purchase - Page 43 - Developer IT

regarding the Windows Phone 7 series, XNA and Visual Basic

- by Chris Williams

as long as we're talking about VB... I figured I would share this as well. Hi everyone, I'm about to express a sentiment that might ruffle a few feathers, but I think most of you know me well enough to know I love like accept VB for what it is and that what I'm about to say is with good intentions. (The rest of you, who don't know me, please take my word for it.) The world is full of VB developers, I was one of them for a long time. I think it's safe to assume that none of us are ignorant people who require handholding. We're working professionals, making a living by using our skills as developers. I'm also willing to bet that quite a few of us are fluent in C# as well as VB. It may not be your preferred language, but many of you can do it and you prove that nearly every day. Honestly, I don't know ANY developers or consultants that have only known ONE language ever. So it pains me greatly when I see the word "CAN'T" being tossed around like a crutch... as in "we CAN'T develop for the windows phone or we CAN'T develop XNA games." At MIX, Microsoft hath decreed that C# is the language of choice for developing for the Windows Phone 7. I think it's a safe bet that you won't see VB support if it isn't there already. (Just like XNA... which is up to version 4.0 by now.) So what? (Yeah... I said it.) I think everyone here can agree that actual coding is only one part of software design and development. There is nothing stopping ANY of you from beginning the process of designing your killer phone app, writing up specs, requirements, doing UI design, workflow, mockups, storyboards, art, etc.... None of these things are language dependent. IF by the time you've got that stuff out of the way, and there's still no VB support, then start doing some rapid prototyping of your app in C# (I know, I know... heresy!) You still have to spend time learning how the phone does things, what UI tricks do what, what paradigms make sense, how to use to accelerometer and the tilt and the multitouch functionality. I can guarantee you that time spent doing this is a great investment, no matter WHAT extension your code files have. Eventually, you may have a working prototype. IF by this time, there's STILL no VB support... fret not, you've made significant progress on your app. You've designed it, prototyped it, figured out how to use the phone specific features... so you might as well finish it and pat yourself on the back for learning something new... and possibly being first to market with your new app. I'll be happy to argue any and all of these points online or off with anyone who cares to do so, but there is one undeniable point that you simply can't argue: Your potential customers do not care AT ALL what programming language you used to write the app they are about to purchase. They care that it works. If your biggest concern is being first to market, than stop complaining and get busy because you're running out of time and the 3000+ people who were at MIX certainly aren't waiting for you. They've already started working on their apps.

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E-Business Suite 12.1.3 Data Masking Certified with Enterprise Manager 12c

- by Elke Phelps (Oracle Development)

Following up on our prior announcement for EM 11g, we're pleased to announce the certification of the E-Business Suite 12.1.3 Data Masking Template for the Data Masking Pack with Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c. You can use the Oracle Data Masking Pack with Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control 12c to scramble sensitive data in cloned E-Business Suite environments. Due to data dependencies, scrambling E-Business Suite data is not a trivial task. The data needs to be scrubbed in such a way that allows the application to continue to function. You may scramble data in E-Business Suite cloned environments with EM12c using the following template: E-Business Suite 12.1.3 Data Masking Template for Data Masking Pack with EM12c (Patch 14407414) What does data masking do in E-Business Suite environments? Application data masking does the following: De-identify the data: Scramble identifiers of individuals, also known as personally identifiable information or PII. Examples include information such as name, account, address, location, and driver's license number. Mask sensitive data: Mask data that, if associated with personally identifiable information (PII), would cause privacy concerns. Examples include compensation, health and employment information. Maintain data validity: Provide a fully functional application. How can EBS customers use data masking? The Oracle E-Business Suite Template for Data Masking Pack can be used in situations where confidential or regulated data needs to be shared with other non-production users who need access to some of the original data, but not necessarily every table. Examples of non-production users include internal application developers or external business partners such as offshore testing companies, suppliers or customers. The template works with the Oracle Data Masking Pack and Oracle Enterprise Manager to obscure sensitive E-Business Suite information that is copied from production to non-production environments. The Oracle E-Business Suite Template for Data Masking Pack is applied to a non-production environment with the Enterprise Manager Grid Control Data Masking Pack. When applied, the Oracle E-Business Suite Template for Data Masking Pack will create an irreversibly scrambled version of your production database for development and testing. What's new with EM 12c? Some of the execution steps may also be performed with EM Command Line Interface (EM CLI). Support of EM CLI is a new feature with the E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 template for EM 12c. Is there a charge for this? Yes. You must purchase licenses for the Oracle Data Masking Pack plug-in. The Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.3 Template for the Data Masking Pack is included with the Oracle Data Masking Pack license. You can contact your Oracle account manager for more details about licensing. References Additional details and requirements are provided in the following My Oracle Support Note: Using Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 Template for the Data Masking Pack with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12.1.0.2 Data Masking Tool (Note 1481916.1) Masking Sensitive Data in the Oracle Database Real Application Testing User's Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2) Related Articles Scrambling Sensitive Data in E-Business Suite

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5 Ways to Determine Mobile Location

- by David Dorf

In my previous post, I mentioned the importance of determining the location of a consumer using their mobile phone. Retailers can track anonymous mobile phones to determine traffic patterns both inside and outside their stores. And with consumers' permission, retailers can send location-aware offers to mobile phones; for example, a coupon for cereal as you walk down that aisle. When paying with Square, your location is matched with the transaction. So there are lots of reasons for retailers to want to know the location of their customers. But how is it done? I thought I'd dive a little deeper on that topic and consider the approaches to determining location. 1. Tower Triangulation By comparing the relative signal strength from multiple antenna towers, a general location of a phone can be roughly determined to an accuracy of 200-1000 meters. The more towers involved, the more accurate the location. 2. GPS Using Global Positioning Satellites is more accurate than using cell towers, but it takes longer to find the satellites, it uses more battery, and it won't well indoors. For geo-fencing applications, like those provided by Placecast and Digby, cell towers are often used to determine if the consumer is nearing a "fence" then switches to GPS to determine the actual crossing of the fence. 3. WiFi Triangulation WiFi triangulation is usually more accurate than using towers just because there are so many more WiFi access points (i.e. radios in routers) around. The position of each WiFi AP needs to be recorded in a database and used in the calculations, which is what Skyhook has been doing since 2008. Another advantage to this method is that works well indoors, although it usually requires additional WiFi beacons to get the accuracy down to 5-10 meters. Companies like ZuluTime, Aisle411, and PointInside have been perfecting this approach for retailers like Meijer, Walgreens, and HomeDepot. Keep in mind that a mobile phone doesn't have to connect to the WiFi network in order for it to be located. The WiFi radio in the phone only needs to be on. Even when not connected, WiFi radios talk to each other to prepare for a possible connection. 4. Hybrid Approaches Naturally the most accurate approach is to combine the approaches described above. The more available data points, the greater the accuracy. Companies like ShopKick like to add in acoustic triangulation using the phone's microphone, and NearBuy can use video analytics to increase accuracy. 5. Magnetic Fields The latest approach, and this one is really new, takes a page from the animal kingdom. As you've probably learned from guys like Marlin Perkins, some animals use the Earth's magnetic fields to navigate. By recording magnetic variations within a store, then matching those readings with ones from a consumer's phone, location can be accurately determined. At least that's the approach IndoorAtlas is taking, and the science seems to bear out. It works well indoors, and doesn't require retailers to purchase any additional hardware. Keep an eye on this one.

