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• How to convert this code-based WPF tooltip to Silverlight?

  - by Edward Tanguay

  The following ToolTip code works in WPF. I'm trying to get it to work in Silverlight. But it gives me these errors: TextBlock does not contain a definition for ToolTip. Cursors does not contain a definition for Help. ToolTipService does not contain a definition for SetInitialShowDelay. How can I get this to work in Silverlight? using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Controls; using System.Windows.Input; using System.Windows.Media; namespace TestHover29282 { public partial class Window1 : Window { public Window1() { InitializeComponent(); AddCustomer("Jim Smith"); AddCustomer("Joe Jones"); AddCustomer("Angie Jones"); AddCustomer("Josh Smith"); } void AddCustomer(string name) { TextBlock tb = new TextBlock(); tb.Text = name; ToolTip tt = new ToolTip(); tt.Content = "This is some info on " + name + "."; tb.ToolTip = tt; tt.Cursor = Cursors.Help; ToolTipService.SetInitialShowDelay(tb, 0); MainStackPanel.Children.Add(tb); } } }

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• How to parse the "<media:group>" using feedparser?

  - by Wayle.C

  The rss file is shown as below, i want to get the content in section media:group . I check the document of feedparser, but it seems not mention this. How to do it? Any help is appreciated. XYZ InfoX: Special hello http://www1.XYZInfoX.com/learninghello/home hello en Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:50:06 GMT 2010-03-17T08:50:06Z en Voice of America http://www1.XYZInfoX.com/learninghello http://media.XYZInfoX.com/designimages/XYZRSSIcon.gif <item> <title>Who Were the Deadliest Gunmen of the Wild West?</title> <link>http://www1.XYZInfoX.com/learninghello/home/Deadliest-Gunmen-of-the-Wild-West-87826807.html</link> <description> The story of two of them: "Killin'" Jim Miller was an outlaw, "Texas" John Slaughter was a lawman | EXPLORATIONS </description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:38:48 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">87826807</guid> <dc:creator></dc:creator> <dc:date>2010-03-17T00:38:48Z</dc:date> *<media:group> <media:content url="http://media.XYZInfoX.com/images/archives_peace_comm_480_16mar_se.jpg" medium="image" isDefault="true" height="300" width="480" /> <media:content url="http://media.XYZInfoX.com/images/archives_peace_comm_230_16mar_se_edited-1.jpg" medium="image" isDefault="false" height="230" width="230" /> <media:content url="http://media.XYZInfoX.com/images/tex_trans_lawmans_230_16mar10_se.jpg" medium="image" isDefault="false" height="230" width="230" /> <media:content url="http://www.XYZInfoX.com/MediaAssets2/learninghello/dalet/se-exp-outlaws-part2-17mar2010.Mp3" type="audio/mpeg" medium="audio" isDefault="false" /> </media:group>* </item>

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• Read large file into sqlite table in objective-C on iPhone

  - by James Testa

  I have a 2 MB file, not too large, that I'd like to put into an sqlite database so that I can search it. There are about 30K entries that are in CSV format, with six fields per line. My understanding is that sqlite on the iPhone can handle a database of this size. I have taken a few approaches but they have all been slow 30 s. I've tried: 1) Using C code to read the file and parse the fields into arrays. 2) Using the following Objective-C code to parse the file and put it into directly into the sqlite database: NSString *file_text = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile: filePath usedEncoding: NULL error: NULL]; NSArray *lineArray = [file_text componentsSeparatedByString:@"\n"]; for(int k = 0; k < [lineArray count]; k++){ NSArray *parts = [[lineArray objectAtIndex:k] componentsSeparatedByString: @","]; NSString *field0 = [parts objectAtIndex:0]; NSString *field2 = [parts objectAtIndex:2]; NSString *field3 = [parts objectAtIndex:3]; NSString *loadSQLi = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat: @"INSERT INTO TABLE (TABLE, FIELD0, FIELD2, FIELD3) VALUES ('%@', '%@', '%@');",field0, field2, field3]; if (sqlite3_exec (db_table, [loadSQLi UTF8String], NULL, NULL, &errorMsg) != SQLITE_OK) { sqlite3_close(db_table); NSAssert1(0, @"Error loading table: %s", errorMsg); } Am I missing something? Does anyone know of a fast way to get the file into a database? Or is it possible to translate the file into a sqlite format that can be read directly into sqlite? Or should I turn the file into a plist and load it into a Dictionary? Unfortunately I need to search on two of the fields, and I think a Dictionary can only have one key? Jim

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• Why can't I get a TRUE return in this prepared statement?

  - by Cortopasta

  I can't seem to get this to do anything but return false. My best guess is that the prepared statement isn't executing, but I have no idea why. private function check_credentials($plain_username, $md5_password) { global $dbcon; $ac = new ac(); $ac->dbconnect(); $userid = $dbcon->prepare('SELECT id FROM users WHERE username = :username AND password = :password LIMIT 1'); $userid->bindParam(':username', $plain_username); $userid->bindParam(':password', $md5_password); $userid->execute(); $id = $userid->fetch(); Return $id; } *EDIT:*I've even tried hard coding the username and password into the function itself to try and isolate the problem like this: private function check_credentials($plain_username, $md5_password) { global $dbcon; $plain_username = "jim"; $md5_username = "waffles"; $ac = new ac(); $ac->dbconnect(); $userid = $dbcon->prepare('SELECT id FROM users WHERE username = :username AND password = :password LIMIT 1'); $userid->bindParam(':username', $plain_username); $userid->bindParam(':password', $md5_password); $userid->execute(); print_r($dbcon->errorInfo()); $id = $userid->fetch(); Return $id; } Still nothing :-/

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• Can I create template-based library objects in Dreamweaver CS5?

  - by Danjah

  At work we need two 'streams' of template. The first are general layout templates, like the ones already available in the MX through CS5 packages (except we'd have our own customised ones). The second are more granular objects, some of which are functional. In both cases, I don't want Jimmy to be able to wreak havoc inside anything other than the 'editable regions' which make up the templates. Now this is fine if I stick with the first scenario (layout templates) where there's simply a big chunk of editable region for good ole Jim to sprawl into, think of this as the 'body content' area. But I really do need these granular library (or snippet) objects to work in the same way. Unfortunately with my attempts so far they don't work as I'd have thought - perhaps for good reason? When I create a blank template and throw in my chunk of HTML (unobstrusive JS and external CSS use selectors in this HTML to provide style and function) and save it as a new library item or snippet, all looks well. Then I create a new document based on a layout template and save it as a plain html file (still all good so far). Next I drop in my custom library item... still all good... but then I go to save the document and it only allows me to save it as a new template! I expected it would just allow me to save it as HTML and have it simply respect the defined editable regions, as happens in the containing page 'body content' editable region. Apologies if that got specific and technical quite quickly, but it is quite particular. If you want some example files lemme know and I'll zip some up. Many thanks :) p.s It is not a requirement that library objects must somehow inject their dependency files into the newly created page - I already know what they'll be. Also, I know I must 'detatch from original' once I drop a library item into a document which then allows customisation of the library object.

