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• Build 2012, the first post

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  Yes, I was one of the lucky few who made it to Build. Build, formerly known as the Professional Developers Conference (or PDC) is the place to be if you are a developer on the Microsoft platform. Since I take my job seriously I took out some time on my busy schedule, sighed at the thought of not seeing my family for another week and signed up for it. Now, before I talk about the amazing Surface devices (yes, this posting is written on one of them), the great Lumia 920 we all got, the long deserved love for touch, NUI and other things I have been talking about for years, I need to do some ranting. So if you are anxious to read about the technical goodies you’ll have to wait until the next post. Still here? Good. When I signed up for the Build conference during my holidays this summer it was pretty obvious that demand would be high. Therefor I made sure I was on time. But even though I registered only 7 minutes after the initial opening time the Early Bird discount for the first 500 attendees was already sold out. I later learned that registration actually started 5 minutes before the scheduled time but even though it is still impressive how fast things went. The whole event sold out in 57 minutes Or so they say… A lot of people got put on the waiting list. There was room for about 1500 attendees and I heard that at least 1000 people were on that waiting list, including a lot of people I know. Strangely, all of them got tickets assigned after 2 weeks. Here at the conference I heard from a guy from Nokia that they had shipped 2500 Lumia 920 phones. That number matches the rumors that the organization added 1000 extra tickets. This, of course is no problem. I am not an elitist and I think large crowds have a special atmosphere that I quite like. But…. The Microsoft Campus is not equipped for that sheer volume of visitors. That was painfully obvious during on-site registration where people had to stand in line for over 2 hours. The conference is spread out over 2 buildings, divided by a 15 minute busride (yes, the campus is that big). I have seen queues of over 200 people waiting for the bus and when that arrived it had a capacity of 16. I can assure you: that doesn’t fit. This of course means that travelling from one site to the other might take about 30 minutes. So you arrive at the session room just in time, only to find out it’s full. Since you can’ get into that session you try to find another one but now you’re even more late so you have no chance at all of entering. The doors are closed and you’re told: “Well, you can watch the live stream online”. Mmmm… So I spend thousands of dollars, a week away from home, family and work to be told I can also watch the sessions online? Are you fricking kidding me? I could go on but I won’t. You get the idea. It’s jus badly organized, something I am not really used to in my 20 years of experience at Microsoft events. Yes, I am disappointed. I hope a lot of people here in Redmond will also fill in the evals and that the organization next year will do a better job. Really, Build deserves better. </rantmode>

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• Ideas for time-keeping in a webbased RPG?

  - by ashy_32bit

  I'm assigned a task of doing the preliminary research stuff for a web-based MMO RPG. Now my buggiest problem here is "web based" vs "MMO RPG". I did some research about time keeping systems and I'm totally confused as how exactly something as real-time as an MMO-RPG can work on some pull-only (unidirectional) platform like HTTP. I know there is also a turn-based alternative to time keeping but can it work in an MMO setting ? EDIT: Take a battle for example, player A (human) wants to attack Player B (also human) in the open. How does it work when when player A issues the "attack" command on player B ? how do I inform player B that he is being attacked ? and then how exactly the battle goes on between the two in an HTTP based communication channel? To my knowledge this is impossible unless you resort to another technology (HTML is 1-way, that is you can just ask server and get response, server can't update you unless being asked to. this is very well-known and simply explained). So I though maybe I can somehow change the whole timekeeping model from real-time to a more non-real-time model (towards a turn based RPG for example) and somehow work around the whole problem of "interactivity". EDIT2: It is not that I don't wanna use any server side technologies. For sure it is not gonna work client-side-only even for the most trivial of the multi-player games, let alone an RPG. So sure there would be a (probably complex) server side component to it (the so called Game Engine I suppose). The problem is not the technology that implements the logic (game mechanics) bits but the communication technology and how it limits the game mechanics abilities (like how real-time or turn based it is gonna be). HTTP is a request-response protocol meaning you get served only if you ask for it (explicitly send a GET or POST request to the server). HTTP server can not inform you if anything of interest happens in the game world unless you refresh the page (as some suggested) or you use some bi-directional tech (totally different animals) like Flash, WebSock, HTML5 etc etc. So maybe the question is: Is it possible to implement a MMORPG using only HTML5/PHP and no periodic page refreshes? if so what would be rules to make it an MMO-RPG? Can't explain it any clearer. Sorry :D

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• Problem with OpenGL or Unity, need Gnome fallback mode

  - by William Wind

  This question is in two parts, and I have been searching the web for days to find answers. With no luck I thought I'd drop by and ask for your help. Here goes: 1.) I'm running Ubuntu 13.04 and one day last week Unity suddenly wound't work. After the login screen, I was either faced with an all black and non-responsive screen, or sometimes it booted and I could see my desktop wallpaper (and add and remove icons/folders from the desktop). But there was no menu in the left hand side and no top bar :-( However I could still enter the terminal. I borrowed my dad's laptop and looked for a solution online. About two days later I gave up (I'm still kind of a n00b at Linux) and found a way to install Gnome Fallback, via the terminal. When I used it, I had the same problem. [clue #1] Missing menues. But if I rebooted into Gnome Fallback mode with no effects. It worked. Great! I have used that for some days now, while still trying to fix the original problem with either Unity or OpenGl or whatever went wrong in the first place. With no luck. After giving up on my search for a fix (I know that came out wrong) -- I decided to reinstall Ubuntu 13.04 from a CD. But! After that I was left where I began. When booting into my account, it only shows the desktop wallpaper and the icons. I can click and enter the folders, but not go into the menues. Last time I fixed it with Gnome Fallback mode, because I could enter the terminal and the PC was automatically online, via wireless network. But not this time, I can't get online. So: 1.) How do I via the LiveCD Ubuntu version (the one I'm using right now) install Gnome Fallback unto the harddrive based system? 2.) If impossible. How can I access the wireless Internet via the terminal, so I can install Gnome Fallback, from the "broken" Unity session. 3.) Is there any other things that I should try? Please help me, PS: My GFX-card is an ATI Radeon something and I have install and used the "Redwood" drive (I think its called) for many weeks prior to the shutdown.