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SQL SERVER – Why Do We Need Master Data Management – Importance and Significance of Master Data Management (MDM)

- by pinaldave

Let me paint a picture of everyday life for you. Let’s say you and your wife both have address books for your groups of friends. There is definitely overlap between them, so that you both have the addresses for your mutual friends, and there are addresses that only you know, and some only she knows. They also might be organized differently. You might list your friend under “J” for “Joe” or even under “W” for “Work,” while she might list him under “S” for “Joe Smith” or under your name because he is your friend. If you happened to trade, neither of you would be able to find anything! This is where data management would be very important. If you were to consolidate into one address book, you would have to set rules about how to organize the book, and both of you would have to follow them. You would also make sure that poor Joe doesn’t get entered twice under “J” and under “S.” This might be a familiar situation to you, whether you are thinking about address books, record collections, books, or even shopping lists. Wherever there is a lot of data to consolidate, you are going to run into problems unless everyone is following the same rules. I’m sure that my readers can figure out where I am going with this. What is SQL Server but a computerized way to organize data? And Microsoft is making it easier and easier to get all your “addresses” into one place. In the 2008 version of SQL they introduced a new tool called Master Data Services (MDS) for Master Data Management, and they have improved it for the new 2012 version. MDM was hailed as a major improvement for business intelligence. You might not think that an organizational system is terribly exciting, but think about the kind of “address books” a company might have. Many companies have lots of important information, like addresses, credit card numbers, purchase history, and so much more. To organize all this efficiently so that customers are well cared for and properly billed (only once, not never or multiple times!) is a major part of business intelligence. MDM comes into play because it will comb through these mountains of data and make sure that all the information is consistent, accurate, and all placed in one database so that employees don’t have to search high and low and waste their time. MDM also has operational MDM functions. This is not a redundancy. Operational MDM means that when one employee updates one bit of information in the database, for example – updating a new address for a customer, operational MDM ensures that this address is updated throughout the system so that all departments will have the correct information. Another cool thing about MDM is that it features Master Data Services Configuration Manager, which is exactly what it sounds like. It has a built-in “helper” that lets you set up your database quickly, easily, and with the correct configurations. While talking about cool features, I can’t skip over the add-in for Excel. This allows you to link certain data to Excel files for easier sharing and uploading. In summary, I want to emphasize that the scariest part of the database is slowly disappearing. Everyone knows that a database – one consolidated area for all your data – is a good idea, but the idea of setting one up is daunting. But SQL Server is making data management easier and easier with features like Master Data Services (MDS). Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Master Data Services, MDM

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SQL Sentry Truth-Telling and Disk Configuration

- by AjarnMark

Recently, SQL Sentry told me something about my SQL Server disk configurations that I just didn’t want to believe, but alas, it was true. Several days ago I posted my First Impressions of the SQL Sentry Power Suite. Today’s post could fall into the category of, “Hey, as long as you have that fancy tool…” Unfortunately, it also falls into the category of an overloaded worker taking someone else’s word for the truth, not verifying it with independent fact-checking, and then making decisions based on that. Here’s my story… I’m not exactly an Accidental DBA (or Involuntary DBA as Paul Randal calls it). I came to this company five years ago as a lead application developer with extensive experience in database design and development. I worked my way into management, and along the way, took over the DBA responsibilities. Fortunately, our systems run pretty smoothly most of the time, but I’m always looking for ways to make them better and to fit into my understanding of best practices. When I took over as DBA, I inherited a SQL 2000 server with about 30 databases on it supporting our main systems, and a SQL 2005 server with multiple instances. Both of these servers were configured with the Operating System and Application files on the C drive, data files on a different drive letter, and log files on a third drive letter. Even before I took over as DBA, I verified that this was true with a previous server administrator, and that these represented actual separate disks. He stated that they did, and I thought that all was well. Then one day, I’m poking around inside the SQL Sentry Performance Advisor, checking out features as I am evaluating whether to purchase the product, and I come across a Disk Configuration section. The first thing I notice is that the drives do not have the proper partition offset, which was not at all surprising to me given the age of the installation and the relative newness of that topic. But what threw me for a loop was that the graphic display appeared to be telling me that I did not in fact have three separate drives (or arrays) but rather had two, and that the log files were merely on a separate volume on the same physical array as the OS. I figured that I must be reading it wrong so I scanned the Help file, but that just seemed to confirm my interpretation. Then I thought, “there must be something wrong with the demo version of the software! This can’t be right!” But just to double-check, I went to our current server admin to talk it over with him, and sure enough, SQL Sentry was telling the truth! I was stunned! I quickly went through the grieving process…denial…anger…reconciliation. Here was something that I thought was such a basic truth that was turned upside down. OK, granted, this wasn’t disastrous. Our databases didn’t suddenly grind to a halt. I didn’t get calls late at night inquiring about the sudden downturn in performance. But it was a bit of a shock to the system, in a good way, to jolt me out of taking what I had believed as the truth for granted, and instead to Trust, but Verify! Yes, before someone else points it out, I know that there are”free” disk management tools built-in to Windows that would have told me the same thing if I had only looked at them; I did not have to buy a fancy tool to tell me that, but the fact is, until I was evaluating the tool, I had just gone with what I was told, and never bothered to check what was actually there. So, what things do you believe to be true but you actually never verified?

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Windows 8 Camp–Ways to Prepare

- by Lori Lalonde

When Windows 8 was announced at the BUILD conference back in September, it created quite a buzz among the developer community. By the spring of 2012, Windows 8 Developer Camps started popping up everywhere imaginable. I received a lot of questions from CTTDNUG members about whether or not we would be hosting one locally. If you recall my post about the Windows Phone/Azure Developer Workshop that CTTDNUG hosted back in March, you’ll remember that the biggest hurdle to overcome when planning this type of event was finding the right venue. It took some time, but I finally found a venue that was available and provided the prerequisites needed to ensure this camp is a success. I am very excited that CTTDNUG will be hosting a Windows 8 Camp this summer in the Kitchener/Waterloo area. In fact, it’s coming up in less than 2 weeks. Clearly other developers are excited as well, because our registration numbers show that the event is already 70% full! On top of that, I was fortunate enough to also book two well-known evangelists to present and teach at this full day developer camp: Andrei Marukovich and Atley Hunter. This was the icing on the cake. With the content provided by Microsoft, and two local experts that live and breathe Windows 8 development, I know that I, along with other developers that attend this event, will have the opportunity to maximize our learning potential and hit the ground running. If you plan on attending a Windows 8 Developer Camp soon, and want to ensure you get the most “bang for your buck” (figuratively speaking, since these camps are free), there are some things you can do to prepare before the big day: 1) Install the prerequisites on your own device before the big day I can’t stress this enough. Otherwise, you will be spending valuable time during the hands-on period downloading and installing what is needed, rather than digging into the development and using that time to ask the experts on-hand about programming challenges, issues, questions you may have with respect to your development. Prerequisites: Windows 8 Release Preview Visual Studio 2012 RC Download the Windows 8 SDK Samples 2) Purchase, download, and read Charles Petzold’s newest book: Programming Windows 6th Edition This is a great introduction to the type of content you will be learning about during the camp. Doing some light reading beforehand might raise some questions about the concepts discussed in the book, which will give you the opportunity to write them down and bring them with you to the camp. The experts on hand will be able to answer them for you. 3) Make use of the freebies that are available Telerik has recently released a preview of their RadControls for Metro. You can sign up to receive a license code to give you access to install the preview for free and start playing around with it. Syncfusion also offers a free download of their Metro Studio package, which is a collection of metro style icons that you can customize and use in your own applications. Last but not least, once you’ve installed the Windows 8 Release Preview on your own device, go to the Windows 8 Store and download a handful of the free apps that are available. Testing out other Metro apps may give you ideas of what you can do in your own apps and analyze what features you like: application flow, type of animations used, concepts that were leveraged, how live tiles were used, etc. I hope you found these tips to be useful as you embark on a new development journey! Although this post focused on how to prepare for a Windows 8 camp, the same ideas are there whichever developer camp/workshop/event you attend. Learning does not begin and end on the day of the event. Attending a developer camp is just one step of many to master whatever technology you are interested in. It is a continuous process, which is fully maximized when you do your homework beforehand, actively participate during, and follow up by putting what you learned to practice afterwards. Happy coding!

