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Can't change text color in Microsoft Word 2010

- by Wesley

I have Microsoft Office 2010 32-bit running on Windows 7 32-bit. When text is highlighted and a color is selected from the mini-toolbar or the ribbon, the text does not change color. If I change the color for multiple words, and select a different color for each word, the toolbar and ribbon will reflect each of the different colors that I chose, however it is not displayed in the document. So it appears that Word is aware of the text color and not as if it is simply not applying the change. What may be causing this inability to view text colors and how might I fix it? My only troubleshooting attempt so far has been to perform a repair installation of Office. EDIT 1 I created a document, typed a word, selected it and changed the color. I then saved the document as HTML. The text did not change color. This is the HTML in the document: <html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> <meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14"> <meta name=Originator content="Microsoft Word 14"> <link rel=File-List href="Document_1_files/filelist.xml">  <link rel=themeData href="Document_1_files/themedata.thmx"> <link rel=colorSchemeMapping href="Document_1_files/colorschememapping.xml">  <style>  </style>  </head> <body lang=EN-US style='tab-interval:.5in'> <div class=WordSection1> <p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span class=GramE><span style='color:red'>blah</span></span><span style='color:red'><o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </body> </html> EDIT 2 I recorded a macro and did the following: Typed a word Selected the word Changed the color. Oddly, I had some strange issues while the macro was recorded. I could not select text with my cursor. I had to select the text with control a and then apply the color change. I then couldn't deselect the selected text. Nonetheless, the text showed that it had a different color in the toolbar, but the color did not display in the document. Here's the macro: Sub Change_Text_Color() ' ' Change_Text_Color Macro ' ' Selection.TypeText Text:="Test Text" Selection.WholeStory Selection.WholeStory End Sub EDIT 3 I opened WordPad and created some text and was able to successfully change the color. If I copy and paste the colored text into a Word 2010 document, the color is lost. However, if you place the I-beam in the text and then look at the color selection drop-down menu on the ribbon or mini-toolbar, you can see that the proper color that the text should be in is highlighted. Edit 4 I uninstalled the entire Office 2010 Suite, rebooted and then reinstalled the suite. No change in behavior. Edit 5 Text cannot be colored in Excel either.

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How do HttpOnly cookies work with AJAX requests?

- by Shawn Simon

JavaScript needs access to cookies if AJAX is used on a site with access restrictions based on cookies. Will HttpOnly cookies work on an AJAX site? Edit: Microsoft created a way to prevent XSS attacks by disallowing JavaScript access to cookies if HttpOnly is specified. FireFox later adopted this. So my question is: If you are using AJAX on a site, like StackOverflow, are Http-Only cookies an option? Edit 2: Question 2. If the purpose of HttpOnly is to prevent JavaScript access to cookies, and you can still retrieve the cookies via JavaScript through the XmlHttpRequest Object, what is the point of HttpOnly? Edit 3: Here is a quote from Wikipedia: When the browser receives such a cookie, it is supposed to use it as usual in the following HTTP exchanges, but not to make it visible to client-side scripts.[32] The HttpOnly flag is not part of any standard, and is not implemented in all browsers. Note that there is currently no prevention of reading or writing the session cookie via a XMLHTTPRequest. [33]. I understand that document.cookie is blocked when you use HttpOnly. But it seems that you can still read cookie values in the XMLHttpRequest object, allowing for XSS. How does HttpOnly make you any safer than? By making cookies essentially read only? In your example, I cannot write to your document.cookie, but I can still steal your cookie and post it to my domain using the XMLHttpRequest object. <script type="text/javascript"> var req = null; try { req = new XMLHttpRequest(); } catch(e) {} if (!req) try { req = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); } catch(e) {} if (!req) try { req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); } catch(e) {} req.open('GET', 'http://beta.stackoverflow.com/', false); req.send(null); alert(req.getAllResponseHeaders()); </script> Edit 4: Sorry, I meant that you could send the XMLHttpRequest to the StackOverflow domain, and then save the result of getAllResponseHeaders() to a string, regex out the cookie, and then post that to an external domain. It appears that Wikipedia and ha.ckers concur with me on this one, but I would love be re-educated... Final Edit: Ahh, apparently both sites are wrong, this is actually a bug in FireFox. IE6 & 7 are actually the only browsers that currently fully support HttpOnly. To reiterate everything I've learned: HttpOnly restricts all access to document.cookie in IE7 & and FireFox (not sure about other browsers) HttpOnly removes cookie information from the response headers in XMLHttpObject.getAllResponseHeaders() in IE7. XMLHttpObjects may only be submitted to the domain they originated from, so there is no cross-domain posting of the cookies. edit: This information is likely no longer up to date.

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Question About Example In Robert C Martin's _Clean Code_

- by Jonah

This is a question about the concept of a function doing only one thing. It won't make sense without some relevant passages for context, so I'll quote them here. They appear on pgs 37-38: To say this differently, we want to be able to read the program as though it were a set of TO paragraphs, each of which is describing the current level of abstraction and referencing subsequent TO paragraphs at the next level down. To include the setups and teardowns, we include setups, then we include the test page content, and then we include the teardowns. To include the setups, we include the suite setup if this is a suite, then we include the regular setup. It turns out to be very dif?cult for programmers to learn to follow this rule and write functions that stay at a single level of abstraction. But learning this trick is also very important. It is the key to keeping functions short and making sure they do “one thing.” Making the code read like a top-down set of TO paragraphs is an effective technique for keeping the abstraction level consistent. He then gives the following example of poor code: public Money calculatePay(Employee e) throws InvalidEmployeeType { switch (e.type) { case COMMISSIONED: return calculateCommissionedPay(e); case HOURLY: return calculateHourlyPay(e); case SALARIED: return calculateSalariedPay(e); default: throw new InvalidEmployeeType(e.type); } } and explains the problems with it as follows: There are several problems with this function. First, it’s large, and when new employee types are added, it will grow. Second, it very clearly does more than one thing. Third, it violates the Single Responsibility Principle7 (SRP) because there is more than one reason for it to change. Fourth, it violates the Open Closed Principle8 (OCP) because it must change whenever new types are added. Now my questions. To begin, it's clear to me how it violates the OCP, and it's clear to me that this alone makes it poor design. However, I am trying to understand each principle, and it's not clear to me how SRP applies. Specifically, the only reason I can imagine for this method to change is the addition of new employee types. There is only one "axis of change." If details of the calculation needed to change, this would only affect the submethods like "calculateHourlyPay()" Also, while in one sense it is obviously doing 3 things, those three things are all at the same level of abstraction, and can all be put into a TO paragraph no different from the example one: TO calculate pay for an employee, we calculate commissioned pay if the employee is commissioned, hourly pay if he is hourly, etc. So aside from its violation of the OCP, this code seems to conform to Martin's other requirements of clean code, even though he's arguing it does not. Can someone please explain what I am missing? Thanks.

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Which functions in the C standard library commonly encourage bad practice?

- by Ninefingers

Hello all, This is inspired by this question and the comments on one particular answer in that I learnt that strncpy is not a very safe string handling function in C and that it pads zeros, until it reaches n, something I was unaware of. Specifically, to quote R.. strncpy does not null-terminate, and does null-pad the whole remainder of the destination buffer, which is a huge waste of time. You can work around the former by adding your own null padding, but not the latter. It was never intended for use as a "safe string handling" function, but for working with fixed-size fields in Unix directory tables and database files. snprintf(dest, n, "%s", src) is the only correct "safe strcpy" in standard C, but it's likely to be a lot slower. By the way, truncation in itself can be a major bug and in some cases might lead to privilege elevation or DoS, so throwing "safe" string functions that truncate their output at a problem is not a way to make it "safe" or "secure". Instead, you should ensure that the destination buffer is the right size and simply use strcpy (or better yet, memcpy if you already know the source string length). And from Jonathan Leffler Note that strncat() is even more confusing in its interface than strncpy() - what exactly is that length argument, again? It isn't what you'd expect based on what you supply strncpy() etc - so it is more error prone even than strncpy(). For copying strings around, I'm increasingly of the opinion that there is a strong argument that you only need memmove() because you always know all the sizes ahead of time and make sure there's enough space ahead of time. Use memmove() in preference to any of strcpy(), strcat(), strncpy(), strncat(), memcpy(). So, I'm clearly a little rusty on the C standard library. Therefore, I'd like to pose the question: What C standard library functions are used inappropriately/in ways that may cause/lead to security problems/code defects/inefficiencies? In the interests of objectivity, I have a number of criteria for an answer: Please, if you can, cite design reasons behind the function in question i.e. its intended purpose. Please highlight the misuse to which the code is currently put. Please state why that misuse may lead towards a problem. I know that should be obvious but it prevents soft answers. Please avoid: Debates over naming conventions of functions (except where this unequivocably causes confusion). "I prefer x over y" - preference is ok, we all have them but I'm interested in actual unexpected side effects and how to guard against them. As this is likely to be considered subjective and has no definite answer I'm flagging for community wiki straight away. I am also working as per C99.

