * 2452 MHz [9] (27.0 dBm) * 2457 MHz [10] (27.0 dBm) * 2462 MHz [11] (27.0 dBm) * 2467 MHz [12] (disabled) * 2472 MHz [13] (disabled) * 2484 MHz [14] (disabled) Bitrates (non-HT): * 1.0 Mbps * 2.0 Mbps (short preamble supported) * 5.5 Mbps (short preamble supported) * 11.0 Mbps (short preamble supported) * 6.0 Mbps * 9.0 Mbps * 12.0 Mbps * 18.0 Mbps * 24.0 Mbps * 36.0 Mbps * 48.0 Mbps * 54.0 Mbps max # scan SSIDs: 4 max scan IEs length: 2257 bytes Coverage class: 0 (up to 0m) Supported Ciphers: * WEP40 (00-0f-ac:1) * WEP104 (00-0f-ac:5) * TKIP (00-0f-ac:2) * CCMP (00-0f-ac:4) Available Antennas: TX 0 RX 0 Supported interface modes: * IBSS * managed * AP * AP/VLAN * WDS * monitor * mesh point software interface modes (can always be added): * AP/VLAN * monitor valid interface combinations: * #{ AP } <= 8, total <= 8, #channels <= 1 Supported commands: * new_interface * set_interface * new_key * new_beacon * new_station * new_mpath * set_mesh_params * set_bss * authenticate * associate * deauthenticate * disassociate * join_ibss * join_mesh * set_tx_bitrate_mask * set_tx_bitrate_mask * action * frame_wait_cancel * set_wiphy_netns * set_channel * set_wds_peer * Unknown command (84) * Unknown command (87) * Unknown command (85) * Unknown command (89) * Unknown command (92) * testmode * connect * disconnect Supported TX frame types: * IBSS: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * managed: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * AP: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * AP/VLAN: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * mesh point: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * P2P-client: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * P2P-GO: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * Unknown mode (10): 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 Supported RX frame types: * IBSS: 0x40 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 * managed: 0x40 0xd0 * AP: 0x00 0x20 0x40 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 * AP/VLAN: 0x00 0x20 0x40 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 * mesh point: 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 * P2P-client: 0x40 0xd0 * P2P-GO: 0x00 0x20 0x40 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 * Unknown mode (10): 0x40 0xd0 Device supports RSN-IBSS. HT Capability overrides: * MCS: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff * maximum A-MSDU length * supported channel width * short GI for 40 MHz * max A-MPDU length exponent * min MPDU start spacing Device supports TX status socket option. Device supports HT-IBSS.

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• Orchestrating the Virtual Enterprise

  - by John Murphy

  During the American Industrial Revolution, the Ford Motor Company did it all. It turned raw materials into a showroom full of Model Ts. It owned a steel mill, a glass factory, and an automobile assembly line. The company was both self-sufficient and innovative and went on to become one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. Nowadays, it's unusual for any business to follow this vertical integration model because its much harder to be best in class across such a wide a range of capabilities and services. Instead, businesses focus on their core competencies and outsource other business functions to specialized suppliers. They exchange vertical integration for collaboration. When done well, all parties benefit from this arrangement and the collaboration leads to the creation of an agile, lean and successful "virtual enterprise." Case in point: For Sun hardware, Oracle outsources most of its manufacturing and all of its logistics to third parties. These are vital activities, but ones where Oracle doesn't have a core competency, so we shift them to business partners who do. Within our enterprise, we always retain the core functions of product development, support, and most of the sales function, because that's what constitutes our core value to our customers. This is a perfect example of a virtual enterprise.  What are the implications of this? It means that we must exchange direct internal control for indirect external collaboration. This fundamentally changes the relative importance of different business processes, the boundaries of security and information sharing, and the relationship of the supply chain systems to the ERP. The challenge is that the systems required to support this virtual paradigm are still mired in "island enterprise" thinking. But help is at hand. Developments such as the Web, social networks, collaboration, and rules-based orchestration offer great potential to fundamentally re-architect supply chain systems to better support the virtual enterprise.  Supply Chain Management Systems in a Virtual Enterprise Historically enterprise software was constructed to automate the ERP - and then the supply chain systems extended the ERP. They were joined at the hip. In virtual enterprises, the supply chain system needs to be ERP agnostic, sitting above each of the ERPs that are distributed across the virtual enterprise - most of which are operating in other businesses. This is vital so that the supply chain system can manage the flow of material and the related information through the multiple enterprises. It has to have strong collaboration tools. It needs to be highly flexible. Users need to be able to see information that's coming from multiple sources and be able to react and respond to events across those sources.  Oracle Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO) is a perfect example of a supply chain system designed to operate in this virtual way. DOO embraces the idea that a company's fulfillment challenge is a distributed, multi-enterprise problem. It enables users to manage the process and the trading partners in a uniform way and deliver a consistent user experience while operating over a heterogeneous, virtual enterprise. This is a fundamental shift at the core of managing supply chains. It forces virtual enterprises to think architecturally about how best to construct their supply chain systems.  Case in point, almost everyone has ordered from Amazon.com at one time or another. Our orders are as likely to be fulfilled by third parties as they are by Amazon itself. To deliver the order promptly and efficiently, Amazon has to send it to the right fulfillment location and know the availability in that location. It needs to be able to track status of the fulfillment and deal with exceptions. As a virtual enterprise, Amazon's operations, using thousands of trading partners, requires a very different approach to fulfillment than the traditional 'take an order and ship it from your own warehouse' model. Amazon had no choice but to develop a complex, expensive and custom solution to tackle this problem as there used to be no product solution available. Now, other companies who want to follow similar models have a better off-the-shelf choice -- Oracle Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO).  Consider how another of our customers is using our distributed orchestration solution. This major airplane manufacturer has a highly complex business and interacts regularly with the U.S. Government and major airlines. It sits in the middle of an intricate supply chain and needed to improve visibility across its many different entities. Oracle Fusion DOO gives the company an orchestration mechanism so it could improve quality, speed, flexibility, and consistency without requiring an organ transplant of these highly complex legacy systems. Many retailers face the challenge of dealing with brick and mortar, Web, and reseller channels. They all need to be knitted together into a virtual enterprise experience that is consistent for their customers. When a large U.K. grocer with a strong brick and mortar retail operation added an online business, they turned to Oracle Fusion DOO to bring these entities together. Disturbing the Peace with Acquisitions Quite often a company's ERP system is disrupted when it acquires a new company. An acquisition can inject a new set of processes and systems -- or even introduce an entirely new business like Sun's hardware did at Oracle. This challenge has been a driver for some of our DOO customers. A large power management company is using Oracle Fusion DOO to provide the flexibility to rapidly integrate additional products and services into its central fulfillment operation. The Flip Side of Fulfillment Meanwhile, we haven't ignored similar challenges on the supply side of the equation. Specifically, how to manage complex supply in a flexible way when there are multiple trading parties involved? How to manage the supply to suppliers? How to manage critical components that need to merge in a tier two or tier three supply chain? By investing in supply orchestration solutions for the virtual enterprise, we plan to give users better visibility into their network of suppliers to help them drive down costs. We also think this technology and full orchestration process can be applied to the financial side of organizations. An example is transactions that flow through complex internal structures to minimize tax exposure. We can help companies manage those transactions effectively by thinking about the internal organization as a virtual enterprise and bringing the same solution set to this internal challenge.  The Clear Front Runner No other company is investing in solving the virtual enterprise supply chain issues like Oracle is. Oracle is in a unique position to become the gold standard in this market space. We have the infrastructure of Oracle technology. We already have an Oracle Fusion DOO application which embraces the best of what's required in this area. And we're absolutely committed to extending our Fusion solution to other use cases and delivering even more business value.

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• iCloud stuff stops working while connected to OpenVPN

  - by Taco Bob

  I have a fairly simple OpenVPN setup on an OpenVZ VPS with Ubuntu 11.10. Client is the Viscosity client on Mac OS X 10.8.2, and after some testing, we can rule out the client as being part of the problem. Everything has been working fine except for Apple's iCloud stuff. Web surfing, email, FTP, NNTP, and Skype are all working as expected. It's ONLY the iCloud services that cease to function. If I connect to the VPN, iCloud stuff stops working. I no longer get anything in Messages, Calendar items don't get updated, and Notifications stop working. If I disconnect, the iCloud stuff all starts working. Connect again, iCloud stops working. Here's the server.conf: status openvpn-status.log log /var/log/openvpn.log verb 4 port 1194 proto udp dev tun ca /etc/openvpn/ca.crt cert /etc/openvpn/server.crt key /etc/openvpn/server.key dh /etc/openvpn/dh1024.pem server 10.9.8.0 255.255.255.0 ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt push "redirect-gateway def1" push “dhcp-option DNS 10.9.8.1? keepalive 10 120 duplicate-cn cipher BF-CBC comp-lzo user nobody group nogroup persist-key persist-tun tun-mtu 1500 mssfix 1400 I'm using iptables in a script, and it's also fairly simplistic. iptables -F iptables -t nat -F iptables -t mangle -F iptables -A FORWARD -i tun0 -o venet0 -j ACCEPT iptables -A FORWARD -i venet0 -o tun0 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 1194 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 1194 -j ACCEPT iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.9.8.0/24 -j SNAT --to-source <server's public ip> echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward I tried forwarding ports as well, with no success. iptables -A FORWARD -p tcp -d 10.9.8.0/24 --dport 5222:5230 -j ACCEPT iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 5222:5230 -j DNAT --to-destination 10.9.8.6 I am also sometimes behind a double-NAT situation that I have no control over. Client -> work VPN -> my OpenVPN box -> Internet. Client -> Airport Express -> ISP (which is doing NAT) -> my OpenVPN box -> Internet. Those two situations are just the fact of life where I am, and I cannot change them. I do have full control over my client and the OpenVPN server. I am completely out of ideas. I have posted a similar query at the OpenVPN forums, but it hasn't posted yet and seems to be in their moderation queue still. Tried on freenode irc channels, but nobody is awake, so here I am. I have Googled extensively for this, and can find nothing that is related. Help me get iCloud stuff working again! (I tried serverfault, it was closed as off-topic. I'm trying here and the Unix site as well. Here because it's a more general audience that might know more about OpenVPN based on the number of questions I see asked about it) EDIT: -I have also tried upgrading to Version: 2.3-beta1-debian0 - issue persists. -Removed all iptables rules except for the ones that flush -left this rule:iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.9.8.0/24 -j SNAT --to-source (server ip) -added iptables -A FORWARD -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT still, nothing works. I can see traffic in tcpdump on the server if i watch the tunnel: 20:03:48.702835 IP nk11p01st-courier105-bz.push.apple.com.5223 10.9.8.6.60772: Flags [F.], seq 2635, ack 1218, win 76, options [nop,nop,TS val 914984811 ecr 745921298], length 0 20:03:48.911244 IP 10.9.8.6.60772 nk11p01st-courier105-bz.push.apple.com.5223: Flags [R], seq 3621143451, win 0, length 0 But still, no push messages/notifications are ever delivered. :/ EDIT: * Further testing indicates that it might actually be the client after all.