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App Stores–In All Things, Its Quality Over Quantity

- by D'Arcy Lussier

Everybody has an opinion about Windows 8. People love it, people hate it, people are meh about it, people are apparently buying it from Microsoft stores in NYC as if it was water before a natural disaster…if there’s one thing that Microsoft product launches do well, its the ability to bring out strong emotional responses. Over at eweek.com, Don Reisinger wrote about 5 good and bad things about Windows 8. Yes, another opinion piece on WIndows 8. I figured since this one had good and bad it might be worthwhile to read. I then came across #10 on his list, and figured “What the hell…might as well post a bit of a rant on Windows 8 myself!” Here’s #10: 10. Bad: Too few apps Unfortunately, Microsoft wasn’t able to get too many developers to start producing applications for its Windows 8 Store. Microsoft hasn’t yet released official numbers, but some have said that the marketplace has less than 8,000 programs. Considering Apple’s App Store has 100 times that, it’s about time Microsoft starts leaning on developers to get more programs into its store. Believe me, Microsoft *has* been leaning on developers to get apps into the store. I’ve been asked at least 5 or 6 times from 5 or 6 different friends at Microsoft about whether I was going to write a Windows 8 app. I think Microsoft felt they had to try and address the number of apps available in their marketplace, since some people (like Don) would draw comparisons to the number of apps in the Apple marketplace. I feel for Microsoft in this, since the number of apps in a marketplace are an empty stat. Quality of Quantity I have an iPad that my family (wife, 10yo daughter, 3yo daughter) use. We all have our own apps installed on it. In addition, my wife has an iPhone 4S that she also installs apps on. As someone who gets asked by his kids often whether they can buy/download an app, the vast majority of the vast catalogue of iOS marketplace apps are crap! Do you realize how many “free” games are out there, only to really be not-free because you have to purchase in-game content to make the game actually playable? And how about searching – with such a vast array of apps and such high numbers of craptastic ones, trying to find something is incredibly difficult and can be frustrating. I would rather see that Microsoft has 8000 high quality apps in their store at launch, instead of 800000 that were mostly junk. Too Few Apps?! And seriously, 8000 is not a small number. How many iOS apps have I actually bought between the iPad and iPhone? I’ll be generous and say 30…heck, let’s round it up to 40. It’s not like I have 10,000 apps installed on my iPad, nor will that ever happen! So if people have, at the *launch* of a new platform ecosystem, EIGHT THOUSAND apps to choose from, I don’t see that as a fail at all! It should be noted that most of the most common apps (Netflix, Skype, etc.) are available for Windows 8 at launch – I guess I’ll have to wait a few weeks for My Pony Ranch and all its clones to start showing up; pity. Let’s Check Back in a Year So look, let’s check back in a year’s time and see what the app store looks like. My hope is that Microsoft doesn’t continue to push quantity over quality. Even knowing the optics that # of apps in the store carries and the pressure to catch Apple and Android marketplaces, I hope Microsoft avoids the scenario where there’s a good percentage of apps in the Windows Store that are utter rubbish and finding the gems will be cumbersome. But if that happens, we can thank guys like Dan who raised the false issue of app count at the launch for it.

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export web page data to excel using javascript [on hold]

- by Sreevani sri

I have created web page using html.When i clicked on submit button it will export to excel. using javascript i wnt to export thadt data to excel. my html code is 1. Please give your Name:<input type="text" name="Name" /><br /> 2. Area where you reside:<input type="text" name="Res" /><br /> 3. Specify your age group<br /> (a)15-25<input type="text" name="age" /> (b)26-35<input type="text" name="age" /> (c)36-45<input type="text" name="age" /> (d) Above 46<input type="text" name="age" /><br /> 4. Specify your occupation<br /> (a) Student<input type="checkbox" name="occ" value="student" /> (b) Home maker<input type="checkbox" name="occ" value="home" /> (c) Employee<input type="checkbox" name="occ" value="emp" /> (d) Businesswoman <input type="checkbox" name="occ" value="buss" /> (e) Retired<input type="checkbox" name="occ" value="retired" /> (f) others (please specify)<input type="text" name="others" /><br /> 5. Specify the nature of your family<br /> (a) Joint family<input type="checkbox" name="family" value="jfamily" /> (b) Nuclear family<input type="checkbox" name="family" value="nfamily" /><br /> 6. Please give the Number of female members in your family and their average age approximately<br /> Members Age 1 2 3 4 5<br /> 8. Please give your highest level of education (a)SSC or below<input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="ssc" /> (b) Intermediate<input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="int" /> (c) Diploma <input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="dip" /> (d)UG degree <input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="deg" /> (e) PG <input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="pg" /> (g) Doctorial degree<input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="doc" /><br /> 9. Specify your monthly income approximately in RS <input type="text" name="income" /><br /> 10. Specify your time spent in making a purchase decision at the outlet<br /> (a)0-15 min <input type="checkbox" name="dis" value="0-15 min" /> (b)16-30 min <input type="checkbox" name="dis" value="16-30 min" /> (c) 30-45 min<input type="checkbox" name="dis" value="30-45 min" /> (d) 46-60 min<input type="checkbox" name="dis" value="46-60 min" /><br /> <input type="submit" onclick="exportToExcel()" value="Submit" /> </div> </form>

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Impressions of my ASUS eee slate EP121 - Dual core 4GB, 64GB SSD

- by tonyrogerson

This thing is lovely, very nice bluetooth keyboard that has nice feedback on the keypress, there is no mouse but you can use the stylus or get yourself a bluetooth mouse, me, I've opted for a Microsoft ARC mouse which is a delight to use, the USB doors are a pain to open for the first time if like me you don't have any finger nails. It came as a suprise that the slate shows four processors, Dual Core with multi-threading, I didn't really look at the processor I was more interested in the amount of memory and the SSD; you don't get the full 4GB even with the 64 bit version of Windows 7 installed (which I immediately upgraded to Ultimate through my MSDN subscription). The box is extremely responsive - extremely, it loads Winword in literally a second. I've got office 2010 and onenote 2010 on there now; one problem is that on applying all (43) windows updates since the upgrade the machine is still sat on step 3 of 3 on the start up configuring updates screen after about an hour, you can't turn this machine off without using a paper clip to reset it and as I have just found you need a paper clip :). Installing Windows 7 SP1 was effortless. One of the first things I did on it was to reduce the size of the font, by default its set at 125%, my eye sight is ok :) so I've set that back down. Amazon Kindle for the PC works really well, plenty of text on the screen when viewed portrait, the case it comes with also allows the slate to stand up in various positions - portrait, horizontal - seems stable enough. The wireless works well, seems to have a better signal than my other two laptop machines which is good news. The gadget passed the pose test at work :). I use offline files to keep a copy of all my work stuff locally, I'm not sure what it is, well, its probably my server but whenever I try and sync it runs for a couple of minutes then fails with network name no longer contactable, funnily enough its fine from my big laptop so I can only guess this may be a driver type issue on the EP121 itself - very odd and very annoying. I do a lot of presenting and need to plug into a VGA project because most sites that's all that is offered, the EP121 has a mini-hdmi output which is great except for this scenario, hdmi is digital, vga is analogue, you will struggle to find a cost effective solution, I found HDFury and also a device HP do, however, a better solution appears to be getting a USB graphics adapter for instance the one I've ordered is the ClimaxDigital USB 2.0 to DVI,VGA or HDMI Adaptor which gives everything I need - VGA and DVI output and great resolution as well - ok, so fingers crossed because I'm presenting next Wednesday in Edinburgh and not taking my 300kg lenovo w700 (I'm sure my back just sighed in relief) - it certainly works really well on my LED TV, the install was simple - it just works! One of the several reasons for buying this piece of kit was to use it on my LED TV to remote into my main machine to check stuff whilst sat in my living room, also to watch webcasts and lecture videos in comfort away from my office, because of the wireless speed and limitation I'm opting for a USB network adapter from Belkin - that will also allow me to take advantage of my home gigabit network, there are only 2 usb ports on the slate so I'm going to knock up a hub so connecting it in is straight forward and simple, I'm also going to purchase a second power supply so I don't have to faff about with that either.I now have the developer x64 edition of SQL Server 2008 R2, yes everything :) - about 16GB left to play with on the machine now but that will be fine, I'll put AdventureWorks on there so I can play and demo stuff which is all I'm after from this, my development machine is significantly more powerful and meets my storage needs too.Travel test this weekend and next week, I'm in Dundee for my final exam for the masters degree.