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• Convert VARCHAR() columns to NVARCHAR()

  - by ChrisD

  We recently underwent an upgrade that required us to change our database columns from varchar to NVarchar, to support unicode characters. Digging through the internet, I found a base script which I modified to handle reserved word table names, and maintain the NULL/NotNull constraint of the columns.   I Ran this script use NWOperationalContent – Your Catalog Name here GO SELECT 'ALTER TABLE ' + isnull(schema_name(syo.id), 'dbo') + '.[' +  syo.name +'] '     + ' ALTER COLUMN [' + syc.name + '] NVARCHAR(' + case syc.length when -1 then 'MAX'         ELSE convert(nvarchar(10),syc.length) end + ') '+         case  syc.isnullable when 1 then ' NULL' ELSE ' NOT NULL' END +';'    FROM sysobjects syo    JOIN syscolumns syc ON      syc.id = syo.id    JOIN systypes syt ON      syt.xtype = syc.xtype    WHERE      syt.name = 'varchar'     and syo.xtype='U'   which produced a series of ALTER statements which I could then execute the tables.  In some cases I had to drop indexes, alter the tables, and re-create the indexes.  There might have been a better way to do that, but manually dropping them got the job done.   use NWMerchandisingContent GO ALTER TABLE Locale Drop Constraint PK_Locale ALTER TABLE Country DROP CONSTRAINT PK_Country GO ALTER TABLE dbo.[Campaign]  ALTER COLUMN [ActorKey] NVARCHAR(200)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[BundleLocalization]  ALTER COLUMN [Locale] NVARCHAR(8)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[BundleLocalization]  ALTER COLUMN [UnitOfmeasure] NVARCHAR(200)  NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[BundleLocalization]  ALTER COLUMN [ActorKey] NVARCHAR(200)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[BundleComponentLocalization]  ALTER COLUMN [Locale] NVARCHAR(8)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[BundleComponentLocalization]  ALTER COLUMN [Imperative] NVARCHAR(MAX)  NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[BundleComponentLocalization]  ALTER COLUMN [Instructions] NVARCHAR(MAX)  NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[BundleComponentLocalization]  ALTER COLUMN [ActorKey] NVARCHAR(200)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[BundleComponent]  ALTER COLUMN [ActorKey] NVARCHAR(200)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[Bundle]  ALTER COLUMN [ActorKey] NVARCHAR(200)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[Banner]  ALTER COLUMN [ActorKey] NVARCHAR(200)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[Video]  ALTER COLUMN [Link] NVARCHAR(512)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[Video]  ALTER COLUMN [ActorKey] NVARCHAR(200)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[ProductUsage]  ALTER COLUMN [VideoLink] NVARCHAR(512)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[ProductUsage]  ALTER COLUMN [ActorKey] NVARCHAR(200)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[Thumbnail]  ALTER COLUMN [ActorKey] NVARCHAR(200)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[SkuLocalization]  ALTER COLUMN [Locale] NVARCHAR(8)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[SkuLocalization]  ALTER COLUMN [UnitOfMeasure] NVARCHAR(150)  NOT NULL; ALTER TABLE dbo.[SkuLocalization]  ALTER COLUMN [SwatchColor] NVARCHAR(50)  NOT NULL; etc.. GO ALTER TABLE Locale ADD CONSTRAINT PK_Locale PRIMARY KEY (LocaleId) ALTER TABLE Country ADD CONSTRAINT PK_Country PRIMARY KEY (CountryId) Note that this alter is non-destructive to the data.   Hope this helps.

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• What to use C++ for?

  - by futlib

  I really love C++. However, I'm struggling to find good uses for it lately. It is still the language to use if you're building huge systems with huge performance requirements. Like backend/infrastructure code at Google and Facebook, or high-end games. But I don't get to do stuff like that. It's also a good choice for code that runs close to the hardware. I'd like to do more low-level stuff, but it isn't part of my job, and I can't think of useful private projects that would involve that. Traditionally, C++ was also a good choice for rich client applications, but those are mostly written in C# and Obj-C lately - and aren't really that important anymore, with everything being a web app. Or a mobile app, which are mostly written in Obj-C and Java. And of course, web-based desktop and mobile apps are quite prominent, too. At my job, I work mostly on web applications, using Java, JavaScript and Groovy. Java is a good/popular choice for non-Google-scale backends, Groovy (or Python, or Ruby or Node.js) is pretty good for the server-side of web apps and JavaScript is the only real choice for the client-side. Even the little games I'm writing in my spare time are lately mostly written in JavaScript, so they can run in the browser. So what would you suggest I could use C++ for? I'm aware that this question is very similar. However, I don't want to learn C++, I was a professional C++ programmer for years. I want to keep doing it and find good new use cases for it. I know that I can use C++ for web apps/games. I could even compile C++ to JavaScript with Emscripten. However, it doesn't seem like a good idea. I'm looking for something C++ is really good at to stay competent in the language. If your answer is: Just give up and forget C++, you'll probably never need it again, so be it.

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• A sample Memento pattern: Is it correct?

  - by TheSilverBullet

  Following this query on memento pattern, I have tried to put my understanding to test. Memento pattern stands for three things: Saving state of the "memento" object for its successful retrieval Saving carefully each valid "state" of the memento Encapsulating the saved states from the change inducer so that each state remains unaltered Have I achieved these three with my design? Problem This is a zero player game where the program is initialized with a particular set up of chess pawns - the knight and queen. Then program then needs to keep adding set of pawns or knights and queens so that each pawn is "safe" for the next one move of every other pawn. The condition is that either both pawns should be placed, or none of them should be placed. The chessboard with the most number of non conflicting knights and queens should be returned. Implementation I have 4 classes for this: protected ChessBoard (the Memento) private int [][] ChessBoard; public void ChessBoard(); protected void SetChessBoard(); protected void GetChessBoard(int); public Pawn This is not related to memento. It holds info about the pawns public enum PawnType: int { Empty = 0, Queen = 1, Knight = 2, } //This returns a value that shown if the pawn can be placed safely public bool IsSafeToAddPawn(PawnType); public CareTaker This corresponds to caretaker of memento This is a double dimentional integer array that keeps a track of all states. The reason for having 2D array is to keep track of how many states are stored and which state is currently active. An example: 0 -2 1 -1 2 0 - This is current state. With second index 0/ 3 1 - This state has been saved, but has been undone private int [][]State; private ChessBoard [] MChessBoard; //This gets the chessboard at the position requested and assigns it to originator public ChessBoard GetChessBoard(int); //This overwrites the chessboard at given position public void SetChessBoard(ChessBoard, int); private int [][]State; public PlayGame (This is the originator) private bool status; private ChessBoard oChessBoard; //This sets the state of chessboard at position specified public SetChessBoard(ChessBoard, int); //This gets the state of chessboard at position specified public ChessBoard GetChessBoard(int); //This function tries to place both the pawns and returns the status of this attempt public bool PlacePawns(Pawn);

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• 4.8M wasn't enough so we went for 5.055M tpmc with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel r2 :-)

  - by wcoekaer

  We released a new set of benchmarks today. One is an updated tpc-c from a few months ago where we had just over 4.8M tpmc at $0.98 and we just updated it to go to 5.05M and $0.89. The other one is related to Java Middleware performance. You can find the press release here. Now, I don't want to talk about the actual relevance of the benchmark numbers, as I am not in the benchmark team. I want to talk about why these numbers and these efforts, unrelated to what they mean to your workload, matter to customers. The actual benchmark effort is a very big, long, expensive undertaking where many groups work together as a big virtual team. Having the virtual team be within a single company of course helps tremendously... We already start with a very big server setup with tons of storage, many disks, lots of ram, lots of cpu's, cores, threads, large database setups. Getting the whole setup going to start tuning, by itself, is no easy task, but then the real fun starts with tuning the system for optimal performance -and- stability. A benchmark is not just revving an engine at high rpm, it's actually hitting the circuit. The tests require long runs, require surviving availability tests, such as surviving crashes -and- recovery under load. In the TPC-C example, the x4800 system had 4TB ram, 160 threads (8 sockets, hyperthreaded, 10 cores/socket), tons of storage attached, tons of luns visible to the OS. flash storage, non flash storage... many things at high scale that all have to be perfectly synchronized. During this process, we find bugs, we fix bugs, we find performance issues, we fix performance issues, we find interesting potential features to investigate for the future, we start new development projects for future releases and all this goes back into the products. As more and more customers, for Oracle Linux, are running larger and larger, faster and faster, more mission critical, higher available databases..., these things are just absolutely critical. Unrelated to what anyone's specific opinion is about tpc-c or tpc-h or specjenterprise etc, there is a ton of effort that the customer benefits from. All this work makes Oracle Linux and/or Oracle Solaris better platforms. Whether it's faster, more stable, more scalable, more resilient. It helps. Another point that I always like to re-iterate around UEK and UEK2 : we have our kernel source git repository online. Complete changelog of the mainline kernel, and our changes, easy to pull, easy to dissect, easy to know what went in when, why and where. No need to go log into a website and manually click through pages to hopefully discover changes or patches. No need to untar 2 tar balls and run a diff.