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• Let your Signature Experience drive IT-decision making

  - by Tania Le Voi

  Today’s CIO job description:  ‘’Align IT infrastructure and solutions with business goals and objectives ; AND while doing so reduce costs; BUT ALSO, be innovative, ensure the architectures are adaptable and agile as we need to act today on the changes that we may request tomorrow.”   Sound like an unachievable request? The fact is, reality dictates that CIO’s are put under this type of pressure to deliver more with less. In a past career phase I spent a few years as an IT Relationship Manager for a large Insurance company. This is a role that we see all too infrequently in many of our customers, and it’s a shame.  The purpose of this role was to build a bridge, a relationship between IT and the business. Key to achieving that goal was to ensure the same language was being spoken and more importantly that objectives were commonly understood - hence service and projects were delivered to time, to budget and actually solved the business problems. In reality IT and the business are already married, but the relationship is most often defined as ‘supplier’ of IT rather than a ‘trusted partner’. To deliver business value they need to understand how to work together effectively to attain this next level of partnership. The Business cannot compete if they do not get a new product to market ahead of the competition, or for example act in a timely manner to address a new industry problem such as a legislative change. An even better example is when the Application or Service fails and the Business takes a hit by bad publicity, being trending topics on social media and losing direct revenue from online channels. For this reason alone Business and IT need the alignment of their priorities and deliverables now more than ever! Take a look at Forrester’s recent study that found ‘many IT respondents considering themselves to be trusted partners of the business but their efforts are impaired by the inadequacy of tools and organizations’.  IT Meet the Business; Business Meet IT So what is going on? We talk about aligning the business with IT but the reality is it’s difficult to do. Like any relationship each side has different goals and needs and language can be a barrier; business vs. technology jargon! What if we could translate the needs of both sides into actionable information, backed by data both sides understand, presented in a meaningful way?  Well now we can with the Business-Driven Application Management capabilities in Oracle Enterprise Manager 12cR2! Enterprise Manager’s Business-Driven Application Management capabilities provide the information that IT needs to understand the impact of its decisions on business criteria.  No longer does IT need to be focused solely on speeds and feeds, performance and throughput – now IT can understand IT’s impact on business KPIs like inventory turns, order-to-cash cycle, pipeline-to-forecast, and similar.  Similarly, now the line of business can understand which IT services are most critical for the KPIs they care about. There are a good deal of resources on Oracle Technology Network that describe the functionality of these products, so I won’t’ rehash them here.  What I want to talk about is what you do with these products. What’s next after we meet? Where do you start? Step 1:  Identify the Signature Experience. This is THE business process (or set of processes) that is core to the business, the one that drives the economic engine, the process that a customer recognises the company brand for, reputation, the customer experience, the process that a CEO would state as his number one priority. The crème de la crème of your business! Once you have nailed this it gets easy as Enterprise Manager 12c makes it easy. Step 2:  Map the Signature Experience to underlying IT.  Taking the signature experience, map out the touch points of the components that play a part in ensuring this business transaction is successful end to end, think of it like mapping out a critical path; the applications, middleware, databases and hardware. Use the wealth of Enterprise Manager features such as Systems, Services, Business Application Targets and Business Transaction Management (BTM) to assist you. Adding Real User Experience Insight (RUEI) into the mix will make the end to end customer satisfaction story transparent. Work with the business and define meaningful key performance indicators (KPI’s) and thresholds to enable you to report and action upon. Step 3:  Observe the data over time.  You now have meaningful insight into every step enabling your signature experience and you understand the implication of that experience on your underlying IT.  Watch if for a few months, see what happens and reconvene with your business stakeholders and set clear and measurable targets which can re-define service levels.  Step 4:  Change the information about which you and the business communicate.  It’s amazing what happens when you and the business speak the same language.  You’ll be able to make more informed business and IT decisions. From here IT can identify where/how budget is spent whether on the level of support, performance, capacity, HA, DR, certification etc. IT SLA’s no longer need be focused on metrics such as %availability but structured around business process requirements. The power of this way of thinking doesn’t end here. IT staff get to see and understand how their own role contributes to the business making them accountable for the business service. Take a step further and appraise your staff on the business competencies that are linked to the service availability. For the business, the language barrier is removed by producing targeted reports on the signature experience core to the business and therefore key to the CEO. Chargeback or show back becomes easier to justify as the ‘cost of day per outage’ can be more easily calculated; the business will be able to translate the cost to the business to the cost/value of the underlying IT that supports it. Used this way, Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c is a key enabler to a harmonious relationship between the end customer the business and IT to deliver ultimate service and satisfaction. Just engage with the business upfront, make the signature experience visible and let Enterprise Manager 12c do the rest. In the next blog entry we will cover some of the Enterprise Manager features mentioned to enable you to implement this new way of working.  

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• Introduction to Human Workflow 11g

  - by agiovannetti

  Human Workflow is a component of SOA Suite just like BPEL, Mediator, Business Rules, etc. The Human Workflow component allows you to incorporate human intervention in a business process. You can use Human Workflow to create a business process that requires a manager to approve purchase orders greater than $10,000; or a business process that handles article reviews in which a group of reviewers need to vote/approve an article before it gets published. Human Workflow can handle the task assignment and routing as well as the generation of notifications to the participants. There are three common patterns or usages of Human Workflow: 1) Approval Scenarios: manage documents and other transactional data through approval chains . For example: approve expense report, vacation approval, hiring approval, etc. 2) Reviews by multiple users or groups: group collaboration and review of documents or proposals. For example, processing a sales quote which is subject to review by multiple people. 3) Case Management: workflows around work management or case management. For example, processing a service request. This could be routed to various people who all need to modify the task. It may also incorporate ad hoc routing which is unknown at design time. SOA 11g Human Workflow includes the following features: Assignment and routing of tasks to the correct users or groups. Deadlines, escalations, notifications, and other features required for ensuring the timely performance of a task. Presentation of tasks to end users through a variety of mechanisms, including a Worklist application. Organization, filtering, prioritization and other features required for end users to productively perform their tasks. Reports, reassignments, load balancing and other features required by supervisors and business owners to manage the performance of tasks. Human Workflow Architecture The Human Workflow component is divided into 3 modules: the service interface, the task definition and the client interface module. The Service Interface handles the interaction with BPEL and other components. The Client Interface handles the presentation of task data through clients like the Worklist application, portals and notification channels. The task definition module is in charge of managing the lifecycle of a task. Who should get the task assigned? What should happen next with the task? When must the task be completed? Should the task be escalated?, etc Stages and Participants When you create a Human Task you need to specify how the task is assigned and routed. The first step is to define the stages and participants. A stage is just a logical group. A participant can be a user, a group of users or an application role. The participants indicate the type of assignment and routing that will be performed. Stages can be sequential or in parallel. You can combine them to create any usage you require. See diagram below: Assignment and Routing There are different ways a task can be assigned and routed: Single Approver: task is assigned to a single user, group or role. For example, a vacation request is assigned to a manager. If the manager approves or rejects the request, the employee is notified with the decision. If the task is assigned to a group then once one of managers acts on it, the task is completed. Parallel : task is assigned to a set of people that must work in parallel. This is commonly used for voting. For example, a task gets approved once 50% of the participants approve it. You can also set it up to be a unanimous vote. Serial : participants must work in sequence. The most common scenario for this is management chain escalation. FYI (For Your Information) : task is assigned to participants who can view it, add comments and attachments, but can not modify or complete the task. Task Actions The following is the list of actions that can be performed on a task: Claim : if a task is assigned to a group or multiple users, then the task must be claimed first to be able to act on it. Escalate : if the participant is not able to complete a task, he/she can escalate it. The task is reassigned to his/her manager (up one level in a hierarchy). Pushback : the task is sent back to the previous assignee. Reassign :if the participant is a manager, he/she can delegate a task to his/her reports. Release : if a task is assigned to a group or multiple users, it can be released if the user who claimed the task cannot complete the task. Any of the other assignees can claim and complete the task. Request Information and Submit Information : use when the participant needs to supply more information or to request more information from the task creator or any of the previous assignees. Suspend and Resume :if a task is not relevant, it can be suspended. A suspension is indefinite. It does not expire until Resume is used to resume working on the task. Withdraw : if the creator of a task does not want to continue with it, for example, he wants to cancel a vacation request, he can withdraw the task. The business process determines what happens next. Renew : if a task is about to expire, the participant can renew it. The task expiration date is extended one week. Notifications Human Workflow provides a mechanism for sending notifications to participants to alert them of changes on a task. Notifications can be sent via email, telephone voice message, instant messaging (IM) or short message service (SMS). Notifications can be sent when the task status changes to any of the following: Assigned/renewed/delegated/reassigned/escalated Completed Error Expired Request Info Resume Suspended Added/Updated comments and/or attachments Updated Outcome Withdraw Other Actions (e.g. acquiring a task) Here is an example of an email notification: Worklist Application Oracle BPM Worklist application is the default user interface included in SOA Suite. It allows users to access and act on tasks that have been assigned to them. For example, from the Worklist application, a loan agent can review loan applications or a manager can approve employee vacation requests. Through the Worklist Application users can: Perform authorized actions on tasks, acquire and check out shared tasks, define personal to-do tasks and define subtasks. Filter tasks view based on various criteria. Work with standard work queues, such as high priority tasks, tasks due soon and so on. Work queues allow users to create a custom view to group a subset of tasks in the worklist, for example, high priority tasks, tasks due in 24 hours, expense approval tasks and more. Define custom work queues. Gain proxy access to part of another user's tasks. Define custom vacation rules and delegation rules. Enable group owners to define task dispatching rules for shared tasks. Collect a complete workflow history and audit trail. Use digital signatures for tasks. Run reports like Unattended tasks, Tasks productivity, etc. Here is a screenshoot of what the Worklist Application looks like. On the right hand side you can see the tasks that have been assigned to the user and the task's detail. References Introduction to SOA Suite 11g Human Workflow Webcast Note 1452937.2 Human Workflow Information Center Using the Human Workflow Service Component 11.1.1.6 Human Workflow Samples Human Workflow APIs Java Docs