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• Why did this work with Visual C++, but not with gcc?

  - by Carlos Nunez

  I've been working on a senior project for the last several months now, and a major sticking point in our team's development process has been dealing wtih rifts between Visual-C++ and gcc. (Yes, I know we all should have had the same development environment.) Things are about finished up at this point, but I ran into a moderate bug just today that had me wondering whether Visual-C++ is easier on newbies (like me) by design. In one of my headers, there is a function that relies on strtok to chop up a string, do some comparisons and return a string with a similar format. It works a little something like the following: int main() { string a, b, c; //Do stuff with a and b. c = get_string(a,b); } string get_string(string a, string b) { const char * a_ch, b_ch; a_ch = strtok(a.c_str(),","); b_ch = strtok(b.c_str(),","); } strtok is infamous for being great at tokenizing, but equally great at destroying the original string to be tokenized. Thus, when I compiled this with gcc and tried to do anything with a or b, I got unexpected behavior, since the separator used was completely removed in the string. Here's an example in case I'm unclear; if I set a = "Jim,Bob,Mary" and b="Grace,Soo,Hyun", they would be defined as a="JimBobMary" and b="GraceSooHyun" instead of staying the same like I wanted. However, when I compiled this under Visual C++, I got back the original strings and the program executed fine. I tried dynamically allocating memory to the strings and copying them the "standard" way, but the only way that worked was using malloc() and free(), which I hear is discouraged in C++. While I'm curious about that, the real question I have is this: Why did the program work when compiled in VC++, but not with gcc? (This is one of many conflicts that I experienced while trying to make the code cross-platform.) Thanks in advance! -Carlos Nunez

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• what exactly is the danger of an uninitialized pointer in C

  - by akh2103

  I am trying get a handle on C as I work my way thru Jim Trevor's "Cyclone: A safe dialect of C" for a PL class. Trevor and his co-authors are trying to make a safe version of C, so they eliminate uninitialized pointers in their language. Googling around a bit on uninitialized pointers, it seems like un-initialized pointers point to random locations in memory. It seems like this alone makes them unsafe. If you reference an un-itilialized pointer, you jump to an unsafe part of memory. Period. But the way Trevor talks about them seems to imply that it is more complex. He cites the following code, and explains that when the function FrmGetObjectIndex dereferences f, it isn’t accessing a valid pointer, but rather an unpredictable address — whatever was on the stack when the space for f was allocated. What does Trevor mean by "whatever was on the stack when the space for f was allocated"? Are "un-initialized" pointers initialized to random locations in memory by default? Or does their "random" behavior have to do with the memory allocated for these pointers getting filled with strange values (that are then referenced) because of unexpected behavior on the stack. Form *f; switch (event->eType) { case frmOpenEvent: f = FrmGetActiveForm(); ... case ctlSelectEvent: i = FrmGetObjectIndex(f, field); ... }

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• Virgin STI Help

  - by Mutuelinvestor

  I am working on a horse racing application and I'm trying to utilize STI to model a horse's connections. A horse's connections is comprised of his owner, trainer and jockey. Over time, connections can change for a variety of reasons: The horse is sold to another owner The owner switches trainers or jockey The horse is claimed by a new owner As it stands now, I have model this with the following tables: horses connections (join table) stakeholders (stakeholder has three sub classes: jockey, trainer & owner) Here are my clases and associations: class Horse < ActiveRecord::Base has_one :connection has_one :owner_stakeholder, :through => :connection has_one :jockey_stakeholder, :through => :connection has_one :trainer_stakeholder, :through => :connection end class Connection < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :horse belongs_to :owner_stakeholder belongs_to :jockey_stakeholder belongs_to :trainer_stakeholder end class Stakeholder < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :connections has_many :horses, :through => :connections end class Owner < Stakeholder # Owner specific code goes here. end class Jockey < Stakeholder # Jockey specific code goes here. end class Trainer < Stakeholder # Trainer specific code goes here. end One the database end, I have inserted a Type column in the connections table. Have I modeled this correctly. Is there a better/more elegant approach. Thanks in advance for you feedback. Jim

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• Select * from 'many to many' SQL relationship

  - by Rampant Creative Group

  I'm still learning SQL and my brain is having a hard time with this one. Say I have 3 tables: teams players and teams_players as my link table All I want to do is run a query to get each team and the players on them. I tried this: SELECT * FROM teams INNER JOIN teams_players ON teams.id = teams_players.team_id INNER JOIN players ON teams_players.player_id = players.id But it returned a separate row for each player on each team. Is JOIN the right way to do it or should I be doing something else? ----------------------------------------- Edit Ok, so from what I'm hearing, this isn't necessarily a bad way to do it. I'll just have to group the data by team while I'm doing my loop. I have not yet tried the modified SQL statements provided, but I will today and get back to you. To answer the question about structure - I guess I wasn't thinking about the returned row structure which is part of what lead to my confusion. In this particular case, each team is limited to 4 players (or less) so I guess the structure that would be helpful to me is something like the following: teams.id, teams.name, players.id, players.name, players.id, players.name, players.id, players.name, players.id, players.name, 1 Team ABC 1 Jim 2 Bob 3 Ned 4 Roy 2 Team XYZ 2 Bob 3 Ned 5 Ralph 6 Tom

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• Have to login twice. PHP sessions and login troubles with Chrome and Opera.

  - by Robert

  The problem I am encountering is that for my login form I have to login twice for the session to register properly, but only in Chrome (my version is 4.0.249.89) and Opera (my version is 10.10). Here is the stripped down code that I am testing on: Login Page: session_start(); $_SESSION['user_id'] = 8; $_SESSION['user_name'] = 'Jim'; session_write_close(); header('Location: http://www.my-domain-name.com/'); exit(); Home Page: session_start(); if ( isset($_SESSION['user_id']) ) { echo "You are logged in!"; } else { echo "You are NOT logged in!"; } Logout Page: session_start(); session_unset(); session_destroy(); header('Location: http://www.my-domain-name.com/'); exit(); Currently, under a fresh load with no cookies, if I go to my-domain-name.com/login/ it will redirect to the home page and say "You are NOT logged in!" but if I go there again it will say "You are logged in!". Any ideas? Thanks for your help.