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Color Theory: How to convert Munsell HVC to RGB/HSB/HSL

- by Ian Boyd

I'm looking at at document that describes the standard colors used in dentistry to describe the color of a tooth. They quote hue, value, chroma values, and indicate they are from the 1905 Munsell description of color: The system of colour notation developed by A. H. Munsell in 1905 identifies colour in terms of three attributes: HUE, VALUE (Brightness) and CHROMA (saturation) [15] HUE (H): Munsell defined hue as the quality by which we distinguish one colour from another. He selected five principle colours: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple; and five intermediate colours: yellow-red, green-yellow, blue-green, purple-blue, and red-purple. These were placed around a colour circle at equal points and the colours in between these points are a mixture of the two, in favour of the nearer point/colour (see Fig 1.). VALUE (V): This notation indicates the lightness or darkness of a colour in relation to a neutral grey scale, which extends from absolute black (value symbol 0) to absolute white (value symbol 10). This is essentially how ‘bright’ the colour is. CHROMA (C): This indicates the degree of divergence of a given hue from a neutral grey of the same value. The scale of chroma extends from 0 for a neutral grey to 10, 12, 14 or farther, depending upon the strength (saturation) of the sample to be evaluated. There are various systems for categorising colour, the Vita system is most commonly used in Dentistry. This uses the letters A, B, C and D to notate the hue (colour) of the tooth. The chroma and value are both indicated by a value from 1 to 4. A1 being lighter than A4, but A4 being more saturated than A1. If placed in order of value, i.e. brightness, the order from brightest to darkest would be: A1, B1, B2, A2, A3, D2, C1, B3, D3, D4, A3.5, B4, C2, A4, C3, C4 The exact values of Hue, Value and Chroma for each of the shades is shown below (16) So my question is, can anyone convert Munsell HVC into RGB, HSB or HSL? Hue Value (Brightness) Chroma(Saturation) === ================== ================== 4.5 7.80 1.7 2.4 7.45 2.6 1.3 7.40 2.9 1.6 7.05 3.2 1.6 6.70 3.1 5.1 7.75 1.6 4.3 7.50 2.2 2.3 7.25 3.2 2.4 7.00 3.2 4.3 7.30 1.6 2.8 6.90 2.3 2.6 6.70 2.3 1.6 6.30 2.9 3.0 7.35 1.8 1.8 7.10 2.3 3.7 7.05 2.4 They say that Value(Brightness) varies from 0..10, which is fine. So i take 7.05 to mean 70.5%. But what is Hue measured in? i'm used to hue being measured in degrees (0..360). But the values i see would all be red - when they should be more yellow, or brown. Finally, it says that Choma/Saturation can range from 0..10 ...or even higher - which makes it sound like an arbitrary scale. So can anyone convert Munsell HVC to HSB or HSL, or better yet, RGB?

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Populating ComboBoxDataColumn items and values

- by MarceloRamires

I have a "populate combobox", and I'm so happy with it that I've even started using more comboboxes. It takes the combobox object by reference with the ID of the "value set" (or whatever you want to call it) from a table and adds the items and their respective values (which differ) and does the job. I've recently had the brilliant idea of using comboboxes in a gridview, and I was happy to notice that it worked JUST LIKE a single combobox, but populating all the comboboxes in the given column at the same time. ObjComboBox.Items.Add("yadayada"); //works just like ObjComboBoxColumn.Items.Add("blablabla"); But When I started planning how to populate these comboboxes I've noticed: There's no "Values" property in ComboBoxDataColumn. ObjComboBox.Values = whateverArray; //works, but the following doesn't ObjComboBoxColumn.Values = whateverArray; Questions: 0 - How do I populate it's values ? (I suspect it's just as simple, but uses another name) 1 - If it works just like a combobox, what's the explanation for not having this attribute ? -----[EDIT]------ So I've checked out Charles' quote, and I've figured I had to change my way of populating these bad boys. Instead of looping through the strings and inserting them one by one in the combobox, I should grab the fields I want to populate in a table, and set one column of the table as the "value", and other one as the "display". So I've done this: ObjComboBoxColumn.DataSource = DTConfig; //Double checked, guaranteed to be populated ObjComboBoxColumn.ValueMember = "Code"; ObjComboBoxColumn.DisplayMember = "Description"; But nothing happens, if I use the same object as so: ObjComboBoxColumn.Items.Add("StackOverflow"); It is added. There is no DataBind() function. It finds the two columns, and that's guaranteed ("Code" and "Description") and if I change their names to nonexistant ones it gives me an exception, so that's a good sign. -----[EDIT]------ I have a table in SQL Server that is something like code | text ————— 1 | foo 2 | bar It's simple, and with other comboboxes (outside of gridviews) i've successfully populated looping through the rows and adding the texts: ObjComboBox.Items.Add(MyDataTable.Rows[I]["MyColumnName"].ToString()); And getting every value, adding it into an array, and setting it like: ObjComboBox.Values = MyArray; I'd like to populate my comboboxColumns just as simply as I do with comboboxes.

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Python read multiline JSON

- by Paul W

I have been trying to use JSON to store settings for a program. I can't seem to get Python 2.6 's JSON Decoder to decode multi-line JSON strings... Here is example input: .settings file: """ {\ 'user':'username',\ 'password':'passwd',\ }\ """ I have tried a couple other syntaxes for this file, which I will specify below (with the traceback they cause). My python code for reading the file in is import json settings_text = open(".settings", "r").read() settings = json.loads(settings_text) The Traceback for this is: Traceback (most recent call last): File "json_test.py", line 4, in <module> print json.loads(text) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/json/__init__.py", line 307, in loads return _default_decoder.decode(s) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/json/decoder.py", line 322, in decode raise ValueError(errmsg("Extra data", s, end, len(s))) ValueError: Extra data: line 1 column 2 - line 7 column 1 (char 2 - 41) I assume the "Extra data" is the triple-quote. Here are the other syntaxes I have tried for the .settings file, with their respective Tracebacks: "{\ 'user':'username',\ 'pass':'passwd'\ }" Traceback (most recent call last): File "json_test.py", line 4, in <module> print json.loads(text) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/json/__init__.py", line 307, in loads return _default_decoder.decode(s) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/json/decoder.py", line 319, in decode obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end()) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/json/decoder.py", line 336, in raw_decode obj, end = self._scanner.iterscan(s, **kw).next() File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/json/scanner.py", line 55, in iterscan rval, next_pos = action(m, context) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/json/decoder.py", line 155, in JSONString return scanstring(match.string, match.end(), encoding, strict) ValueError: Invalid \escape: line 1 column 2 (char 2) '{\ "user":"username",\ "pass":"passwd",\ }' Traceback (most recent call last): File "json_test.py", line 4, in <module> print json.loads(text) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/json/__init__.py", line 307, in loads return _default_decoder.decode(s) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/json/decoder.py", line 319, in decode obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end()) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/json/decoder.py", line 338, in raw_decode raise ValueError("No JSON object could be decoded") ValueError: No JSON object could be decoded If I put the settings all on one line, it decodes fine.

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Write Scheme data structures so they can be eval-d back in, or alternative

- by Jesse Millikan

I'm writing an application (A juggling pattern animator) in PLT Scheme that accepts Scheme expressions as values for some fields. I'm attempting to write a small text editor that will let me "explode" expressions into expressions that can still be eval'd but contain the data as literals for manual tweaking. For example, (4hss->sexp "747") is a function call that generates a legitimate pattern. If I eval and print that, it becomes (((7 3) - - -) (- - (4 2) -) (- (7 2) - -) (- - - (7 1)) ((4 0) - - -) (- - (7 0) -) (- (7 2) - -) (- - - (4 3)) ((7 3) - - -) (- - (7 0) -) (- (4 1) - -) (- - - (7 1))) which can be "read" as a string, but will not "eval" the same as the function. For this statement, of course, what I need would be as simple as (quote (((7 3... but other examples are non-trivial. This one, for example, contains structs which print as vectors: pair-of-jugglers ; --> (#(struct:hand #(struct:position -0.35 2.0 1.0) #(struct:position -0.6 2.05 1.1) 1.832595714594046) #(struct:hand #(struct:position 0.35 2.0 1.0) #(struct:position 0.6 2.0500000000000003 1.1) 1.308996938995747) #(struct:hand #(struct:position 0.35 -2.0 1.0) #(struct:position 0.6 -2.05 1.1) -1.3089969389957472) #(struct:hand #(struct:position -0.35 -2.0 1.0) #(struct:position -0.6 -2.05 1.1) -1.8325957145940461)) I've thought of at least three possible solutions, none of which I like very much. Solution A is to write a recursive eval-able output function myself for a reasonably large subset of the values that I might be using. There (probably...) won't be any circular references by the nature of the data structures used, so that wouldn't be such a long job. The output would end up looking like `(((3 0) (... ; ex 1 `(,(make-hand (make-position ... ; ex 2 Or even worse if I could't figure out how to do it properly with quasiquoting. Solution B would be to write out everything as (read (open-input-string "(big-long-s-expression)")) which, technically, solves the problem I'm bringing up but is... ugly. Solution C might be a different approach of giving up eval and using only read for parsing input, or an uglier approach where the s-expression is used as directly data if eval fails, but those both seem unpleasant compared to using scheme values directly. Undiscovered Solution D would be a PLT Scheme option, function or library I haven't located that would match Solution A. Help me out before I start having bad recursion dreams again.