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• ???????????????

  - by Todd Bao

  ?????????,???????????????????,??????????,???????,??????,?????????????: SYS@fmw//Scripts> @showfkparent hr employees---------------|             ||DEPARTMENT_ID| +>-->HR.DEPARTMENTS.DEPARTMENT_ID|             ||JOB_ID       | +>-->HR.JOBS.JOB_ID|             ||MANAGER_ID   | +>-->HR.EMPLOYEES.EMPLOYEE_ID|             |--------------- SYS@fmw//Scripts> @showfkparent sh sales------------|          ||CHANNEL_ID| +>-->SH.CHANNELS.CHANNEL_ID|          ||CUST_ID   | +>-->SH.CUSTOMERS.CUST_ID|          ||PROD_ID   | +>-->SH.PRODUCTS.PROD_ID|          ||PROMO_ID  | +>-->SH.PROMOTIONS.PROMO_ID|          ||TIME_ID   | +>-->SH.TIMES.TIME_ID|          |------------ ????????? ??? 30-08-2012 set echo offset verify offset serveroutput ondefine table_owner='&1'define table_name='&2'declare        type info_typ is record (ct varchar2(30),cc varchar2(30),po varchar2(30),pt varchar2(30),pc varchar2(30));        type info_tab_typ is table of info_typ index by pls_integer;        info_tab info_tab_typ;        max_col_length number := 0;beginwith        cons_child as (select                        owner,constraint_name,table_name,                        r_owner,r_constraint_name                from dba_constraints                where                        constraint_type='R' and                        owner=upper('&table_owner') and                        table_name=upper('&table_name')),        cons_parent as (select owner,constraint_name,table_name                from dba_constraints                where                        (owner,constraint_name) in                        (select r_owner,r_constraint_name from cons_child))select        child.table_name child_table_name,        child.column_name child_column_name,        parent.owner parent_owner,        parent.table_name parent_table_name,        parent.column_name parent_column_name        bulk collect into info_tabfrom        cons_child cc,        cons_parent cp,        dba_cons_columns parent,        dba_cons_columns childwhere        cc.owner = child.owner and        cc.constraint_name = child.constraint_name and        cp.owner = parent.owner and        cp.constraint_name = parent.constraint_name and        cc.r_owner = cp.owner and        cc.r_constraint_name = cp.constraint_name and        parent.position = child.positionorder by 2;if (info_tab is not null and info_tab.count >0) then        for i in 1..info_tab.count loop                if length(info_tab(i).cc) > max_col_length then                        max_col_length := length(info_tab(i).cc);                end if;        end loop;        dbms_output.put_line(rpad('-',max_col_length+2,'-'));                dbms_output.put_line(' '||'|'||rpad(' ',max_col_length,' ')||'|');        for i in 1..info_tab.count loop                dbms_output.put('|'||rpad(info_tab(i).cc,max_col_length,' ')||'|');                dbms_output.put_line(' +>-->'||info_tab(i).po||'.'||info_tab(i).pt||'.'||info_tab(i).pc);                dbms_output.put_line('|'||rpad(' ',max_col_length,' ')||'|');        end loop;        dbms_output.put_line(rpad('-',max_col_length+2,'-'));else        dbms_output.put_line('### No foreign key defined on this table! ###');end if;end;/undefine table_ownerundefine table_nameset serveroutput off Todd

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• Why does my MacBook Pro have long ping times over Wi-Fi?

  - by randynov

  I have been having problems connecting with my Wi-Fi. It is weird, the ping times to the router (<30 feet away) seem to surge, often getting over 10 seconds before slowly coming back down. You can see the trend below. I'm on a MacBook Pro and have done the normal stuff (reset the PRAM and SMC, changed wireless channels, etc.). It happens across different routers, so I think it must be my laptop, but I don't know what it could be. The RSSI value hovers around -57, but I've seen the transmit rate flip between 0, 48 and 54. The signal strength is ~60% with 9% noise. Currently, there are 17 other wireless networks in range, but only one in the same channel. 1 - How can I figure out what's going on? 2 - How can I correct the situation? PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=254 time=781.107 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=254 time=681.551 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=254 time=610.001 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=254 time=544.915 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=254 time=547.622 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=254 time=468.914 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=254 time=237.368 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=254 time=229.902 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=254 time=11754.151 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=254 time=10753.943 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=10 ttl=254 time=9754.428 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=11 ttl=254 time=8754.199 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=12 ttl=254 time=7754.138 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=13 ttl=254 time=6754.159 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=14 ttl=254 time=5753.991 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=15 ttl=254 time=4754.068 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=16 ttl=254 time=3753.930 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=17 ttl=254 time=2753.768 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=18 ttl=254 time=1753.866 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=19 ttl=254 time=753.592 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=20 ttl=254 time=517.315 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=37 ttl=254 time=1.315 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=38 ttl=254 time=1.035 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=39 ttl=254 time=4.597 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=21 ttl=254 time=18010.681 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=22 ttl=254 time=17010.449 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=23 ttl=254 time=16010.430 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=24 ttl=254 time=15010.540 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=25 ttl=254 time=14010.450 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=26 ttl=254 time=13010.175 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=27 ttl=254 time=12010.282 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=28 ttl=254 time=11010.265 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=29 ttl=254 time=10010.285 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=30 ttl=254 time=9010.235 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=31 ttl=254 time=8010.399 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=32 ttl=254 time=7010.144 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=33 ttl=254 time=6010.113 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=34 ttl=254 time=5010.025 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=35 ttl=254 time=4009.966 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=36 ttl=254 time=3009.825 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=40 ttl=254 time=16000.676 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=41 ttl=254 time=15000.477 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=42 ttl=254 time=14000.388 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=43 ttl=254 time=13000.549 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=44 ttl=254 time=12000.469 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=45 ttl=254 time=11000.332 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=46 ttl=254 time=10000.339 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=47 ttl=254 time=9000.338 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=48 ttl=254 time=8000.198 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=49 ttl=254 time=7000.388 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=50 ttl=254 time=6000.217 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=51 ttl=254 time=5000.084 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=52 ttl=254 time=3999.920 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=53 ttl=254 time=3000.010 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=54 ttl=254 time=1999.832 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=55 ttl=254 time=1000.072 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=58 ttl=254 time=1.125 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=59 ttl=254 time=1.070 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=60 ttl=254 time=2.515 ms

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• Why does my macbook pro have long ping times over wifi?