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• WCF throttling and emptying the listenBacklog quickly

  - by user1161625

  I'm sort of a WCF newbie (inheriting tasks from someone) and I'm trying to better throttle my application. We have a service that sends print jobs to the Windows print queue and it seems that rather than dumping all of the jobs into the queue it holds on to them in the listenBacklog and slowly releases them to the Windows print queue. Here is my throttling behavior: <behavior name="throttling"> <serviceThrottling maxConcurrentCalls="144" maxConcurrentSessions="1168" /> <serviceDebug httpHelpPageEnabled="true" includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/> </behavior> I'm using a custom binding for this service also which is here: <customBinding> <binding name="oneWayPrintBinding" receiveTimeout="00:30:00"> <reliableSession maxPendingChannels="16" inactivityTimeout="01:30:00" /> <binaryMessageEncoding> <readerQuotas maxDepth="2147483647" maxStringContentLength="2147483647" maxArrayLength="2147483647" /> </binaryMessageEncoding> <tcpTransport maxReceivedMessageSize="67108864" listenBacklog="1024" /> </binding> </customBinding> Any recommendations would be very helpful. Thank you! -Jim

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• Populate tableView with more than one array

  - by Ewoods

  The short version: Is there a way to populate one specific row in a tableView with one value from one array, then populate another row in that same tableView with one value from a different array? For example, cell 1 would have the first value from Array A, cell 2 would have the first value from Array B, cell 3 would have the first value from Array C, etc. The long version: I hope this isn't too confusing. I've got an array of names, and then three more arrays with actions associated with those people. For example, the names array has Jim, Bob, and Sue, and then there's an array for eating, reading, and sleeping that records every time each person does one of these things (all of these arrays are populated from a MySQL database). The names array is used to populate a root tableView. Tapping on one of the names brings up a detail view controller that has another tableView that only has three rows. This part is all working fine. What I want to happen is when I tap on a name, it moves to the detail view and the three cells would then show the last event for that person for each of the three activities. Tapping on one of those three events then moves to a new view controller with a tableView that shows every event for that category. For example, if I tapped on Bob, the second page would show the last time Bob ate, read, and slept. Tapping on the first row would bring up a table that showed every time Bob has eaten. So far I've only been able to populate the second tableView with all of the rows from one of the arrays. I need it the other way around (one row from all of the arrays).

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• Delivering activity feed items in a moderately scalable way

  - by sotangochips

  The application I'm working on has an activity feed where each user can see their friends' activity (much like Facebook). I'm looking for a moderately scalable way to show a given users' activity stream on the fly. I say 'moderately' because I'm looking to do this with just a database (Postgresql) and maybe memcached. For instance, I want this solution to scale to 200k users each with 100 friends. Currently, there is a master activity table that stores the rendered html for the given activity (Jim added a friend, George installed an application, etc.). This master activity table keeps the source user, the html, and a timestamp. Then, there's a separate ('join') table that simply keeps a pointer to the person who should see this activity in their friend feed, and a pointer to the object in the main activity table. So, if I have 100 friends, and I do 3 activities, then the join table will then grow to 300 items. Clearly this table will grow very quickly. It has the nice property, though, that fetching activity to show to a user takes a single (relatively) inexpensive query. The other option is to just keep the main activity table and query it by saying something like: select * from activity where source_user in (1, 2, 44, 2423, ... my friend list) This has the disadvantage that you're querying for users who may never be active, and as your friend list grows, this query can get slower and slower. I see the pros and the cons of both sides, but I'm wondering if some SO folks might help me weigh the options and suggest one way or they other. I'm also open to other solutions, though I'd like to keep it simple and not install something like CouchDB, etc. Many thanks!

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• Druapl & Regular PHP Integration

  - by user333128

  I'm building a new website which has one core application and many content pages. Content pages are mostly dynamic and I require a way to manage this dynamic content on a regular basis. The core application's main functionality is a 3 step process or reading user data (input page), reading data from MySQL (product page) and submitting an application to an email address (application page). Ideally I would like to build the core application in regular PHP and leverage Drupal for its content management capabilities. Can Drupal and regular PHP be integrated as I suggest easily? My feeling is that coding the core application as a Drupal module(s) will add layers of complexity that could be difficult to code from the outset and maintain later on as the system matures - so I would really like to just use regular PHP. Let me explain where dynamic content (managed by the CMS) intersects with the core application: Dynamic content such as FAQ data is used both on the 'normal' help pages and also within a mini-feed displayed within core application pages down a right hand side column. In this column, 3 random questions are pulled from the database and displayed as a feed. When users click on FAQ question they are not taken away from the core application product page but are instead shown data in a pop-up window displaying the question and answer. In addition, users can browse other questions and answers through a simple navigation menu within this popup. There are 3 such like feeds as I describe above that I require on the core application product page. So, what is the ideal solution here in terms of 'keeping things simple' for both the management of dynamic content and the ease of coding the core application? Can 'regular PHP' and Drupal co-exist 'peacefully'? If so, how is this technically possible? Because there is some content managed by Drupal contained within core application pages, can the core application still be coded in regular PHP? Any advice / suggestions? Thank you! Jim.

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• jquery accessing dynamic class selectors

  - by dinotom

  Given the following html rendering; <fieldset id="fld_Rye"> <legend>7 Main St.</legend> <div> <table> <tr> <th class="wideCol"><b><i>Service Description</i></b></th> <th class="wideCol"><b><i>Service Name</i></b></th> <th class="normalPlusWidth"><b><i>Contact Name</i></b></th> </tr> <ItemTemplate> <tr class=""> <td class="servDesc">&nbsp;<b>Plumbing Services</b></td> <td class="servName">&nbsp;<b>Flynnsters's Plumbing</b></td> <td class="servContact">&nbsp;<b>Jim Flynnster</b></td> </tr> </ItemTemplate> I am trying to access all the td's with a class of servDesc, get their width into an array and get the max width from that array to reset the css width of that class using jquery on page load. I cant seem to get the right selector for those tags, and I've tried at least 50 variations. My latest try; var maxTdWidth; var servDescCols = []; $("#fld_Rye td#servDesc").each(function () { alert("found one"); servDescCols.push(this.width()); }); maxTdWidth = Math.max.apply(Math, servDescCols);

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• Can a lambda can be used to change a List's values in-place ( without creating a new list)?

