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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, October 18, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, October 18, 2012Popular ReleasesGac Library -- C++ Utilities for GPU Accelerated GUI and Script: Gaclib 0.4.0.0: Gaclib.zip contains the following content GacUIDemo Demo solution and projects Public Source GacUI library Document HTML document. Please start at reference_gacui.html Content Necessary CSS/JPG files for document. Improvements to the previous release Added Windows 8 theme (except tab control, will be provided for the next release) GacUI will choose to use Windows 7 theme or Windows 8 theme as default theme according to OS version Added 1 new demos Template.Window.CustomizedBorder ...Yahoo! UI Library: YUI Compressor for .Net: Version 2.1.1.0 - Sartha (BugFix): - Revered back the embedding of the 2x assemblies.Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Branching and Merging Guide: v2.1 - Visual Studio 2012: Welcome to the Branching and Merging Guide What is new? The Version Control specific discussions have been moved from the Branching and Merging Guide to the new Advanced Version Control Guide. The Branching and Merging Guide and the Advanced Version Control Guide have been ported to the new document style. See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/willy-peter_schaub/archive/2012/10/17/alm-rangers-raising-the-quality-bar-for-documentation-part-2.aspx for more information. Quality-Bar Details Documentatio...D3 Loot Tracker: 1.5.5: Compatible with 1.05.Write Once, Play Everywhere: MonoGame 3.0 (BETA): This is a beta release of the up coming MonoGame 3.0. It contains an Installer which will install a binary release of MonoGame on windows boxes with the following platforms. Windows, Linux, Android and Windows 8. If you need to build for iOS or Mac you will need to get the source code at this time as the installers for those platforms are not available yet. The installer will also install a bunch of Project templates for Visual Studio 2010 , 2012 and MonoDevleop. For those of you wish...Windawesome: Windawesome v1.4.1 x64: Fixed switching of applications across monitors Changed window flashing API (fix your config files) Added NetworkMonitorWidget (thanks to weiwen) Any issues/recommendations/requests for future versions? This is the 64-bit version of the release. Be sure to use that if you are on a 64-bit Windows. Works with "Required DLLs v3".CODE Framework: 4.0.21017.0: See change log in the Documentation section for details.Global Stock Exchange (Hobby Project): Global Stock Exchange - Invst Banking (Hobby Proj): Initial VersionMagelia WebStore Open-source Ecommerce software: Magelia WebStore 2.1: Add support for .net 4.0 to Magelia.Webstore.Client and StarterSite version 2.1.254.3 Scheduler Import & Export feature (for Professional and Entreprise Editions) UTC datetime and timezone support .net 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012 migration client magelia global refactoring release of a nugget package to help developers speed up development http://nuget.org/packages/Magelia.Webstore.Client optimization of the data update mechanism (a.k.a. "burst") Performance improvment of the d...JayData - The cross-platform HTML5 data-management library for JavaScript: JayData 1.2.2: JayData is a unified data access library for JavaScript to CRUD + Query data from different sources like OData, MongoDB, WebSQL, SqLite, HTML5 localStorage, Facebook or YQL. The library can be integrated with Knockout.js or Sencha Touch 2 and can be used on Node.js as well. See it in action in this 6 minutes video Sencha Touch 2 example app using JayData: Netflix browser. What's new in JayData 1.2.2 For detailed release notes check the release notes. Revitalized IndexedDB providerNow you c...JaySvcUtil - generate JavaScript context from OData metadata: JaySvcUtil 1.2.2: You will need the JayData library to use contexts generated with JaySvcUtil! Get it from here: http://jaydata.codeplex.comVFPX: FoxcodePlus: FoxcodePlus - Visual Studio like extensions to Visual FoxPro IntelliSense.Droid Explorer: Droid Explorer 0.8.8.8 Beta: fixed the icon for packages on the desktop fixed the install dialog closing right when it starts removed the link to "set up the sdk for me" as this is no longer supported. fixed bug where the device selection dialog would show, even if there was only one device connected. fixed toolbar from having "gap" between other toolbar removed main menu items that do not have any menus Fiskalizacija za developere: FiskalizacijaDev 1.0: Prva verzija ovog projekta, još je uvijek oznacena kao BETA - ovo znaci da su naša testiranja prošla uspješno :) No, kako mi ne proizvodimo neki software za blagajne, tako sve ovo nije niti isprobano u "realnim" uvjetima - svaka je sugestija, primjedba ili prijava bug-a je dobrodošla. Za sve ovo koristite, molimo, Discussions ili Issue Tracker. U ovom trenutku runtime binary je raspoloživ kao Any CPU za .NET verzije 2.0. Javite ukoliko trebaju i verzije buildane za 32-bit/64-bit kao i za .N...Squiggle - A free open source LAN Messenger: Squiggle 3.2 (Development): NOTE: This is development release and not recommended for production use. This release is mainly for enabling extensibility and interoperability with other platforms. Support for plugins Support for extensions Communication layer and protocol is platform independent (ZeroMQ, ProtocolBuffers) Bug fixes New /invite command Edit the sent message Disable update check NOTE: This is development release and not recommended for production use.AcDown????? - AcDown Downloader Framework: AcDown????? v4.2: ??●AcDown??????????、??、??、???????。????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。 ●??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown??????????????????，????????????????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ???? 32??64? ???Linux ????(1)????????Windows XP???，????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)，?????"?????????"??? (2)???????????Linux???，????????Mono?? ??2...PHPExcel: PHPExcel 1.7.8: See Change Log for details of the new features and bugfixes included in this release, and methods that are now deprecated. Note changes to the PDF Writer: tcPDF is no longer bundled with PHPExcel, but should be installed separately if you wish to use that 3rd-Party library with PHPExcel. Alternatively, you can choose to use mPDF or DomPDF as PDF Rendering libraries instead: PHPExcel now provides a configurable wrapper allowing you a choice of PDF renderer. See the documentation, or the PDF s...DirectX Tool Kit: October 12, 2012: October 12, 2012 Added PrimitiveBatch for drawing user primitives Debug object names for all D3D resources (for PIX and debug layer leak reporting)Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.70: Fixed issue described in discussion #399087: variable references within case values weren't getting resolved.GoogleMap Control: GoogleMap Control 6.1: Some important bug fixes and couple of new features were added. There are no major changes to the sample website. Source code could be downloaded from the Source Code section selecting branch release-6.1. Thus just builds of GoogleMap Control are issued here in this release. Update 14.Oct.2012 - Client side access fixed NuGet Package GoogleMap Control 6.1 NuGet Package FeaturesBounds property to provide ability to create a map by center and bounds as well; Setting in markup <artem:Goog...New ProjectsAnonymous InfoPath Browser Forms Web Part: Web part for SharePoint 2007 and 2010 that enables the anonymous submission of InfoPath forms.ath sem5 gr3 proj1: just a simple app to learn how to work in groups, just a start in our programming careerAtif M DNNTaskManager: This is a simple task manager AWS for .NET Sample (Amazon EC2, S3, SQS, DynamoDB): Amazon Web Services (AWS) Sample for .NET (C#) with Asp.NET MVC and Web API. Including S3, DynamoDB, Elastic Beanstalk and SQSCodingWheels.DataTypes: DataTypes tries to make it easier for developers to have concrete typesafe objects for working with many common forms of data. Many times these data objects are just doubles or ints floating through your code with abbreviations on them describing what they represent.Display attachments (list view) SP 2010: Display attachments (SP 2010) is a field for all type lists without types: Document library, Image library, Links, Surveys.Donation Tracker: This is a school projectEveHQ : The Internet Spaceship Toolkit: Multi-faceted character application for Eve-Online. Includes pilot monitoring, skill queue planning, ship fitting, industry and more.EventConni: EventConniFileCloud.Net: FileCloud.NET is a .Net wrapper for http://filecloud.io/ service API.Foodies: FoodiesForce PowerPivot Refresh: This project contains an c# utility class (CustomDataRefreshUtils) to refresh a PowerPivot file in SharePoint 2010. Geometric Modeling: REnder a mesh with Visual Studio - C#Heavysoft Mince: Heavysoft Mince is an opportunity to enhance my skills and to show how free software can be used in enterprise-level systems.HP iLO Management Utility: A small utility to provide a nice interface for managing multiple servers over the iLO interface.iMeeting: iMeeting is a simple application built in Java. iTask: iTask for Windows 8 LamWebOS: this is test project.MackProjects_Musicallis: Projeto da disciplina de Técnicas de Programação Aplicada II da Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - SP.Merge PDF: MergePDF is an easy and simple tool which could help you batch merge PDF files (any number you want) into one PDF file quickly. It is completely free. With MerNetGen: O NetGen é um projeto de geração automatizada de interface Web em ASP.NET a partir de modelo de classes do LINQ-TO-SQL, estando disponível como um Addin para o Visual Studio 2008.Other Ways: ?? ! ????!!!!!Physical Therapy Timer: A simple Windows application that makes it easy to set a countdown timer for a required time period, and keep track of how many times the timer has be run.PicoMax: This version of PicoMax has everything you need to use the Seeed OLED without the MS Graphics class. It can be used in Gadgeteer or a regular NETMF project.post tracker: ASP, WEB API, WINDOWS PhoneRandomEngine: Open Source Game Engine.Resident Raver: This is Windows 8 version of Resident Raver which I wrote for my Intro To HTML5 Game Dev book. It requires the Impact JavaScript game framework.RogueTS: RogueTS is a Roguelike engine written in TypeScript. It features randomly generated maps, basic lighting effects, collision detection and additional stub code.RonYeeStores: ????????????，??C2C?B2C???????????。ShangHaiTunnel monitor: shang hai tunnel projectSharePoint List Security: Free, open source set of features for SharePoint 2010 to enhance the OOTB list permissions by adding column level permissions for users and groups.Skywave Code Lines Counter: It is a tiny program which will count real written lines of code. Real lines means that we removed autogenerated lines, empty lines and single '{' or '}' lines (in C#) and ... Currently supports .cs and .vb files (for C# and VB) It will say how much you worked ;-)switchcontroles: HAT Switch controle sy seguimientoSyscore: Steps : 1 - Definitions 2 - Requirements 3 - Projecting 4 - Delegation 5 - Prototyping 6 - Testing/Analizing 7 - Finalizing 8 - Distribution 9 - Congratulationstarikscodeplexproject: tarikscodeplexprojectTaskManager04: This project is an effort to implement the coding examples given in the TASK MANAGER video series into a working DotNetNuke program.testc: this is a test ,heihei,yongshengtesttom10172012git01: fds fs fs fs tsUnit - TypeScript Unit Testing Framework: tsUnit is a unit testing framework for TypeScript, written in TypeScript. It allows you to encapsulate your test functions in classes and modules.WebGrease: WebGrease is a suite of tools for optimizing javascript, css files and images.????: ??《?????》、《??》、《???》、《??》???。。。