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Prevent SQL Injection in Dynamic column names

- by Mr Shoubs

I can't get away without writing some dynamic sql conditions in a part of my system (using Postgres). My question is how best to avoid SQL Injection with the method I am currently using. EDIT (Reasoning): There are many of columns in a number of tables (a number which grows (only) and is maintained elsewhere). I need a method of allowing the user to decide which (predefined) column they want to query (and if necessary apply string functions to). The query itself is far too complex for the user to write themselves, nor do they have access to the db. There are 1000's of users with varying requirements and I need to remain as flexible as possible - I shouldn't have to revisit the code unless the main query needs to change - Also, there is no way of knowing what conditions the user will need to use. I have objects (received via web service) that generates a condition (the generation method is below - it isn't perfect yet) for some large sql queries. The _FieldName is user editable (parameter name was, but it didn't need to be) and I am worried it could be an attack vector. I put double quotes (see quoted identifier) around the field name in an attempt to sanitize the string, this way it can never be a key word. I could also look up the field name against a list of fields, but it would be difficult to maintain on a timely basis. Unfortunately the user must enter the condition criteria, I am sure there must be more I can add to the sanatize method? and does quoting the column name make it safe? (my limited testing seems to think so). an example built condition would be "AND upper(brandloaded.make) like 'O%' and upper(brandloaded.make) not like 'OTHERBRAND'" ... Any help or suggestions are appreciated. Public Function GetCondition() As String Dim sb As New Text.StringBuilder 'put quote around the table name in an attempt to prevent some sql injection 'http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/static/sql-syntax-lexical.html sb.AppendFormat(" {0} ""{1}"" ", _LogicOperator.ToString, _FieldName) Select Case _ConditionOperator Case ConditionOperatorOptions.Equals sb.Append(" = ") ... End Select sb.AppendFormat(" {0} ", Me.UniqueParameterName) 'for parameter Return Me.Sanitize(sb) End Function Private Function Sanitize(ByVal sb As Text.StringBuilder) As String 'compare against a similar blacklist mentioned here: http://forums.asp.net/t/1254125.aspx sb.Replace(";", "") sb.Replace("'", "") sb.Replace("\", "") sb.Replace(Chr(8), "") Return sb.ToString End Function Public ReadOnly Property UniqueParameterName() As String Get Return String.Concat(":" _UniqueIdentifier) End Get End Property

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Delphi / MySql : Problems escaping strings

- by mawg

N00b here, having problems escaping strings. I used the QuotedStr() function - shouldn't that be enough. Unfortunately, the string that I am trying to quote is rather messy, but I will post it here in case anyone wants to paste it into WinMerge or KDiff3, etc. I am trying to store an entire Delphi form into the database, rather than into a .DFM file. It has only one field, a TEdit edit box. The debugger shows the form as text as 'object Form1: TScriptForm'#$D#$A' Left = 0'#$D#$A' Top = 0'#$D#$A' Align = alClient'#$D#$A' BorderStyle = bsNone'#$D#$A' ClientHeight = 517'#$D#$A' ClientWidth = 993'#$D#$A' Color = clBtnFace'#$D#$A' Font.Charset = DEFAULT_CHARSET'#$D#$A' Font.Color = clWindowText'#$D#$A' Font.Height = -11'#$D#$A' Font.Name = 'MS Sans Serif''#$D#$A' Font.Style = []'#$D#$A' OldCreateOrder = False'#$D#$A' SaveProps.Strings = ('#$D#$A' 'Visible=False')'#$D#$A' PixelsPerInch = 96'#$D#$A' TextHeight = 13'#$D#$A' object Edit1: TEdit'#$D#$A' Left = 192'#$D#$A' Top = 64'#$D#$A' Width = 121'#$D#$A' Height = 21'#$D#$A' TabOrder = 8'#$D#$A' end'#$D#$A'end'#$D#$A before calling QuotedStr() and ''object Form1: TScriptForm'#$D#$A' Left = 0'#$D#$A' Top = 0'#$D#$A' Align = alClient'#$D#$A' BorderStyle = bsNone'#$D#$A' ClientHeight = 517'#$D#$A' ClientWidth = 993'#$D#$A' Color = clBtnFace'#$D#$A' Font.Charset = DEFAULT_CHARSET'#$D#$A' Font.Color = clWindowText'#$D#$A' Font.Height = -11'#$D#$A' Font.Name = ''MS Sans Serif'''#$D#$A' Font.Style = []'#$D#$A' OldCreateOrder = False'#$D#$A' SaveProps.Strings = ('#$D#$A' ''Visible=False'')'#$D#$A' PixelsPerInch = 96'#$D#$A' TextHeight = 13'#$D#$A' object Edit1: TEdit'#$D#$A' Left = 192'#$D#$A' Top = 64'#$D#$A' Width = 121'#$D#$A' Height = 21'#$D#$A' TabOrder = 8'#$D#$A' end'#$D#$A'end'#$D#$A''' afterwards. The strange thing is that my complete command 'INSERT INTO designerFormDfm(designerFormDfmText) VALUES ("'object Form1: TScriptForm'#$D#$A' Left = 0'#$D#$A' Top = 0'#$D#$A' Align = alClient'#$D#$A' BorderStyle = bsNone'#$D#$A' ClientHeight = 517'#$D#$A' ClientWidth = 993'#$D#$A' Color = clBtnFace'#$D#$A' Font.Charset = DEFAULT_CHARSET'#$D#$A' Font.Color = clWindowText'#$D#$A' Font.Height = -11'#$D#$A' Font.Name = ''MS Sans Serif'''#$D#$A' Font.Style = []'#$D#$A' OldCreateOrder = False'#$D#$A' SaveProps.Strings = ('#$D#$A' ''Visible=False'')'#$D#$A' PixelsPerInch = 96'#$D#$A' TextHeight = 13'#$D#$A' object Edit1: TEdit'#$D#$A' Left = 192'#$D#$A' Top = 64'#$D#$A' Width = 121'#$D#$A' Height = 21'#$D#$A' TabOrder = 8'#$D#$A' end'#$D#$A'end'#$D#$A''");' executes in a MySql console, but not from Delphi, where I pass that command as parameter command to a function which ADOCommand.CommandText := command; ADOCommand.CommandType := cmdText; ADOCommand.Execute(); I can only assume that I am having problems escpaing sequences which contain single quotes (and QuotedStr() doesn't seem to escape backslahes(?!)) What am I doing that is obviously, glaringly wrong?

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C strange array behaviour

- by LukeN

After learning that both strncmp is not what it seems to be and strlcpy not being available on my operating system (Linux), I figured I could try and write it myself. I found a quote from Ulrich Drepper, the libc maintainer, who posted an alternative to strlcpy using mempcpy. I don't have mempcpy either, but it's behaviour was easy to replicate. First of, this is the testcase I have #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> #define BSIZE 10 void insp(const char* s, int n) { int i; for (i = 0; i < n; i++) printf("%c ", s[i]); printf("\n"); for (i = 0; i < n; i++) printf("%02X ", s[i]); printf("\n"); return; } int copy_string(char *dest, const char *src, int n) { int r = strlen(memcpy(dest, src, n-1)); dest[r] = 0; return r; } int main() { char b[BSIZE]; memset(b, 0, BSIZE); printf("Buffer size is %d", BSIZE); insp(b, BSIZE); printf("\nFirst copy:\n"); copy_string(b, "First", BSIZE); insp(b, BSIZE); printf("b = '%s'\n", b); printf("\nSecond copy:\n"); copy_string(b, "Second", BSIZE); insp(b, BSIZE); printf("b = '%s'\n", b); return 0; } And this is its result: Buffer size is 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 First copy: F i r s t b = 46 69 72 73 74 00 62 20 3D 00 b = 'First' Second copy: S e c o n d 53 65 63 6F 6E 64 00 00 01 00 b = 'Second' You can see in the internal representation (the lines insp() created) that there's some noise mixed in, like the printf() format string in the inspection after the first copy, and a foreign 0x01 in the second copy. The strings are copied intact and it correctly handles too long source strings (let's ignore the possible issue with passing 0 as length to copy_string for now, I'll fix that later). But why are there foreign array contents (from the format string) inside my destination? It's as if the destination was actually RESIZED to match the new length.

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Thinking about introducing PHP/MySQL into a .NET/SQL Server environment. Thoughts?

- by abszero

I posted this over at reddit but it didn't gain any momentum. So here is what is going on: our company was recently purchased by another web shop and I was promoted to head of development here in our office. Our office is completely .NET/SQL Server and the company who purchased us is a *nix/PHP/MySQL shop. Now several of our large clients who are on the .NET platform are up for complete rewrites (the sites are from '04 and are running on the 1.x framework.) While reviewing the proposal for one client with my superior I came across a pretty extensive module which would require several hundred man hours to complete and voiced some concern about it in relation to the quote. One of the guys from the PHP group happen to hear this and told me of a module that they (PHP Group) use in Drupal that does exactly what the proposal in front of me was describing and it only took, at most, 8 hours to completely setup / configure. My superior suggested that I take a look at Drupal and the module in question over the weekend but stressed that we should only go that route if it really made sense. So this weekend I spun up a CentOS instance in VirtualBox and started playing around with Drupal. I am still fleshing it out so don't have a solid opinion on it just yet. Anyway I have some questions / fears that I was hoping progit could help me out in! Has anyone had experience doing this and, if so, how did it turn out? I am completely ignorant to what IDE's (if any) are available to for PHP. The last time I worked with PHP it was in Notepad and that was less than intuitive. So is there are more intuitive IDE out there for PHP dev? I don't want to scare my .NET guys. Since the merger all of our new business clients that have had relatively small websites have gone on Drupal with the larger sites going on .NET. My concern is that if they see a large site go onto Drupal that they might start getting anxious and start handing out their resumes. For the foreseeable future there are no plans to liquidate the .NET platform and really we can't just from a support standpoint. What would be the best way to approach this? Any other helpful info? Thanks!