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Oracle is #1 in Life Sciences!

- by Michael Snow

Guest post today by: John Klinke, Senior Principal Product Manager, Oracle WebCenter Content 12.00 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:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Based on the announcement last week at EMC World about Documentum for Life Sciences, it looks like EMC is starting to have regrets about pulling out of the life sciences space over the last few years. Certainly their content management customers and partners in life sciences have noticed their retreat. Many of them are now talking to us about WebCenter Content since they’ve seen the writing on the wall regarding Documentum’s decline, including falling revenue, shrinking investment, departure of key executives, and EMC’s auditing of existing customers. While EMC has been neglecting the life sciences industry over the last few years, Oracle has been increasing its investment and commitment by providing best-of-breed solutions to enable pharmaceutical, medical device, biotech and CRO companies to improve productivity and drive innovation. As a result, according to IDC Health Insights, Oracle is #1 in life sciences. From research and development through clinical development and manufacturing to sales and marketing, Oracle provides the solutions that life sciences companies depend on to accelerate R&D, expedite clinical trials, and speed time to market. Specifically for Oracle WebCenter, our life sciences business is booming thanks to our comprehensive offerings led by Oracle WebCenter Content, our 21 CFR Part 11 compliant enterprise content management platform. Unlike Documentum, WebCenter Content is all about keeping the cost of ownership low - through simplicity, flexibility, and out-of-the-box integrations. WebCenter Content is a single, comprehensive ECM platform that can handle all your content management needs, from controlled documents to digital asset management, records management and document imaging and capture. And it is much more flexible, letting you do configuration changes instead of customizations to meet your business needs. It also saves you money by being pre-integrated with the rest of the Oracle Fusion Middleware technology stack and with leading enterprise applications like Siebel (including Siebel CTMS), Primavera, E-Business Suite, JD Edwards and PeopleSoft. So if you think EMC’s announcement last week was too little and too late, I’m happy to report that Oracle is here to help. Back in October, we announced our Move Off Documentum offer, which provides a 100% trade-in credit for your Documentum licenses when you purchase Oracle WebCenter, and the good news is, this offer is still available for a limited time. So stop maintaining Documentum and start innovating with Oracle WebCenter. For more details see www.oracle.com/moveoff/documentum.

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Functional/nonfunctional requirements VS design ideas

- by Nicholas Chow

Problem domain Functional requirements defines what a system does. Non-Functional requirements defines quality attributes of what the system does as a whole.(performance, security, reliability, volume, useability, etc.) Constraints limits the design space, they restrict designers to certain types of solutions. Solution domain Design ideas , defines how the system does it. For example a stakeholder need might be we want to increase our sales, therefore we must improve the usability of our webshop so more customers will purchase, a requirement can be written for this. (problem domain) Design takes this further into the solution domain by saying "therefore we want to offer credit card payments in addition to the current prepayment option". My problem is that the transition phase from requirement to design seems really vague, therefore when writing requirements I am often confused whether or not I incorporated design ideas in my requirements, that would make my requirement wrong. Another problem is that I often write functional requirements as what a system does, and then I also specify in what timeframe it must be done. But is this correct? Is it then a still a functional requirement or a non functional one? Is it better to seperate it into two distinct requirements? Here are a few requirements I wrote: FR1 Registration of Organizer FR1 describes the registration of an Organizer on CrowdFundum FR1.1 The system shall display a registration form on the website. FR1.2 The system shall require a Name, Username, Document number passport/ID card, Address, Zip code, City, Email address, Telephone number, Bank account, Captcha code on the registration form when a user registers. FR1.4 The system shall display an error message containing: “Registration could not be completed” to the subscriber within 1 seconds after the system check of the registration form was unsuccessful. FR1.5 The system shall send a verification email containing a verification link to the subscriber within 30 seconds after the system check of the registration form was successful. FR1.6 The system shall add the newly registered Organizer to the user base within 5 seconds after the verification link was accessed. FR2 Organizer submits a Project FR2 describes the submission of a Project by an Organizer on CrowdFundum - FR2 The system shall display a submit Project form to the Organizer accounts on the website.< - FR2.3 The system shall check for completeness the Name of the Project, 1-3 Photo’s, Keywords of the Project, Punch line, Minimum and maximum amount of people, Funding threshold, One or more reward tiers, Schedule of when what will be organized, Budget plan, 300-800 Words of additional information about the Project, Contact details within 1 secondin after an Organizer submits the submit Project form. - FR2.8 The system shall add to the homepage in the new Projects category the Project link within 30 seconds after the system made a Project webpage - FR2.9 The system shall include in the Project link for the homepage : Name of the Project, 1 Photo, Punch line within 30 seconds after the system made a Project webpage. Questions: FR 1.1 : Have I incorporated a design idea here, would " the system shall have a registration form" be a better functional requirement? F1.2 ,2.3 : Is this not singular? Would the conditions be better written for each its own separate requirement FR 1.4: Is this a design idea? Is this a correct functional requirement or have I incorporated non functional(performance) in it? Would it be better if I written it like this: FR1 The system shall display an error message when check is unsuccessful. NFR: The system will respond to unsuccesful registration form checks within 1 seconds. Same question with FR 2.8 and 2.9. FR2.3: The system shall check for "completeness", is completeness here used ambigiously? Should I rephrase it? FR1.2: I added that the system shall require a "Captcha code" is this a functional requirement or does it belong to the "security aspect" of a non functional requirement. I am eagerly waiting for your response. Thanks!

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Get the Picture: Pinterest for Marketers

- by Mike Stiles

When trying to determine on which networks to conduct social marketing, the usual suspects immediately rise to the top; Facebook & Twitter, then LinkedIn (especially if you’re B2B), then maybe some Google Plus to hedge SEO bets. So at what juncture do brands get excited about Pinterest? Pinterest has been easy for marketers to de-prioritize thanks to the perception its usage is so dominated by women. Um, what’s wrong with that? Women make an estimated 85% of all consumer purchases. So if there are indeed over 30 million US women active on it monthly, and they do 92% of the pinning, and 84% are still active on it after 4 years, when did an audience of highly engaged, very likely sales conversions become low priority? Okay, if you’re a tech B2B SaaS product like the Oracle Social Cloud, Pinterest may not be where you focus. But if you operate in the top Pinterest categories, which are truly far-reaching, it’s time to take note of Pinterest’s performance to date: 40.1 million monthly users in the US (eMarketer). Over 30 billion pins, half of which were pinned in the last 6 months. (Big momentum) 75% of usage is on their mobile app. (In solid shape for the mobile migration) Pinterest sharing grew 58% in 2013, beating Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. (ShareThis) Pinterest is the 3rd most popular sharing platform overall (over email), with 48% of all sharing on tablets. Users referred by Pinterest are 10% more likely to buy on e-commerce sites and tend to spend twice that of users coming from Facebook. (Shopify) To be fair, brands haven’t had any paid marketing opportunities on that platform…until recently. Users are seeing Promoted Pins in both category and search feeds from rollout brands like Gap, ABC Family, Ziploc, and Nestle. Are the paid pins annoying users? It seems more so than other social networks, they’re fitting right in to the intended user experience and being accepted, getting almost as many click-throughs as user pins. New York Magazine’s Kevin Roose laid it out succinctly; Pinterest offers a place that’s image-centric, search-friendly, makes things easy to purchase, makes things easy to share, and puts users in an aspirational mood to buy. Pinterest is very confident in the value of that combo and that audience, with CPM rates 5x that of the most expensive Facebook ad, plus (at least for now) required spending commitments and required pin review by Pinterest for quality. The latest developments; a continued move toward search and discovery with enhancements like Guided Search to help you hone in on what interests you, Custom Categories, and the rumored Visual Search that stands to be a liberation from text. And most recently, Pinterest has opened up its API so brands can get access to deeper insights into the best search terms and categories in which to play ball, as well as what kinds of pins stand to perform best in those areas. As we learned in our rundown this week of Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Marketing Industry Report, around 50% of marketers specifically intend on upping their use of Pinterest. If you’re a big believer in fishing where the fish are, that’s probably an efficient position to take. @mikestiles @oraclesocialPhoto: Adam Lambert_Gorwyn, freeimages.com