  - by randynov

  I have been having problems connecting with my wifi. It is weird, the ping times to the router (<30 feet away) seem to surge, often getting over 10s before slowly coming back down. You can see the trend below. I'm on a macbook pro and have done the normal stuff (reset the pram and smc, changed wireless channels, etc.). It happens across different routers, so I think it must be my laptop, but I don't know what it could be. The RSSI value hovers around -57, but I've seen the transmit rate flip between 0, 48 & 54. The signal strength is ~60% with 9% noise. Currently, there are 17 other wireless networks in range, but only one in the same channel. 1 - How can I figure out what's going on? 2 - How can I correct the situation? TIA! Randall PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=254 time=781.107 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=254 time=681.551 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=254 time=610.001 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=254 time=544.915 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=254 time=547.622 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=254 time=468.914 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=254 time=237.368 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=254 time=229.902 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=254 time=11754.151 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=254 time=10753.943 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=10 ttl=254 time=9754.428 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=11 ttl=254 time=8754.199 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=12 ttl=254 time=7754.138 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=13 ttl=254 time=6754.159 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=14 ttl=254 time=5753.991 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=15 ttl=254 time=4754.068 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=16 ttl=254 time=3753.930 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=17 ttl=254 time=2753.768 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=18 ttl=254 time=1753.866 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=19 ttl=254 time=753.592 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=20 ttl=254 time=517.315 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=37 ttl=254 time=1.315 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=38 ttl=254 time=1.035 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=39 ttl=254 time=4.597 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=21 ttl=254 time=18010.681 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=22 ttl=254 time=17010.449 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=23 ttl=254 time=16010.430 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=24 ttl=254 time=15010.540 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=25 ttl=254 time=14010.450 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=26 ttl=254 time=13010.175 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=27 ttl=254 time=12010.282 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=28 ttl=254 time=11010.265 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=29 ttl=254 time=10010.285 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=30 ttl=254 time=9010.235 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=31 ttl=254 time=8010.399 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=32 ttl=254 time=7010.144 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=33 ttl=254 time=6010.113 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=34 ttl=254 time=5010.025 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=35 ttl=254 time=4009.966 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=36 ttl=254 time=3009.825 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=40 ttl=254 time=16000.676 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=41 ttl=254 time=15000.477 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=42 ttl=254 time=14000.388 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=43 ttl=254 time=13000.549 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=44 ttl=254 time=12000.469 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=45 ttl=254 time=11000.332 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=46 ttl=254 time=10000.339 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=47 ttl=254 time=9000.338 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=48 ttl=254 time=8000.198 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=49 ttl=254 time=7000.388 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=50 ttl=254 time=6000.217 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=51 ttl=254 time=5000.084 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=52 ttl=254 time=3999.920 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=53 ttl=254 time=3000.010 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=54 ttl=254 time=1999.832 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=55 ttl=254 time=1000.072 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=58 ttl=254 time=1.125 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=59 ttl=254 time=1.070 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=60 ttl=254 time=2.515 ms

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• Three ways to upload/post/convert iMovie to YouTube

  - by user44251

  For Mac users, iMovie is probably a convenient tool for making, editing their own home movies so as to upload to YouTube for sharing with more people. However, uploading iMovie files to YouTube can't be always a smooth run, I did notice many people complaining about it. This article is delivered for guiding those who are haunted by the nightmare by providing three common ways to upload iMovie files to YouTube. YouTube and iMovie YouTube is the most popular video sharing website for users to upload, share and view videos. It empowers anyone with an Internet connection the ability to upload video clips and share them with friends, family and the world. Users are invited to leave comments, pick favourites, send messages to each other and watch videos sorted into subjects and channels. YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most container formats, including WMV (Windows Media Video), 3GP (Cell Phones), AVI (Windows), MOV (Mac), MP4 (iPod/PSP), FLV (Adobe Flash), MKV (H.264). These include video codecs such as MP4, MPEG and WMV. iMovie is a common video editing software application comes with every Mac for users to edit their own home movies. It imports video footage to the Mac using either the Firewire interface on most MiniDV format digital video cameras, the USB port, or by importing the files from a hard drive where users can edit the video clips, add titles, and add music. Since 1999, eight versions of iMovie have been released by Apple, each with its own functions and characteristic, and each of them deal with videos in a way more or less different. But the most common formats handled with iMovie if specialty discarded as far as to my research are MOV, DV, HDV, MPEG-4. Three ways for successful upload iMovie files to YouTube Solution one and solution two suitable for those who are 100 certainty with their iMovie files which are fully compatible with YouTube. For smooth uploading, you are required to get a YouTube account first. Solution 1: Directly upload iMovie to YouTube Step 1: Launch iMovie, select the project you want to upload in YouTube. Step 2: Go to the file menu, click Share, select Export Movie Step 3: Specify the output file name and directory and then type the video type and video size. Solution 2: Post iMovie to YouTube straightly Step 1: Launch iMovie, choose the project you want to post in YouTube Step 2: From the Share menu, choose YouTube Step 3: In the pop-up YouTube windows, specify the name of your YouTube account, the password, choose the Category and fill in the description and tags of the project. Tick Make this movie more private on the bottom of the window, if possible, to limit those who can view the project. Click Next, and then click Publish. iMovie will automatically export and upload the movie to YouTube. Step 4: Click Tell a Friend to email friends and your family about your film. You are also allowed to copy the URL from Tell a Friend window and paste it into an email you created in your favourite email application if you like. Anyone you send to email to will be able to follow the URL directly to your movie. Note: Videos uploaded to YouTube are limited to ten minutes in length and a file size of 2GB. Solution 3: Upload to iMovie after conversion If neither of the above mentioned method works, there is still a third way to turn to. Sometimes, your iMovie files may not be recognized by YouTube due to the versions of iMovie (settings and functions may varies among versions), video itself (video format difference because of file extension, resolution, video size and length), compatibility (videos that are completely incompatible with YouTube). In this circumstance, the best and reliable method is to convert your iMovie files to YouTube accepted files, iMovie to YouTube converter will be inevitably the ideal choice. iMovie to YouTube converter is an elaborately designed tool for convert iMovie files to YouTube workable WMV, 3GP, AVI, MOV, MP4, FLV, MKV for smooth uploading with hard-to-believe conversion speed and second to none output quality. It can also convert between almost all popular popular file formats like AVI, WMV, MPG, MOV, VOB, DV, MP4, FLV, 3GP, RM, ASF, SWF, MP3, AAC, AC3, AIFF, AMR, WAV, WMA etc so as to put on various portable devices, import to video editing software or play on vast amount video players. iMovie to YouTube converter can also served as an excellent video editing tool to meet your specific program requirements. For example, you can cut your video files to a certain length, or split your video files to smaller ones and select the proper resolution suitable for demands of YouTube by Clip or Settings separately. Crop allows you to cut off unwanted black edges from your videos. Besides, you can also have a good command of the whole process or snapshot your favourite pictures from the preview window. More can be expected if you have a try.

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• Three ways to upload/post/convert iMovie to YouTube [closed]

  - by alexyu2010

  For Mac users, iMovie is probably a convenient tool for making, editing their own home movies so as to upload to YouTube for sharing with more people. However, uploading iMovie files to YouTube can't be always a smooth run, I did notice many people complaining about it. This article is delivered for guiding those who are haunted by the nightmare by providing three common ways to upload iMovie files to YouTube. YouTube and iMovie YouTube is the most popular video sharing website for users to upload, share and view videos. It empowers anyone with an Internet connection the ability to upload video clips and share them with friends, family and the world. Users are invited to leave comments, pick favourites, send messages to each other and watch videos sorted into subjects and channels. YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most container formats, including WMV (Windows Media Video), 3GP (Cell Phones), AVI (Windows), MOV (Mac), MP4 (iPod/PSP), FLV (Adobe Flash), MKV (H.264). These include video codecs such as MP4, MPEG and WMV. iMovie is a common video editing software application comes with every Mac for users to edit their own home movies. It imports video footage to the Mac using either the Firewire interface on most MiniDV format digital video cameras, the USB port, or by importing the files from a hard drive where users can edit the video clips, add titles, and add music. Since 1999, eight versions of iMovie have been released by Apple, each with its own functions and characteristic, and each of them deal with videos in a way more or less different. But the most common formats handled with iMovie if specialty discarded as far as to my research are MOV, DV, HDV, MPEG-4. Three ways for successful upload iMovie files to YouTube Solution one and solution two suitable for those who are 100 certainty with their iMovie files which are fully compatible with YouTube. For smooth uploading, you are required to get a YouTube account first. Solution 1: Directly upload iMovie to YouTube Step 1: Launch iMovie, select the project you want to upload in YouTube. Step 2: Go to the file menu, click Share, select Export Movie Step 3: Specify the output file name and directory and then type the video type and video size. Solution 2: Post iMovie to YouTube straightly Step 1: Launch iMovie, choose the project you want to post in YouTube Step 2: From the Share menu, choose YouTube Step 3: In the pop-up YouTube windows, specify the name of your YouTube account, the password, choose the Category and fill in the description and tags of the project. Tick Make this movie more private on the bottom of the window, if possible, to limit those who can view the project. Click Next, and then click Publish. iMovie will automatically export and upload the movie to YouTube. Step 4: Click Tell a Friend to email friends and your family about your film. You are also allowed to copy the URL from Tell a Friend window and paste it into an email you created in your favourite email application if you like. Anyone you send to email to will be able to follow the URL directly to your movie. Note: Videos uploaded to YouTube are limited to ten minutes in length and a file size of 2GB. Solution 3: Upload to iMovie after conversion If neither of the above mentioned method works, there is still a third way to turn to. Sometimes, your iMovie files may not be recognized by YouTube due to the versions of iMovie (settings and functions may varies among versions), video itself (video format difference because of file extension, resolution, video size and length), compatibility (videos that are completely incompatible with YouTube). In this circumstance, the best and reliable method is to convert your iMovie files to YouTube accepted files, iMovie to YouTube converter will be inevitably the ideal choice. iMovie to YouTube converter is an elaborately designed tool for convert iMovie files to YouTube workable WMV, 3GP, AVI, MOV, MP4, FLV, MKV for smooth uploading with hard-to-believe conversion speed and second to none output quality. It can also convert between almost all popular popular file formats like AVI, WMV, MPG, MOV, VOB, DV, MP4, FLV, 3GP, RM, ASF, SWF, MP3, AAC, AC3, AIFF, AMR, WAV, WMA etc so as to put on various portable devices, import to video editing software or play on vast amount video players. iMovie to YouTube converter can also served as an excellent video editing tool to meet your specific program requirements. For example, you can cut your video files to a certain length, or split your video files to smaller ones and select the proper resolution suitable for demands of YouTube by Clip or Settings separately. Crop allows you to cut off unwanted black edges from your videos. Besides, you can also have a good command of the whole process or snapshot your favourite pictures from the preview window. More can be expected if you have a try.