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â?? in my hmtl after purify

- by mmcgrail

I have a database the i am rebuilding the table structure was crap so I'm porting some of the data from one table to another. This data appears to have been copy past from MSO product so as I'm getting the data I clean it up with htmlpurifier and some alittle str_replace in php here the clean function function clean_html($html) { $config = HTMLPurifier_Config::createDefault(); $config->set('AutoFormat','RemoveEmpty',true); $config->set('HTML','AllowedAttributes','href,src'); $config->set('HTML','AllowedElements','p,em,strong,a,ul,li,ol,img'); $purifier = new HTMLPurifier($config); $html = $purifier->purify($html); $html = str_replace(' ',' ',$html); $html = str_replace("\r",'',$html); $html = str_replace("\n",'',$html); $html = str_replace("\t",'',$html); $html = str_replace(' ',' ',$html); $html = str_replace('<p> </p>','',$html); $html = str_replace(chr(160),' ',$html); return trim($html); } but when I put the results into my new table and out put them to the ckeditor I get those three characters. I then have a javascript function that is called to remove special characters from the content of the ckeditor too. it doesn't clean it either function remove_special(str) { var rExps=[ /[\xC0-\xC2]/g, /[\xE0-\xE2]/g, /[\xC8-\xCA]/g, /[\xE8-\xEB]/g, /[\xCC-\xCE]/g, /[\xEC-\xEE]/g, /[\xD2-\xD4]/g, /[\xF2-\xF4]/g, /[\xD9-\xDB]/g, /[\xF9-\xFB]/g, /\xD1/,/\xF1/g, "/[\u00a0|\u1680|[\u2000-\u2009]|u200a|\u200b|\u2028|\u2029|\u202f|\u205f|\u3000|\xa0]/g", /\u000b/g,'/[\u180e|\u000c]/g', /\u2013/g, /\u2014/g, /\xa9/g,/\xae/g,/\xb7/g,/\u2018/g,/\u2019/g,/\u201c/g,/\u201d/g,/\u2026/g]; var repChar=['A','a','E','e','I','i','O','o','U','u','N','n',' ','\t','','-','--','(c)','(r)','*',"'","'",'"','"','...']; for(var i=0; i<rExps.length; i++) { str=str.replace(rExps[i],repChar[i]); } for (var x = 0; x < str.length; x++) { charcode = str.charCodeAt(x); if ((charcode < 32 || charcode > 126) && charcode !=10 && charcode != 13) { str = str.replace(str.charAt(x), ""); } } return str; } Does anyone know off hand what I need to do to get rid of them. I think they may be some sort of quote

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Patterns for dynamic CMS components (event driven?)

- by CitrusTree

Sorry my title is not great, this is my first real punt at moving 100% to OO as I've been procedural for more years than I can remember. I'm finding it hard to understand if what I'm trying to do is possible. Depending on people's thoughts on the 2 following points, I'll go down that route. The CMS I'm putting together is quote small, however focuses very much on different types of content. I could easily use Drupal which I'm very comfortable with, but I want to give myself a really good reasons to move myself into design patterns / OO-PHP 1) I have created a base 'content' class which I wish to be able to extend to handle different types of content. The base class, for example, handles HTML content, and extensions might handle XML or PDF output instead. On the other hand, at some point I may wish to extend the base class for a given project completely. I.e. if class 'content-v2' extended class 'content' for that site, any calls to that class should actually call 'content-v2' instead. Is that possible? If the code instantiates an object of type 'content' - I actually want it to instantiate one of type 'content-v2'... I can see how to do it using inheritance, but that appears to involve referring to the class explicitly, I can't see how to link the class I want it to use instead dynamically. 2) Secondly, the way I'm building this at the moment is horrible, I'm not happy with it. It feels very linear indeed - i.e. get session details get content build navigation theme page publish. To do this all the objects are called 1-by-1 which is all very static. I'd like it to be more dynamic so that I can add to it at a later date (very closely related to first question). Is there a way that instead of my orchestrator class calling all the other classes 1-by-1, then building the whole thing up at the end, that instead each of the other classes can 'listen' for specific events, then at the applicable point jump in and do their but? That way the orchestrator class would not need to know what other classes were required, and call them 1-by-1. Sorry if I've got this all twisted in my head. I'm trying to build this so it's really flexible.

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Little CSS problem with Auto height and nested div's

- by GeekDrop.com

So I'm finally learning my way around CSS more and have run into a small problem. I have a container div, with a few divs inside of it, one of them is a bit if text (which can be a random height) and an image that will have a MAX height of 200px. I am using a dotted/colored background behind them that needs to auto expand to the height of whichever is the tallest, either the text or the image. Right now when i use height:auto on the container div it works perfect for the random height text: Example Screenshot But it's only adjusting according to the text's height; if the image is taller than the text, the image overflows the bottom of the background dotted/colored box. Example Screenshot The CSS I'm using currently is this: h1 div#like_detailed { margin: 0; font-size: 1.1em; width: 700px; } #details-image img { border: none; clear: left; float: right; margin: -45px 0 0 0; max-height: 200px; padding: 0 7px 0 10px; } #deets-container { background-color: #FEF; border: #190AE7 1px dotted; height: auto; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 30px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-bottom: 0; } And the HTML for it is this: <div id="deets-container" class="rounded">  <div class="likebtnframe">(some code)</div>  <div class="tweetbtnframe">(some code)</div>  <ul id="share"> <li><a name="share">(some code)</a></li> </ul>  <div class="submitter_detailed"><span class="submitter-color smalltext">(some code)</span> (some code)</div>  <div id="**details-image**">(some code)</div>  <h1 id="**like_detailed**">(some code)</h1> </div> I have a feeling this is pretty easy but I'm running out of time to sort it out on my own. Anyone?

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Delphi / MySql : Problems escpaing strings

- by mawg

N00b here, having problems escaping strings. I used the QuotedStr() function - shouldn't that be enough. Unfortunately, the string that I am trying to quote is rather messy, but I will post it here in case anyone wants to paste it into WinMerge or KDiff3, etc. I am trying to store an entire Delphi form into the database, rather than into a .DFM file. It has only one field, a TEdit edit box. The debugger shows the form as text as 'object Form1: TScriptForm'#$D#$A' Left = 0'#$D#$A' Top = 0'#$D#$A' Align = alClient'#$D#$A' BorderStyle = bsNone'#$D#$A' ClientHeight = 517'#$D#$A' ClientWidth = 993'#$D#$A' Color = clBtnFace'#$D#$A' Font.Charset = DEFAULT_CHARSET'#$D#$A' Font.Color = clWindowText'#$D#$A' Font.Height = -11'#$D#$A' Font.Name = 'MS Sans Serif''#$D#$A' Font.Style = []'#$D#$A' OldCreateOrder = False'#$D#$A' SaveProps.Strings = ('#$D#$A' 'Visible=False')'#$D#$A' PixelsPerInch = 96'#$D#$A' TextHeight = 13'#$D#$A' object Edit1: TEdit'#$D#$A' Left = 192'#$D#$A' Top = 64'#$D#$A' Width = 121'#$D#$A' Height = 21'#$D#$A' TabOrder = 8'#$D#$A' end'#$D#$A'end'#$D#$A before calling QuotedStr() and ''object Form1: TScriptForm'#$D#$A' Left = 0'#$D#$A' Top = 0'#$D#$A' Align = alClient'#$D#$A' BorderStyle = bsNone'#$D#$A' ClientHeight = 517'#$D#$A' ClientWidth = 993'#$D#$A' Color = clBtnFace'#$D#$A' Font.Charset = DEFAULT_CHARSET'#$D#$A' Font.Color = clWindowText'#$D#$A' Font.Height = -11'#$D#$A' Font.Name = ''MS Sans Serif'''#$D#$A' Font.Style = []'#$D#$A' OldCreateOrder = False'#$D#$A' SaveProps.Strings = ('#$D#$A' ''Visible=False'')'#$D#$A' PixelsPerInch = 96'#$D#$A' TextHeight = 13'#$D#$A' object Edit1: TEdit'#$D#$A' Left = 192'#$D#$A' Top = 64'#$D#$A' Width = 121'#$D#$A' Height = 21'#$D#$A' TabOrder = 8'#$D#$A' end'#$D#$A'end'#$D#$A''' afterwards. The strange thing is that my complete command 'INSERT INTO designerFormDfm(designerFormDfmText) VALUES ("'object Form1: TScriptForm'#$D#$A' Left = 0'#$D#$A' Top = 0'#$D#$A' Align = alClient'#$D#$A' BorderStyle = bsNone'#$D#$A' ClientHeight = 517'#$D#$A' ClientWidth = 993'#$D#$A' Color = clBtnFace'#$D#$A' Font.Charset = DEFAULT_CHARSET'#$D#$A' Font.Color = clWindowText'#$D#$A' Font.Height = -11'#$D#$A' Font.Name = ''MS Sans Serif'''#$D#$A' Font.Style = []'#$D#$A' OldCreateOrder = False'#$D#$A' SaveProps.Strings = ('#$D#$A' ''Visible=False'')'#$D#$A' PixelsPerInch = 96'#$D#$A' TextHeight = 13'#$D#$A' object Edit1: TEdit'#$D#$A' Left = 192'#$D#$A' Top = 64'#$D#$A' Width = 121'#$D#$A' Height = 21'#$D#$A' TabOrder = 8'#$D#$A' end'#$D#$A'end'#$D#$A''");' executes in a MySql console, but not from Delphi, where I pass that command as parameter command to a function which ADOCommand.CommandText := command; ADOCommand.CommandType := cmdText; ADOCommand.Execute(); I can only assume that I am having problems escpaing sequences which contain single quotes (and QuotedStr() doesn't seem to escape backslahes(?!)) What am I doing that is obviously, glaringly wrong?

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Database advantages? Access, MySQL, msSQL, or any others?