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Analytics in an Omni-Channel World

- by David Dorf

Retail has been around ever since mankind started bartering. The earliest transactions were very specific to the individuals buying and selling, then someone had the bright idea to open a store. Those transactions were a little more generic, but the store owner still knew his customers and what they wanted. As the chains rolled out, customer intimacy was sacrificed for scale, and retailers began to rely on segments and clusters. But thanks to the widespread availability of data and the technology to convert said data into information, retailers are getting back to details. The retail industry is following a maturity model for analytics that is has progressed through five stages, each delivering more value than the previous. Store Analytics Brick-and-mortar retailers (and pure-play catalogers as well) that collect anonymous basket-level data are able to get some sense of demand to help with allocation decisions. Promotions and foot-traffic can be measured to understand marketing effectiveness and perhaps focus groups can help test ideas. But decisions are influenced by the majority, using faceless customer segments and aggregated industry data points. Loyalty programs help a little, but in many cases the cost outweighs the benefits. Web Analytics The Web made it much easier to collect data on specific, yet still anonymous consumers using cookies to track visits. Clickstreams and product searches are analyzed to understand the purchase journey, gauge demand, and better understand up-selling opportunities. Personalization begins to allow retailers target market consumers with recommendations. Cross-Channel Analytics This phase is a minor one, but where most retailers probably sit today. They are able to use information from one channel to bolster activities in another. However, there are technical challenges combining data silos so its not an easy task. But for those retailers that are able to perform analytics on both sources of data, the pay-off is pretty nice. Revenue per customer begins to go up as customers have a better brand experience. Mobile & Social Analytics Big data technologies are enabling a 360-degree view of the customer by incorporating psychographic data from social sites alongside traditional demographic data. Retailers can track individual preferences, opinions, hobbies, etc. in order to understand a consumer's motivations. Using mobile devices, consumers can interact with brands anywhere, anytime, accessing deep product information and reviews. Mobile, combined with a loyalty program, presents an opportunity to put shopping into geographic context, understanding paths to the store, patterns within the store, and be an always-on advertising conduit. Omni-Channel Analytics All this data along with the proper technology represents a new paradigm in which the clock is turned back and retail becomes very personal once again. Rich, individualized data better illuminates demand, allows for highly localized assortments, and helps tailor up-selling. Interactions with all channels help build an accurate profile of each consumer, and allows retailers to tailor the retail experience to meet the heightened expectations of today's sophisticated shopper. And of course this culminates in greater customer satisfaction and business profitability.

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WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Textron Inc.

- by me

Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter Solution SummaryTextron Inc. is one of the world's best known multi-industry companies and is a pioneer of the diversified business model. Founded in 1923, it has grown into a network of businesses—including Bell Helicopter, E-Z-GO, Cessna, and Jacobsen—with facilities and a presence in 25 countries, serving a diverse and global customer base. Textron is ranked 236th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest US companies. Textron needed a Web experience management solution to centralize control, minimize costs, and enable more efficient operations. Specifically, the company wanted to take IT out of the picture as much as possible, enabling sales and marketing leads for subsidiaries to make Website updates as they deem appropriate for their business. Textron worked with Oracle partner Element Solutions to consolidate its Website management systems onto Oracle WebCenter Sites. The implementation enables Textron’s subsidiaries to adjust more quickly to customer demands, reduced Website management cost & time to update content on a Website while allowing to integrate its Website updates more closely with social media and mobile platforms. Company OverviewTextron Inc. is one of the world's best known multi-industry companies and is a pioneer of the diversified business model. Founded in 1923, it has grown into a network of businesses—including Bell Helicopter, E-Z-GO, Cessna, and Jacobsen—with facilities and a presence in 25 countries, serving a diverse and global customer base. Textron is ranked 236th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest US companies. Business ChallengesWith numerous subsidiaries and more than 50 public Websites, Textron needed a Web experience management solution to centralize control, minimize costs, and enable more efficient operations. Specifically, the company wanted to take IT out of the picture as much as possible, enabling sales and marketing leads for subsidiaries to make Website updates as they deem appropriate for their business. Solution DeployedTextron worked with Oracle partner Element Solutions to consolidate its Website management systems onto Oracle WebCenter Sites. Specifically, Textron: Used Oracle WebCenter Sites to integrate Web experience management capabilities for all Textron brands, including Bell Helicopter, E-Z-GO, Cessna, and Jacobsen Developed Website templates to enable marketing and communications professionals to easily make updates to their Websites, without having to work with IT Reduced Website management costs, as it costs more for IT to coordinate Website updates as opposed to marketing and communications Enabled IT to concentrate on other activities to enhance overall operations for Textron, such as project workflows Acquired a platform that enables marketing teams to integrate their Websites with social media and mobile platforms, allowing subsidiaries to make updates and contact customers anytime and everywhere—including through tablets and smartphones Reduced the time it takes to update content on a Website, including press releases, by enabling communications professionals to make updates directly Developed more appealing visual designs for Websites to help enhance customer purchase Business ResultsThe implementation enabled Textron’s subsidiaries to adjust more quickly to customer demands and Textron’s IT staff to concentrate on other processes, such as writing code and developing new workflows, enabling them to enhance company processes. In addition, Textron can use Oracle WebCenter Sites to integrate its Website updates more closely with social media and mobile platforms, enabling marketing and communications teams to make updates anytime and everywhere. The initiative has enabled Textron to save money by freeing IT up to work on more important tasks, instituting new e-commerce and mobile initiatives to better engage customers, and by ensuring efficient Website management processes to quickly adjust to customer demands. “We considered a number of products, but chose Oracle WebCenter Sites because it provides the best user interface. We reviewed customer references and analyst reports, and Oracle WebCenter Sites was consistently at the top of the list,” Brad Hof, Manager, Advanced Business Solutions and Web Communications, Textron Inc. Additional Information Tectron Inc. Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Sites

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SQL Script to Assign All Items to ALL Sites with Dynamics GP

- by Ryan McBee

v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} When setting up new items within Microsoft Dynamics GP, you will often run into the error message below which reads “This site is not assigned to the selected item. Do you want to assign this site?” The fix is quite simple given that you simply click the Add button below which opens up the Item Quantities Maintenance window which you will hit the save button and proceed with the entry of your Sales Order or Purchase Order. If you have a lot of new items into GP and have just one Site ID setup, the best approach to assigning your items to a particular site is by going to the Site Maintenance Window which is located in Cards>>Inventory>>Site. Once you are in the window below, you can click the Assign button to assign Items to the Site selected. However, if you have you a lot of Sites and Items created, this can be quite a cumbersome and time consuming process. For that, I have created the following SQL Script below that Assigns all Items to all Site ID’s within Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010. declare @item varchar(100) , @loc varchar(100) , @ItemExist int DECLARE TablePositionCursor CURSOR FOR SELECT itemnmbr from IV00101 i OPEN TablePositionCursor FETCH NEXT FROM TablePositionCursor INTO @item WHILE (@@fetch_status <> -1) BEGIN DECLARE TablePositionCursor2 CURSOR FOR select locncode from IV40700 OPEN TablePositionCursor2 FETCH NEXT FROM TablePositionCursor2 INTO @loc WHILE (@@fetch_status <> -1) BEGIN SELECT @ItemExist = isnull(count(*), 0) FROM IV00102 where ITEMNMBR = @item and LOCNCODE = @loc if @ItemExist = 0 BEGIN insert into iv00102 values( @item ,@loc ,'' ,2 ,'' ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,'01/01/1900' ,'' ,'01/01/1900' ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,'01/01/1900' ,'01/01/1900' ,'01/01/1900' ,'01/01/1900' ,0 ,'' ,'' ,'' ,1 ,0 ,0 ,1 ,0 ,0 ,1 ,2 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,1 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,3 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,'' ,'' ,'' ,'' ,'' ,'' ,'' ,'' ,1 ,1 ,'' ,1 ,1 ,0 ,1 ,1 ,1 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ,0 ) END FETCH NEXT FROM TablePositionCursor2 INTO @loc END DEALLOCATE TablePositionCursor2 FETCH NEXT FROM TablePositionCursor INTO @item END DEALLOCATE TablePositionCursor The script below works just for GP 2010 since the columns in the IV00102 have changed from version to version. If you need it for prior versions, please email me and I will send it to you. Disclaimer: I tested this on limited data, if you find an issue or have a suggestion for improvement, please let me know and I will post the update here for everyone. This blog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