  - by Saint Hill

  I am trying to determine the correct way of transforming all the values in a List using the new lambdas feature in the upcoming release of Java 8 without creating a **new** List. This pertains to times when a List is passed in by a caller and needs to have a function applied to change all the contents to a new value. For example, the way Collections.sort(list) changes a list in-place. What is the easiest way given this transforming function and this starting list: String function(String s){ return [some change made to value of s]; } List<String> list = Arrays.asList("Bob", "Steve", "Jim", "Arbby"); The usual way of applying a change to all the values in-place was this: for (int i = 0; i < list.size(); i++) { list.set(i, function( list.get(i) ); } Does lambdas and Java 8 offer: an easier and more expressive way? a way to do this without setting up all the scaffolding of the for(..) loop?

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• Testing for optional node - Delphi XE

  - by Seti Net

  What is the proper way to test for the existance of an optional node? A snipped of my XML is: <Antenna > <Mount Model="text" Manufacture="text"> <BirdBathMount/> </Mount> </Antenna> But it could also be: <Antenna > <Mount Model="text" Manufacture="text"> <AzEl/> </Mount> </Antenna> The child of Antenna could either be BirdBath or AzEl but not both... In Delphi XE I have tried: if (MountNode.ChildNodes.Nodes['AzEl'] <> unassigned then //Does not work if (MountNode.ChildNodes['BirdBathMount'].NodeValue <> null) then // Does not work if (MountNode.BirdBathMount.NodeValue <> null) then // Does not work I use XMLSpy to create the schema and the example XML and they parse correctly. I use Delphi XE to create the bindings and it works on most other combinations fine. This must have a simple answer that I have just overlooked - but what? Thanks...... Jim

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• Creating a variable list Pashua, OS X & Bash.

  - by S1syphus

  First of all, for those that don't know pashua is a tool for creating native Aqua dialog windows. An example of what a window config looks like is # pashua_run() # Define what the dialog should be like # Take a look at Pashua's Readme file for more info on the syntax conf=" # Set transparency: 0 is transparent, 1 is opaque *.transparency=0.95 # Set window title *.title = Introducing Pashua # Introductory text tb.type = text tb.default = "HELLO WORLD" tb.height = 276 tb.width = 310 tb.x = 340 tb.y = 44 if [ -e "$icon" ] then # Display Pashua's icon conf="$conf img.type = image img.x = 530 img.y = 255 img.path = $icon" fi if [ -e "$bgimg" ] then # Display background image conf="$conf bg.type = image bg.x = 30 bg.y = 2 bg.path = $bgimg" fi pashua_run "$conf" echo " tb = $tb" The problem is, Pashua can't really get output from stdout, but it can get arguments. Following on from what Dennis Williamson posted here. What ideally it should do is generate an output file based on information from a text file, To executed in pashua_run ore add the pashua_run around the window argument: count=1 while read -r i do echo "AB${count}.type = openbrowser" echo "AB${count}.label = Choose a master playlist file" echo "AB${count}.width=310" echo "AB${count}.tooltip = Blabla filesystem browser" echo "some text with a line from the file: $i" (( count++ )) done < TEST.txt >> long.txt SO the output is AB1.type = openbrowser AB1.label = Choose a master playlist file AB1.width=310 AB1.tooltip = Blabla filesystem browser some text with a line from the file: foo AB2.type = openbrowser AB2.label = Choose a master playlist file AB2.width=310 AB2.tooltip = Blabla filesystem browser some text with a line from the file: bar AB3.type = openbrowser AB3.label = Choose a master playlist file AB3.width=310 AB3.tooltip = Blabla filesystem browser some text with a line from the file: dev AB4.type = openbrowser AB4.label = Choose a master playlist file AB4.width=310 AB4.tooltip = Blabla filesystem random So if there is a clever way to get the output of that and place it into pashua run would be cool, on the fly: I.E load te contents of TEST.txt and generate the place it into pashua_run, I've tried using cat and opening the file... but because it's in Pashua_run it doesn't work, is there a smart way to break out then back in? Or the second way which I was thinking, was create get the output then append it into the middle text file containing the pashua runtime, then execute it, maybe slightly hacky, but I would imagine it will do the job. Any ideas? ++ I know I probably could make my life a lot easier, by doing this in actionscript and cocoa, although at present don't have time for such a learning curve, although I do plan to get round to it.

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• Programmatically use a server as the Build Server for multiple Project Collections

  Important: With this post you create an unsupported scenario by Microsoft. It will break your support for this server with Microsoft. So handle with care. I am the administrator an a TFS environment with a lot of Project Collections. In the supported configuration of Microsoft 2010 you need one Build Controller per Project Collection, and it is not supported to have multiple Build Controllers installed. Jim Lamb created a post how you can modify your system to change this behaviour. But since I have so many Project Collections, I automated this with the API of TFS. When you install a new build server via the UI, you do the following steps Register the build service (with this you hook the windows server into the build server environment) Add a new build controller Add a new build agent So in pseudo code, the code would look like foreach (projectCollection in GetAllProjectCollections) {       CreateNewWindowsService();       RegisterService();       AddNewController();       AddNewAgent(); } The following code fragements show you the most important parts of the method implementations. Attached is the full project. CreateNewWindowsService We create a new windows service with the SC command via the Diagnostics.Process class:             var pi = new ProcessStartInfo("sc.exe")                         {                             Arguments =                                 string.Format(                                     "create \"{0}\" start= auto binpath= \"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\\Tools\\TfsBuildServiceHost.exe              /NamedInstance:{0}\" DisplayName= \"Visual Studio Team Foundation Build Service Host ({1})\"",                                     serviceHostName, tpcName)                         };            Process.Start(pi);             pi.Arguments = string.Format("failure {0} reset= 86400 actions= restart/60000", serviceHostName);            Process.Start(pi); RegisterService The trick in this method is that we set the NamedInstance static property. This property is Internal, so we need to set it through reflection. To get information on these you need nice Microsoft friends and the .Net reflector .             // Indicate which build service host instance we are using            typeof(BuildServiceHostUtilities).Assembly.GetType("Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Config.BuildServiceHostProcess").InvokeMember("NamedInstance",              System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.SetProperty | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Static, null, null, new object[] { serviceName });             // Create the build service host            serviceHost = buildServer.CreateBuildServiceHost(serviceName, endPoint);            serviceHost.Save();             // Register the build service host            BuildServiceHostUtilities.Register(serviceHost, user, password); AddNewController and AddNewAgent Once you have the BuildServerHost, the rest is pretty straightforward. There are methods on the BuildServerHost to modify the controllers and the agents                 controller = serviceHost.CreateBuildController(controllerName);                 agent = controller.ServiceHost.CreateBuildAgent(agentName, buildDirectory, controller);                controller.AddBuildAgent(agent); You have now seen the highlights of the application. If you need it and want to have sample information when you work in this area, download the app TFS2010_RegisterBuildServerToTPCs