- by JimZ

Dear all Stackoverflowers, I just started to learn programming and now I'm putting this question online based on a quote: no question is silly My work needs to develop a order system based on web, which wants a database system. Since using Excel for years as a general office user, I naturally turn this to Access. However, most people say Access is very limited comparing to MySQL or MSSQL, or any other more professional database system. But after developing some functions for my company's order system, I really find Access can fulfill my request. And I also tried MSSQL to develop, which I found it not quite convenient to use. I have searched in stackoverflow and find no general answer about my doubt. Now I am sincerely hoping some experienced and professional developers could clear my doubts. Now I'm listing some Access advantages, which I don't think other database system have. I hope you could help me also find these advantages in others. 1. Access is portable, I can just copy a xxx.accdb file to my company and continue with development. 2. Access is easy to generate helpful table, for example, it will automatically generate a field that can automatically count, could be used as primary key value. 3. it is more compatable with Excel, to display and filter data. 4. importantly, it nerely needs no environment to setup, just needs MS Office to be installed. ............others However, I also find some points that MSSQL is advantaged: 1. security reasons 2. easy to backup, ( just use BACKUP..... sql statement to do it) 3. can edit stored procedure to save some functions to database ...............others specifically, I wish some friends could tell me how to make other database portable? since I usually work both at home and in office. It's a headache to move MSSQL work to my office, since the version of MSSQL is not the same. Thank you all and best regards, :)

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Creating packages in code - Package Configurations

Continuing my theme of building various types of packages in code, this example shows how to building a package with package configurations. Incidentally it shows you how to add a variable, and a connection too. It covers the five most common configurations: Configuration File Indirect Configuration File SQL Server Indirect SQL Server Environment Variable For a general overview try the SQL Server Books Online Package Configurations topic. The sample uses a a simple helper function ApplyConfig to create or update a configuration, although in the example we will only ever create. The most useful knowledge is the configuration string (Configuration.ConfigurationString) that you need to set. Configuration Type Configuration String Description Configuration File The full path and file name of an XML configuration file. The file can contain one or more configuration and includes the target path and new value to set. Indirect Configuration File An environment variable the value of which contains full path and file name of an XML configuration file as per the Configuration File type described above. SQL Server A three part configuration string, with each part being quote delimited and separated by a semi-colon. -- The first part is the connection manager name. The connection tells you which server and database to look for the configuration table. -- The second part is the name of the configuration table. The table is of a standard format, use the Package Configuration Wizard to help create an example, or see the sample script files below. The table contains one or more rows or configuration items each with a target path and new value. -- The third and final part is the optional filter name. A configuration table can contain multiple configurations, and the filter is literal value that can be used to group items together and act as a filter clause when configurations are being read. If you do not need a filter, just leave the value empty. Indirect SQL Server An environment variable the value of which is the three part configuration string as per the SQL Server type described above. Environment Variable An environment variable the value of which is the value to set in the package. This is slightly different to the other examples as the configuration definition in the package also includes the target information. In our ApplyConfig function this is the only example that actually supplies a target value for the Configuration.PackagePath property. The path is an XPath style path for the target property, \Package.Variables[User::Variable].Properties[Value], the equivalent of which can be seen in the screenshot below, with the object being our variable called Variable, and the property to set is the Value property of that variable object. The configurations as seen when opening the generated package in BIDS: The sample code creates the package, adds a variable and connection manager, enables configurations, and then adds our example configurations. The package is then saved to disk, useful for checking the package and testing, before finally executing, just to prove it is valid. There are some external resources used here, namely some environment variables and a table, see below for more details. namespace Konesans.Dts.Samples { using System; using Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime; public class PackageConfigurations { public void CreatePackage() { // Create a new package Package package = new Package(); package.Name = "ConfigurationSample"; // Add a variable, the target for our configurations package.Variables.Add("Variable", false, "User", 0); // Add a connection, for SQL configurations // Add the SQL OLE-DB connection ConnectionManager connectionManagerOleDb = package.Connections.Add("OLEDB"); connectionManagerOleDb.Name = "SQLConnection"; connectionManagerOleDb.ConnectionString = "Provider=SQLOLEDB.1;Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=master;Integrated Security=SSPI;"; // Add our example configurations, first must enable package setting package.EnableConfigurations = true; // Direct configuration file, see sample file this.ApplyConfig(package, "Configuration File", DTSConfigurationType.ConfigFile, "C:\\Temp\\XmlConfig.dtsConfig", string.Empty); // Indirect configuration file, the emvironment variable XmlConfigFileEnvironmentVariable // contains the path to the configuration file, e.g. C:\Temp\XmlConfig.dtsConfig this.ApplyConfig(package, "Indirect Configuration File", DTSConfigurationType.IConfigFile, "XmlConfigFileEnvironmentVariable", string.Empty); // Direct SQL Server configuration, uses the SQLConnection package connection to read // configurations from the [dbo].[SSIS Configurations] table, with a filter of "SampleFilter" this.ApplyConfig(package, "SQL Server", DTSConfigurationType.SqlServer, "\"SQLConnection\";\"[dbo].[SSIS Configurations]\";\"SampleFilter\";", string.Empty); // Indirect SQL Server configuration, the environment variable "SQLServerEnvironmentVariable" // contains the configuration string e.g. "SQLConnection";"[dbo].[SSIS Configurations]";"SampleFilter"; this.ApplyConfig(package, "Indirect SQL Server", DTSConfigurationType.ISqlServer, "SQLServerEnvironmentVariable", string.Empty); // Direct environment variable, the value of the EnvironmentVariable environment variable is // applied to the target property, the value of the "User::Variable" package variable this.ApplyConfig(package, "EnvironmentVariable", DTSConfigurationType.EnvVariable, "EnvironmentVariable", "\\Package.Variables[User::Variable].Properties[Value]"); #if DEBUG // Save package to disk, DEBUG only new Application().SaveToXml(String.Format(@"C:\Temp\{0}.dtsx", package.Name), package, null); Console.WriteLine(@"C:\Temp\{0}.dtsx", package.Name); #endif // Execute package package.Execute(); // Basic check for warnings foreach (DtsWarning warning in package.Warnings) { Console.WriteLine("WarningCode : {0}", warning.WarningCode); Console.WriteLine(" SubComponent : {0}", warning.SubComponent); Console.WriteLine(" Description : {0}", warning.Description); Console.WriteLine(); } // Basic check for errors foreach (DtsError error in package.Errors) { Console.WriteLine("ErrorCode : {0}", error.ErrorCode); Console.WriteLine(" SubComponent : {0}", error.SubComponent); Console.WriteLine(" Description : {0}", error.Description); Console.WriteLine(); } package.Dispose(); } /// <summary> /// Add or update an package configuration. /// </summary> /// <param name="package">The package.</param> /// <param name="name">The configuration name.</param> /// <param name="type">The type of configuration</param> /// <param name="setting">The configuration setting.</param> /// <param name="target">The target of the configuration, leave blank if not required.</param> internal void ApplyConfig(Package package, string name, DTSConfigurationType type, string setting, string target) { Configurations configurations = package.Configurations; Configuration configuration; if (configurations.Contains(name)) { configuration = configurations[name]; } else { configuration = configurations.Add(); } configuration.Name = name; configuration.ConfigurationType = type; configuration.ConfigurationString = setting; configuration.PackagePath = target; } } } The following table lists the environment variables required for the full example to work along with some sample values. Variable Sample value EnvironmentVariable 1 SQLServerEnvironmentVariable "SQLConnection";"[dbo].[SSIS Configurations]";"SampleFilter"; XmlConfigFileEnvironmentVariable C:\Temp\XmlConfig.dtsConfig Sample code, package and configuration file. ConfigurationApplication.cs ConfigurationSample.dtsx XmlConfig.dtsConfig

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Automating Form Login

- by Greg_Gutkin

Introduction A common task in configuring a web application for proxying in Pagelet Producer is setting up form autologin. PP provides a wizard-like tool for detecting the login form fields, but this is usually only the first step in configuring this feature. If the generated configuration doesn't seem to work, some additional manual modifications will be needed to complete the setup. This article will try to guide you through this process while steering you away from common pitfalls. For the purposes of this article, let's assume the following characteristics about your environment: Web Application Base URL: http://host/app (configured as Resource Source URL in PP) Pagelet Producer Base URL: http://pp/pagelets Form Field Auto-Detection Form Autologin is configured in the PP Admin UI under resource_name/Autologin/Form Login. First, you'll enter the URL to the login form under "Login Form Identification". This will enable the admin wizard to connect to and display the login page. Caution: RedirectsMake sure the entered URL matches what you see in the browser's address bar, when the application login page is displayed. For example, even though you may be able to reach the login page by simply typing http://host/app, the URL you end up on may change to http://host/app/login via browser redirect(s).The second URL is the one you will want to use. Caution: External Login ServersThe login page may actually come from a different server than the application you are trying to proxy. For example, you may notice that the login page URL changes to http://hostB/appB. This is common when external SSO products are involved. There are two ways of dealing with this situation. One is to configure Pagelet Producer to participate in SSO. This approach is out of scope of this article and is discussed in a separate whitepaper (TODO add link). The second approach is to use the autologin feature to provide stored credentials to the SSO login form. Since the login form URL is not an extension of the application base URL (PP resource URL), you will need to add a new PP resource for the SSO server and configure the login form on that resource instead of the original application resource. One side benefit of this additional resource is that it can reused for other applications relying on the same SSO server for login. After entering the login page URL (make sure dropdown says "URL"), click "Automatically Detect Form Fields". This will bring up the web app's login page in a new browser window. Fill it out and submit it as you would normally. If everything goes right, Pagelet Producer will intercept the submitted values and fill out all the needed configuration data in the Admin UI. If the login form window doesn't close or configuration data doesn't get filled in, you may have not entered the login page URL correctly. Review the two cautionary notes above and make any necessary changes. If the form fields got filled automatically, it's time to save the configuration and test it out. If you can access a protected area of the backend application via a proxied PP URL without filling out its login form, then you are pretty much done with login form configuration. The only other step you will need to complete before declaring this aspect of configuration production ready is configuring form field source. You may skip to that section below. Manual Login Form Identification Let's take a closer look at Login Form Identification. This determines how Pagelet Producer recognizes login forms as such. URL The most efficient way of detecting login forms is by looking at the page URL. This method can only be used under the following conditions: Login page URL must be different from the post login application URLs. Login page URL must stay constant regardless of the path it takes to reach the page. For example, reaching the login page by going to the application base URL or to a specific protected URL must result in a redirect to the same login page URL (query string excluded). If only the query string parameters change, just leave out the query string from the configured login page URL. If either of these conditions is not fullfilled, you must switch to the RegEx approach below. RegEx If the login page URL is not uniform enough across all scenarios or is indistinguishable from other page locations, PP can be configured to recognize it by looking at the page markup itself. This is accomplished by changing the dropdown to "RegEx". If regular expressions scare you, take comfort from the fact that in most cases you won't need to enter any special regex characters. Let's look at an example: Say you have a login form that looks like <form id='loginForm' action='login?from=pageA' > <input id='user'> <input id='pass'> </form> Since this form has an id attribute, you can be reasonably sure that this login form can be uniquely identified across the web application by this snippet: "id='loginForm'". (Unless, of course your backend web application contains login forms to other apps). Since no wildcards are needed to find this snippet, you can just enter it as is into the RegEx field - no special regular expression characters needed! If the web developer who created the form wasn't kind enough to provide a unique id, you will need to look for other snippets of the page to uniquely identify it. It could be the action URL, an input field id, or some other markup fragment. You should abstain from using UI text as an identifier it may change in translated versions of the page and prevent the login page logic from working for international users. You may need to turn to regular expression wildcard syntax if no simple matches work. For more information on regular expression, refer to the Resources section. Form Submit Location Now we'll look at the form submit location. If the captured URL contains query string parameters that will likely change from one form submission to the next, you will need to change its type to RegEx. This type will tell Pagelet Producer to parse the login page for the action URL and submit to the value found. The regular expression needs to point at the actual action URL with its first grouping expression. Taking the example form definition above, the form submit location regex would be: action='(.*?)' The parentheses are used to identify the actual action URL, while the rest of the expression provides the context for finding it. Expression .*? is a so-called reluctant wildcard that matches any character excluding the single quote that follows. See Resources section below for further information on regular expressions. Manual Form Field Detection If the Admin UI form field detection wizard fails to populate login form configuration page, you will have to enter the fields by hand. Use a built-in browser developer tool or addon (e.g. Firebug) to inspect the form element and its children input elements. For each input element (including hidden elements), create an entry under Form Fields. Change its Source according to the next section. Form Field Source Change the source of any of the fields not exposed to the users of the login form (i.e. hidden fields) to "Generated". This means Pagelet Producer will just use the values returned by the web app rather than supplying values it stored. For fields that contain sensitive data or vary from user to user (e.g. username & password), change the source to User (Credential) Vault. Logging Support To help you troubleshoot you autologin configuration, PP provides some useful logging support. To turn on detailed logging for the autologin feature, navigate to Settings in Admin UI. Under Logging, change the log level for AutoLogin to Finest. Known Limitations Autologin feature may not work as expected if login form fields (not just the values, but the DOM elements themselves) are generated dynamically by client side JavaScript. Resources RegEx RegEx Reference from Java RegEx Test Tool