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• What's the best way to create a static utility class in python? Is using metaclasses code smell?

  - by rsimp

  Ok so I need to create a bunch of utility classes in python. Normally I would just use a simple module for this but I need to be able to inherit in order to share common code between them. The common code needs to reference the state of the module using it so simple imports wouldn't work well. I don't like singletons, and classes that use the classmethod decorator do not have proper support for python properties. One pattern I see used a lot is creating an internal python class prefixed with an underscore and creating a single instance which is then explicitly imported or set as the module itself. This is also used by fabric to create a common environment object (fabric.api.env). I've realized another way to accomplish this would be with metaclasses. For example: #util.py class MetaFooBase(type): @property def file_path(cls): raise NotImplementedError def inherited_method(cls): print cls.file_path #foo.py from util import * import env class MetaFoo(MetaFooBase): @property def file_path(cls): return env.base_path + "relative/path" def another_class_method(cls): pass class Foo(object): __metaclass__ = MetaFoo #client.py from foo import Foo file_path = Foo.file_path I like this approach better than the first pattern for a few reasons: First, instantiating Foo would be meaningless as it has no attributes or methods, which insures this class acts like a true single interface utility, unlike the first pattern which relies on the underscore convention to dissuade client code from creating more instances of the internal class. Second, sub-classing MetaFoo in a different module wouldn't be as awkward because I wouldn't be importing a class with an underscore which is inherently going against its private naming convention. Third, this seems to be the closest approximation to a static class that exists in python, as all the meta code applies only to the class and not to its instances. This is shown by the common convention of using cls instead of self in the class methods. As well, the base class inherits from type instead of object which would prevent users from trying to use it as a base for other non-static classes. It's implementation as a static class is also apparent when using it by the naming convention Foo, as opposed to foo, which denotes a static class method is being used. As much as I think this is a good fit, I feel that others might feel its not pythonic because its not a sanctioned use for metaclasses which should be avoided 99% of the time. I also find most python devs tend to shy away from metaclasses which might affect code reuse/maintainability. Is this code considered code smell in the python community? I ask because I'm creating a pypi package, and would like to do everything I can to increase adoption.

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• 101 Ways to Participate...and make the future Java

  - by heathervc

   In case you missed it earlier today, and as promised in BOF6283, here are the 101 Ways to Improve (and Make the Future) Java...thanks to Bruno Souza of SouJava and Martijn Verburg of the London Java Community for their contributions! Join or create a JUG Come to the meetings Help promoting your JUG: twitter, facebook, etc Find someone that can give a talk Get your company to sponsor (a meeting, an event) Organize an activity (meetings, hackathons, dojos, etc) Answer questions on a mailing list (or simply join!) Volunteer for a small, one time tasks (creating a web page, helping with an activity) Come early to an event, and help to carry the piano Moderate a list or add things to the wiki Participate in the organization meetings or mailing lists Take pictures of an event or meeting and publish them online Write a blog about an event or meeting, to help promote the group Help record and post a session online Present your JavaOne experience when you get back Repeat the best talk you saw at JavaOne at a JUG meeting Send this list of ideas to other Java developers in your area so they can help out too! Present a step-by-step tutorial Present GreenFoot and Alice to school students Present BlueJ and Alice to university students Teach those tools to teachers and professors Write a step-by-step tutorial on your blog or to a magazine Create a page that lists resources Give a talk about your favorite Java feature or technology Learn a new Java API and present to your co-workers Then, present in a JUG meeting, and then, present it in an event in your area, and submit it to JavaOne! Create a study group to get certified or to learn some new Java technology Teach a non-Java developer how to download the basic tools and where to find more information Download and use an open source project Improve the documentation Write an article or a blog post about the project Write an FAQ Join and participate on the mailing list Describe a bug in detail and submit a bug report Fix a bug and submit it to the project Give a talk about it at a JUG meeting Teach your co-workers how to use the project Sign up to Adopt a JSR Test regular builds of the Reference Implementation (RI) Report bugs in the RI Submit Feature Requests to the spec Triage issues on the issue tracker Run a hack day to discuss the API Moderate mailing lists and forums Create an FAQ or Wiki Evangelize a specification on Twitter, G+, Hacker News, etc Give a lightning talk Help build the RI Help build the Technical Compatibility Kit (TCK) Create a Podcast Learn Latin - e.g. legal language, translate to English Sign up to Adopt OpenJDK Run a Bugathon Fix javac compiler warnings Build virtual images Add tests to Java Submit Javadoc patches Give a webbing Teach someone to build OpenJDK Hold a brown bag session at work Fix the oldest known bug Overhaul Javadoc to use HTML Load the OpenJDK into different IDEs Run a build farm node Test your code on a nightly build Learn how to read Java byte code Visit JCP.org Follow jcp_org on Twitter Friend JCP on Facebook Read JCP Blog Register for JCP.org site Create a JSR Watch List Review JSRs in progress Comment on JSRs in progress, write and track bug reports, use cases, etc Review JSRs in Maintenance Comment on JSRs in Maintenance Implement Final JSRs Review the Transparency of JSRs in progress and provide feedback to the PMO and Spec Lead/community Become a JCP Member or associate with a current JCP member Nominate to serve on an Expert Group (EG) Serve on an EG Submit a JSR proposal and become Spec Lead Take a Spec Lead role in an Inactive or Dormant JSR Nominate for an Executive Committee (EC) seat Vote in the EC elections Vote in EC Special Elections Review EC Meeting Summaries Attend Spec Lead calls Write blogs, articles on your experiences Join the EC project on java.net Join JCP.Next on java.net/JSR 358 Participate on the JCP forums and join JSR projects on java.net Suggest agenda items for open EC meetings Attend public EC teleconference (2x per year) Attend open EC meetings at JavaOne Nominate for JCP Annual Awards Attend annual JavaOne and JCP Annual Awards Ceremony Attend JCP related BOF sessions and give your feedback to Program Office Invite JCP program office members to your JUG  or meetup Invite JSR Spec Leads to your JUG or meetup And always - hold a party!