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• WCF on Windows Phone 7 (Silverlight 4)

  - by Igor Zevaka

  Has anyone been able to communicate using WCF on Windows Phone Series 7 emulator? I've been trying for the past two days and it's just happening for me. I can get a normal Silverlight control to work in both Silverlight 3 and Silverlight 4, but not the phone version. Here are two versions that I've tried: Version 1 - Using Async Pattern BasicHttpBinding basicHttpBinding = new BasicHttpBinding(); EndpointAddress endpointAddress = new EndpointAddress("http://localhost/wcf/Authentication.svc"); Wcf.IAuthentication auth1 = new ChannelFactory<Wcf.IAuthentication>(basicHttpBinding, endpointAddress).CreateChannel(endpointAddress); AsyncCallback callback = (result) => { Action<string> write = (str) => { this.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(delegate { //Display something }); }; try { Wcf.IAuthentication auth = result.AsyncState as Wcf.IAuthentication; Wcf.AuthenticationResponse response = auth.EndLogin(result); write(response.Success.ToString()); } catch (Exception ex) { write(ex.Message); System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message); } }; auth1.BeginLogin("user0", "test0", callback, auth1); This version breaks on this line: Wcf.IAuthentication auth1 = new ChannelFactory<Wcf.IAuthentication>(basicHttpBinding, endpointAddress).CreateChannel(endpointAddress); Throwing System.NotSupportedException. The exception is not very descriptive and the callstack is equally not very helpful: at System.ServiceModel.DiagnosticUtility.ExceptionUtility.BuildMessage(Exception x) at System.ServiceModel.DiagnosticUtility.ExceptionUtility.LogException(Exception x) at System.ServiceModel.DiagnosticUtility.ExceptionUtility.ThrowHelperError(Exception e) at System.ServiceModel.ChannelFactory`1.CreateChannel(EndpointAddress address) at WindowsPhoneApplication2.MainPage.DoLogin() .... Version 2 - Blocking WCF call Here is the version that doesn't use the async pattern. [System.ServiceModel.ServiceContract] public interface IAuthentication { [System.ServiceModel.OperationContract] AuthenticationResponse Login(string user, string password); } public class WcfClientBase<TChannel> : System.ServiceModel.ClientBase<TChannel> where TChannel : class { public WcfClientBase(string name, bool streaming) : base(GetBinding(streaming), GetEndpoint(name)) { ClientCredentials.UserName.UserName = WcfConfig.UserName; ClientCredentials.UserName.Password = WcfConfig.Password; } public WcfClientBase(string name) : this(name, false) {} private static System.ServiceModel.Channels.Binding GetBinding(bool streaming) { System.ServiceModel.BasicHttpBinding binding = new System.ServiceModel.BasicHttpBinding(); binding.MaxReceivedMessageSize = 1073741824; if(streaming) { //binding.TransferMode = System.ServiceModel.TransferMode.Streamed; } /*if(XXXURLXXX.StartsWith("https")) { binding.Security.Mode = BasicHttpSecurityMode.Transport; binding.Security.Transport.ClientCredentialType = HttpClientCredentialType.None; }*/ return binding; } private static System.ServiceModel.EndpointAddress GetEndpoint(string name) { return new System.ServiceModel.EndpointAddress(WcfConfig.Endpoint + name + ".svc"); } protected override TChannel CreateChannel() { throw new System.NotImplementedException(); } } auth.Login("test0", "password0"); This version crashes in System.ServiceModel.ClientBase<TChannel> constructor. The call stack is a bit different: at System.Reflection.MethodInfo.get_ReturnParameter() at System.ServiceModel.Description.ServiceReflector.HasNoDisposableParameters(MethodInfo methodInfo) at System.ServiceModel.Description.TypeLoader.CreateOperationDescription(ContractDescription contractDescription, MethodInfo methodInfo, MessageDirection direction, ContractReflectionInfo reflectionInfo, ContractDescription declaringContract) at System.ServiceModel.Description.TypeLoader.CreateOperationDescriptions(ContractDescription contractDescription, ContractReflectionInfo reflectionInfo, Type contractToGetMethodsFrom, ContractDescription declaringContract, MessageDirection direction) at System.ServiceModel.Description.TypeLoader.CreateContractDescription(ServiceContractAttribute contractAttr, Type contractType, Type serviceType, ContractReflectionInfo& reflectionInfo, Object serviceImplementation) at System.ServiceModel.Description.TypeLoader.LoadContractDescriptionHelper(Type contractType, Type serviceType, Object serviceImplementation) at System.ServiceModel.Description.TypeLoader.LoadContractDescription(Type contractType) at System.ServiceModel.ChannelFactory1.CreateDescription() at System.ServiceModel.ChannelFactory.InitializeEndpoint(Binding binding, EndpointAddress address) at System.ServiceModel.ChannelFactory1..ctor(Binding binding, EndpointAddress remoteAddress) at System.ServiceModel.ClientBase1..ctor(Binding binding, EndpointAddress remoteAddress) at Wcf.WcfClientBase1..ctor(String name, Boolean streaming) at Wcf.WcfClientBase`1..ctor(String name) at Wcf.AuthenticationClient..ctor() at WindowsPhoneApplication2.MainPage.DoLogin() ... Any ideas?

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• SharePoint 2010 - Access denied during ApplyWebConfigModifications()

  - by tcoalson

  I have SharePoint 2010 installed on a Windows Server 2008 R2 machine which is also hosting SQL Sever 2008 R2. I am attempting to deploy a solution that includes web parts in the 2010 environment that is working fine in MOSS 2007. The Web Part feature has a feature receiver that updates the web.config. When I try to activate the feature through the Site Collection Feature GUI, I receive an access denied message. I am logged on to the server and in SharePoint with the APP Pool account which is also a member of the domain administrator group, local administrator group and SharePoint Farm Admin group. This account is also dbo on SQL Server. This same feature activates fine using the stsadm command. I have dug into this issue at length and here is what I have found: Looking at the Microsoft assemblies in reflector, my error is coming from the SPWebApplication.ApplyWebConfigModifications() method. I can see the trace statements from SPWebConfigFileChanges.RemoveModificationsWebConfigXMLDocument and SPWebConfigFileChanges.ApplyModificationsWebConfigXMLDocument. The next line is a Save(str). Below is the output from the SharePoint logs that pertain to this error: Apply web config modifications to web app 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.09 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation General 8grn Medium WebConfigModification: Applying web config modifications to web app in server tw-s1-m4400-007 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.09 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation Topology 88gw Medium WebConfigModification: Applying web config modifications to file C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\2008\web.config 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.09 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation Topology 887b Medium Removing web config node - Path configuration/system.web/httpModules Node name add[@name='JivePageController'] 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.09 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation Topology 887b Medium Removing web config node - Path configuration/system.web/httpHandlers Node name add[@path='ScriptResource.axd'] 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.09 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation Topology 887b Medium Removing web config node - Path configuration/runtime/*[local-name()="assemblyBinding" and namespace-uri()="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"] Node name [local-name()="dependentAssembly"][/@name="System.Web.Extensions.Design"] 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.09 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation Topology 887b Medium Removing web config node - Path configuration/runtime/*[local-name()="assemblyBinding" and namespace-uri()="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"] Node name [local-name()="dependentAssembly"][/@name="System.Web.Extensions"] 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.09 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation Topology 8gp8 Medium WebConfigModification: Adding web config node - Path - configuration/runtime/*[local-name()="assemblyBinding" and namespace-uri()="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"] Node name - [local-name()="dependentAssembly"][/@name="System.Web.Extensions"] Node value - in web.config file C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\2008\web.config 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.09 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation Topology 8gp8 Medium WebConfigModification: Adding web config node - Path - configuration/runtime/*[local-name()="assemblyBinding" and namespace-uri()="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"] Node name - [local-name()="dependentAssembly"][/@name="System.Web.Extensions.Design"] Node value - in web.config file C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\2008\web.config 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.09 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation Topology 8gp8 Medium WebConfigModification: Adding web config node - Path - configuration/system.web/httpHandlers Node name - add[@path='ScriptResource.axd'] Node value - in web.config file C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\2008\web.config 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.09 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation Topology 8gp8 Medium WebConfigModification: Adding web config node - Path - configuration/system.web/httpModules Node name - add[@name='JivePageController'] Node value - in web.config file C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\2008\web.config 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.09 w3wp.exe (0x15C4) 0x1444 SharePoint Foundation Topology e5mb Medium WcfReceiveRequest: LocalAddress: 'http://tw-s1-m4400-007.jivedemo.local:32843/15702467ece1408f881abeabac3b5077/MetadataWebService.svc' Channel: 'System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel' Action: xxx MessageId: 'urn:uuid:4e859532-ed7f-4937-8b88-68d3af43d589' 9f403ede-2c94-490b-a05c-e169cc5fe58d 02/24/2010 16:05:41.10 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation Topology f6kh High WebConfigModification: Save of web.config file C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\2008\web.config for applying modifications to web app SharePoint - 2008 failed. Error message - Access to the path 'C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\2008\web.config' is denied. 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b 02/24/2010 16:05:41.10 w3wp.exe (0x0F64) 0x1034 SharePoint Foundation Topology 8j2o High WebConfigModification: Changes not applied to web application SharePoint - 2008 with Url xxx 5a817a37-7bf6-4d26-be51-207369e38f5b Any help would be appreciated!