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Advanced Record-Level Business Intelligence with Inner Queries

- by gt0084e1

While business intelligence is generally applied at an aggregate level to large data sets, it's often useful to provide a more streamlined insight into an individual records or to be able to sort and rank them. For instance, a salesperson looking at a specific customer could benefit from basic stats on that account. A marketer trying to define an ideal customer could pull the top entries and look for insights or patterns. Inner queries let you do sophisticated analysis without the overhead of traditional BI or OLAP technologies like Analysis Services. Example - Order History Constancy Let's assume that management has realized that the best thing for our business is to have customers ordering every month. We'll need to identify and rank customers based on how consistently they buy and when their last purchase was so sales & marketing can respond accordingly. Our current application may not be able to provide this and adding an OLAP server like SSAS may be overkill for our needs. Luckily, SQL Server provides the ability to do relatively sophisticated analytics via inner queries. Here's the kind of output we'd like to see. Creating the Queries Before you create a view, you need to create the SQL query that does the calculations. Here we are calculating the total number of orders as well as the number of months since the last order. These fields might be very useful to sort by but may not be available in the app. This approach provides a very streamlined and high performance method of delivering actionable information without radically changing the application. It's also works very well with self-service reporting tools like Izenda. SELECT CustomerID,CompanyName, ( SELECT COUNT(OrderID) FROM Orders WHERE Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID ) As Orders, DATEDIFF(mm, ( SELECT Max(OrderDate) FROM Orders WHERE Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID) ,getdate() ) AS MonthsSinceLastOrder FROM Customers Creating Views To turn this or any query into a view, just put CREATE VIEW AS before it. If you want to change it use the statement ALTER VIEW AS. Creating Computed Columns If you'd prefer not to create a view, inner queries can also be applied by using computed columns. Place you SQL in the (Formula) field of the Computed Column Specification or check out this article here. Advanced Scoring and Ranking One of the best uses for this approach is to score leads based on multiple fields. For instance, you may be in a business where customers that don't order every month require more persistent follow up. You could devise a simple formula that shows the continuity of an account. If they ordered every month since their first order, they would be at 100 indicating that they have been ordering 100% of the time. Here's the query that would calculate that. It uses a few SQL tricks to make this happen. We are extracting the count of unique months and then dividing by the months since initial order. This query will give you the following information which can be used to help sales and marketing now where to focus. You could sort by this percentage to know where to start calling or to find patterns describing your best customers. Number of orders First Order Date Last Order Date Percentage of months order was placed since last order. SELECT CustomerID, (SELECT COUNT(OrderID) FROM Orders WHERE Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID) As Orders, (SELECT Max(OrderDate) FROM Orders WHERE Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID) AS LastOrder, (SELECT Min(OrderDate) FROM Orders WHERE Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID) AS FirstOrder, DATEDIFF(mm,(SELECT Min(OrderDate) FROM Orders WHERE Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID),getdate()) AS MonthsSinceFirstOrder, 100*(SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT 100*DATEPART(yy,OrderDate) + DATEPART(mm,OrderDate)) FROM Orders WHERE Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID) / DATEDIFF(mm,(SELECT Min(OrderDate) FROM Orders WHERE Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID),getdate()) As OrderPercent FROM Customers

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Where Twitter Stands Heading Into 2013

- by Mike Stiles

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

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Personal Financial Management – The need for resuscitation

- by Salil Ravindran

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

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Mobile Deals: the Consumer Wants You in Their Pocket

- by Mike Stiles

Mobile deals offer something we talk about a lot in social marketing, relevant content. If a consumer is already predisposed to liking your product and gets a timely deal for it that’s easy and convenient to use, not only do you score on the marketing side, it clearly generates some of that precious ROI that’s being demanded of social. First, a quick gut-check on the public’s adoption of mobile. Nielsen figures have 55.5% of US mobile owners using smartphones. If young people are indeed the future, you can count on the move to mobile exploding exponentially. Teens are the fastest growing segment of smartphone users, and 58% of them have one. But the largest demographic of smartphone users is 25-34 at 74%. That tells you a focus on mobile will yield great results now, and even better results straight ahead. So we can tell both from statistics and from all the faces around you that are buried in their smartphones this is where consumers are. But are they looking at you? Do you have a valid reason why they should? Everybody likes a good deal. BIA/Kelsey says US consumers will spend $3.6 billion this year for daily deals (the Groupons and LivingSocials of the world), up 87% from 2011. The report goes on to say over 26% of small businesses are either "very likely" or "extremely likely" to offer up a deal in the next 6 months. Retail Gazette reports 58% of consumers shop with coupons, a 40% increase in 4 years. When you consider that a deal can be the impetus for a real-world transaction, a first-time visit to a store, an online purchase, entry into a loyalty program, a social referral, a new fan or follower, etc., that 26% figure shows us there’s a lot of opportunity being left on the table by brands. The existing and emerging technologies behind mobile devices make the benefits of offering deals listed above possible. Take how mobile payment systems are being tied into deal delivery and loyalty programs. If it’s really easy to use a coupon or deal, it’ll get used. If it’s complicated, it’ll be passed over as “not worth it.” When you can pay with your mobile via technologies that connects store and user, you get the deal, you get the loyalty credit, you pay, and your receipt is uploaded, all in one easy swipe. Nothing to keep track of, nothing to lose or forget about. And the store “knows” you, so future offers will be based on your tastes. Consider the endgame. A customer who’s a fan of your belt buckle store’s Facebook Page is in one of your physical retail locations. They pull up your app, because they’ve gotten used to a loyalty deal being offered when they go to your store. Voila. A 10% discount active for the next 30 minutes. Maybe the app also surfaces social references to your brand made by friends so they can check out a buckle someone’s raving about. If they aren’t a fan of your Page or don’t have your app, perhaps they’ve opted into location-based deal services so you can still get them that 10% deal while they’re in the store. Or maybe they’ve walked in with a pre-purchased Groupon or Living Social voucher. They pay with one swipe, and you’ve learned about their buying preferences, credited their loyalty account and can encourage them to share a pic of their new buckle on social. Happy customer. Happy belt buckle company. All because the brand was willing to use the tech that’s available to meet consumers where they are, incentivize them, and show them how much they’re valued through rewards.

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Identity in .NET 4.5–Part 2: Claims Transformation in ASP.NET (Beta 1)

- by Your DisplayName here!