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B2B and B2C Commerce are alike… but a little different – Oracle Commerce named Leader in Forrester B2B Commerce Wave

- by Katrina Gosek

We weren’t surprised to see Oracle Commerce positioned as a Leader in Forrester’s first Commerce Wave focused on B2B, released earlier this month. The reports validates much of what we’ve heard from our largest customers – the world’s largest distribution, manufacturing and high-tech customers who sell billions of dollars of goods and services to other businesses through their Web channels. More importantly, the report confirms something very important: B2B and B2C Commerce are alike… but a little different. B2B and B2C Commerce are alike… Clearly, B2C experiences have set expectations for B2B. Every B2B buyer is a consumer at home and brings the same expectations to a website selling electronic components, aftermarket parts, or MRO products. Forrester calls these rich consumer-based capabilities that help B2B customers do their jobs “table stakes”: search & navigation, promotions, cross-channel commerce and mobile: “Whether they are just beginning to sell online or are in the late stages of launching a next-generation site, B2B eCommerce operations today must: offer a customer experience standard comparable to what leading b2c sites now offer; address the growing influence that mobile devices are having in the workplace; make a qualitative and quantitative business case that drives sustained investment.” Just five years ago, many of our B2B customers’ online business comprised only 5-10% of their total revenue. Today, when we speak to those same brands, we hear about double and triple digit growth in their online channels. Many have seen the percentage of the business they perform in their web channels cross the 30-50% threshold. You can hear first-hand from several Oracle Commerce B2B customers about the success they are seeing, and what they’re trying to accomplish (Carolina Biological, Premier Farnell, DeliXL, Elsevier). This momentum is likely the reason Forrester broke out the separate B2B Commerce Wave from the B2C Wave. In fact, B2B is becoming the larger force in commerce, expected to collect twice the online dollars of B2C this year ($559 billion). But a little different… Despite the similarities, there is a key and very important difference between B2C and B2B. Unlike a consumer shopping for shoes, a business shopper buying from a distributor or manufacturer is coming to the Web channel as a part of their job. So in addition to a rich, consumer-like experience this shopper expects, these B2B buyers need quoting tools and complex pricing capabilities, like eProcurement, bulk order entry, and other self-service tools such as account, contract and organization management. Forrester also is emphasizing three additional “back-end” tools and capabilities their clients say they need to drive growth in their B2B online channels: i) product information management (PIM), which provides a single system of record for large part lists and product catalogs; ii) web content management (WCM), needed to manage large volumes of unstructured marketing information, and iii) order management systems (OMS), which manage and orchestrate the complex B2B order life cycle from quote through approval, submission to manufacturing, distribution and delivery. We would like to expand on each of these 3 areas: As Forrester highlights, back-end PIM is definitely needed by B2B Commerce providers. Most B2B companies have made significant investments in enterprise-grade PIMs, given the importance of product data management for aggregation and syndication of content, product attribution, analytics, and handling of complex workflows. While in principle it may sound appealing to have a PIM as part of a commerce offering (especially for SMBs who have to do more with less), our customers have typically found that PIM in a commerce platform is largely redundant with what they already have in-place, and is not fully-featured or robust enough to handle the complexity of the product data sets that B2B distributors and manufacturers usually handle. To meet the PIM needs for commerce, Oracle offers enterprise PIM (Product Hub/Fusion PIM) and a robust enterprise data quality product (EDQP) integrated with the Oracle Commerce solution. These are key differentiators of our offering and these capabilities are becoming even more tightly integrated with Oracle Commerce over time. For Commerce, what customers really need is a robust product catalog and content management system for enabling business users to further enrich and ready catalog and content data to be presented and sold online. This has been a significant area of investment in the Oracle Commerce platform , which continue to get stronger. We see this combination of capabilities as best meeting the needs of our customers for a commerce platform without adding a largely redundant, less functional PIM in the commerce front-end. On the topic of web content management, we were pleased to see Forrester recognize Oracle’s unique functional capabilities in this area and the “unique opportunity in the market to lead the convergence of commerce and content management with the amalgamation of Oracle Commerce with WebCenter Sites (formally FatWire).” Strong content management capabilities are critical for distributors and manufacturers who are frequently serving an engineering audience coming to their websites to conduct product research in search of technical data sheets, drawings, videos and more. The convergence of content, commerce, and experience is critical for B2B brands selling online. Regarding order management, Forrester notes that many businesses use their existing back-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to manage order life cycles. We hear the same from most of our B2B customers, as they already have an ERP system—if not several of them—and are not interested in yet another one. So what do we take away from the Wave results? Forrester notes that the Oracle Commerce Platform “has always had strong B2B commerce capabilities and Oracle has an exhaustive list of B2B customers using the solution.” What makes us excited about developing leading B2B solutions are the close relationships with our customers and the clear opportunity in the market – which we’ll address in an exciting new release in the coming months. Oracle has one of the world’s largest B2B customer bases, providing leading solutions across key business-to-business functions – from marketing, sales automation, and service to master data management, and ERP. To learn more about Oracle’s Commerce product vision and strategy, visit our website and check out these other B2B Commerce Resources: - 2013 B2B Commerce Trends Report - B2B Commerce Whitepaper: Consumerization, Complexity, Change - B2B Commerce Webcast: What Industry Trend Setters Do Right - Internet Retailer, Web Drives Sales for B2B Companies - Internet Retailer, The Web Means Business: B2B Companies Beef Up Their Websites, borrowing from b2c retailers and breaking new ground - Internet Retailer, B2B e-Commerce is poised for growth ----------THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND MAY NOT BE INCORPORATED INTO A CONTRACT OR AGREEMENT

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Rsync: how to mount truecrypt on-the-fly on the receiving side?

- by deepc

The short version: how can I keep an rsync backup on a truecrypt volume? The hard part is to mount/unmount this volume on the fly when it is needed for rsync. Details This is my current backup configuration (which works fairly well for the most part): backup source is on Win7 64 bit, destination is a remote Linux box (Debian) actual data transfer is done by rsync via ssh (cwRsync with cygwin) rsync daemon is started on demand via ssh On the Linux box the backup is protected by file permissions only. I want to increase security here and put the backup into a truecrypt volume. I can fuse-mount that volume manually in the shell. The question is now how can I make rsync not only open an ssh connection and starting the rsync daemon, but also to mount the truecrypt volume before (and unmount it after)? My money is on option --rsync-path which can be used to pass a command line to ssh - provided that stdin and stdout still work the same. I guess that command would have to be a shell script. Is this possible, and what would the script look like? For reference, here's a quote of that option: --rsync-path=PROGRAM Use this to specify what program is to be run on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync). Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to communicate. One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote machine for use with the --relative option. For instance: rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/ This is the full rsync man page. Truecrypt volume auto-mount Solved! Turns out this option is actually key to auto-mounting the truecrypt volume on the remote side. The following command line does the trick (one line!): rsync $options -e "ssh -p $port -i ../.ssh/id_dsa" --rsync-path="/usr/local/bin/truecrypt -d && /usr/local/bin/truecrypt --fs-options=rw,sync,utf8,uid=$UID,umask=0007 --non-interactive -p $password $pathToVolume $remoteMountDir && rsync" $localSourceDir $user:$remoteMountMountDir Truecrypt volume auto-dismount Still open: how can I unmount the volume when rsync is done? Not sure if the following makes sense to anyone but I give it a try... Right now I am unmounting (truecrypt -d), then mounting again, then continuing with rsync. At this time rsync needs to do its thing but I dont know when its done. Adding ... rsync && truecrypt -d to the command line does not work because then the rsync daemon does not start. This is because rsync starts the daemon with parameter --server on the remote side and that parameter would go to the final truecrypt -d.