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• The Buzz at the JavaOne Bookstore

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  I found my way to the JavaOne bookstore, a hub of activity. Who says brick and mortar bookstores are dead? I asked what was hot and got two answers: Hadoop in Practice by Alex Holmes was doing well. And Scala for the Impatient by noted Java Champion Cay Horstmann also seemed to be a fast seller. Hadoop in PracticeHadoop is a framework that organizes large clusters of computers around a problem. It is touted as especially effective for large amounts of data, and is use such companies as  Facebook, Yahoo, Apple, eBay and LinkedIn. Hadoop in Practice collects nearly 100 Hadoop examples and presents them in a problem/solution format with step by step explanations of solutions and designs. It’s very much a participatory book intended to make developers more at home with Hadoop.The author, Alex Holmes, is a senior software engineer with more than 15 years of experience developing large-scale distributed Java systems. For the last four years, he has gained expertise in Hadoop solving Big Data problems across a number of projects. He has presented at JavaOne and Jazoon and is currently a technical lead at VeriSign.At this year’s JavaOne, he is presenting a session with VeriSign colleague, Karthik Shyamsunder called “Java: A Perfect Platform for Data Science” where they will explain how the Java platform has emerged as a perfect platform for practicing data science, and also talk about such technologies as Hadoop, Hive, Pig, HBase, Cassandra, and Mahout. Scala for the ImpatientSan Jose State University computer science professor and Java Champion Cay Horstmann is the principal author of the highly regarded Core Java. Scala for the Impatient is a basic, practical introduction to Scala for experienced programmers. Horstmann has a presentation summarizing the themes of his book on at his website. On the final page he offers an enticing summary of his conclusions:* Widespread dissatisfaction with Java + XML + IDEs               --Don't make me eat Elephant again * A separate language for every problem domain is not efficient               --It takes time to master the idioms* ”JavaScript Everywhere” isn't going to scale* Trend is towards languages with more expressive power, less boilerplate* Will Scala be the “one ring to rule them”?* Maybe              --If it succeeds in industry             --If student-friendly subsets and tools are created The popularity of both books echoed comments by IBM Distinguished Engineer Jason McGee who closed his part of the Sunday JavaOne keynote by pointing out that the use of Java in complex applications is increasingly being augmented by a host of other languages with strong communities around them – JavaScript, JRuby, Scala, Python and so forth. Java developers increasingly must know the strengths and weaknesses of such languages going forward.