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• X server with nvidia driver crashing: 12.04

  - by Raster

  My X server consistently crashes. It seems like this is happening when the X server is idle. This behaviour is new with 12.04. This is only happening on the second display of a multiseat system. Is there a configuration change I can make to stop this? X.Org X Server 1.11.3 Release Date: 2011-12-16 X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0 Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.42-26-generic x86_64 Ubuntu Current Operating System: Linux Desktop 3.2.0-29-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 27 17:03:23 UTC 2012 x86_64 Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.2.0-29-generic root=/dev/mapper/Group1-Root ro ramdisk_size=512000 quiet splash vt.handoff=7 Build Date: 04 August 2012 01:51:23AM xorg-server 2:1.11.4-0ubuntu10.7 (For technical support please see http://www.ubuntu.com/support) Current version of pixman: 0.24.4 Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org to make sure that you have the latest version. Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting, (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational, (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown. (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.1.log", Time: Sun Sep 2 22:37:06 2012 (==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" (==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d" Backtrace: 0: /usr/bin/X (xorg_backtrace+0x26) [0x7fcee86be846] 1: /usr/bin/X (0x7fcee8536000+0x18c6ea) [0x7fcee86c26ea] 2: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x7fcee785c000+0xfcb0) [0x7fcee786bcb0] 3: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/nvidia_drv.so (0x7fcee14ba000+0x902a9) [0x7fcee154a2a9] 4: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/nvidia_drv.so (0x7fcee14ba000+0xfd5e7) [0x7fcee15b75e7] 5: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/nvidia_drv.so (0x7fcee14ba000+0x4d6b92) [0x7fcee1990b92] 6: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/nvidia_drv.so (0x7fcee14ba000+0x4d74d5) [0x7fcee19914d5] 7: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/nvidia_drv.so (0x7fcee14ba000+0x4d767d) [0x7fcee199167d] 8: /usr/bin/X (0x7fcee8536000+0x1196ec) [0x7fcee864f6ec] 9: /usr/bin/X (0x7fcee8536000+0xe8ad5) [0x7fcee861ead5] 10: /usr/bin/X (0x7fcee8536000+0xe9d45) [0x7fcee861fd45] /etc/X11/xorg.conf Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Desktop" Screen 0 "DesktopScreen" 0 0 InputDevice "DesktopMouse" "CorePointer" InputDevice "DesktopKeyboard" "CoreKeyboard" Option "AutoAddDevices" "false" Option "AllowEmptyInput" "true" Option "AutoEnableDevices" "false" EndSection Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Desktop2" Screen 1 "Desktop2Screen" 0 0 InputDevice "Desktop2Mouse" "CorePointer" InputDevice "Desktop2Keyboard" "CoreKeyboard" Option "AutoAddDevices" "false" Option "AllowEmptyInput" "true" Option "AutoEnableDevices" "false" EndSection Section "Module" Load "dbe" Load "extmod" Load "type1" Load "freetype" Load "glx" EndSection Section "Files" EndSection Section "ServerFlags" Option "AutoAddDevices" "false" Option "AutoEnableDevices" "false" Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "on" Option "AllowEmptyInput" "on" Option "ZapWarning" "on" Option "HandleSepcialKeys" "off" # Zapping on Option "DRI2" "on" Option "Xinerama" "0" EndSection # Desktop Mouse Section "InputDevice" Identifier "DesktopMouse" Driver "evdev" Option "Device" "/dev/input/event3" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "GrabDevice" "on" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no" Option "Buttons" "5" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" Option "SendCoreEvents" "true" EndSection # Desktop2 Mouse Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Desktop2Mouse" Driver "evdev" Option "Device" "/dev/input/event5" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "GrabDevice" "on" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no" Option "Buttons" "5" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" Option "SendCoreEvents" "true" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "DesktopKeyboard" Driver "evdev" Option "Device" "/dev/input/event4" Option "XkbRules" "xorg" Option "XkbModel" "105" Option "XkbLayout" "us" Option "Protocol" "Standard" Option "GrabDevice" "on" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Desktop2Keyboard" Driver "evdev" Option "Device" "/dev/input/event6" Option "XkbRules" "xorg" Option "XkbModel" "105" Option "XkbLayout" "us" Option "Protocol" "Standard" Option "GrabDevice" "on" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Desktop2Monitor" VendorName "Acer" ModelName "Acer G235H" HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "DesktopMonitor" VendorName "Acer" ModelName "Acer H213H" HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "EVGACard" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce GTX 560 Ti" Option "Coolbits" "1" BusID "PCI:2:0:0" Screen 0 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "XFXCard" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce GTX 9800" Option "Coolbits" "1" BusID "PCI:5:0:0" Screen 0 EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "DesktopScreen" Device "EVGACard" Monitor "DesktopMonitor" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Desktop2Screen" Device "XFXCard" Monitor "Desktop2Monitor" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection

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• Writing or extending existing emacs packages: is it worth or should I move to Netbeans/Eclipse?

  - by Andrea

  I'm finishing my master degree course in CS and I've almost become addicted to Emacs. I've used it to write in C, Latex, Java, JSP,XML, CommonLisp, Ada and other languages no other editor supported, like AMPL. I'd like to improve the packages I've been using the most or create new ones, but, in practice, I find that the implementation of Emacs leaves a lot to be desired. There are a lot of poorly-featured/poorly-maintained packages with either overlapping functionalities or obscure incompatibilities, and Elisp just seems to foster the situation by lacking the common features modern lisps have. In contrast Eclipse and Netbeans are actively improved and it does seem they can be effective for non-mainstream languages. I tried Hibachi for Ada in Eclipse and it worked well, there's CUPS for Lisp in Eclipse and LambdaBeans built using NetBeans components. On the other hand those plugins seem to be less active than their Emacs' counterparts, for example Hibachi was archived last year. What's your opinion on this? Which editor should I write extension for? EDIT: To answer Larry Coleman (see comment below): I like Emacs as a user because it is efficient both for me and the computer I'm using. It's fast and the textual interface (i.e. minibuffer) allows for quick interaction. It's solid and packages are usually small and easy to manage. If I need to correct or remove something I usually just have to change a row in my .emacs or an elisp file, or delete a directory. Eclipse plugins rely on a more complicated process that screwed my Eclipse configuration a couple of times, forcing me to do a clean reinstall. Emacs works as long as I use the basic packages. If I need something more complicated the situation gets pretty hairy. As a "power user" I think that the best I can hope for is to write a severely crippled version of the extensions I'd actually like to have; in other words, that it's not worth the trouble. I'd like to write extensions for the things I'd like to have automated in Emacs, for example project support with automated tag-table update on file writing. There are a few projects on this that lack integration, documentation, extensibility and so forth. The best one is probably CEDET, for which I believe the Greenspun's 10th rule can be applied. EDIT: To comment Larry Coleman's answer I'm pretty sure I can pick elisp programming but the extensions I have in mind don't exist yet despite their relative simplicity and the effort more knowledgeable people poured into related projects.This makes me wonder whether it is so because of the way emacs is developed, i.e. people tend to write their own little extensions without coordination, or its implementation, its extension language not being able to keep up with the growing complexity.