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• 2010 Collaboration Summit Impressions

  - by Elena Zannoni

  It's a bit late, but there you have it anyway. April 14 to 16 I attended the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in SFO. I was running two tracks, one on tracing and one on tools. You can see the tracks and the slides here: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/slides I was pretty busy both days, Thursday with a whole day tracing track, Friday with a half day toolchain track. The sessions were well attended, the rooms were full, with people spilling in the hallways. Some new things were presented, like Kernelshark, by Steve Rostedt, a GUI (yes, believe it or not, a GUI) written in GTK. It is very nice, showing a timeline for traced kernel events, and you can zoom in and filter at will. It works on the latest kernels, and it requires some new things/fixes in GTK. I don't recall exactly what version of GTK though. Dominique Toupin from Ericsson presented something about user requirements for tracing. Mostly though about who's who in the embedded world, and eclipse. Masami and Mathieu presented an update on their work. See their slides. The interesting thing to me was of course the new version of uprobes w/o underlying utrace presented by Jim Keniston. At the end of the session we had a discussion about the future of utrace. Roland wasn't there, butTom Tromey (also from RedHat) collected the feedback. Basically we are at a standstill now that utrace has been rejected yet again. There wasn't much advise that anybody could give, except jokingly, we decided that the only way in is to make it a part of perf events. There needs to be another refactoring, but most of all, this "killer app" that would be enabled because of utrace hasn't materialized yet. We think that having a good debugging story on Linux is enough of a killer app, for instance allowing multiple tracers, and not relying on SIGCHLD etc. I think this wasn't completely clear to the kernel community. Trying to achieve debugging via a gdb stub inside the kernel interfacing to utrace and that is controlled via the gdb remote protocol also lost its appeal (thankfully, since the gdb remote protocol is archaic). Somebody would have to be creative in how to submit utrace. It doesn't have to be called utrace (it was really a random choice, for lack of a letter that was not already used in front of the word "trace"). So basically, I think the ideas behind utrace are sound, and the necessity of a new interface is acknowledged. But I believe the integration/submission process with the kernel folks has to restart from scratch, clean slate. We'll see. There are many conferences and meetings coming up in the near future where things can be discussed further. On the second day, Friday, we had the tools talks. It was interesting to observe the more "kernel" oriented people's behavior towards the gcc etc community. The first talk was by Mark Mitchell, about Gcc and its new plugin architecture. After that, Paolo talked about the new C++1x standard, which will be finalized in 2011. Many features are already implemented in the libstdc++ library and gcc and usable today. We had a few minutes (really, the half day track was quite short) where Bradley Kuhn from the Software Freedom Law Center explained the GPLv3 exception for gcc (due to the new gcc plugin architecture and the availability of the intermediate results from the compilation, which is a new thing). I will not try to explain, but basically you cannot take the result of the preprocessing and then use that in your own proprietary compiler. After, we had a talk by Ian Taylor about the new Gold linker. One good thing in that area is that they are trying to make gold the new default linker (for instance Fedora will use gold as the distro linker). However gold is very different from binutils' old linker. It doesn't use a linker script, for instance. The kernel has been linked with gold many times as an exercise (the ground work was done by Kris Van Hees), but this needs to be constantly tested/monitored because the kernel linker script is very complex, and uses esoteric features (Wenji is now monitoring that each kernel RC can be built with gold). It was positive that people are now aware of gold and the need for it to be ported to more architectures. It seems that the porting is very easy, with little arch dependent code. Finally Tom Tromey presented about gdb and the archer project. Archer is a development branch of gdb mostly done by RedHat, where they are focusing on better c++ printing, c++ expression parsing, and plugins. The archer work is merged regularly in the gdb mainline. In general it was a good conference. I did miss most of the first day, because that's when I flew in. But I caught a couple of talks. Nothing earth shattering, except for Google giving each person registered a free Android phone. Yey.

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• Off The Beaten Path—Three Things Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful For