In my last post I described how every identity in .NET 4.5 is now claims-based. If you are coming from WIF you might think, great – how do I transform those claims? Sidebar: What is claims transformation? One of the most essential features of WIF (and .NET 4.5) is the ability to transform credentials (or tokens) to claims. During that process the “low level” token details are turned into claims. An example would be a Windows token – it contains things like the name of the user and to which groups he belongs to. That information will be surfaced as claims of type Name and GroupSid. Forms users will be represented as a Name claim (all the other claims that WIF provided for FormsIdentity are gone in 4.5). The issue here is, that your applications typically don’t care about those low level details, but rather about “what’s the purchase limit of alice”. The process of turning the low level claims into application specific ones is called claims transformation. In pre-claims times this would have been done by a combination of Forms Authentication extensibility, role manager and maybe ASP.NET profile. With claims transformation all your identity gathering code is in one place (and the outcome can be cached in a single place as opposed to multiple ones). The structural class to do claims transformation is called ClaimsAuthenticationManager. This class has two purposes – first looking at the incoming (low level) principal and making sure all required information about the user is present. This is your first chance to reject a request. And second – modeling identity information in a way it is relevant for the application (see also here). This class gets called (when present) during the pipeline when using WS-Federation. But not when using the standard .NET principals. I am not sure why – maybe because it is beta 1. Anyhow, a number of people asked me about it, and the following is a little HTTP module that brings that feature back in 4.5. public class ClaimsTransformationHttpModule : IHttpModule { public void Dispose() { } public void Init(HttpApplication context) { context.PostAuthenticateRequest += Context_PostAuthenticateRequest; } void Context_PostAuthenticateRequest(object sender, EventArgs e) { var context = ((HttpApplication)sender).Context; // no need to call transformation if session already exists if (FederatedAuthentication.SessionAuthenticationModule != null && FederatedAuthentication.SessionAuthenticationModule.ContainsSessionTokenCookie(context.Request.Cookies)) { return; } var transformer = FederatedAuthentication.FederationConfiguration.IdentityConfiguration.ClaimsAuthenticationManager; if (transformer != null) { var transformedPrincipal = transformer.Authenticate(context.Request.RawUrl, context.User as ClaimsPrincipal); context.User = transformedPrincipal; Thread.CurrentPrincipal = transformedPrincipal; } } } HTH

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Openmatics Revolutionizes Fleet Management with Standards-Based Vehicle Telematics Platform

- by Michael Snow

Openmatics s.r.o. was founded in 2010 as a subsidiary of ZF Friedrichshafen AG, a global player in driveline and chassis technology. Oracle Customer: Openmatics s.r.o.Location: Pilsen, Czech RepublicIndustry: AutomotiveEmployees: 70 Its goal was to develop and operate a flexible, open telematics platform for automotive applications, which is independent from vehicle and component suppliers—recognizing that the fragmented telematics market was not meeting today’s fleet management needs. Openmatics provides a rich product portfolio, and customers can extend the platform, as required, to meet their needs. Partners and third-parties can develop their own applications using the Openmatics’ software development kit and can sell them via the Openmatics app shop.ZF Friedrichshafen AG is a global player in driveline and chassis technology. With 121 production companies and 650 service partners in 26 countries, ZF is among the top 10 largest automotive suppliers worldwide. Founded in 1915 to develop and produce transmissions for airships and vehicles, the group’s product offerings now include transmissions and steering systems as well as chassis components and complete axle systems and modules. A word from Openmatics s.r.o. “Oracle WebCenter Portal, together with the underlying Oracle Application Development Framework, provided the fundamental infrastructure for the Openmatics platform. Fleet managers can now reduce fuel consumption and operating costs, and more efficiently manage vehicle usage, maintenance, and safety. The standards-based platform allows third-party suppliers to deploy their own vehicle telematics services as Openmatics apps and creates a de facto standard for the automotive industry, independent from a single manufacturer or service provider.” – Gero Strobel, Head of Development, Openmatics s.r.o. Challenges Create an industry standard for vehicle telematics by establishing a customizable platform that enables access to telematics information, such as current and past fuel consumption, through a web browser to better meet automotive market and customer needs Reduce fleet-management costs by eliminating the need to invest in isolated telematics hardware and software solutions per vehicle brand and vehicle component manufacturer Establish an open platform where third-party providers—such as original equipment manufacturers (OEM), insurers, fleet operators, and individual developers—can deploy their own vehicle telematics services Allow users to purchase targeted telematics services as single apps to reduce costs and ensure rapid growth of telematics services available on the platform Enable users to configure their telematics apps with ease to make sure the platform meets individual fleet management requirements, such as analyzing past and current fuel consumption of a truck fleet Solutions Deployed Oracle WebCenter Portal as a foundation for Openmatics, a standards-based automotive telematics platform that provides next-generation fleet management with unified digital communication from and to vehicles on the move Used Oracle Application Development Framework as the development framework for Oracle WebCenter Portal’s components and services, providing developers with ready-to-use software development kits with application programming interfaces, design templates, and visual tools that accelerated time to market Used Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse to simplify telematics application development in Java Enabled fleet monitoring by recording vehicle data—such as fuel consumption information—through onboard units, delivering the information to Oracle Database, and making it accessible through a customizable app portfolio on any web browser Stored vehicle telematics data—sent as encrypted information—in Oracle Database, ensuring data integrity and immediate availability for the platform’s telematics applications Enabled a wide range of telematics services suppliers, from vehicle component manufacturers to fleet application developers, to offer vehicle telematics services on the Openmatics platform, ensuring platform independence from OEMs Provided Openmatics customers with the means to individually select the automotive telematics services that are relevant to their business requirements, eliminating the need to pay for superfluous information and reducing fleet management costs Oracle Products & Services Oracle Application Development Framework Oracle WebCenter Portal Oracle SOA Suite Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse Oracle Database Oracle Consulting &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span id=&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;XinhaEditingPostion&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;amp;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span id=&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;XinhaEditingPostion&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

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Starting over and new to Ubuntu

- by 2funnyyone

We have been having repeated problems with our interent service and using windows xp & sp3 (users and premissions) I see no need for them. I started with computers long before windows. Every since sp 3 come out in 2009 I have had nothing but problems. I have lost so many computers to virius and trojans, we just stack them up. We are with Qwest/ Century link which is using advertising servers which I think is causing the problem. All the computers are networked together which is not how I set them up. I beleive Century link is networking them through assignment of a domain for our home. This causes all the computers to crash twice. This is getting expensive. We tried buying new harddrives but reinfect with hours of connecting to internet. I also beleive the modem, router and all computers are infected. I put combofix on this one and that is the only reason we are still online with this laptop. I am afraid to install new equipment because my partner and I are on SSDI and this cost a lot. I go to school at UOP and had to run off a flash and reboot this laptop to recovery every other day or so, this pass month. New plan is: We are getting ready to install new equipment but afraid to reinfect again. Need help to install new equipment. The plan is to use current internet services from Qwest/ now Century Link. The list of New equipment in order: Century link wireless modem is ZyXEL PK5000Z with 4 direct connect Ethernet ports Next Dell Optiplex 210L ( used auction purchase ) 2 gb ram 80 g hard drive Ubuntu 11.10 operating system Next Wireless D-Link router WBR-1310 with 4 direct connect Ethernet ports OK-------- Purchased Dell OEM disk for Repair or Reinstalling Windows XP Professional Operating system (2 roommates as well) All infected computers are Dell desktops or laptops with XP Pro Also purchasing Ubuntu 12.04 for 3 computers. We like the way it runs but still learning it. Questions 1] How do we fdisk the infected computers without infecting new system. We have Dos disks, but none have floppy dish drive. We do have a new floppy disk drive and usb adapter we purchased from Amazon. 2] We are thinking Avast internet security because of the boot scan. We want all software loaded before reconnecting. We can manually load our internet provider information. We purchased StopZilla $100 for 5 computers, but not sure that is what we need. But need how to setup ports security and services we will need. Really lost at this part. So we are safe when we go back on the internet. 3] Want to connect reloaded fdisk systems to router as public connection and no sharing. Do not want to network all computers. 4] Want parental/ ownership control from Ubuntu system for internet connection (Children and friends). Do we restrict at the modem and/ or router? Any help would be a blessing. I do not want to go alone on this anymore.