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• Start Time & Calculated Column Wonkiness in a SharePoint Event Calendar

  - by _zekeMouseOver

  I was creating some custom rollups on some of our event calendars and came across a very odd bug when trying to grab only the date component of the built-in Start Time field. One's first inclination will be to create a calculated column and give it the formula... =[Start Time]... and then assign its output type to be "Date Only." This works well until a user adds an All Day Event. For reasons unexplainable, the All Day Event flag causes your =[Start Time] to display the date minus one day. Here is an example of this in action:  Start Date and Time, Duration, Start Date Value and Start Day are all calculated fields. Notice how the Start Date and Time (=[Start Time]) is reporting 6:00PM of the previous day. The Start Date Value (=[Start Time] - Output Type: Number) confirms this (.75 = 6:00 PM.) Curiously enough, the Duration (=[End Time]-[Start Time]) is properly reporting the duration between 12:00AM and 11:59PM. Why? I don't know. Perhaps it's somehow bound to the regional settings on the site, but I'm not interested in changing a global site setting for the sake of one calculated field.With this information at our disposal, our calculated column to display the date part of the start date needs to be modified to add one day to the [Start Time] field if an All Day Event is selected. To determine this, we use the Duration above to assume the item is an all-day event and change our formula to be:=IF(TEXT(([End Time]-[Start Time])-TRUNC(([End Time]-[Start Time]),0),"0.000000000")="0.999305556",[Start Time] + 1, [Start Time])This will work, but what happens when the user de-selects the "All Day Event" checkbox? The duration stays the same, but all other values begin reporting the correct time: Since our formula above is strictly based on an expected duration, it will add one to the correct date, causing the date 5/11/2010 to appear. Notice though that the raw value of the start time (in this case) is a non-fractional number (40,308) whereas the all-day event was being represented as 6:00 PM (.75) of the previous day. We can use this to add one more nested branch of logic to our calculation:=IF(TEXT(([End Time]-[Start Time])-TRUNC(([End Time]-[Start Time]),0),"0.000000000")="0.999305556",IF([Start Time]=ROUND([Start Time],0),[Start Time],[Start Time]+1),[Start Time]) I feel somewhat... dirty about having to resort to this kind of calculation in what SHOULD have been a simple =[Start Time] to extract the date part of the Start Time field, but there you have it. Make sure to shower extra longer after having used it.

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• SQL Saturday 43 (Redmond, WA) Review

  - by BuckWoody

  Last Saturday (June 12th) we held a “SQL Saturday” (more about those here) event in Redmond, Washington. The event was held at the Microsoft campus, at the Mixer in our new location called the “Commons”. This is a mall-like area that we have on campus, and the Mixer is a large building with lots of meeting rooms, so it made a perfect location for the event. There was a sign to find the parking, and once there they had a sign to show how to get to the building. Since it’s a secure facility, Greg Larsen and crew had a person manning the door so that even late arrivals could get in. We had about 400 sign up for the event, and a little over 300 attend (official numbers later). I think we would have had a lot more, but the sun was out – and you just can’t underestimate the effect of that here in the Pacific Northwest. We joke a lot about not seeing the sun much, but when a day like what we had on Saturday comes around, and on a weekend at that, you’d cancel your wedding to go outside to play in the sun. And your spouse would agree with you for doing it. We had some top-notch speakers, including Clifford Dibble and Kalen Delany. The food was great, we had multiple sponsors (including Confio who seems to be at all of these) and the attendees were from all over the professional spectrum, from developers to BI to DBA’s. Everyone I saw was very engaged, and when I visited room-to-room I saw almost no one in the halls – everyone was in the sessions. I also saw a much larger Microsoft presence this year, especially from Dan Jones’ team. I had a great turnout at my session, and yes, I was wearing an Oracle staff shirt. I did that because I wanted to show that the session I gave on “SQL Server for the Oracle DBA” was non-marketing – I couldn’t exactly bash Oracle wearing their colors! These events are amazing. I can’t emphasize enough how much I appreciate the volunteers and how much work they put into these events, and to you for coming. If you’re reading this and you haven’t attended one yet, definitely find out if there is one in your area – and if not, start one. It’s a lot of work, but it’s totally worth it.       Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Them and us

  - by Plip

  As much as we try and create inclusive societies throughout the globe time and time again we revert to our tribal and clan origins back in the distant past, be those line split across the obvious like  Nationality, Religion or even the Football teams we follow. Microsoft to me has always been a “them”. I was always on the outside looking in, free to say as I wished and have an external objective viewpoint. Now, after my first week (well four days but who’s counting) Microsoft is an “us” for me. So when I look up in the Atrium of Building 1 at Microsoft’s UK headquarters I see banners like the one above and I already genuinely feel a part of this much bigger community. I looked up at that and I felt a sense of pride to be part of something bigger, something which is out there touching peoples lives everywhere (for the good and the bad). My objectivity has made me who I am today. I’m open to other ideas and concepts, I’ve worked hard to be understanding across the board be it from technology through to cultural differences in my life and it’s vital to me that I preserve that so I now have to learn how I balance the “them” of Microsoft to the “us” of Microsoft and maintain the objectivity. It’s my job to advise people on the best way to do things, which won’t always mean “Use Microsoft Technology X”, sometimes it’ll be my responsibility to say “Don’t use Microsoft Technology X”. My first and foremost responsibility is to the customer, to give them the best advice that I can and I want to maintain that. Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be tarred by some as a Microsoft guy, for many years I’ve had just that, but those out there in the non Microsoft communities I’ve engaged in I think know that I’m the first to say when I think something is a bit naff. So, here’s my ask to you ‘the community’. Keep me honest. If I start to sound like a fanboi I want you to find me and give me a slap. It’s all too easy to forget reality sometimes and I want to make sure I stay well and truly routed in that reality. Also, no matter how much I embed myself within Microsoft I fear I will never understand Microsoft’s marketing team. In the Gents just under the WP7 banner shown above I was faced with this. Draw your own conclusions on what it’s message is.

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• Passed: Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3

  First off: Mission accomplished successfully. And it was fun! Using the resources listed in my previous article about Learning Content, I'd like to thank Microsoft Technical Evangelists Jeremy Foster and Michael Palermo for their excellent jump start videos on Channel 9, and the various authors at Pluralsight. Local Prometric testing centre Back in November I chose a local testing centre which was the easiest to access from my office despite the horrible traffic you might experience here on the island. Actually, it was not the closest one. But due to their website, their awards as Microsoft Learning Center, and my general curiosity about the premises, I gave FRCI my priority. Boy, how should I regret this decision this morning... The official Prometric exam guide asks any attendee to show up at least 30 minutes prior to the scheduled time of the test. Well, this should have been the easier part but unfortunately due to heavier traffic than usual I arrived only 20 minutes before time. Not too bad but more to come. The building called 'le Hub' is nicely renovated and provides the right environment for an IT group of companies like FRCI. I think they have currently 5 independent IT departments over there. Even the handling at the reception was straight forward, welcoming and at my ease. But then... first shock: "We don't have any exam registration for today." - Hm, that's nice... Here's my mail confirmation from Prometric. First attack successfully handled and the lady went off again to check their records. Next shock: A couple of minutes later, another guy tries to explain me that "the staff of the testing centre is already on vacation and the centre is officially closed." - Are you kidding me? Here's the official confirmation by Prometric, and I don't find it funny that I take a day off today only to hear this kind of blubbering nonsense. I thought that I'll be on the safe side choosing a company with a good reputation here on the island. Another 40 (!) minutes later, they finally come back to the waiting area with a pre-filled form about the test appointment. And finally, after an hour of waiting, discussing, restarting the testing PC, and lots of talk, I am allowed to sit down and take the exam. Exam details Well, you know the rules. Signing an NDA doesn't allow me to provide you any details about the questions or topics that have been covered. Please check out the official exam description, and you're on the right way. Sorry, guys... ;-) The result "Congratulations! You have passed this Microsoft Certification exam." - In general, I have to admit that the parts on HTML5 and CSS3 were the easiest after all, and that I have to get myself a little bit more familiar with certain Javascript features like class definitions, inheritance and data security. Anyway, exam passed - who cares about the details? Next goal Of course, the journey to Microsoft Certifications continues and my next goal is to pass exams 70-481 - Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using HTML5 and JavaScript and 70-482 - Advanced Windows Store App Development using HTML5 and JavaScript. This would allow me to achieve the certification of MCSD: Windows Store Apps using HTML5. I guess, during 2013 I'll be busy with various learning and teaching lessons.