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• TechEd 2012: Recap

  - by Tim Murphy

  TechEd this week was a great experience and I wanted to wrap it up with a summary post. First let me say a thank you to John and Jeff from GWB for supplying power, connectivity and a place to work in between sessions.  The blogging hub was a great experience in itself.  Getting to talk with other bloggers and other conference goers turned into a series of interesting conversations.  And where else can you almost end up in the day 1 highlights video? The sessions at TechEd were a mixed bag of value.  The Keynotes rocked, both figuratively and literally and most of the sessions that I want to were a good experience and had gems of information to take away.  There were a few exceptions though.  A couple of the sessions turned out to be sales jobs.  Nothing turns me off more than that (there will be some really honest comments on those surveys). TechEd re-enforced for me that much of the value is not in the sessions, but in the networking opportunities. I got to talk with several Microsoft team members and MVPs as well as some of the vendor representative for companies like Inrule and ComponentOne. Also got to expand both my local and extended community with discussions at meal times and waiting for sessions to start. I think this is one of the benefits that a lot of people don’t take advantage of in these conferences that should be a bigger part of the advertising. Exposure to a wide variety of topics, many of which I had not been able to make time for up to this point was envigorating.  The list of topic includes: Office 365, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, Metro, Azure.  I can’t wait to get back to work and dig into these subjects in more depth. The one complaint that I had and heard from other attendees was that there weren’t enough sessions that were actually about development.  I realize that TechEd started as an event for IT Pros, but there needs to be more value for the Devs.  It all went by too fast and it will take a couple more days to digest the material, but the batteries are and I’m ready to leverage what I’ve learned.  Hopefully we will do it again next year. del.icio.us Tags: TechEd,TechEd 2012

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• Wesquare (NL) helps major CG customer integrating Oracle Service Cloud (RightNow) with JDEdwards

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE When this well known, Italy based, CG player claimed that they needed a new CRM tool, Oracle partner WeSquare had a precise idea of what would be required, knowing that the customer was using JDEdwards as an ERP: they immediately thoughts about a solution that would help synchronizing the customer’s back-end system with the new CRM interface. The customer asked for presentations from three companies, including Oracle, and eventually selected Oracle Service Cloud (RightNow) with Alfa Sistemi (Oracle Platinum Partner) as a System Integrator supported by Wesquare (Oracle Gold partner specialized in RightNow). Synchronizing an On Premises ERP with a new SaaS based CRM platform could be seen as an uphill task, but WeSquare was determined, during the presales cycle, to prove that they had the skills and the attitude to make the difference. So, they rolled up their sleeves and got to it: five days of relentless work, missed lunches, and hours of brainstorming showed its result in the form of a new interface that works fabulously well with the JDEdwards ERP back-end and was successfully pitched by Oracle to the end-customer to win the deal! WeSquare took the occasion to learn that they can integrate Oracle Service Cloud (RightNow) with practically every other solution that a customer may run. As part of the project, WeSquare was also involved in different add-on’s development with the aim of enriching Oracle Service Cloud’s functionality. WeSquare is based in The Netherlands with an in-shore practice supported by off-shore teams in India. WeSquare can integrate and synchronize any application with RightNow. For more information, visit www.wesquare.nl or contact Wiebe Blankenberg (Managing Director) at +31 (0) 6 3632 1104 /* 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Java EE 8 update

  - by delabassee

  Planning for Java EE 8 is now well underway. As you know, a few weeks ago, we conducted a three part Java EE 8 Community Survey (you can find the final summary here). The data gathered have been very influential for the next steps. You can now expect over the coming weeks and months to see updates on the various specifications that compose the Java EE platform. Some Specification Leads are busy gathering additional feedback regarding what they should focus their efforts on (e.g. CDI 2 survey). Other Specification Leads have already publicly exposed what they think should be one of the focus for the evolution of the specification they lead.  For example, adding Server-Senet Events (SSE) support in JAX-RS is being discussed here and adding MVC support is being discussed here. Please remember that the fact we are now discussing any feature does not insure that it will be included in the proposal, nor in any particular update to Java EE. We can expect additional enhancements, changes and evolutions as we get closer to the finalisation of the different specifications... and there is still a long way to go with these specification proposals! Linda DeMichiel, Java EE Co-Specification Lead, has recently posted a draft proposal for the Java EE 8 Platform specification. Linda's goal is to recruit people and companies supporting this proposal before submitting it to the JCP.  This draft proposal is very interesting reading as it contains relevant information on the plans for Java EE 8 such as : The themes: Support for the latest web standards (eg. HTTP 2.0)  Continue to work on ease of development Improve the infrastructure for cloud support Alignment with Java SE 8 New JSRs to be added to the platform: J-Cache Java API for JSON Binding Java Configuration Plans for the Web Profile Plans on technologies to prune in Java EE 8, ... So if you haven't done it yet, I really encourage you to read the Java EE 8 draft proposal! Our goal for the Java EE 8 specification is for it to be finalized in the second half of 2016. It is important to note that we are in the early days of Java EE 8 and at this stage everything (themes, content, timing, etc.) is preliminary. Everything still needs to be discussed, challenged and agreed within the different Java Community Process (JCP) Experts Groups (EGs). Some EGs that still need to be formed! It could also means that the roadmap will have to be adjusted to follow the progress being made in the different EGs. This is also a good occasion to remind you that participation within those upcoming JCP Experts Groups is encouraged. Contributing in an EG is an effective lever to influence what Java EE 8 will become! Finally, as things get more concrete, we will share details on how to engage in the different Java EE 8 related Adopt-a-JSR initiatives, another way to contribute. You can also read other posts related to Java EE 8, here at The Aquarium blog. Just look for articles with the 'javaee8' tag.

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• Multiple country-specific domains or one global domain [closed]

  - by CJM

  Possible Duplicate: How should I structure my urls for both SEO and localization? My company currently has its main (English) site on a .com domain with a .co.uk alias. In addition, we have separate sites for certain other countries - these are also hosted in the UK but are distinct sites with a country-specific domain names (.de, .fr, .se, .es), and the sites have differing amounts of distinct but overlapping content, For example, the .es site is entirely in Spanish and has a page for every section of the UK site but little else. Whereas the .de site has much more content (but still less than the UK site), in German, and geared towards our business focus in that country. The main point is that the content in the additional sites is a subset of the UK, is translated into the local language, and although sometimes is simply only a translated version of UK content, it is usually 'tweaked' for the local market, and in certain areas, contains unique content. The other sites get a fraction of the traffic of the UK site. This is perfectly understandable since the biggest chunk of work comes from the UK, and we've been established here for over 30 years. However, we are wanting to build up our overseas business and part of that is building up our websites to support this. The Question: I posed a suggestion to the business that we might consider consolidating all our websites onto the .com domain but with /en/de/fr/se/etc sections, as plenty of other companies seem to do. The theory was that the non-english sites would benefit from the greater reputation of the parent .com domain, and that all the content would be mutually supporting - my fear is that the child domains on their own are too small to compete on their own compared to competitors who are established in these countries. Speaking to an SEO consultant from my hosting company, he feels that this move would have some benefit (for the reasons mentioned), but they would likely be significantly outweighed by the loss of the benefits of localised domains. Specifically, he said that since the Panda update, and particularly the two sets of changes this year, that we would lose more than we would gain. Having done some Panda research since, I've had my eyes opened on many issues, but curiously I haven't come across much that mentions localised domain names, though I do question whether Google would see it as duplicated content. It's not that I disagree with the consultant, I just want to know more before I make recommendations to my company. What is the prevailing opinion in this case? Would I gain anything from consolidating country-specific content onto one domain? Would Google see this as duplicate content? Would there be an even greater penalty from the loss of country-specific domains? And is there anything else I can do to help support the smaller, country-specific domains?