  - by Christine Randle

  By: Jim Lein, Senior Director, Oracle Accelerate Last Sunday I went on a walkabout.  That’s when I just step out the door of my Colorado home and hike through the mountains for hours with no predetermined destination. I favor “social trails”, the unmapped routes pioneered by both animal and human explorers.  These tracks  are usually more challenging than established, marked routes and you can’t be 100% sure of where you’re going to end up. But I’ve found the rewards to be much greater. For awhile, I pondered on how—depending upon your perspective—the current economic situation worldwide could be viewed as either a classic “the glass is half empty” or a “the glass is half full” scenario. Midsize companies buy Oracle to grow and so I’m continually amazed and fascinated by the success stories our customers relate to me.  Oracle’s successful midsize companies are growing via innovation, agility, and opportunity. For them, the glass isn’t half full—it’s overflowing. Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful for: Innovation The sun angling through the pine trees reminded me of a conversation with a European customer a year ago May.  You might not recognize the name but, chances are, your local evening weather report relies on this company’s weather observation, monitoring and measurement products.  For decades, the company was recognized in its industry for product innovation, but its recent rapid growth comes from tailoring end to end product and service solutions based on the needs of distinctly different customer groups across industrial, public sector, and defense sectors.  Hours after that phone call I was walking my dog in a local park and came upon a small white plastic box sprouting short antennas and dangling by a nylon cord from a tree branch.  I cut it down. The name of that customer’s company was stamped on the housing. “It’s a radiosonde from a high altitude weather balloon,” he told me the next day. “Keep it as a souvenir.”  It sits on my fireplace mantle and elicits many questions from guests. Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful for: Agility In July, I had another interesting discussion with the CFO of an Asia-Pacific company which owns and operates a large portfolio of leisure assets. They are best known for their epic outdoor theme parks. However, their primary growth today is coming from a chain of indoor amusement centers in the USA where billiards, bowling, and laser tag take the place of roller coasters, kiddy rides, and wave pools. With mountains and rivers right out my front door, I’m not much for theme parks, but I’ll take a spirited game of laser tag any day.  This company has grown dramatically since first implementing Oracle ERP more than a decade ago. Their profitable expansion into a completely foreign market is derived from the ability to replicate proven and efficient best business practices across diverse operating environments.  They recently went live on Oracle’s Fusion HCM and Taleo. Their CFO explained to me how, with thousands of employees in three countries, Fusion HCM and Taleo would enable them to remain incredibly agile by acting on trends linking individual employee performance to their management, establishing and maintaining those best practices. Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful for: Opportunity I have three GPS apps on my iPhone. I use them mainly to keep track of my stats—distance, time, and vertical gain. However, every once in awhile I need to find the most efficient route back home before dark from my current location (notice I didn’t use the word “lost”). In August I listened in on an interview with the CFO of another European company that designs and delivers telematics solutions—the integrated use of telecommunications and informatics—for managing the mobile workforce. These solutions enable customers to achieve evolutionary step-changes in their performance and service delivery. Forgive the overused metaphor, but this is route optimization on steroids.  The company’s executive team saw an opportunity in this emerging market and went “all in”. Consequently, they are being rewarded with tremendous growth results and market domination by providing the ability for their clients to collect and analyze performance information related to fuel consumption, service workforce safety, and asset productivity. This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for health, family, friends, and a career with an innovative company that helps companies leverage top tier software to drive and manage growth. And I’m thankful to have learned the lesson that good things happen when you get off the beaten path—both when hiking and when forging new routes through a complex world economy. Halfway through my walkabout on Sunday, after scrambling up a long stretch of scree-covered hill, I crested a ridge with an obstructed view of 14,265 ft Mt Evans just a few miles to the west.  There, nowhere near a house or a trail, someone had placed a wooden lounge chair. Its wood was worn and faded but it was sturdy. I had lunch and a cold drink in my pack. Opportunity knocked and I seized it. Happy Thanksgiving.  

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• 5 Things I Learned About the IT Labor Shortage

  - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies

  by Jim Lein | Sr. Principal Product Marketing Director | Oracle Midsize Programs | @JimLein Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} 5 Things I Learned About the IT Labor Shortage A gentle autumn breeze is nudging the last golden leaves off the aspen trees. It’s time to wrap up the series that I started back in April, “The Growing IT Labor Shortage: Are You Feeling It?” Even in a time of relatively high unemployment, labor shortages exist depending on many factors, including location, industry, IT requirements, and company size. According to Manpower Groups 2013 Talent Shortage Survey, 35% of hiring managers globally are having difficulty filling jobs. Their top three challenges in filling jobs are: 1. lack of technical competencies (hard skills) 2. Lack of available applicants 3. Lack of experience The same report listed Technicians as the most difficult position to fill in the United States For most companies, Human Capital and Talent Management have never been more strategic and they are striving for ways streamline processes, reduce turnover, and lower costs (see this Oracle whitepaper, “ Simplify Workforce Management and Increase Global Agility”). Everyone I spoke to—partner, customer, and Oracle experts—agreed that it can be extremely challenging to hire and retain IT talent in today’s labor market. And they generally agreed on the causes: a. IT is so pervasive that there are myriad moving parts requiring support and expertise, b. thus, it’s hard for university graduates to step in and contribute immediately without experience and specialization, c. big IT companies generally aren’t the talent incubators that they were in the freewheeling 90’s due to bottom line pressures that require hiring talent that can hit the ground running, and d. it’s often too expensive for resource-strapped midsize companies to invest the time and money required to get graduates up to speed. Here are my top lessons learned from my conversations with the experts. 1. A Better Title Would Have Been, “The Challenges of Finding and Retaining IT Talent That Matches Your Requirements” There are more applicants than jobs but it’s getting tougher and tougher to find individuals that perfectly fit each and every role. Top performing companies are increasingly looking to hire the “almost ready”, striving to keep their existing talent more engaged, and leveraging their employee’s social and professional networks to quickly narrow down candidate searches (here’s another whitepaper, “A Strategic Approach to Talent Management”). 2. Size Matters—But So Does Location Midsize companies must strive to build cultures that compete favorably with what large enterprises can offer, especially when they aren’t within commuting distance of IT talent strongholds. They can’t always match the compensation and benefits offered by large enterprises so it's paramount to offer candidates high quality of life and opportunities to build their resumes in alignment with their long term career aspirations. 3. Get By With a Little Help From Your Friends It doesn’t always make sense to invest time and money in training an employee on a task they will not perform frequently. Or get in a bidding war for talent with skills that are rare and in high demand. Many midsize companies are finding that it makes good economic sense to contract with partners for remote support rather than trying to divvy up each and every role amongst their lean staff. Internal staff can be assigned to roles that will have the highest positive impact on achieving organizational goals. 4. It’s Actually Both “What You Know” AND “Who You Know” If I was hiring someone today I would absolutely leverage the social and professional networks of my co-workers. Period. Most research shows that hiring in this manner is less expensive and time consuming AND produces better results. There is also some evidence that suggests new hires from employees’ networks have higher job performance and retention rates. 5. I Have New Respect for Recruiters and Hiring Managers My hats off to them—it’s not easy hiring and retaining top talent with today’s challenges. Check out the infographic, “A New Day: Taking HR from Chaos to Control”, on Oracle’s Human Capital Management solutions home page. You can also explore all of Oracle’s HCM solutions from that page based on your role. You can read all the posts in this series by clicking on the links in the right sidebar. Stay tuned…we’ll continue to post thought leadership on HCM and Talent Management topics.

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• How can I tell Firefox to ignore unprintable characters?