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• Ten - oh, wait, eleven - Eleven things you should know about the ASP.NET Fall 2012 Update

  - by Jon Galloway

  Today, just a little over two months after the big ASP.NET 4.5 / ASP.NET MVC 4 / ASP.NET Web API / Visual Studio 2012 / Web Matrix 2 release, the first preview of the ASP.NET Fall 2012 Update is out. Here's what you need to know: There are no new framework bits in this release - there's no change or update to ASP.NET Core, ASP.NET MVC or Web Forms features. This means that you can start using it without any updates to your server, upgrade concerns, etc. This update is really an update to the project templates and Visual Studio tooling, conceptually similar to the ASP.NET MVC 3 Tools Update. It's a relatively lightweight install. It's a 41MB download. I've installed it many times and usually takes 5-7 minutes; it's never required a reboot. It adds some new project templates to ASP.NET MVC: Facebook Application and Single Page Application templates. It adds a lot of cool enhancements to ASP.NET Web API. It adds some tooling that makes it easy to take advantage of features like SignalR, Friendly URLs, and Windows Azure Authentication. Most of the new features are installed via NuGet packages. Since ASP.NET is open source, nightly NuGet packages are available, and the roadmap is published, most of this has really been publicly available for a while. The official name of this drop is the ASP.NET Fall 2012 Update BUILD Prerelease. Please do not attempt to say that ten times fast. While the EULA doesn't prohibit it, it WILL legally change your first name to Scott. As with all new releases, you can find out everything you need to know about the Fall Update at http://asp.net/vnext (especially the release notes!) I'm going to be showing all of this off, assisted by special guest code monkey Scott Hanselman, this Friday at BUILD: Bleeding edge ASP.NET: See what is next for MVC, Web API, SignalR and more… (and I've heard it will be livestreamed). Let's look at some of those things in more detail. No new bits ASP.NET 4.5, MVC 4 and Web API have a lot of great core features. I see the goal of this update release as making it easier to put those features to use to solve some useful scenarios by taking advantage of NuGet packages and template code. If you create a new ASP.NET MVC application using one of the new templates, you'll see that it's using the ASP.NET MVC 4 RTM NuGet package (4.0.20710.0): This means you can install and use the Fall Update without any impact on your existing projects and no worries about upgrading or compatibility. New Facebook Application Template ASP.NET MVC 4 (and ASP.NET 4.5 Web Forms) included the ability to authenticate your users via OAuth and OpenID, so you could let users log in to your site using a Facebook account. One of the new changes in the Fall Update is a new template that makes it really easy to create full Facebook applications. You could create Facebook application in ASP.NET already, you'd just need to go through a few steps: Search around to find a good Facebook NuGet package, like the Facebook C# SDK (written by my friend Nathan Totten and some other Facebook SDK brainiacs). Read the Facebook developer documentation to figure out how to authenticate and integrate with them. Write some code, debug it and repeat until you got something working. Get started with the application you'd originally wanted to write. What this template does for you: eliminate steps 1-3. Erik Porter, Nathan and some other experts built out the Facebook Application template so it automatically pulls in and configures the Facebook NuGet package and makes it really easy to take advantage of it in an ASP.NET MVC application. One great example is the the way you access a Facebook user's information. Take a look at the following code in a File / New / MVC / Facebook Application site. First, the Home Controller Index action: [FacebookAuthorize(Permissions = "email")] public ActionResult Index(MyAppUser user, FacebookObjectList<MyAppUserFriend> userFriends) { ViewBag.Message = "Modify this template to jump-start your Facebook application using ASP.NET MVC."; ViewBag.User = user; ViewBag.Friends = userFriends.Take(5); return View(); } First, notice that there's a FacebookAuthorize attribute which requires the user is authenticated via Facebook and requires permissions to access their e-mail address. It binds to two things: a custom MyAppUser object and a list of friends. Let's look at the MyAppUser code: using Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc.Facebook.Attributes; using Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc.Facebook.Models; // Add any fields you want to be saved for each user and specify the field name in the JSON coming back from Facebook // https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/user/ namespace MvcApplication3.Models { public class MyAppUser : FacebookUser { public string Name { get; set; } [FacebookField(FieldName = "picture", JsonField = "picture.data.url")] public string PictureUrl { get; set; } public string Email { get; set; } } } You can add in other custom fields if you want, but you can also just bind to a FacebookUser and it will automatically pull in the available fields. You can even just bind directly to a FacebookUser and check for what's available in debug mode, which makes it really easy to explore. For more information and some walkthroughs on creating Facebook applications, see: Deploying your first Facebook App on Azure using ASP.NET MVC Facebook Template (Yao Huang Lin) Facebook Application Template Tutorial (Erik Porter) Single Page Application template Early releases of ASP.NET MVC 4 included a Single Page Application template, but it was removed for the official release. There was a lot of interest in it, but it was kind of complex, as it handled features for things like data management. The new Single Page Application template that ships with the Fall Update is more lightweight. It uses Knockout.js on the client and ASP.NET Web API on the server, and it includes a sample application that shows how they all work together. I think the real benefit of this application is that it shows a good pattern for using ASP.NET Web API and Knockout.js. For instance, it's easy to end up with a mess of JavaScript when you're building out a client-side application. This template uses three separate JavaScript files (delivered via a Bundle, of course): todoList.js - this is where the main client-side logic lives todoList.dataAccess.js - this defines how the client-side application interacts with the back-end services todoList.bindings.js - this is where you set up events and overrides for the Knockout bindings - for instance, hooking up jQuery validation and defining some client-side events This is a fun one to play with, because you can just create a new Single Page Application and hit F5. Quick, easy install (with one gotcha) One of the cool engineering changes for this release is a big update to the installer to make it more lightweight and efficient. I've been running nightly builds of this for a few weeks to prep for my BUILD demos, and the install has been really quick and easy to use. The install takes about 5 minutes, has never required a reboot for me, and the uninstall is just as simple. There's one gotcha, though. In this preview release, you may hit an issue that will require you to uninstall and re-install the NuGet VSIX package. The problem comes up when you create a new MVC application and see this dialog: The solution, as explained in the release notes, is to uninstall and re-install the NuGet VSIX package: Start Visual Studio 2012 as an Administrator Go to Tools->Extensions and Updates and uninstall NuGet. Close Visual Studio Navigate to the ASP.NET Fall 2012 Update installation folder: For Visual Studio 2012: Program Files\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET Web Stack\Visual Studio 2012 For Visual Studio 2012 Express for Web: Program Files\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET Web Stack\Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web Double click on the NuGet.Tools.vsix to reinstall NuGet This took me under a minute to do, and I was up and running. ASP.NET Web API Update Extravaganza! Uh, the Web API team is out of hand. They added a ton of new stuff: OData support, Tracing, and API Help Page generation. OData support Some people like OData. Some people start twitching when you mention it. If you're in the first group, this is for you. You can add a [Queryable] attribute to an API that returns an IQueryable<Whatever> and you get OData query support from your clients. Then, without any extra changes to your client or server code, your clients can send filters like this: /Suppliers?$filter=Name eq ‘Microsoft’ For more information about OData support in ASP.NET Web API, see Alex James' mega-post about it: OData support in ASP.NET Web API ASP.NET Web API Tracing Tracing makes it really easy to leverage the .NET Tracing system from within your ASP.NET Web API's. If you look at the \App_Start\WebApiConfig.cs file in new ASP.NET Web API project, you'll see a call to TraceConfig.Register(config). That calls into some code in the new \App_Start\TraceConfig.cs file: public static void Register(HttpConfiguration configuration) { if (configuration == null) { throw new ArgumentNullException("configuration"); } SystemDiagnosticsTraceWriter traceWriter = new SystemDiagnosticsTraceWriter() { MinimumLevel = TraceLevel.Info, IsVerbose = false }; configuration.Services.Replace(typeof(ITraceWriter), traceWriter); } As you can see, this is using the standard trace system, so you can extend it to any other trace listeners you'd like. To see how it works with the built in diagnostics trace writer, just run the application call some API's, and look at the Visual Studio Output window: iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Request, Method=GET, Url=http://localhost:11147/api/Values, Message='http://localhost:11147/api/Values' iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='Values', Operation=DefaultHttpControllerSelector.SelectController iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='WebAPI.Controllers.ValuesController', Operation=DefaultHttpControllerActivator.Create iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='WebAPI.Controllers.ValuesController', Operation=HttpControllerDescriptor.CreateController iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='Selected action 'Get()'', Operation=ApiControllerActionSelector.SelectAction iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=HttpActionBinding.ExecuteBindingAsync iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=QueryableAttribute.ActionExecuting iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='Action returned 'System.String[]'', Operation=ReflectedHttpActionDescriptor.ExecuteAsync iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='Will use same 'JsonMediaTypeFormatter' formatter', Operation=JsonMediaTypeFormatter.GetPerRequestFormatterInstance iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='Selected formatter='JsonMediaTypeFormatter', content-type='application/json; charset=utf-8'', Operation=DefaultContentNegotiator.Negotiate iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=ApiControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionAsync, Status=200 (OK) iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=QueryableAttribute.ActionExecuted, Status=200 (OK) iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=ValuesController.ExecuteAsync, Status=200 (OK) iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Response, Status=200 (OK), Method=GET, Url=http://localhost:11147/api/Values, Message='Content-type='application/json; charset=utf-8', content-length=unknown' iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=JsonMediaTypeFormatter.WriteToStreamAsync iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=ValuesController.Dispose API Help Page When you create a new ASP.NET Web API project, you'll see an API link in the header: Clicking the API link shows generated help documentation for your ASP.NET Web API controllers: And clicking on any of those APIs shows specific information: What's great is that this information is dynamically generated, so if you add your own new APIs it will automatically show useful and up to date help. This system is also completely extensible, so you can generate documentation in other formats or customize the HTML help as much as you'd like. The Help generation code is all included in an ASP.NET MVC Area: SignalR SignalR is a really slick open source project that was started by some ASP.NET team members in their spare time to add real-time communications capabilities to ASP.NET - and .NET applications in general. It allows you to handle long running communications channels between your server and multiple connected clients using the best communications channel they can both support - websockets if available, falling back all the way to old technologies like long polling if necessary for old browsers. SignalR remains an open source project, but now it's being included in ASP.NET (also open source, hooray!). That means there's real, official ASP.NET engineering work being put into SignalR, and it's even easier to use in an ASP.NET application. Now in any ASP.NET project type, you can right-click / Add / New Item... SignalR Hub or Persistent Connection. And much more... There's quite a bit more. You can find more info at http://asp.net/vnext, and we'll be adding more content as fast as we can. Watch my BUILD talk to see as I demonstrate these and other features in the ASP.NET Fall 2012 Update, as well as some other even futurey-er stuff!