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Connection Reset on MySQL query

- by sunwukung

OK, I'm flummoxed.(i've asked this question over on Stack too - but I need to get it fixed so I'm asking here too - any help is GREATLY appreciated) I'm trying to execute a query on a database (locally) and I keep getting a connection reset error. I've been using the method below in a generic DAO class to build a query string and pass to Zend_Db API. public function insert($params) { $loop = false; $keys = $values = ''; foreach($params as $k => $v){ if($loop == true){ $keys .= ','; $values .= ','; } $keys .= $this->db->quoteIdentifier($k); $values .= $this->db->quote($v); $loop = true; } $sql = "INSERT INTO " . $this->table_name . " ($keys) VALUES ($values)"; //formatResult returns an array of info regarding the status and any result sets of the query //I've commented that method call out anyway, so I don't think it's that try { $this->db->query($sql); return $this->formatResult(array( true, 'New record inserted into: '.$this->table_name )); }catch(PDOException $e) { return $this->formatResult($e); } } So far, this has worked fine - the errors have been occurring since we generated new tables to record user input. The insert string looks like this: INSERT INTO tablename(`id`,`title`,`summary`,`description`,`keywords`,`type_id`,`categories`) VALUES ('5539','Sample Title','Sample content',' \'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In et pellentesque mauris. Curabitur hendrerit, leo id ultrices pellentesque, est purus mattis ligula, vitae imperdiet neque ligula bibendum sapien. Curabitur aliquet nisi et odio pharetra tincidunt. Phasellus sed iaculis nisl. Fusce commodo mauris et purus vehicula dictum. Nulla feugiat molestie accumsan. Donec fermentum libero in risus tempus elementum aliquam et magna. Fusce vitae sem metus. Aenean commodo pharetra risus, nec pellentesque augue ullamcorper nec. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Nullam vel elit libero. Vestibulum in turpis nunc.\'','this,is,a,sample,array',1,'category title') Here are the parameters it's getting before assembling the query (var_dump): array 'id' => string '1' (length=4) 'title' => string 'Sample Title' (length=12) 'summary' => string 'Sample content' (length=14) 'description' => string '<p>'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In et pellentesque mauris. Curabitur hendrerit, leo id ultrices pellentesque, est purus mattis ligula, vitae imperdiet neque ligula bibendum sapien. Curabitur aliquet nisi et odio pharetra tincidunt. Phasellus sed iaculis nisl. Fusce commodo mauris et purus vehicula dictum. Nulla feugiat molestie accumsan. Donec fermentum libero in risus tempus elementum aliquam et magna. Fusce vitae sem metus. Aenean commodo pharetra risus, nec pellentesque augue'... (length=677) 'keywords' => string 'this,is,a,sample,array' (length=22) 'type_id' => int 1 'categories' => string 'category title' (length=43) The next port of call was checking the limits on the table, since it seems to insert if the length of "description" is around the 300 mark (it varies between 310 - 330). The field limit is set to VARCHAR(1500) and the validation on this field won't allow anything past bigger than 1200 with HTML, 800 without. The real kicker is that if I take this sql string and execute it via the command line, it works fine - so I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong. I've tried extending the server parameters i.e. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1964554/unexpected-connection-reset-a-php-or-an-apache-issue So, in a nutshell, I'm stumped. Any ideas?

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Guide to Downloading Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Products

- by Daniel Mortimer

IntroductionThe idea of writing a blog about downloading software seems a bit strange .. right? After all, surely just give me the web download link and away I go!? Unfortunately, life is not so simple if you are a DBA or Systems Administrator tasked with staging Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g products for your chosen business technology stack. Here are the challenges: Oracle Fusion Middleware is not a single product, it is a family of products - a media pack with many many "disks" - which ones do I pick? Are the products I pick certified / supported on my chosen platform? Which download site do I use? I need to be on the latest and greatest - how do I get hold of the latest product patch set? The purpose of this blog is to give you a roadmap to get you through these challenges. Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g - A Product SuiteThe first thing to appreciate is that Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is not a single product. It is a product suite, an umbrella label for many products. Typically you don't download the whole media pack - well not unless you want to stage 124 Parts - a total of 68 Gig - instead you pick the pieces that are required for your chosen Middleware solution. Therefore, you need to research / understand which products are required to build your solution. In this respect, before you go looking for the software pick and persue the product guide from the table below which matches your situation: Installing a New / Vanilla FMW 11g architecture Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Planning Guide 11g Upgrading Oracle Application Server 10g to FMW 11g Oracle Fusion Middleware Upgrade Planning Guide 11g Patching an existing FMW 11g architecture Oracle Fusion Middleware Patching Guide 11g Certification Information Ok, so now you have an idea of what Fusion Middleware products you need. It's time to check whether these products are certified against your chosen platform. There are two places to find this information:My Oracle Support Certification Tab PageFigure 1.1 My Oracle Support Certification Tab Page - "Search on SOA Suite" Figure 1.2 My Oracle Support Certification Tab Page - "SOA Suite Search Result" The FMW 11g Certification Central Hub (in the format of xls spreadsheet)Figure 2: Screenshot of FMW 11g Release 1 Certification xls spreadsheet Hints / Tips: Fusion Middleware 11g certification information has only recently been added into the Certification Tab page and I think it is the more friendly way to access the information. However, due to some restrictions with the Certification Tab page interface some of the more, let's say obscure certification information, is still to be only found in the Certification spreadsheet. Be aware that to find certification information via the My Oracle Support Certification Tab page you must enter the FMW 11g product name e.g. "Oracle SOA Suite". Do NOT enter "Oracle Fusion Middleware". The certification information does not exist at this product suite level. For example, if you are building a solution which includes Oracle SOA Suite Oracle WebCenter then you will have to look up the certification information for each product in turn.After choosing the product name, select the latest patch set version. This will not only tell you whether your chosen product is available at that patch set version but provide the certification information relevant to that version. If the product is not available under the latest patch set version, seek the information under previous patch set versions. Important: Make a careful note of the Oracle WebLogic Server version which is certified with your chosen product and patch set version. Oracle WebLogic Server is the core component of a Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g home. It is important therefore to ensure later on that you download the version of Oracle WebLogic Server which is compatible and certified with your chosen product and patch set version.Also - sorry to state the obvious, but please do not take certification information from the screenshots above. The screenshots are only good for the time they were entered into the blog. To ensure you have the latest information, interactively look up the certification details. For more information about finding certification information, bookmark and readMy Oracle Support Certification Tool for Oracle Fusion Middleware Products [Doc ID 1368736.1]How to Find Certification Details for Oracle Application Server 10g and Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g [Doc ID 431578.1] Downloading the Software Now you should be ready to download the software. There are two download locations Oracle Software Delivery Cloud (formerly known as E-Delivery)Figure 3 - Screenshot of Fusion Middleware Download from Delivery CloudOracle Fusion Middleware Download Page on Oracle Technology NetworkFigure 4 - Screenshot of OTN Product Download Screen Hints / Tips: Your choice of download location should be primarily driven by your licensing needs. Take note of the wording on the OTN site - to quote:"The downloads below are provided for evaluators under the OTN License Agreement. Licensed customers should download their software via our Oracle Software Delivery Cloud site, which offers different license terms."However, it has to be said that the presentation of the most of the product download pages on OTN does make the job easier. The Software Delivery Cloud provides you with a flat list of the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g media pack. You have to know what you are looking for and pick out the right pieces :-( The OTN product download pages present not only the download for the product you want but also its dependencies such as WebLogic Server and Repository Creation Utility. So, even if your licensing requirements drive you towards the cloud, it is still worthwhile checking the OTN pages if only as a guide to what you need to pick out from the flat list found on the cloud site. Latest Patch Set This is an area which may cause you confusion - especially if you are more familiar with the Oracle Application Server 10g patching story. From Patch Set 11.1.1.6 and higher, the majority of FMW 11g products (N.B there are exceptions) provide installers which can be used both to update existing FMW 11g product installs or build brand new ones. This is good news because, unless you are dealing with one of the exceptions, it means you do not have to download base software and a patch set. At the time of the writing, the two significant exceptions are: Portal/Forms/Reports/Discoverer 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.x) Identity Access Management 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.x) The other key message here is ensure you are grabbing a version of Oracle WebLogic Server which is compatible with your chosen product patch set version. Get this wrong and you will hit errors / problems at AS Instance Configuration Time.The go to place is this document - Oracle Fusion Middleware Download, Installation, and Configuration Readme FilesIn fact, this README document pretty much takes you through what I have blogged above. The only thing is you need to know which README to choose, and that's why planning your FMW 11g technology stack and viewing certification information comes into play beforehand. And Finally As the Oracle Fusion Middleware Download, Installation, and Configuration Readme Files states don't forget to check FMW 11g System Requirements FMW 11g Product Interoperability

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Too Many Kittens To Juggle At Once