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• How employable am I as a programmer?

  - by dsimcha

  I'm currently a Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering with a concentration in computational biology and am starting to think about what I want to do after graduate school. I feel like I've accumulated a lot of programming skills while in grad school, but taken a very non-traditional path to learning all this stuff. I'm wondering whether I would have an easy time getting hired as a programmer and could fall back on that if I can't find a good job directly in my field, and if so whether I would qualify for a more prestigious position than "code monkey". Things I Have Going For Me Approximately 4 years of experience programming as part of my research. I believe I have a solid enough grasp of the fundamentals that I could pick up new languages and technologies pretty fast, and could demonstrate this in an interview. Good math and statistics skills. An extensive portfolio of open source work (and the knowledge that working on these projects implies): I wrote a statistics library in D, mostly from scratch. I wrote a parallelism library (parallel map, reduce, foreach, task parallelism, pipelining, etc.) that is currently in review for adoption by the D standard library. I wrote a 2D plotting library for D against the GTK Cairo backend. I currently use it for most of the figures I make for my research. I've contributed several major performance optimizations to the D garbage collector. (Most of these were low-hanging fruit, but it still shows my knowledge of low-level issues like memory management, pointers and bit twiddling.) I've contributed lots of miscellaneous bug fixes to the D standard library and could show the change logs to prove it. (This demonstrates my ability read other people's code.) Things I Have Going Against Me Most of my programming experience is in D and Python. I have very little to virtually no experience in the more established, "enterprise-y" languages like Java, C# and C++, though I have learned a decent amount about these languages from small, one-off projects and discussions about language design in the D community. In general I have absolutely no knowledge of "enterprise-y" technlogies. I've never used a framework before, possibly because most reusable code for scientific work and for D tends to call itself a "library" instead. I have virtually no formal computer science/software engineering training. Almost all of my knowledge comes from talking to programming geek friends, reading blogs, forums, StackOverflow, etc. I have zero professional experience with the official title of "developer", "software engineer", or something similar.

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• Should a server "be lenient" in what it accepts and "discard faulty input silently"?

  - by romkyns

  I was under the impression that by now everyone agrees this maxim was a mistake. But I recently saw this answer which has a "be lenient" comment upvoted 137 times (as of today). In my opinion, the leniency in what browsers accept was the direct cause of the utter mess that HTML and some other web standards were a few years ago, and have only recently begun to properly crystallize out of that mess. The way I see it, being lenient in what you accept will lead to this. The second part of the maxim is "discard faulty input silently, without returning an error message unless this is required by the specification", and this feels borderline offensive. Any programmer who has banged their head on the wall when something fails silently will know what I mean. So, am I completely wrong about this? Should my program be lenient in what it accepts and swallow errors silently? Or am I mis-interpreting what this is supposed to mean? The original question said "program", and I take everyone's point about that. It can make sense for programs to be lenient. What I really meant, however, is APIs: interfaces exposed to other programs, rather than people. HTTP is an example. The protocol is an interface that only other programs use. People never directly provide the dates that go into headers like "If-Modified-Since". So, the question is: should the server implementing a standard be lenient and allow dates in several other formats, in addition to the one that's actually required by the standard? I believe the "be lenient" is supposed to apply to this situation, rather than human interfaces. If the server is lenient, it might seem like an overall improvement, but I think in practice it only leads to client implementations that end up relying on the leniency and thus failing to work with another server that's lenient in slightly different ways. So, should a server exposing some API be lenient or is that a very bad idea? Now onto lenient handling of user input. Consider YouTrack (a bug tracking software). It uses a language for text entry that is reminiscent of Markdown. Except that it's "lenient". For example, writing - foo - bar - baz is not a documented way of creating a bulleted list, and yet it worked. Consequently, it ended up being used a lot throughout our internal bugtracker. Next version comes out, and this lenient feature starts working slightly differently, breaking a bunch of lists that (mis)used this (non)feature. The documented way to create bulleted lists still works, of course. So, should my software be lenient in what user inputs it accepts?

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• PASS Summit Location follow up - result analysis

  - by simonsabin

  I've had a chance to look at the results directly and it is clear that there is a tough choice. On the one hand people are saying that they prefer to have PASS put their money into chapters and things like 24hrs of PASS rather than an event on the east coast. Whilst at the same time almost 50% more people said they would be more likely to attend an East Coast event than a Seattle event, and 60% more said they would be more likley to attend a US Central region event. Whats more 60% said that the summit should be outside of Seattle every other year with only 19% saying it should always stay in Seattle. So clearly there is a huge desire for a non Seattle event. Looking at the other reasons for keeping in Seattle and the big one being that people want Microsoft speakers. More people think its somewhat important of very important that the conference is in walking distance of the hotels and restaurants. Essentially the Q6 questions show an even balance for normal conference, highlighting that they are prepared to travel, not with the family and they want a well laid out conference. Whats very annoying is that the questions, as people have commented, were biased towards certain answers. For instance there was no option about whether people feel its important to have industry leading speakers, MVPs etc at the conference. Only questions about Microsoft speakers. I know survey writing is very difficult to avoid biasing the answers one way or another. There was also no choice to show peoples preference, would people prefer Microsoft speakers or the summit to be held on the East Coast/Central US. I also find it amazing that people prefer hundres of developers rather than the SQLCAT and CSS teams, surely that indicates another issue about a lack of understanding of what the these teams do. All in all it is clear that people showed they want an event outside of Seattle and don't want PASS to be putting money into that instead of into other community activites. I find it suprising that there appears to have been a huge weighting against certain questions which have prioritised them over the huge desire for a PASS summit outside of Seattle. Lets see where we will be in 2013 or maybe they will rethink 2012 who knows.

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• Are we ready for the Cloud computing era?