  - by BrianH

  Edit: Summary Apparently the intended character to display in this case is an "en-dash". This page has a table half way down that shows that for the &ndash;, some software will convert the correct hex code of 2013 to 0096. (look at the first row in the table). This answer on Stackoverflow explains that somehow this is a mixup between Windows-1252 and UTF-8 This blog article enforces this: Character 150 (0x96) is the unicode character "START OF GUARDED AREA" in the non-displayed C1 control character range, but in the Windows-1252 encoding it's mapped to to the displayable character 0x2013 "en-dash" (a short dash). Others have struggled with this when producing content, as this answer on Stackoverflow shows how to replace 0x0096 with 0x2013. Google must realize this, because as stated in my original question below, Google's cached version of the Amazon page has &ndash; so it seems they are automatically correcting these mistakes on pages they cache. I have tried setting my encoding to Windows-1252 but that does not help. So now I guess my question is, how can I tell Firefox to ignore unprintable characters like these? Original content below: (Firefox 3.6.13 on Windows XP) Every once in a while I notice an odd character on certain web pages when browsing the web. It is a outline of a box with a 4-digit number inside. And example of a page that has these characters is: http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#highlights After each section heading (Elastic, Completely Controlled, ...) I see a box with the number "0096" inside. I looked at the cached version on Google, and google has &ndash; in it's place, so I'm guessing I should be seeing a dash there instead of the box with the numbers in it. I have tried changing the character encoding in Firefox but haven't been able to find one that shows these characters correctly. Is there a way to allow Firefox to view these characters? Thanks in advance! Edit - adding a screen shot of the "special" characters: Edit #2 - tried in Ubuntu - new screenshots I logged into my Ubuntu desktop and browsed to the amazon page in Chrome and Firefox. Chrome completely ignores character, even if I inspect or view page source. Firefox in Unbutu displays the character exactly like Firefox on my Windows XP box. I copied the character and played around with it at the command line - here is a screenshot of the results: It looks like I can paste the character into this post as well: `` It is definitely not isolated to Windows XP. I tried setting the character encoding for my terminal to Windows 1252 (from Dennis' comment below), but then it just displays this character as a question mark. I pulled the webpage down with wget and with curl, and both outputs show this characters as: <96> It makes me wonder if this character renders correctly for anyone? It appears webkit just ignores it, my IE6 ignores it, Firefox displays the box with the numbers in it. I would have to imagine the design team at Amazon can see it correctly? It's not a huge deal to get these characters displaying correctly, but it would be nice to know if there is a solution to this.

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• So, how is the Oracle HCM Cloud User Experience? In a word, smokin’!

  - by Edith Mireles-Oracle

  By Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle unveiled its game-changing cloud user experience strategy at Oracle OpenWorld 2013 (remember that?) with a new simplified user interface (UI) paradigm.  The Oracle HCM cloud user experience is about light-weight interaction, tailored to the task you are trying to accomplish, on the device you are comfortable working with. A key theme for the Oracle user experience is being able to move from smartphone to tablet to desktop, with all of your data in the cloud. The Oracle HCM Cloud user experience provides designs for better productivity, no matter when and how your employees need to work. Release 8  Oracle recently demonstrated how fast it is moving development forward for our cloud applications, with the availability of release 8.  In release 8, users will see expanded simplicity in the HCM cloud user experience, such as filling out a time card and succession planning. Oracle has also expanded its mobile capabilities with task flows for payslips, managing absences, and advanced analytics. In addition, users will see expanded extensibility with the new structures editor for simplified pages, and the with the user interface text editor, which allows you to update language throughout the UI from one place. If you don’t like calling people who work for you “employees,” you can use this tool to create a term that is suited to your business.  Take a look yourself at what’s available now. What are people saying?Debra Lilley (@debralilley), an Oracle ACE Director who has a long history with Oracle Applications, recently gave her perspective on release 8: “Having had the privilege of seeing a preview of release 8, I am again impressed with the enhancements around simplified UI. Even more so, at a user group event in London this week, an existing Cloud HCM customer speaking publically about his implementation said he was very excited about release 8 as the absence functionality was so superior and simple to use.”  In an interview with Lilley for a blog post by Dennis Howlett  (@dahowlett), we probably couldn’t have asked for a more even-handed look at the Oracle Applications Cloud and the impact of user experience. Take the time to watch all three videos and get the full picture.  In closing, Howlett’s said: “There is always the caveat that getting from the past to Fusion [from the editor: Fusion is now called the Oracle Applications Cloud] is not quite as simple as may be painted, but the outcomes are much better than anticipated in large measure because the user experience is so much better than what went before.” Herman Slange, Technical Manager with Oracle Applications partner Profource, agrees with that comment. “We use on-premise Financials & HCM for internal use. Having a simple user interface that works on a desktop as well as a tablet for (very) non-technical users is a big relief. Coming from E-Business Suite, there is less training (none) required to access HCM content.  From a technical point of view, having the abilities to tailor the simplified UI very easy makes it very efficient for us to adjust to specific customer needs.  When we have a conversation about simplified UI, we just hand over a tablet and ask the customer to just use it. No training and no explanation required.” Finally, in a story by Computer Weekly  about Oracle customer BG Group, a natural gas exploration and production company based in the UK and with a presence in 20 countries, the author states: “The new HR platform has proved to be easier and more intuitive for HR staff to use than the previous SAP-based technology.” What’s Next for Oracle’s Applications Cloud User Experiences? This is the question that Steve Miranda, Oracle Executive Vice President, Applications Development, asks the Applications User Experience team, and we’ve been hard at work for some time now on “what’s next.”  I can’t say too much about it, but I can tell you that we’ve started talking to customers and partners, under non-disclosure agreements, about user experience concepts that we are working on in order to get their feedback. We recently had a chance to talk about possibilities for the Oracle HCM Cloud user experience at an Oracle HCM Southern California Customer Success Summit. This was a fantastic event, hosted by Shane Bliss and Vance Morossi of the Oracle Client Success Team. We got to use the uber-slick facilities of Allergan, our hosts (of Botox fame), headquartered in Irvine, Calif., with a presence in more than 100 countries. Photo by Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User Experience Vance Morossi, left, and Shane Bliss, of the Oracle Client Success Team, at an Oracle HCM Southern California Customer Success Summit.  We were treated to a few really excellent talks around human resources (HR). Alice White, VP Human Resources, discussed Allergan's process for global talent acquisition -- how Allergan has designed and deployed a global process, and global tools, along with Oracle and Cognizant, and are now at the end of a global implementation. She shared a couple of insights about the journey for Allergan: “One of the major areas for improvement was on role clarification within the company.” She said the company is “empowering managers and deputizing them as recruiters. Now it is a global process that is nimble and efficient."  Deepak Rammohan, VP Product Management, HCM Cloud, Oracle, also took the stage to talk about pioneering modern HR. He reflected modern HR problems of getting the right data about the workforce, the importance of getting the right talent as a key strategic initiative, and other workforce insights. "How do we design systems to deal with all of this?” he asked. “Make sure the systems are talent-centric. The next piece is collaborative, engaging, and mobile. A lot of this is influenced by what users see today. The last thing is around insight; insight at the point of decision-making." Rammohan showed off some killer HCM Cloud talent demos focused on simplicity and mobility that his team has been cooking up, and closed with a great line about the nature of modern recruiting: "Recruiting is a team sport." Deepak Rammohan, left, and Jake Kuramoto, both of Oracle, debate the merits of a Google Glass concept demo for recruiters on-the-go. Later, in an expo-style format, the Apps UX team showed several concepts for next-generation HCM Cloud user experiences, including demos shown by Jake Kuramoto (@jkuramoto) of The AppsLab, and Aylin Uysal (@aylinuysal), Director, HCM Cloud user experience. We even hauled out our eye-tracker, a research tool used to show where the eye is looking at a particular screen, thanks to teammate Michael LaDuke. Dionne Healy, HCM Client Executive, and Aylin Uysal, Director, HCM Cloud user experiences, Oracle, take a look at new HCM Cloud UX concepts. We closed the day with Jeremy Ashley (@jrwashley), VP, Applications User Experience, who brought it all back together by talking about the big picture for applications cloud user experiences. He covered the trends we are paying attention to now, what users will be expecting of their modern enterprise apps, and what Oracle’s design strategy is around these ideas.   We closed with an excellent reception hosted by ADP Payroll services at Bistango. Want to read more?Want to see where our cloud user experience is going next? Read more on the UsableApps web site about our latest design initiative: “Glance, Scan, Commit.” Or catch up on the back story by looking over our Applications Cloud user experience content on the UsableApps web site.  You can also find out where we’ll be next at the Events page on UsableApps.