- by Bil Simser

Ahh, the Internet. That crazy, mixed up place where one tweet turns into a conversation between dozens of people and spawns a blogpost. This is the direct result of such an event this morning. It started innocently enough, with this: Then followed up by a blog post by Joel here. In the post, Joel introduces us to the term Business Solutions Architect with mad skillz like InfoPath, Access Services, Excel Services, building Workflows, and SSRS report creation, all while meeting the business needs of users in a SharePoint environment. I somewhat disagreed with Joel that this really wasn’t a new role (at least IMHO) and that a good Architect or BA should really be doing this job. As Joel pointed out when you’re building a SharePoint team this kind of role is often overlooked. Engineers might be able to build workflows but is the right workflow for the right problem? Michael Pisarek wrote about a SharePoint Business Architect a few months ago and it’s a pretty solid assessment. Again, I argue you really shouldn’t be looking for roles that don’t exist and I don’t suggest anyone create roles to hire people to fill them. That’s basically creating a solution looking for problems. Michael’s article does have some great points if you’re lost in the quagmire of SharePoint duties though (and I especially like John Ross’ quote “The coolest shit is worthless if it doesn’t meet business needs”). SharePoinTony summed it up nicely with “SharePoint Solutions knowledge is both lacking and underrated in most environments. Roles help”. Having someone on the team who can dance between a business user and a coder can be difficult. Remember the idea of telling something to someone and them passing it on to the next person. By the time the story comes round the circle it’s a shadow of it’s former self with little resemblance to the original tale. This is very much business requirements as they’re told by the user to a business analyst, written down on paper, read by an architect, tuned into a solution plan, and implemented by a developer. Transformations between what was said, what was heard, what was written down, and what was developed can be distant cousins. Not everyone has the skill of communication and even less have negotiation skills to suit the SharePoint platform. Negotiation is important because not everything can be (or should be) done in SharePoint. Sometimes it’s just not appropriate to build it on the SharePoint platform but someone needs to know enough about the platform and what limitations it might have, then communicate that (and/or negotiate) with a customer or user so it’s not about “You can’t have this” to “Let’s try it this way”. Visualize the possible instead of denying the impossible. So what is the right SharePoint team? My cromag brain came with a fairly simpleton answer (and I’m sure people will just say this is a cop-out). The perfect SharePoint team is just enough people to do the job that know the technology and business problem they’re solving. Bridge the gap between business need and technology platform and you have an architect. Communicate the needs of the business effectively so the entire team understands it and you have a business analyst. Can you get this with full time workers? Maybe but don’t expect miracles out of the gate. Also don’t take a consultant’s word as gospel. Some consultants just don’t have the diversity of the SharePoint platform to be worth their value so be careful. You really need someone who knows enough about SharePoint to be able to validate a consultants knowledge level. This is basically try for any consultant, not just a SharePoint one. Specialization is good and needed. A good, well-balanced SharePoint team is one of people that can solve problems with work with the technology, not against it. Having a top developer is great, but don’t rely on them to solve world hunger if they can’t communicate very well with users. An expert business analyst might be great at gathering requirements so the entire team can understand them, but if it means building 100% custom solutions because they don’t fit inside the SharePoint boundaries isn’t of much value. Just repeat. There is no silver bullet. There is no silver bullet. There is no silver bullet. A few people pointed out Nick Inglis’ article Excluding The Information Professional In SharePoint. It’s a good read too and hits home that maybe some developers and IT pros need some extra help in the information space. If you’re in an organization that needs labels on people, come up with something everyone understands and go with it. If that’s Business Solutions Architect, SharePoint Advisor, or Guy Who Knows A Lot About Portals, make it work for you. We all wish that one person could master all that is SharePoint but we also know that doesn’t scale very well and you quickly get into the hit-by-a-bus syndrome (with the organization coming to a full crawl when the guy or girl goes on vacation, gets sick, or pops out a baby). There are too many gaps in SharePoint knowledge to have any one person know it all and too many kittens to juggle all at once. We like to consider ourselves experts in our field, but trying to tackle too many roles at once and we end up being mediocre jack of all trades, master of none. Don't fall into this pit. It's a deep, dark hole you don't want to try to claw your way out of. Trust me. Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt. In the end I don’t disagree with Joel. SharePoint is a beast and not something that should be taken on by newbies. If you just read “Teach Yourself SharePoint in 24 Hours” and want to go build your corporate intranet or the next killer business solution with all your new found knowledge plan to pony up consultant dollars a few months later when everything goes to Hell in a handbasket and falls over. I’m not saying don’t build solutions in SharePoint. I’m just saying that building effective ones takes skill like any craft and not something you can just cobble together with a little bit of cursory knowledge. Thanks to *everyone* who participated in this tweet rush. It was fun and educational.

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B2B and B2C alike… but a little different – Oracle Commerce named Leader in Forrester B2B Commerce Wave

- by Katrina Gosek

We weren’t surprised to see Oracle Commerce positioned as a Leader in Forrester Research, Inc.’s first Commerce Wave focused on B2B, “The Forrester Wave™: B2B Commerce Suites, Q4 2013,” released earlier this month. We believe that the report validates much of what we’ve heard from our largest customers – the world’s largest distribution, manufacturing and high-tech customers who sell billions of dollars of goods and services to other businesses through their Web channels. More importantly, we feel that the report confirms something very important: B2B and B2C Commerce are alike… but a little different. B2B and B2C Commerce are alike… Clearly, B2C experiences have set expectations for B2B. Every B2B buyer is a consumer at home and brings the same expectations to a website selling electronic components, aftermarket parts, or MRO products. Forrester calls these rich consumer-based capabilities that help B2B customers do their jobs “table stakes”: front-office content, community, and commerce features that meet customer expectations for 24x7x365 ordering, real-time customer service, and expedited shipping — both online and on mobile devices: “Whether they are just beginning to sell online or are in the late stages of launching a next-generation site, B2B eCommerce operations today must: offer a customer experience standard comparable to what leading b2c sites now offer; address the growing influence that mobile devices are having in the workplace; make a qualitative and quantitative business case that drives sustained investment.” Just five years ago, many of our B2B customers’ online business comprised only 5-10% of their total revenue. Today, when we speak to those same brands, we hear about double and triple digit growth in their online channels. Many have seen the percentage of the business they perform in their web channels cross the 30-50% threshold. You can hear first-hand from several Oracle Commerce B2B customers about the success they are seeing, and what they’re trying to accomplish (Carolina Biological, Premier Farnell, DeliXL, Elsevier). It seems that this market momentum is likely the reason Forrester broke out the separate B2B Commerce Wave from the B2C Wave. In fact, B2B is becoming the larger force in commerce, expected to collect twice the online dollars of B2C this year ($559 billion). But a little different… Despite the similarities, there is a key and very important difference between B2C and B2B. Unlike a consumer shopping for shoes, a business shopper buying from a distributor or manufacturer is coming to the Web channel as a part of their job. So in addition to a rich, consumer-like experience this shopper expects, these B2B buyers need quoting tools and complex pricing capabilities, like eProcurement, bulk order entry, and other self-service tools such as account, contract and organization management. Forrester also is emphasizing three additional “back-end” tools and capabilities their clients say they need to drive growth in their B2B online channels: i) product information management (PIM), which provides a single system of record for large part lists and product catalogs; ii) web content management (WCM), needed to manage large volumes of unstructured marketing information, and iii) order management systems (OMS), which manage and orchestrate the complex B2B order life cycle from quote through approval, submission to manufacturing, distribution and delivery. We would like to expand on each of these 3 areas: As Forrester suggests, back-end PIM is definitely needed by B2B Commerce providers. Most B2B companies have made significant investments in enterprise-grade PIMs, given the importance of product data management for aggregation and syndication of content, product attribution, analytics, and handling of complex workflows. While in principle it may sound appealing to have a PIM as part of a commerce offering (especially for SMBs who have to do more with less), our customers have typically found that PIM in a commerce platform is largely redundant with what they already have in-place, and is not fully-featured or robust enough to handle the complexity of the product data sets that B2B distributors and manufacturers usually handle. To meet the PIM needs for commerce, Oracle offers enterprise PIM (Product Hub/Fusion PIM) and a robust enterprise data quality product (EDQP) integrated with the Oracle Commerce solution. These are key differentiators of our offering and these capabilities are becoming even more tightly integrated with Oracle Commerce over time. For Commerce, what customers really need is a robust product catalog and content management system for enabling business users to further enrich and ready catalog and content data to be presented and sold online. This has been a significant area of investment in the Oracle Commerce platform , which continue to get stronger. We see this combination of capabilities as best meeting the needs of our customers for a commerce platform without adding a largely redundant, less functional PIM in the commerce front-end. On the topic of web content management, we were pleased to see Forrester cite Oracle’s differentiated digital experience capability in this area and the “unique opportunity in the market to lead the convergence of commerce and content management with the amalgamation of Oracle Commerce with WebCenter Sites (formally FatWire).” Strong content management capabilities are critical for distributors and manufacturers who are frequently serving an engineering audience coming to their websites to conduct product research in search of technical data sheets, drawings, videos and more. The convergence of content, commerce, and experience is critical for B2B brands selling online. Regarding order management, Forrester notes that many businesses use their existing back-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to manage order life cycles. We hear the same from most of our B2B customers, as they already have an ERP system—if not several of them—and are not interested in yet another one. So what do we take away from the Wave results? Forrester notes that the Oracle Commerce Platform “has always had strong B2B commerce capabilities and Oracle certainly has an exhaustive list of B2B customers using the solution.” What makes us excited about developing leading B2B solutions are the close relationships with our customers and the clear opportunity in the market – which we'll address in an exciting new release planned for the next 12 months. Oracle has one of the world’s largest B2B customer bases, providing leading solutions across key business-to-business functions – from marketing, sales automation, and service to master data management, and ERP. To learn more about Oracle’s Commerce product vision and strategy, visit our website and check out these other B2B Commerce Resources: - 2013 B2B Commerce Trends Report - B2B Commerce Whitepaper: Consumerization, Complexity, Change - B2B Commerce Webcast: What Industry Trend Setters Do Right - Internet Retailer, Web Drives Sales for B2B Companies - Internet Retailer Article, The Web Means Business: B2B Companies Beef Up Their Websites, borrowing from b2c retailers and breaking new ground - Internet Retailer Article, B2B e-Commerce is poised for growth

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