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• How to manage a Closed Source High-Risk Project?

  - by abel

  I am currently planning to develop a J2EE website and wish to bring in 1 developer and 1 web designer to assist me. The project is a financial app with a niche market. I plan to keep the source closed . However, I fear that my would-be employees could easily copy the codebase and use it /sell it to a third party especially when they switch jobs. The app development will take 4-6months and perhaps more and I may have to bring in people after the app goes live. How do I keep the source to myself. Are there techniques companies use to guard their source. I foresee disabling pendrives and dvd writers on my development machines, but uploading data or attaching the code in one's mail would still be possible. My question is incomplete. But programmers who have been in my situation, please advice. How should I go about this? Building a team, maintaining code-secrecy,etc. I am looking forward to sign a secrecy contract with the employees if needed too. (Please add relevant tags) Update Thank you for all the answers. I certainly won't be disabling all USB ports and DVD writers now. But I think I should be logging activity(How exactly should I do that?) I am wary of scalpers who would join and then run off with the existing code. I haven't met any, but I have been advised to be wary of them. I would include a secrecy clause, but given this is a startup with almost no funding and in a highly competitive business niche with bigger players in the field, I doubt I would be able to detect or pursue any scalpers. How do I hire people I trust, when I don't know them personally. Their resume will be helpful but otherwise trust will develop only with time. But finally even if they do run away with the code, it is service that matters after the sale is made. So I am not really worried for the long term.

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• Focusing on Mobile @ Oracle OpenWorld

  - by Carlos Chang

  Plenty of exciting trends in the industry today: Cloud, Big Data, Mobile, etc. The first two are amazing of course, but for me, it's mobile, mobile and... MOBILE.   Why? Think back to the mozilla browser (Marc Andreessen's mozilla, not today's mozilla.org), Netscape and the nascent beginnings of the World Wide Web. Amazing times. Companies were just starting to set up their home pages, basic HTML, hyperlinks, images, ooooh, aaaah.  Yahoo! was *the* search engine back then. :-\   Anywhoo, I would pose that mobile today, we are in a similar junction. Sure, there's millions of apps on Apple's App Store and Google Play, but within the enterprise, it's just getting started. I'm talking about going beyond the simple, tactical apps such as calendaring, contacts or directory service lookup. And while mobile first a common mantra, I'm referring to mobile plus which includes and looks upon the whole enterprise holistically and adds new parameters, such as your GPS location, perhaps even your vital signs. (Apple's health kit?)  Everything is going mobile. Everything connected. But with the enterprise - scalability, security, integration, app management, user management, etc. Amazing times ahead. Ok, got that off my mind. Oracle OpenWorld 2014 - Going Mobile!  If you're coming to the big dance, I've highlighted some key mobile sessions below. And if you see me around, and there's a bar within reach, high five me for a beer. I mean, if you read this far, and didn't already jump to the list below, I think you deserve one.   Cheers!  Monday, 9/29/14 at 10:15 AM - General Session: Time for You to Rethink Mobile? Oracle Mobile Strategy and Roadmap Tuesday, 9/30/14 @ 12:00 PM; MW3020 - Develop and Deploy Mobile Applications with Oracle’s Mobile Wednesday, 10/1/2014 @10:15 AM; MW 3022 Introduction to Oracle Mobile Application Framework Wednesday, 10/1/2014 @11:30 AM Accelerate Enterprise Mobility with Oracle Mobile Cloud Service Click here to view the complete Focus on Mobile sessions at this years Oracle OpenWorld 2014, and don't forget to follow @OracleMobile on Twitter. 

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• Common SOA Problems by C2B2

  - by JuergenKress

  SOA stands for Service Oriented Architecture and has only really come together as a concrete approach in the last 15 years or so, although the concepts involved have been around for longer. Oracle SOA Suite is based around the Service Component Architecture (SCA) devised by the Open SOA collaboration of companies including Oracle and IBM. SCA, as used in SOA suite, is designed as a way to crystallise the concepts of SOA into a standard which ensures that SOA principles like the separation of application and business logic are maintained. Orchestration or Integration? A common thing to see with many people who are beginning to either build a new SOA based infrastructure, or move an old system to be service oriented, is confusion in the purpose of SOA technologies like BPEL and enterprise service buses. For a lot of problems, orchestration tools like BPEL or integration tools like an ESB will both do the job and achieve the right objectives; however it’s important to remember that, although a hammer can be used to drive a screw into wood, that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do it. Service Integration is the act of connecting components together at a low level, which usually results in a single external endpoint for you to expose to your customers or other teams within your organisation – a simple product ordering system, for example, might integrate a stock checking service and a payment processing service. Process Orchestration, however, is generally a higher level approach whereby the (often externally exposed) service endpoints are brought together to track an end-to-end business process. This might include the earlier example of a product ordering service and couple it with a business rules service and human task to handle edge-cases. A good (but not exhaustive) rule-of-thumb is that integrations performed by an ESB will usually be real-time, whereas process orchestration in a SOA composite might comprise processes which take a certain amount of time to complete, or have to wait pending manual intervention. BPEL vs BPMN For some, with pre-existing SOA or business process projects, this decision is effectively already made. For those embarking on new projects it’s certainly an important consideration for those using Oracle SOA software since, due to the components included in SOA Suite and BPM Suite, the choice of which to buy is determined by what they offer. Oracle SOA suite has no BPMN engine, whereas BPM suite has both a BPMN and a BPEL engine. SOA suite has the ESB component “Mediator”, whereas BPM suite has none. Decisions must be made, therefore, on whether just one or both process modelling languages are to be used. The wrong decision could be costly further down the line. Design for performance: Read the complete article here. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Technorati Tags: C2B2,SOA best practice,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Microsoft Azure News: Capturing VM Images

  - by Herve Roggero

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/hroggero/archive/2014/05/21/microsoft-azure-news-capturing-vm-images.aspxIf you have a Virtual Machine (VM) in Microsoft Azure that has a specific configuration, it used to be difficult to clone that VM. You had to sysprep the VM, and clone the data disks. This was slow, prone to errors, and stopped you from being productive. No more! A new option, called Capture, allows you to easily select a VM, running or not. The capture will copy the OS disk and data disks and create a new image out of it automatically for you. This means you can now easily clone an entire VM without affecting productivity.  To capture a VM, simply browse to your Virtual Machines in the Microsoft Azure management website, select the VM you want to clone, and click on the Capture button at the bottom. A window will come up asking to name your image. It took less than 1 minute for me to build a clone of my server. And because it is stored as an image, I can easily create a new VM with it. So that’s what I did… And that took about 5 minutes total.  That’s amazing…  To create a new VM from your image, click on the NEW icon (bottom left), select Compute/Virtual Machine/From Gallery, and select My Images from the left menu when selecting an Image. You will find your newly created image. Because this is a clone, you will not be prompted for a new login; the user id/password is the same. About Herve Roggero Herve Roggero, Microsoft Azure MVP, @hroggero, is the founder of Blue Syntax Consulting (http://www.bluesyntaxconsulting.com). Herve's experience includes software development, architecture, database administration and senior management with both global corporations and startup companies. Herve holds multiple certifications, including an MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD. He also holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from Indiana University. Herve is the co-author of "PRO SQL Azure" and “PRO SQL Server 2012 Practices” from Apress, a PluralSight author, and runs the Azure Florida Association.