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• Productivity Tips

  - by Brian T. Jackett

  A few months ago during my first end of year review at Microsoft I was doing an assessment of my year.  One of my personal goals to come out of this reflection was to improve my personal productivity.  While I hear many people say “I wish I had more hours in the day so that I could get more done” I feel like that is the wrong approach.  There is an inherent assumption that you are being productive with your time that you already have and thus more time would allow you to be as productive given more time.    Instead of wishing I could add more hours to the day I’ve begun adopting a number of processes or behavior changes in my personal life to make better use of my time with the goal of improving productivity.  The areas of focus are as follows: Focus Processes Tools Personal health Email Note: A number of these topics have spawned from reading Scott Hanselman’s blog posts on productivity, reading of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, and discussions with friends and coworkers who had great insights into this topic.   Focus Pre-reading / viewing: Overcome your work addiction Millennials paralyzed by choice Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (Scott Hanselman video)    I highly recommend Scott Hanselman’s video above and this post before continuing with this article.  It is well worth the 40+ mins price of admission for the video and couple minutes for article.  One key takeaway for me was listing out my activities in an average week and realizing which ones held little or no value to me.  We all have a finite amount of time to work each day.  Do you know how much time and effort you spend on various aspects of your life (family, friends, religion, work, personal happiness, etc.)?  Do your actions and commitments reflect your priorities?    The biggest time consumers with little value for me were time spent on social media services (Twitter and Facebook), playing an MMO video game, and watching TV.  I still check up on Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft internal chat forums, and other services to keep contact with others but I’ve reduced that time significantly.  As for TV I’ve cut the cord and no longer subscribe to cable TV.  Instead I use Netflix, RedBox, and over the air channels but again with reduced time consumption.  With the time I’ve freed up I’m back to working out 2-3 times a week and reading 4 nights a week (both of which I had been neglecting previously).  I’ll mention a few tools for helping measure your time in the Tools section.   Processes    Do not multi-task.  I’ll say it again.  Do not multi-task.  There is no such thing as multi tasking.  The human brain is optimized to work on one thing at a time.  When you are “multi-tasking” you are really doing 2 or more things at less than 100%, usually by a wide margin.  I take pride in my work and when I’m doing something less than 100% the results typically degrade rapidly.    Now there are some ways of bending the rules of physics for this one.  There is the notion of getting a double amount of work done in the same timeframe.  Some examples would be listening to podcasts / watching a movie while working out, using a treadmill as your work desk, or reading while in the bathroom.    Personally I’ve found good results in combining one task that does not require focus (making dinner, playing certain video games, working out) and one task that does (watching a movie, listening to podcasts).  I believe this is related to me being a visual and kinesthetic (using my hands or actually doing it) learner.  I’m terrible with auditory learning.  My fiance and I joke that sometimes we talk and talk to each other but never really hear each other.   Goals / Tasks    Goals can give us direction in life and a sense of accomplishment when we complete them.  Goals can also overwhelm us and give us a sense of failure when we don’t complete them.  I propose that you shift your perspective and not dwell on all of the things that you haven’t gotten done, but focus instead on regularly setting measureable goals that are within reason of accomplishing.    At the end of each time frame have a retrospective to review your progress.  Do not feel guilty about what you did not accomplish.  Feel proud of what you did accomplish and readjust your goals for the next time frame to more attainable goals.  Here is a sample schedule I’ve seen proposed by some.  I have not consistently set goals for each timeframe, but I do typically set 3 small goals a day (this blog post is #2 for today). Each day set 3 small goals Each week set 3 medium goals Each month set 1 large goal Each year set 2 very large goals   Tools    Tools are an extension of our human body.  They help us extend beyond what we can physically and mentally do.  Below are some tools I use almost daily or have found useful as of late. Disclaimer: I am not getting endorsed to promote any of these products.  I just happen to like them and find them useful. Instapaper – Save internet links for reading later.  There are many tools like this but I’ve found this to be a great one.  There is even a “read it later” JavaScript button you can add to your browser so when you navigate to a site it will then add this to your list. Stacks for Instapaper – A Windows Phone 7 app for reading my Instapaper articles on the go.  It does require a subscription to Instapaper (nominal $3 every three months) but is easily worth the cost.  Alternatively you can set up your Kindle to sync with Instapaper easily but I haven’t done so. SlapDash Podcast – Apps for Windows Phone and  Windows 8 (possibly other platforms) to sync podcast viewing / listening across multiple devices.  Now that I have my Surface RT device (which I love) this is making my consumption easier to manage. Feed Reader – Simple Windows 8 app for quickly catching up on my RSS feeds.  I used to have hundreds of unread items all the time.  Now I’m down to 20-50 regularly and it is much easier and faster to consume on my Surface RT.  There is also a free version (which I use) and I can’t see much different between the free and paid versions currently. Rescue Time – Have you ever wondered how much time you’ve spent on websites vs. email vs. “doing work”?  This service tracks your computer actions and then lets you report on them.  This can help you quantitatively identify areas where your actions are not in line with your priorities. PowerShell – Windows automation tool.  It is now built into every client and server OS.  This tool has saved me days (and I mean the full 24 hrs worth) of time and effort in the past year alone.  If you haven’t started learning PowerShell and you administrating any Windows OS or server product you need to start today. Various blogging tools – I wrote a post a couple years ago called How I Blog about my blogging process and tools used.  Almost all of it still applies today.   Personal Health    Some of these may be common sense or debatable, but I’ve found them to help prioritize my daily activities. Get plenty of sleep on a regular basis.  Sacrificing sleep too many nights a week negatively impacts your cognition, attitude, and overall health. Exercise at least three days.  Exercise could be lifting weights, taking the stairs up multiple flights of stairs, walking for 20 mins, or a number of other "non-traditional” activities.  I find that regular exercise helps with sleep and improves my overall attitude. Eat a well balanced diet.  Too much sugar, caffeine, junk food, etc. are not good for your body.  This is not a matter of losing weight but taking care of your body and helping you perform at your peak potential.   Email    Email can be one of the biggest time consumers (i.e. waster) if you aren’t careful. Time box your email usage.  Set a meeting invite for yourself if necessary to limit how much time you spend checking email. Use rules to prioritize your email.  Email from external customers, my manager, or include me directly on the To line go into my inbox.  Everything else goes a level down and I have 30+ rules to further sort it, mostly distribution lists. Use keyboard shortcuts (when available).  I use Outlook for my primary email and am constantly hitting Alt + S to send, Ctrl + 1 for my inbox, Ctrl + 2 for my calendar, Space / Tab / Shift + Tab to mark items as read, and a number of other useful commands.  Learn them and you’ll see your speed getting through emails increase. Keep emails short.  No one Few people like reading through long emails.  The first line should state exactly why you are sending the email followed by a 3-4 lines to support it.  Anything longer might be better suited as a phone call or in person discussion.   Conclusion    In this post I walked through various tips and tricks I’ve found for improving personal productivity.  It is a mix of re-focusing on the things that matter, using tools to assist in your efforts, and cutting out actions that are not aligned with your priorities.  I originally had a whole section on keyboard shortcuts, but with my recent purchase of the Surface RT I’m finding that touch gestures have replaced numerous keyboard commands that I used to need.  I see a big future in touch enabled devices.  Hopefully some of these tips help you out.  If you have any tools, tips, or ideas you would like to share feel free to add in the comments section.         -Frog Out   Links Scott Hanselman Productivity posts http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CategoryView.aspx?category=Productivity Overcome your work addiction http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/05/overcome-your-work-addiction.html?awid=5512355740280659420-3271   Millennials paralyzed by choice http://priyaparker.com/blog/millennials-paralyzed-by-choice   Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (video) http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ItsNotWhatYouReadItsWhatYouIgnoreVideoOfScottHanselmansPersonalProductivityTips.aspx   Cutting the cord – Jeff Blankenburg http://www.jeffblankenburg.com/2011/04/06/cutting-the-cord/   Building a sitting standing desk – Eric Harlan http://www.ericharlan.com/Everything_Else/building-a-sitting-standing-desk-a229.html   Instapaper http://www.instapaper.com/u   Stacks for Instapaper http://www.stacksforinstapaper.com/   Slapdash Podcast Windows Phone -  http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/slapdash-podcasts/90e8b121-080b-e011-9264-00237de2db9e Windows 8 - http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/slapdash-podcasts/0c62e66a-f2e4-4403-af88-3430a821741e/m/ROW   Feed Reader http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/feed-reader/d03199c9-8e08-469a-bda1-7963099840cc/m/ROW   Rescue Time http://www.rescuetime.com/   PowerShell Script Center http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/bb410849.aspx