  - by andrewkatumba

  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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} "Elite?" developer circles are abuzz with the notion of Cloud computing . The increasing bandwidth, the desire for faster and leaner operations and ofcourse the need for outsourcing non core it related business requirements e.g wordprocessing, spreadsheets, data backups. In strolls Chrome OS (am sure other similar OSes will join with their own wagons for us to jump on), offering just that, internet based services(more like a repository of), quick efficient and "reliable" and for the most part cheap and often time even free! And we all go rhapsodic!  It boils down to the age old dilemma, "if the cops are so busy protecting us then who will protect them" (even the folks back at Hollywood keep us reminded)! Who is going to ensure that these internet based services do not go down(either intentionally or by some malicious third party) leading to a multinational colossal disaster .At the risk of sounding pessimistic,  IT IS NOT AN ISSUE OF TRUST, this is but a mere case of Murphy's Law!  What then? Should the "cloud" be trusted to this extent at this time?  This is an era where challenges are rapidly solved with lightning promptness to "beat the competition", my hope is that our solutions are not just creating problems that we may not be able to solve!  Keeping my ear on the Ground.

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• What is 'Ubuntu Unity' (for the Desktop)?

  - by Martin

  Ok, so there's the buzz of Canonical (wanting to) switch for new Ubuntu version from the GNOME default desktop to their own Unity shell. (I hope that's accurate.) It seems I can not totally fathom what Unity actually is. For looking at its homepage it currently is firmly targeted at netbooks and the somehow different usage model on these. Is it a classical desktop? -- Taskbar? Shortcuts? Is the difference between Ubuntu(GNOME)+Unity more/less pronounced than the difference between Ubuntu and Kubuntu? Will "my parents" be able to get the interface if they've been using the classical gnome desktop so far? Edit: I would not like to split this up into more specific questions, as What is Unity? is exactly what the people I set up Ubuntu boxes for will ask me if they hear that the newer Ubuntu version is using that instead of the Desktop -- and it might well happen someone phrases it like that :-) I will certainly not give them the link to the HP as the explanation there does not lay out if it is a desktop or something more or something less: (It does not for me - therefore I'm asking here.) Unity is designed for netbooks and related touch-based devices. It includes [...] that makes it fast and easy to access [...] while removing screen elements that are rarely used in mobile and netbook computing. (emphasis mine) -- the explanation there doesn't even mention the desktop-PC! Unity has a vertical task management panel on the left-hand side and a menu panel at the top of the screen. [...] This sounds like a re-themed normal desktop. Clicking on an icon will give the target application focus if it is already running or launch it if it is not already running. If you click the ... Aha. Sounds like Windows 7. ... icon of an application that already has focus, Unity will activate an Expose-style view of all the open windows associated with that application. No clue what that's supposed to be. So it would really be nice if someone could explain for non desktop-design-terms experts what Unity is.

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• The battle between Java vs. C#

  The battle between Java vs. C# has been a big debate amongst the development community over the last few years. Both languages have specific pros and cons based on the needs of a particular project. In general both languages utilize a similar coding syntax that is based on C++, and offer developers similar functionality. This being said, the communities supporting each of these languages are very different. The divide amongst the communities is much like the political divide in America, where the Java community would represent the Democrats and the .Net community would represent the Republicans. The Democratic Party is a proponent of the working class and the general population. Currently, Java is deeply entrenched in the open source community that is distributed freely to anyone who has an interest in using it. Open source communities rely on developers to keep it alive by constantly contributing code to make applications better; essentially they develop code by the community. This is in stark contrast to the C# community that is typically a pay to play community meaning that you must pay for code that you want to use because it is developed as products to be marketed and sold for a profit. This ties back into my reference to the Republicans because they typically represent the needs of business and personal responsibility. This is emphasized by the belief that code is a commodity and that it can be sold for a profit which is in direct conflict to the laissez-faire beliefs of the open source community. Beyond the general differences between Java and C#, they also target two different environments. Java is developed to be environment independent and only requires that users have a Java virtual machine running in order for the java code to execute. C# on the other hand typically targets any system running a windows operating system and has the appropriate version of the .Net Framework installed. However, recently there has been push by a segment of the Open source community based around the Mono project that lets C# code run on other non-windows operating systems. In addition, another feature of C# is that it compiles into an intermediate language, and this is what is executed when the program runs. Because C# is reduced down to an intermediate language called Common Language Runtime (CLR) it can be combined with other languages that are also compiled in to the CLR like Visual Basic (VB) .Net, and F#. The allowance and interaction between multiple languages in the .Net Framework enables projects to utilize existing code bases regardless of the actual syntax because they can be compiled in to CLR and executed as one codebase. As a software engineer I personally feel that it is really important to learn as many languages as you can or at least be open to learn as many languages as you can because no one language will work in every situation.  In some cases Java may be a better choice for a project and others may be C#. It really depends on the requirements of a project and the time constraints. In addition, I feel that is really important to concentrate on understanding the logic of programming and be able to translate business requirements into technical requirements. If you can understand both programming logic and business requirements then deciding which language to use is just basically choosing what syntax to write for a given business problem or need. In regards to code refactoring and dynamic languages it really does not matter. Eventually all projects will be refactored or decommissioned to allow for progress. This is the way of life in the software development industry. The language of a project should not be chosen based on the fact that a project will eventually be refactored because they all will get refactored.

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• How to Overcome or fix MIXED_DML_OPERATION error in Salesforce APEX without future method ?

  - by sathya

  How to Overcome or fix MIXED_DML_OPERATION error in Salesforce APEX without future method ?MIXED_DML_OPERATION :-one of the worst issues we have ever faced :)While trying to perform DML operation on a setup object and non-setup object in a single action you will face this error.Following are the solutions I tried and the final one worked out :-1. perform the 1st objects DML on normal apex method. Then Call the 2nd objects DML through a future method.    Drawback :- You cant get a response from the future method as its context is different and because its executing asynchronously and that its static.2. Tried the following option but it didnt work :-    1. perform the dml operation on the normal apex method.    2. tried calling the 2nd dml from trigger thinking that it would be in a different context. But it didnt work.    3. Some suggestions were given in some blogs that we could try System.runas()   Unfortunately that works only for test class.   4. Finally achieved it with response synchronously through the following solution :-    a. Created 2 apex:commandbuttons :-        1. <apex:commandButton value="Save and Send Activation Email" action="{!CreateContact}"  rerender="junkpanel" oncomplete="callSimulateUserSave()">            Note :- Oncomplete will not work if you dont have a rerender attribute. So just try refreshing a junk panel.        2. <apex:commandButton value="SimulateUserSave" id="SimulateUserSave" action="{!SaveUser}"  style="display:none;margin-left:5px;"/>        Have a junk panel as well just for rerendering  :-        <apex:outputPanel id="junkpanel"></apex:outputPanel>    b. Created this javascript function which is called from first button's oncomplete and clicks the second button :-                function callSimulateUserSave()                {                    // Specify the id of the button that needs to be clicked. This id is based on the Apex Component Hierarchy.                    // You will not get this value if you dont have the id attribute in the button which needs to be clicked from javascript                    // If you have any doubt in getting this value. Just hover over the button using Chrome developer tools to get the id.                    // But it will show like theForm:SimulateUserSave but you need to replace the colon with a dot here.                    // Note :- I have given display:none in the style of the second button to make sure that, it is not visible for the user.                    var mybtn=document.getElementById('{!$Component.theForm.SimulateUserSave}');                                    mybtn.click();                }    c. Apex Methods CreateContact and SaveUser are the pagereference methods which contains the code to create contact and user respectively.       After inserting the user inside the second apex method you can just set some public Properties in the page,        for ex:- created userid to get the user details and display in the page to show the acknowledgement to the users that the User is created.