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• Why do I always think I know much less than others? [closed]

  - by John Kenedy

  I have been in programming since primary 6. Since the time DOS comes, I have been doing programming in quickbasic 4.5, then to VB 6, then to C#. In between I also do programming in C++. But every time I open Stack Overflow and trying to help others answering their problems, it seems that I know nothing. I feel that I am so stupid even I have been in programming for so long. I would shock reading all the questions and unable to find any clue. Is technology moving too fast that left out me? I feel that technology changes too fast and I can't keep up, when I know ASP.NET web form, MVC is out, when I know MVC, android/iphone/HTML5 app is popular. It seems that I am chasing something and never reach 'it'. I don't know whether this is correct place for me to talk about this. I just wish to listen to opinion like you, how do you think technology should grow instead of recreating language, adding bug here and there to let programmer figure it out, while big company share the solution among themselves. This is exactly how I feel. The simple example is how do you think why doesn't Dictionary<> in .NET provide iterating the object using index? Why must we use Key or GetEnumerator(). Developer has to google and read wasted hour of hour of time to find pieces of hack code to use reflection to achieve reading from index. Where developer will keep it as collection and valuable code. HOwever when times come, everything changes again, developer has to find answer for new silly problems again! Yes, I really hate it! I hate how many big companies are playing with the developer by cutting a big picture into small puzzle and messing it up and asking developer to place it together themselves. As if they are creating problems for us to solve it, so we are unable to grow upfront, we are being manipulated by those silly problems they have created. Another sample would how difficult to collect Cookies from CookieContainer without passing the URL, yes without the URL and I WANT to get all cookie in the cookiecontainer without knowing the URL, I want to iterate all. Why does micros0ft have to limit me from doing that?

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• Avoiding the Black Hole of Leads

  - by Charles Knapp

  Sales says, "Marketing doesn’t deliver enough qualified leads. So, we generate 90% of our own leads." Meanwhile, Marketing says, "We generate most of the leads. But, Sales doesn’t contact them quickly enough, while the lead is still interested." According to Sirius Decisions: Up to 90% of leads never make it to closure Sales works on only 11% of the leads supplied by Marketing Only 18% of the leads Sales accepts convert to opportunities Yet, 45% of prospects typically buy a product from someone within 12 months The root cause of these commonplace complaints is a disconnect between the funnels of marketing and sales. Unfortunately, we often see companies with an assortment of poorly integrated marketing tools. It takes too long and too many people to move the data around, scrub it, upload it from one system to another, and get it routed to the right sales teams. As a result, leads fall through the cracks, contextual information is lost, and by the time sales actually contacts a customer it may be too late. Sales automation alone is not enough. Marketing automation (including social) is not enough. Sales and Marketing must work together. It’s time to connect the silos of marketing and sales pipelines and analytics. It’s time for integrated Sales and Marketing automation. Integrated pipelines improve lead quality and timeliness. Marketing systems can track a rich set of contextual information about a prospect–self-disclosed information about interests, content viewed, and so on. This insight can equip the sales rep with rich information to make a face-to-face conversation more relevant and more likely to convert to the next stage in the sales process. Integrated lead to revenue (LTR) management provides end-to-end visibility, enabling the company to measure what is working. Marketing can measure its impact on revenue and other business outcomes, and sales can harness and redirect marketing investments to areas where they most help achieve sales objectives. It’s a win-win play. Marketing delivers more leads that are qualified, cuts cost per lead, and demonstrates a strong Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI). Sales spends more time with warm leads and less time on cold calls, achieves higher close rates, and delivers more revenue. Learn more by attending our Integrated Sales and Marketing session at the upcoming CloudWorld conferences. Or, visit our Sales and Marketing Cloud Service site for videos and other learning resources.

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• Good, simple reasons for having multiple environments

  - by smp7d

  Throughout my career I had worked at companies that had a collection of different environments for different purposes. We always had more or less our desktop environment, a test environment, a QA environment, a staging environment and a production environment. This went for both servers/applications and any data sources we were using. When I started at my current company I found that 90% of the apps were either developed on a desktop environment against production data sources or developed directly on the production server depending on the platform. I wasn't fazed because I was hired in part to make changes to improve the way the development team functioned, which was clear from my interview process. We slowly started to turn the philosophy and pretty soon, most of the apps could be run in either a desktop, test or production environment. Not too long after that staging came around as well. Now most of our developers see the benefit of this methodology and defend it vigilantly. However, we have a number of legacy apps that never got migrated. We also have a number of legacy programmers who think of this as a waste of time. Unfortunately, we got lip service but never full buy-in from management. We got what we thought was a commitment to invest substantially in this about a year ago, but nothing materialized despite the considerable planning that we put into it. Now we are finding that we need more and more environments. We need help from the server/network administration teams for setup and we need participation from the business stakeholders to support the release cycle. We are at a place now where a project can function what I consider "normally" only if you have the right people on the project and the time to set up the proper environments. I'd love to present a complete argument, but management really has no time and interest in hearing me out until there is a critical issue. I can't really articulate the benefits simply as it always just seemed second nature to me. I was wondering if there are any good, simple, irrefutable reasons for the separation of environments that would get managers with no development experience to get behind this idea. Are there any good resources/literature on the topic?

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• Facial Recognition for Retail

  - by David Dorf

  My son decided to do his science project on how the brain recognizes faces.  Faces are so complicated and important that the brain has a dedicated area for just that purpose.  During our research, we came across some emerging uses for facial recognition in the retail industry. If you believe the movies, recognizing faces as they walk by a camera is easy for computers but that's not the reality.  Huge investments are being made by the U.S. government in this area, with a focus on airport security.  Now, companies like Eye See are leveraging that research for marketing purposes.  They do things like track eyes while viewing newspaper ads to see which ads get more "eye time."  This can help marketers make better placement and color decisions. But what caught my eye (that was too easy) was their new mannequins that watch shoppers.  These mannequins, being tested at European retailers like Benetton, watch shoppers that walk by and identify their gender, race, and age.  This helps the retailer better understand the types of customers being attracted to the outfit on the mannequin.  Of course to be most accurate, the software has pictures of the employees so they can be filtered out.  Since the mannequins are closer to the shoppers and at eye-level, they are more accurate than traditional in-ceiling LP cameras. Marketing agency RedPepper is offering retailers the ability to recognize loyalty shoppers at their doors using Facedeal.  For customers that have opted into the program, when they enter the store their face is recognized and they are checked in.  Then, as a reward, they are sent an offer on their smartphone. It won't be long before retailers begin to listen to shoppers are they walk the aisles, then keywords can be collected and aggregated to give the retailer an idea of what people are saying about their stores and products.  Sentiment analysis based on what's said or even facial expressions can't be far off. Clearly retailers need to be cautions and respect customer privacy.  That's why these technologies are emerging slowly.  But since the next generation of shoppers are less concerned about privacy, I expect these technologies to appear sporadically in the next five years then go mainstream.  Time will tell.