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• WCF errors in VS 2010/.Net 4 using sample publish/subscribe app from IDesign website

  - by Bill

  I am attempting to compile/run a sample WCF application from Juval Lowy's website (author of Programming WCF Services & founder of IDesign). The application is an example of a publish/subscribe 'traffic-light' application that requires using VS 2010/.Net 4. This is my first attempt at using anything other than VS 2008/Net 3.5. Initially I recieved the following binding error: "Configuration binding extension 'system.serviceModel/bindings/ netOnewayRelayBinding' could not be found." This error appeared to be resolved by amending the .Net 4 machine.config file, to incorporate the following references from the .Net 2 machine.config file. <xml> <bindingElementExtensions> <add name="tcpRelayTransport" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.TcpRelayTransportElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> <add name="httpRelayTransport" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.HttpRelayTransportElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> <add name="httpsRelayTransport" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.HttpsRelayTransportElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> <add name="onewayRelayTransport" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.RelayedOnewayTransportElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> <add name="webMessageEncoding" type="System.ServiceModel.Configuration.WebMessageEncodingElement, System.ServiceModel.Web, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/> <add name="context" type="System.ServiceModel.Configuration.ContextBindingElementExtensionElement, System.ServiceModel, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"/> <add name="byteStreamMessageEncoding" type="System.ServiceModel.Configuration.ByteStreamMessageEncodingElement, System.ServiceModel.Channels, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/> <add name="discoveryClient" type="System.ServiceModel.Discovery.Configuration.DiscoveryClientElement, System.ServiceModel.Discovery, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/> </bindingElementExtensions> <bindingExtensions> <add name="webHttpBinding" type="System.ServiceModel.Configuration.WebHttpBindingCollectionElement, System.ServiceModel.Web, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/> <add name="basicHttpContextBinding" type="System.ServiceModel.Configuration.BasicHttpContextBindingCollectionElement, System.ServiceModel, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"/> <add name="basicHttpRelayBinding" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.BasicHttpRelayBindingCollectionElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> <add name="webHttpRelayBinding" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.WebHttpRelayBindingCollectionElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> <add name="ws2007HttpRelayBinding" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.WS2007HttpRelayBindingCollectionElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> <add name="netTcpRelayBinding" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.NetTcpRelayBindingCollectionElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> <add name="netOnewayRelayBinding" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.NetOnewayRelayBindingCollectionElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> <add name="netEventRelayBinding" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.NetEventRelayBindingCollectionElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/> <add name="wsHttpContextBinding" type="System.ServiceModel.Configuration.WSHttpContextBindingCollectionElement, System.ServiceModel, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"/> <add name="netTcpContextBinding" type="System.ServiceModel.Configuration.NetTcpContextBindingCollectionElement, System.ServiceModel, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"/> </bindingExtensions> Unfortunately running the application results in the following security error: An error occurred creating the configuration section handler for system.serviceModel/client: That assembly does not allow partially trusted callers. (\TrafficLights\TrafficController\bin\Debug\TrafficController.vshost.exe.Config line 4) The sample source code is available for download at the following link: http://www.idesign.net/idesign/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=-1&tabid=19&download=226 I know that Juval's code is not at fault here and that it must be something I'm doing wrong with my VS 2010 configuration. I have not been able to find a solution online. Could someone please steer me in the right direction as to how best to deal with this issue?

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• NRF Online Merchandising Workshop: Where Online Retailers Are Focusing for Holiday and Beyond

  - by Rose Spicer-Oracle

  0 0 1 1204 6863 Oracle Corporation 57 16 8051 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Last month we attended the NRF Online Merchandising Workshop in LA, and it was a great opportunity to catch up with our customers, meet new retailers, and hear some great presentations from VF Corporation, Zazzle, Julep Beauty, Backcountry, eBags and more. The one-on-one conversations with Merchants and the keynote presentations carry the same themes across companies of all sizes and across verticals. With only 125 days left (and counting) until Black Friday, these conversations provided some great insight in to what’s top of mind for retailers during the most stressful time of their year, and a sneak peek in to what they will deliver this holiday season.  Some of the most popular topics were: When to start promoting for holiday: seems like a funny conversation to have in July, but a number of retailers said they already had their holiday shopping gift guides live on their site, and it was attracting a significant portion of their onsite traffic. When it comes to timing, most retailers were questioning when to begin their holiday promotions -- carefully balancing when to release pricing and specials, and knowing that customers are holding out for last-minute deals and price drops. Many retailers noted the frustrations around transparent pricing by Amazon and a few other mega-retailers last year, publishing their “lowest prices of the season” as early as October – ensuring shoppers that those prices were the best they could get all season long. Many retailers felt their hands were forced to drop prices. Others kept their set pricing with negative customer reaction, causing some to miss their holiday goals. The pressure is on, and most retailers identified November 1 as their target start date for the holiday promotions blitz. Some are even waiting for the big guys to release their “lowest prices of the season” guides and will then follow suit.      Attribution is tough – and a huge focus: understanding the path to conversion is a tough nut to crack, especially in the new omnichannel world where consumers use multiple touchpoints to make a single purchase, and internal management wants to know hard data. This has lead many retailers to invest in attribution; carefully tracking their online marketing efforts to determine what gets “credit” for the sale, instead of giving credit to the “last click.” Retailers noted that it is very difficult to determine the numbers when online and offline worlds collide – like when a shopper uses digital channels for research and then makes a purchase in a store. As one of the presenters from The North Face mentioned in her keynote, a key to enabling better customer service and satisfaction when it comes to converged online and offline sales is training the in-store staff, and creating a culture where it eventually “doesn’t matter what group gets the credit” if they all add to the sale. No doubt, the area of attribution will be a big area of retail investment in the coming years.      How to plan for the converged world: planning to ensure inventory gets where it needs to be was another concern. In conversations with retailers, we advised them to analyze customer patterns: where shoppers purchase items, where the items were sourced from and even where items are returned. This analysis is very valuable in determining inventory plans. From there, retailers can more accurately plan and allocate inventory to support both the online and offline customer behavior. As we head into the holiday season, the need for accurate enterprise-wide inventory visibility, and providing that information to associates, is even more critical to the brand-wide customer experience.       Improving the search / navigation / usability of the site(s): Aside from some of the big ideas and standard holiday pricing pressure, most conversations we had centered around continuing to improve the basics of the site. Reinvesting in search and navigation came up time and time again (FitForCommerce blogged about what a big topic it was at the event as well). Obviously getting shoppers on their path quickly and allowing them to find what they need fast is critical, but it was definitely interesting to hear just how much effort is still going in to honing the search and navigation experience. Adding new elements to search and navigation like typeahed, inventive navigation refinements, and new navigation categories like gift guides, specialized boutiques and flash sales were top of mind, in addition to searchandising and making search-driven product recommendations. (Oracle can help!)       Reducing cart abandonment: always a hot topic that is top of mind for every online retailer. Getting shoppers to the cart is often less then half the battle; getting them to click “buy” and complete the transaction is much more difficult. While retailers carefully study the checkout process and where shoppers tend to bounce, they know that how they design their checkout page is critical. We’re all online shoppers in our personal lives and we know how frustrating it can be when total prices are not transparent (i.e. shipping, processing, taxes is not included until the very last possible screen before clicking that buy button). Online retailers are struggling with where in the checkout process to surface the total price to be charged to reduce cart abandonment, while not showing the total figure too early in the process that it keeps shoppers from getting to checkout altogether. Recent research shows that providing total pricing prior to the checkout process dramatically reduces cart abandonment – as it serves as a filter to those shopping within a specific price band. Much of the cart abandonment discussion leads us to…       The free shipping / free returns question: it’s no secret that because of Amazon and programs like Prime, consumers expect free shipping, much to the chagrin of the smaller retailer. The reality is that if you’re not a mega-retailer, shipping is an expensive part of doing business that doesn’t allow most retailers to keep their prices low and offer free shipping. This has many retailers venturing out on the “free returns” path, especially in apparel. A number of retailers we spoke with are testing a flat rate shipping fee with free returns to see if they can crack the price threshold where shoppers are willing to pay for shipping with an added service. But, free shipping remains king.      Social ads and retargeting: they are working, but do they turn off consumers? That’s the big question. Every retailer we spoke with during a roundtable on the topic said that social ads and retargeting (where that pair of boots you’re been eyeing on a site magically follows you around the Internet) work and are meeting campaign goals. The larger question many retailers are asking is if this type of tactic is turning off a large number of shoppers, even if these campaigns are meeting their early goals. Retailers also mentioned that Facebook ads are working very well for them, especially when it comes to new customer acquisition, serving as a complimentary a channel to SEO when it comes to engaging new customers. While there are always new things to experiment with in retail, standard challenges are top of mind as retailers scramble to get ready for holiday. It will undoubtedly be another record-breaking online shopping season, but as retailers get more and more advanced with each Black Friday, expect some exciting things. This excitement needs to be backed by sound solutions and optimized operations. Then again, consumers are expecting more than ever, so I don’t doubt that retailers are already thinking about the possibilities of holiday 2015… and beyond. Customers who read this article, also found value in the following stories: Personalization for Retail: http://blogs.oracle.com/retail/entry/personalization_for_retailShop Direct User Experience Focus Drives Sales:https://blogs.oracle.com/retail/entry/shop_direct_user_experience_focusMaking Waves: Australian Online Retailer SurfStitch: https://blogs.oracle.com/oracleretail/entry/surf_stitchWhat’s new in Oracle Commerce v11.1 for RetailWhat the Content+Commerce Equation is Missing

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