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• News From EAP Testing

  - by Fatherjack

  There is a phrase that goes something like “Watch the pennies and the pounds/dollars will take care of themselves”, meaning that if you pay attention to the small things then the larger things are going to fare well too. I am lucky enough to be a Friend of Red Gate and once in a while I get told about new features in their tools and have a test copy of the software to trial. I got one of those emails a week or so ago and I have been exploring the SQL Prompt 6 EAP since then. One really useful feature of long standing in SQL Prompt is the idea of a code snippet that is automatically pasted into the SSMS editor when you type a few key letters. For example I can type “ssf” and then press the tab key and the text is expanded to SELECT * FROM. There are lots of these combinations and it is possible to create your own really easily. To create your own you use the Snippet Manager interface to define the shortcut letters and the code that you want to have put in their place. Let’s look at an example. Say I am writing a blog about something and want to have the demo code create a temporary table. It might looks like this; The first time you run the code everything is fine, a lovely set of dates fill the results grid but run it a second time and this happens.   Yep, we didn’t destroy the temporary table so the CREATE statement fails when it finds the table already exists. No matter, I have a snippet created that takes care of this.   Nothing too technical here but you will see that in the Code section there is $CURSOR$, this isn’t a TSQL keyword but a marker for SQL Prompt to place the cursor in that position when the Code is pasted into the SSMS Editor. I just place my cursor above the CREATE statement and type “ifobj” – the shortcut for my code to DROP the temporary table – which has been defined in the Snippet Manager as below. This means I am right-away ready to type the name of the offending table. Pretty neat and it’s been very useful in saving me lots of time over many years.   The news for SQL Prompt 6 is that Red Gate have added a new Snippet Command of $PASTE$. Let’s alter our snippet to the following and try it out   Once again, we will type type “ifobj” in the SSMS Editor but first of all, highlight the name of the table #TestTable and copy it to your clipboard. Now type “ifobj” and press Tab… Wherever the string $PASTE$ is placed in the snippet, the contents of your clipboard are merged into the pasted TSQL. This means I don’t need to type the table name into the code snippet, it’s already there and I am seeing a fully functioning piece of TSQL ready to run. This means it is it even easier to write TSQL quickly and consistently. Attention to detail like this from Red Gate means that their developer tools stay on track to keep winning awards year after year and help take the hard work out of writing neat, accurate TSQL. If you want to try out SQL Prompt all the details are at http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-prompt/.

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• Pathfinding for fleeing

  - by Philipp

  As you know there are plenty of solutions when you wand to find the best path in a 2-dimensional environment which leads from point A to point B. But how do I calculate a path when an object is at point A, and wants to get away from point B, as fast and far as possible? A bit of background information: My game uses a 2d environment which isn't tile-based but has floating point accuracy. The movement is vector-based. The pathfinding is done by partitioning the game world into rectangles which are walkable or non-walkable and building a graph out of their corners. I already have pathfinding between points working by using Dijkstras algorithm. The use-case for the fleeing algorithm is that in certain situations, actors in my game should perceive another actor as a danger and flee from it. The trivial solution would be to just move the actor in a vector in the direction which is opposite from the threat until a "safe" distance was reached or the actor reaches a wall where it then covers in fear. The problem with this approach is that actors will be blocked by small obstacles they could easily get around. As long as moving along the wall wouldn't bring them closer to the threat they could do that, but it would look smarter when they would avoid obstacles in the first place: Another problem I see is with dead ends in the map geometry. In some situations a being must choose between a path which gets it faster away now but ends in a dead end where it would be trapped, or another path which would mean that it wouldn't get that far away from the danger at first (or even a bit closer) but on the other hand would have a much greater long-term reward in that it would eventually get them much further away. So the short-term reward of getting away fast must be somehow valued against the long-term reward of getting away far. There is also another rating problem for situations where an actor should accept to move closer to a minor threat to get away from a much larger threat. But completely ignoring all minor threats would be foolish, too (that's why the actor in this graphic goes out of its way to avoid the minor threat in the upper right area): Are there any standard solutions for this problem?

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• WiX, MSDeploy and an appealing configuration/deployment paradigm

  - by alexhildyard

  I do a lot of application and server configuration; I've done this for many years and have tended to view the complexity of this strictly in terms of the complexity of the ultimate configuration to be deployed. For example, specific APIs aside, I would tend to regard installing a server certificate as a more complex activity than, say, copying a file or adding a Registry entry.My prejudice revolved around the idea of a sequential deployment script that not only had the explicit prescription to apply a specific server configuration, but also made the implicit presumption that the server in question was in a good known state. Scripts like this fail for hundreds of reasons -- the Default Website didn't exist; the application had already been deployed; the application had already been partially deployed and failed to rollback fully, and so on. And so the problem is that the more complex the configuration activity, the more scope for error in any individual part of that activity, and therefore the greater the chance the server in question will not end up at exactly the desired configuration level.Recently I was introduced to a completely different mindset, which, for want of a better turn of phrase, I will call the "make it so" mindset. It's extremely simple both to explain and to implement. In place of the head-down, imperative script you used to use, you substitute a set of checks -- much like exception handlers -- around each configuration activity, starting with a check of the current system state. Thus the configuration logic becomes: "IF these services aren't started then start them, and IF XYZ website doesn't exist then create it, and IF these shares don't exist then create them, and IF these shares aren't permissioned in some particular way, then permission them so." This works. Really well, in my experience. Scenario 1: You want to get a system into a good known state; it's already in a good known state; you quickly realise there is nothing to do.Scenario 2: You want to get the system into a good known state; your script is flawed or the system is bust; it cannot be put into that state. You know exactly where (at least part of) the problem is and why.Scenario 3: You want to get the system into a good known state; people are fiddling around with the system just now. That's fine. You do what you can, and later you come back and try it againScenario 4: No one wants to deploy anything; they want you to prove that the previous deployment was successful. So you re-run the deployment script with the "-WhatIf" flag. It reports that there was nothing to change. There's your proof.I mentioned two technologies in the title -- MSI and MSDeploy. I am thinking specifically of the conversation that took place here. Having worked with both technologies, I think Rob Mensching's response is appropriately nuanced, and in essence the difference is this: sometimes your target is either to achieve a specific new server state, or to rollback to a known good one. Then again, your target may be to configure what you can, and to understand what you can't. Implicitly MSDeploy's "rollback" is simply to redeploy the previous version, whereas a well-crafted MSI will actively put your system into that state without further intervention. Either way, if all goes well it will leave you with a system in one of two states, whereas MSDeploy could leave your system in one of many states. The key is that MSDeploy and MSI are complementary technologies; which suits you best depends as much on Operational guidance as your Configuration remit.What I wanted to say was that I have always been for atomic, transactional-based configuration, but having worked with the "make it so" paradigm, I have been favourably impressed by the actual results. I'm tempted to put a more technical post up on this in due course.

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