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• Java Cloud Service for developers

  - by JuergenKress

  The advent of cloud computing has reinvented application development for many companies. “That’s the beauty of the cloud,” says Cameron Purdy, vice president of development, Oracle. “It dramatically improves developer productivity because they can do what they do best without having to manage complex development, testing, staging, and production environments.” The key is to find a platform that doesn’t impose proprietary restrictions or force developers to learn new tools. For example, Oracle Java Cloud Service is an enterprise-grade platform as a service for building and deploying Java EE, Oracle WebLogic Server, and Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) applications. “It’s designed to be flexible and easy to use,” says Purdy. “And it is also a standards-based solution -it’s not proprietary and there is no cloud lock-in. Developers get instant access to an enterprise-grade environment for a simple, monthly subscription.” Oracle Java Cloud Service instances are created with just a few clicks, so businesses can create a rich application development environment within minutes. Running on Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Exalogic, the underlying infrastructure also leverages Oracle Fusion Middleware’s integration with common services. For example, instances come integrated and preconfigured with optimized Oracle Database and Oracle Identity Management configurations. Based on Oracle Enterprise Manager, the Oracle Java Cloud Service console lets customers easily manage and monitor their Oracle Java Cloud Service instances. The open nature of the Oracle Java Cloud Service lets developers integrate through Web services such as SOAP and REST APIs, as well as use their favorite developer tools, whether they are out-of-the-box tools such as Maven and Ant or the productivity features built into Oracle JDeveloper, Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse, or NetBeans IDE. The service allows for the seamless movement of applications between on-premise Oracle WebLogic Server domains and instances of Oracle Java Cloud Service within Oracle Cloud. This approach allows flexibility to mix and match the use of on-premise environments with cloud instances for development, test, and production environments. Visit to learn more and watch videos about Oracle Java Cloud Service. WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. BlogTwitterLinkedInMixForumWiki Technorati Tags: java,cloud,oracle cloud,java cloud,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Link instead of Attaching

  - by Daniel Moth

  With email storage not being an issue in many companies (I think I currently have 25GB of storage on my email account, I don’t even think about storage), this encourages bad behaviors such as liberally attaching office documents to emails instead of sharing a link to the document in SharePoint or SkyDrive or some file share etc. Attaching a file admittedly has its usage scenarios too, but it should not be the default. I thought I'd list the reasons why sharing a link can be better than attaching files directly. In no particular order: Better Review. It allows multiple recipients to review the file and their comments are aggregated into a single document. The alternative is everyone having to detach the document, add their comments, then send back to you, and then you have to collate. Wirth the alternative, you also potentially miss out on recipients reading comments from other recipients. Always up to date. The attachment becomes a fork instead of an always up to date document. For example, you send the email on Thursday, I only open it on Tuesday: between those days you could have made updates that now I am missing because you decided to share a link instead of an attachment. Better bookmarking. When I need to find that document you shared, you are forcing me to search through my email (I may not even be running outlook), instead of opening the link which I have bookmarked in my browser or my collection of links in my OneNote or from the recent/pinned links of the office app on my task bar, etc. Can control access. If someone accidentally or naively forwards your link to someone outside your group/org who you’d prefer not to have access to it, the location of the document can be protected with specific access control. Can add more recipients. If someone adds people to the email thread in outlook, your attachment doesn't get re-attached - instead, the person added is left without the attachment unless someone remembers to re-attach it. If it was a link, they are immediately caught up without further actions. Enable Discovery. If you put it on a share, I may be able to discover other cool stuff that lives alongside that document. Save on storage. So this doesn't apply to me given my opening statement, but if in your company you do have such limitations, attaching files eats up storage on all recipients accounts and will also get "lost" when those people archive email (and lose completely at some point if they follow the company retention policy). Like I said, attachments do have their place, but they should be an explicit choice for explicit reasons rather than the default. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Cloud Infrastructure has a new standard

  - by macoracle

  I have been working for more than two years now in the DMTF working group tasked with creating a Cloud Management standard. That work has culminated in the release today of the Cloud Infrastructure Management Interface (CIMI) version 1.0 by the DMTF. CIMI is a single interface that a cloud consumer can use to manage their cloud infrastructure in multiple clouds. As CIMI is adopted by the cloud vendors, no more will you need to adapt client code to each of the proprietary interfaces from these multiple vendors. Unlike a de facto standard where typically one vendor has change control over the interface, and everyone else has to reverse engineer the inner workings of it, CIMI is a de jure standard that is under change control of a standards body. One reason the standard took two years to create is that we factored in use cases, requirements and contributed APIs from multiple vendors. These vendors have products shipping today and as a result CIMI has a strong foundation in real world experience. What does CIMI allow? CIMI is both a model for the resources (computing, storage networking) in the cloud as well as a RESTful protocol binding to HTTP. This means that to create a Machine (guest VM) for example, the client creates a “document” that represents the Machine resource and sends it to the server using HTTP. CIMI allows the resources to be encoded in either JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) or the eXentsible Markup Language (XML). CIMI provides a model for the resources that can be mapped to any existing cloud infrastructure offering on the market. There are some features in CIMI that may not be supported by every cloud, but CIMI also supports the discovery of which features are implemented. This means that you can still have a client that works across multiple clouds and is able to take full advantage of the features in each of them. Isn’t it too early for a standard? A key feature of a successful standard is that it allows for compatible extensions to occur within the core framework of the interface itself. CIMI’s feature discovery (through metadata) is used to convey to the client that additional features that may be vendor specific have been implemented. As multiple vendors implement such features, they become candidates to add the future versions of CIMI. Thus innovation can continue in the cloud space without being slowed down by a lowest common denominator type of specification. Since CIMI was developed in the open by dozens of stakeholders who are already implementing infrastructure clouds, I expect to CIMI being adopted by these same companies and others over the next year or two. Cloud Customers who can see the benefit of this standard should start to ask their cloud vendors to show a CIMI implementation in their roadmap.  For more information on CIMI and the DMTF's other cloud efforts, go to: http://dmtf.org/cloud