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Best triple head display setup

- by dgel

I'm currently running Ubuntu 12.04 with a darn good triple head display setup. I've got a VisionTek 900530 Radeon HD 5450 512MB DDR3 PCI Express video card that has two DVI outputs and one Mini DisplayPort that I have connected to a HDMI adapter. I'm running three identical Asus 1920x1080 monitors that each have a DVI, VGA, and HDMI input. I'm using the xorg-edgers ppa, so I'm using the open source radeon driver version 6.99.99. I tried using the ATI binary fglrx driver, but I wasn't able to get the three monitors working properly- the monitor connected via HDMI / DisplayPort wouldn't run at full resolution. The setup is almost perfect: Compiz runs fine and is quite snappy. I'm not able to use that great compiz feature where you can drag a window to the side of a display and it will half maximize. I occasionally experience display corruption weirdness with Unity and need to restart it. When I use a dropdown menu in LibreOffice it often pops the menu down in another window. For example, if I'm using the center monitor and click the Insert menu, the menu pulls down on the monitor to my right, forcing me to chase it. If I chase down the menu and choose Manual Break, the dialog appears over on my left monitor. This absurdity is mildly entertaining but has lost its novelty. I've decided to build a new system and have spared no expense- latest i7 processor, SSD, etc. I really like the performance of the Nvidia binary drivers, so I put two ZOTAC ZT-40707-10L GeForce GT 440 in the system, figuring I'd have four DVI outputs and an awesome triple (or even eventually quad) head setup. Unfortunately it appears that I didn't do sufficient research before my purchase. It seems that Nvidia TwinView only supports two monitors on one card (I guess that's why they call it TwinView...). I messed around with running two X servers, but I really don't want that- being able to drag windows to any monitor is critical. It doesn't sound like Xinerama is an option because from what I understand it simply doesn't support Compiz. I've seen a BaseMosaic option that can be used with the Nvidia drivers that appears to support an almost unlimited number of heads- unfortunately me cheap little cards don't support it. I'm also not sure whether you'll still have all nice maximizing and snapping that TwinView provides, or whether Ubuntu will only see it as one massive display. I put my old trusty ATI card into my new system and installed 12.10. I'm using the opensource radeon drivers again because even in 12.10 I can't get the fglrx binary drivers to do triple head. Unfortunately, even with an unbelievably powerful system the experience is extremely sluggish (much more so than my experience in 12.04). The menu scattering problem appears to be fixed, but I get a lot of nasty Unity display corruption. So finally, my question is this: What hardware / drivers should I use? I'm willing to buy (almost) any video card(s). I have two PCI-Express 3.0 slots on my motherboard (which has an integrated Intel HD card). I'm willing to use ATI or Nvidia cards and willing to run Ubuntu 12.04.1 or 12.10. I'm not a gamer, but do want beautiful and snappy Compiz effects. Does anyone out there have the perfect triple head setup in 12.04 or 12.10? What hardware / drivers are you using? I have those two Nvidia cards but will probably be returning them unless someone knows a way to use them together for a triple head setup. Since I'm having pretty good luck with a single ATI card providing three displays, should I just buy a beefier one with the hopes that it will fix the horrible sluggishness I'm experiencing in 12.10?

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My shiny new gadget

- by TechTwaddle

About 3 months ago when I had tweeted (or twit?) that the HD7 could be my next phone I wasn’t a 100 percent sure, and when the HTC Mozart came out it was switch at first sight. I wanted to buy the Mozart mainly for three reasons; its unibody construction, smaller screen and the SLCD display. But now, holding a HD7 in my hand, I reminisce and think about how fate had its own plan. Too dramatic for a piece of gadget? Well, sort of, but seriously, this has been most exciting. So in short, I bought myself a HTC HD7 and am really loving it so far. Here are some pics (taken from my HD2 which now lies in a corner, crying), Most of my day was spent setting up the device. Email accounts, Facebook, Marketplace etc. Since marketplace isn’t officially launched in India yet, my primary live id did not work. Whenever I tried launching marketplace it would say ‘marketplace is not currently supported in your country’. Searching the forums I found an easy work around. Just create a dummy live id with the country set to UK or US and log in to the device using this id. I was worried if the contacts and feeds from my primary live account would not be updated but that was not a problem. Adding another live account into the device does import your contacts, calendar and feeds from it. And that’s it, marketplace now works perfectly. I installed a few trial and free applications; haven’t checked if I can purchase apps though, will check that later and update this post. There is one issue I am still facing with the device, I can’t access the internet over GPRS. Windows Phone 7 only gives you the option to add an ‘APN’ and nothing else. Checking the connection settings on my HD2, I found out that there is also a proxy server I need to add to access GPRS, but so far I haven’t found a way to do that on WP7. Ideally HTC should have taken care of this, detect the operator and apply that operators settings on the device, but looks like that’s not happening. I also tried the ‘Connection Settings’ application that HTC bundled with the device, but it did nothing magical. If you’re reading this and know how to fix this problem please leave a comment. The next thing I did is install apps, a lot of apps. Read Engadget’s guide to essential apps for WP7. The apps and games I installed so far include Beezz (twitter app with push notifications), twitter (the official twitter app), Facebook, Youtube, NFS Undercover, Rocket Riot, Krashlander, Unite and the list goes on. All the apps run super smooth. The display looks fine indoors but I know it’s going to suck in bright sunlight. Anyhow, I am really impressed with what I’ve seen so far. I leave you with a few more photos. Have a great year ahead. Ciao!

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The Growing Importance of Network Virtualization

- by user12608550

The Growing Importance of Network Virtualization We often focus on server virtualization when we discuss cloud computing, but just as often we neglect to consider some of the critical implications of that technology. The ability to create virtual environments (or VEs [1]) means that we can create, destroy, activate and deactivate, and more importantly, MOVE them around within the cloud infrastructure. This elasticity and mobility has profound implications for how network services are defined, managed, and used to provide cloud services. It's not just servers that benefit from virtualization, it's the network as well. Network virtualization is becoming a hot topic, and not just for discussion but for companies like Oracle and others who have recently acquired net virtualization companies [2,3]. But even before this topic became so prominent, Solaris engineers were working on technologies in Solaris 11 to virtualize network services, known as Project Crossbow [4]. And why is network virtualization so important? Because old assumptions about network devices, topology, and management must be re-examined in light of the self-service, elasticity, and resource sharing requirements of cloud computing infrastructures. Static, hierarchical network designs, and inter-system traffic flows, need to be reconsidered and quite likely re-architected to take advantage of new features like virtual NICs and switches, bandwidth control, load balancing, and traffic isolation. For example, traditional multi-tier Web services (Web server, App server, DB server) that share net traffic over Ethernet wires can now be virtualized and hosted on shared-resource systems that communicate within a larger server at system bus speeds, increasing performance and reducing wired network traffic. And virtualized traffic flows can be monitored and adjusted as needed to optimize network performance for dynamically changing cloud workloads. Additionally, as VEs come and go and move around in the cloud, static network configuration methods cannot easily accommodate the routing and addressing flexibility that VE mobility implies; virtualizing the network itself is a requirement. Oracle Solaris 11 [5] includes key network virtualization technologies needed to implement cloud computing infrastructures. It includes features for the creation and management of virtual NICs and switches, and for the allocation and control of the traffic flows among VEs [6]. Additionally it allows for both sharing and dedication of hardware components to network tasks, such as allocating specific CPUs and vNICs to VEs, and even protocol-specific management of traffic. So, have a look at your current network topology and management practices in view of evolving cloud computing technologies. And don't simply duplicate the physical architecture of servers and connections in a virtualized environment…rethink the traffic flows among VEs and how they can be optimized using Oracle Solaris 11 and other Oracle products and services. [1] I use the term "virtual environment" or VE here instead of the more commonly used "virtual machine" or VM, because not all virtualized operating system environments are full OS kernels under the control of a hypervisor…in other words, not all VEs are VMs. In particular, VEs include Oracle Solaris zones, as well as SPARC VMs (previously called LDoms), and x86-based Solaris and Linux VMs running under hypervisors such as OEL, Xen, KVM, or VMware. [2] Oracle follows VMware into network virtualization space with Xsigo purchase; http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_21191001/oracle-follows-vmware-into-network-virtualization-space-xsigo [3] Oracle Buys Xsigo; http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1721421 [4] Oracle Solaris 11 Networking Virtualization Technology, http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris11/technologies/networkvirtualization-312278.html [5] Oracle Solaris 11; http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/solaris/solaris11/overview/index.html [6] For example, the Solaris 11 'dladm' command can be used to limit the bandwidth of a virtual NIC, as follows: dladm create-vnic -l net0 -p maxbw=100M vnic0

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