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• MIX 2010 Covert Operations Day 2 Silverlight + Windows 7 Phone

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  Left the Circus Circus and headed to the geek circus at Mandalay Bay.  Got in, got some breakfast, met a few more people and headed to the keynote. Upon arriving the crew I was hanging with at the event; Erik Mork, Beth Murray, and Brian Henderson and I were entertained with several other thousand geeks by the wicked yo-yoing. The first video demo of something was of Bing Maps and various aspects of Microsoft Research integrated together.  Namely the pictures, put in place, on real 3d element maps of various environments. Silverlight Scott Guthrie, as one would guess, kicked off the keynote.  His first point was that user experience has become a priority at Microsoft.  This can be seen by any observant soul with the release and push of Expression, Silverlight, and the other tools.  This is even more apparent when one takes note of Microsoft bringing in people that can actually do good design and putting them at the forefront. The next thing Scott brought up was a few key points about Silverlight.  Currently Silverlight is a little over 2 years old and has achieved a pretty solid 60% penetration.  Silverlight has all sorts of capabilities that have been developed and are now provided as open source including;  ad injection, smoothing, playback editing, and more.  Another thing he showed, which really struck me as awesome being in the analytics space, was the Olympics and a quick glimpse of the ad statistics, viewer experience, video playback performance, audience trends, and overall viewer participation.  All of it rendered in Silverlight in beautiful detail. The key piece of Scott's various points were all punctuated with the fact that all of this code is available as open source.  Not only is Microsoft really delving into this design element of things, they're getting involved in the right ways. One of the last points I'll bring up about Silverlight 4 is the ability to have HD video on a monitor, and an entirely different activity being done on the other monitor, effectively making Silverlight the only RIA framework that supports multi-monitor support.  Overall, Silverlight is continuing to impress – providing superior capabilities tit-for-tat with the competition. Windows 7 Phone The Windows 7 Phone has 3 primary buttons (yes, more than the iPhone, don't let your mind explode!!).  Start, Search, and Back control all of the needed functionality of the phone.  At the same time, of course, there is the multi-touch, touch, and other interactive abilities of the interface.  The intent, once start is pressed is to have all the information that a phone owner wants displayed immediately.  Avoiding the scrolling through pages of apps or rolling a ball to get through multitudes of other non-interactive phone interfaces.  The Windows 7 Phone simply has the data right in front of you, basically a phone dashboard.  From there it is easy to dive into the interactive areas of the phone. Each area of the interface of the phone is broken into hubs.  These hubs include applications, data, and other things based on a relative basis.  This basis being determined by the user.  These applications interact on many other levels, and form a kind of relationship between each other adding more and more meta-data to the phone user, their interactions between the applications, and of course the social element of their interactions on the phone.  This makes this phone a practical must have for a marketer involved in social media.  The level of wired together interaction is massive, and of course, if you've seen Office Outlook 2010 you know that the power that is pulled into the phone by being tied to Outlook is massive. Joe Belfiore also showed several UI & specifically UX elements of the phone interface that allows paging to be instinctual by simple clipped items, flipping page to page, and other excellent user experience advances for phone devices.  Belfiore's also showed how his people hub had a massive list of people, with pictures, all from various different social networks and other associated relations.  The rendering, speed, and viewing of these people's, their pictures, their social network information, and other characteristics was smooth and in some situations unbelievably rendered.  This demo showed some of the great power of the beta phone, which isn't even as powerful as the planned end device. Joe finished up by jumping into the music, videos, and other media with the Zune Component of the Windows 7 Mobile Phone.  This was all good stuff, but I'll get to what really sold me on the media element in a moment. When Joe was done, Scott Guthrie stepped back up to walk through building a Windows 7 Mobile Phone.  This is were I have to give serious props.  He built this application, in Visual Studio 2010, in front of 2000+ people.  That was cool, but what really was amazing that he build the application in about 2 minutes.  The IDE, side by side design that is standard in Visual Studio is light years ahead of x-Code or any of the iPhone IDEs.  The Windows 7 Mobile System, if it can get market penetration, poses a technologically superior development and phone platform over anything on the market right now.  The biggest problem with the phone, is it just isn't available yet.  I personally can't wait for a chance to build some apps for the new Windows Phone. Netflix, I May Start Up an Account Again! When I get my Windows 7 Phone device, I am absolutely getting a Netflix account again.  The Vertigo crew, as I wrote on Twitter "#MIX10 Props @seesharp on @netflix demo", displayed an application on the phone for Netflix that actually ran HD Video of Rescue Me (with Dennis Leary).  The video played back smooth as it would on a dedicated computer, I was instantly sold.  So this didn't actually sell me on the phone, because I'm already sold, but it did sell me whole heartedly on the media capabilities of the pending phone. Anyway, I try not to do this but I may double post today.  Lunch is over and I'm off to another session very near and dear to the heart of my occupation, Analytics Tracking.  Stay tuned and I should have that post up by the end of the day. Original Post – Check out my other blog for even more technical ramblings and reads.

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