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 10-24-2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Play Oracle Vanquisher Here's a little respite from whatever it is you normally spend your time on. Oracle Vanquisher is an online diversion that makes a game of data center optimization. According to the description: "Armed with a cool Oracle vacuum pack suit and a strategic IT roadmap, you will thwart threats and optimize your data center to increase your company’s stock price and boost your company's position." Mainly you avoid electric shock and killer birds. The current high score belongs to someone identified as "TEN." My score? Never mind. Book: DevOps for Developers | The Java Source The subject of DevOps has come up in a couple of recent OTN ArchBeat Podcasts, so it's somewhat serendipitous that Tori Weildt's recent blog post offers an overview of Java Champion Michael Hutterman's new book, DevOps for Developers, now available from Apress. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) : Context is everything… | The ORACLE-BASE Blog BOYD is a factor in the evolution of IT, but in what context? "The real IT work in companies is still being done on PCs," says Oracle ACE Director Tim Hall. "Yes, you can use a cloud service on your phone, but look around the office and you will see those cloud services are actually being used by people on PCs." Oracle in the Cloud: Oracle EBusiness Suite sizing | Tom Laszewski Cloud expert Tom Laszewski shares several technical resources that will be helpful for sizing of Oracle EBusiness Suite. Setting Up, Configuring, and Using an Oracle WebLogic Server Cluster Author and expert Yuli Vasiliev shows you how take advantage of multiple Oracle WebLogic Server instances grouped into a cluster to maximize scalability and availability. Webcast: Reduce Costs with Oracle's Database Storage Management Watch this! Join Oracle experts Kevin Jernigan and Margaret Hamburger for an interactive webcast in which you'll learn how Oracle's Database Storage Management can reduce storage costs and management complexity while improving query performance to meet service-level agreements and compliance requirements. Event Date: Tuesday, November 6, 2012 Event Time: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET Thought for the Day "Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves." — Alan Kay Source: softwarequotes.com

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• Reasons to Use a VM For Development

  - by George Stocker

  Background: I work at a start-up company, where one team uses Virtual Machines to connect to a remote server to do their development, and another team (the team I'm on) uses local IIS/SQL Server 2005/Visual Studio installations to conduct work. Team VM is located about 1000 miles from Team Non-VM, and the servers the VMs run off of are located near Team VM (Latency, for those that are wondering, is about 50ms). A person high in the company is pushing for Team Non-VM to use virtual machines for programming, development, and testing. The latter point we agree on -- we want Virtual Machines to test configurations and various aspects of the web application in a 'clean' state. The Problem: What we don't agree on is having developers using RDP to connect to a desktop remotely that contains Visual Studio, SQL Server, and IIS to do the same development we could do locally on our laptops. I've tried the VM set-up, and besides the color issue, there is a latency issue that is rather noticeable, not to mention that since we're a start-up, a good number of employees work from home on occasion with our work laptops, and this move would cut off the laptops. They'd be turned in. Reasons to Use Remote VMs for Development (Not Testing!): Here are the stated reasons that this person wants us to use VMs: They work for TeamVM. They keep the source code "safe". If we want to work from home, we could just use our home PCs. Licenses (I don't know what the argument is, only that it's been used). Reasons not to use Remote VMs for Development: Here are the stated reasons why we don't want to use VMs: We like working from home. We get a lot done on our own time. We're not going to use our Home PCs to do work related stuff. The Latency is noticeable. Support for the VMs (if they go down, or if we need a new VM) takes a while. We don't have administrative privileges on the VM, and are unable to change settings as needed. What I'm looking for from the community is this: What reasons would you give for not using VMs for development? Keep in mind these are remote VMs -- this isn't a VM running on a local desktop. It's using the laptop (or a desktop) as a thin client for a remote VM. Also, on the other side of the coin: Is there something we're missing that makes VMs more palatable for development? Edit: I think 'safe' is used in term of corporate espionage, or more correctly if the Laptop gets stolen, the person who stole would have access to our source code. The former (as we've pointed out, is always going to be a possibility -- companies stop that with litigation, there isn't a technical solution (so far as I can see)). The latter point is ( though I don't know its usefulness in a corporate scenario) mitigated by Truecrypt'ing the entire volume.

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• Enterprise with eyes on NoSQL

  - by thegreeneman

  Since joining Oracle a few months back, I have had the fortune of being able to interact with a number of large enterprise organizations and discuss their current state of adoption for NoSQL database technology.   It is worth noting that a large percentage of these organizations do have some NoSQL use and have been steadily increasing their understanding of its applicability for certain data management workloads.   Thru those discussions I’ve learned that it seems one of the biggest issues confronting enterprise adoption of NoSQL databases is the lack of standards for access, administration and monitoring.    This was not so much of an issue with the early adopters of NoSQL technology because they employed a highly DevOps centric approach to application deployment leaving a select few highly qualified developers with the task of managing the production of the system that they designed and implemented. However, as NoSQL technology moves out of the startup and into the hands of larger corporate entities, developers with a broad skill set that are capable of both development and I.T. type production management are in short supply and quickly get moved on to do new projects, often moving to different roles within the company.  This difference in the way smaller more agile startups operate as compared to more established companies is revealing a gap in the NoSQL technology segment that needs to get addressed.    This is one of places that a company such as Oracle has a leg up in the NoSQL Database front.  A combination of having gone thru a past database maturization process,  combined with a vast set of corporate relationships that have grown hand in hand to solve these types of issues, Oracle is in a great place to lead the way in closing the requirements gap for NoSQL technology.  Oracle's understanding of the needs specific to mature organizations have already made their way into the Oracle’s NoSQL Database offering with features such as:  One click cluster deployment with visual topology planning,  standards based monitoring protocols such as SNMP, support for data access for reporting via standard SQL  and integration with emerging standards for data access such as MapReduce.  Given the exciting developments we’re driving in the Oracle NoSQL Database group, I will have a lot more to say about this topic as we move into the second half of the year.

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• “It Isn’t Easy At All; Otherwise, Everyone Would Be Doing It”

  - by Kathryn Perry

  A few months ago, JP Saunders (pictured left), who leads the go-to-market initiatives for the Oracle CX Service offering, kicked off a series of articles about modern customer service. He contends that to take care of customers?and the people that support those customers?companies need to make it easy to deliver consistently great experiences. But it’s not easy; it’s an art. The six posts in The Art of Easy series will help you better understand some of the customer service challenges you face and how to avoid common pitfalls. We pulled them all together here in one post for continuity and easy access. Saunders introduces the series with The Art of Easy: Make It Easy To Deliver Great Customer Service Experiences (Part 1). The Art of Easy: Offer Self Service With the Emphasis on Service (Part 2) by David Fulton (pictured left): David Fulton, Director of Product Management, Oracle Service Cloud, shares five tenets of customer self service that move an organization closer to becoming a modern customer service business. Easy Decisions For Complex Problems (Part 3) by Heike Lorenz (pictured right): Heike Lorenz, Director of Global Product Marketing, Policy Automation, writes about automating service policies to ensure that the correct decisions are being applied to the right people. The goal is to nurture the trusted relationships with customers during complex decision-making processes. Moving at the Speed of Easy (Part 4) by Chris Ulmand (pictured left): Chris Omland, Director of Product Management, Oracle Service Cloud, addresses the need for speed to keep up with customers’ expectations. His advice—start with a platform that enables agile innovation, respects a company’s unique needs, and has proven reliability to protect customer relationships. Knowledge Makes It Easy For Everyone (Part 5) by Nav Chakravarti (pictured rig: Vice President Nav Chakravarti, Oracle Service Cloud, talks about managing the knowledge that customers need and want. He coaches readers on delivering answers to customers’ questions easily, in context, with relevance, reliably, and accurately. Making Easy, Both Effective and Efficient (Part 6) by Melinda Uhland (pictured left): Melinda Uhland, Oracle CX Product Management teaches us that happy agents produce happy customers. A Modern Customer Service organization is one that invests in its agents and empowers them with tools to make them efficient and effective, which, in turn, improves customer results.

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• Can you work for the big (Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc.) without getting too much involved?

  - by Developer Art

  Having seen people talking about interviewing and working for the big companies, I keep wondering how much are you expected to actually get involved in there. 1) That's because I keep seeing folks from Google and Microsoft and others writing in forums, blogging, tweeting, speaking at conferences and seemingly doing this on the 24/7/365 basis from their office, apartment, hotel and even plane. Are you really expected to commit that much if you come to work for them? Do they want you to think about your work while you're eating, sleeping, taking a shower, making love and so on? Can you in fact "switch off" at five and go home forgetting everything? Perhaps you have a hobby, family life, kids, friends, personal projects anyone? Is it so that if you work for the big then you're expected not to have any life outside of the company? You can't develop own projects, have own clients and just have another life? 2) One other thing is the work contracts the big use. I've heard for instance that when you join Microsoft you need to provide a list of projects you're currently working on and after that anything new you'll come up with during your employment automatically belongs to the company. Are all of the big doing this? Can you deny signing a contract until such clause is removed or with the big it is "take it or leave it" because the legal department won't accept any change? Can you make them write the contract in that manner that they step away from anything you've developed in your private time? Of all the big I have only been at SAP during my internship. Lately while browsing through the old papers I've found my old contact which stipulated they owned everything I developed or invented during my employment, which I would never have signed these days. On a side note I don't think I would return to SAP since I remember most people there were clueless and provided the impression they were simply sitting out their years waiting for the retirement. But anyway, what do the other big put in their contracts? How far do you get involved when you go working for the big? Or perhaps fully committed with your body and soul? P.S. I'm not planning to join any of them I'm just curious.

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• How can we unify business goals and technical goals?

  - by BAM

  Some background I work at a small startup: 4 devs, 1 designer, and 2 non-technical co-founders, one who provides funding, and the other who handles day-to-day management and sales. Our company produces mobile apps for target industries, and we've gotten a lot of lucky breaks lately. The outlook is good, and we're confident we can make this thing work. One reason is our product development team. Everyone on the team is passionate, driven, and has a great sense of what makes an awesome product. As a result, we've built some beautiful applications that we're all proud of. The other reason is the co-founders. Both have a brilliant business sense (one actually founded a multi-million dollar company already), and they have close ties in many of the industries we're trying to penetrate. Consequently, they've brought in some great business and continue to keep jobs in the pipeline. The problem The problem we can't seem to shake is how to bring these two awesome advantages together. On the business side, there is a huge pressure to deliver as fast as possible as much as possible, whereas on the development side there is pressure to take your time, come up with the right solution, and pay attention to all the details. Lately these two sides have been butting heads a lot. Developers are demanding quality while managers are demanding quantity. How can we handle this? Both sides are correct. We can't survive as a company if we build terrible applications, but we also can't survive if we don't sell enough. So how should we go about making compromises? Things we've done with little or no success: Work more (well, it did result in better quality and faster delivery, but the dev team has never been more stressed out before) Charge more (as a startup, we don't yet have the credibility to justify higher prices, so no one is willing to pay) Extend deadlines (if we charge the same, but take longer, we'll end up losing money) Things we've done with some success: Sacrifice pay to cut costs (everyone, from devs to management, is paid less than they could be making elsewhere. In return, however, we all have creative input and more flexibility and freedom, a typical startup trade off) Standardize project management (we recently started adhering to agile/scrum principles so we can base deadlines on actual velocity, not just arbitrary guesses) Hire more people (we used to have 2 developers and no designers, which really limited our bandwidth. However, as a startup we can only afford to hire a few extra people.) Is there anything we're missing or doing wrong? How is this handled at successful companies? Thanks in advance for any feedback :)

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• In-Store Tracking Gets a Little Harder

  - by David Dorf

  Remember how Nordstrom was tracking shopper movements within their stores using the unique number, called a MAC, emitted by the WiFi radio in smartphones?  The phones didn't need to connect to the network, only have their WiFi enabled, as most people do by default.  They did this, presumably, to track shoppers' path to purchase and better understand traffic patterns.  Although there were signs explaining this at the entrances, people didn't like the notion of being tracked.  (Nevermind that there are cameras in the ceiling watching them.)  Nordstrom stopped the program. To address this concern the Future of Privacy, a Washington think tank, created Smart Store Privacy, a do-not-track service that allows consumers to register their MAC address in much the same way people register their phone numbers in the national do-not-call list.  A group of companies agreed to respect consumers' wishes and ignore smartphones listed in the database.  The database includes Bluetooth identifiers as well.  Of course you could simply turn your bluetooth and WiFi off when shopping as well. Most know that Apple prefers to use BLE beacons to contact and track smartphones within their stores.  This feature extends the typical online experience to also work in physical stores.  By identifying themselves, shoppers can expect a more tailored shopping experience much like what we've come to expect from Amazon's website, with product recommendations and offers that are (usually) relevant. But the upcoming release of iOS8 is purported to have a new feature that randomizes the WiFi MAC address of smartphones during the "probing" phase.  That is, before connecting to the WiFi network, a random MAC number is used so as to keep the smartphone's real MAC address secret.  Unless you actually connect to the store's WiFi, they won't recognize the MAC address. The details on this are still sketchy, but if the random MAC is consistent for a short period, retailers will still be able to track movements anonymously, but they won't recognize repeat visitors.  That may be sufficient for traffic analytics, but it will stymie target marketing.  In the case of marketing, using iBeacons with opt-in permission from consumers will be the way forward. There is always a battle between utility and privacy, so I expect many more changes in this area.  Incidentally, if you'd like to see where beacons are being used this site tracks them around the world.

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• List of common pages to have in the footer [closed]

  - by user359650

  I would like to post this question as a reference for webmasters wondering what pages they should include in the footer. I will use answers to complete my initial list: About us / About MyCompany / MyCompany About / About us: description about the company, its mission, and its vision. History: summary of milestones achieved by the company. The team / Management / Board of directors: depending on size of the company there may be one of more pages describing the people involved in the company, depending on their position. Awards: list of awards received by the company if any. In the press / They're talking about us: list of links to external websites, usually highly regarded news websites, which mentioned the company in one of their articles. Media Wallpapers: wallpapers with company logo in different colors and formats that fans can set as desktop image for their computer. logos: company logo in different colors and formats that websites/blogs posting about the website can use for illustration purposes. Media kits: documents, usually in PDF format summarizing the key company figures and facts that journalists can download and read to get a quick overview of the company. Misc Contact / Contact us: contact details the company is prepared to disclose if any (address, email, phone) or contact form. Careers / Jobs / Join us: list of open vacancies with contact form to apply. Investors / Partners / Publishers: information and contact forms for companies willing to become Investors/Partners/Publishers or login page to access portal restricted to those who already are. FAQ: list of common questions and answers to guide users and reduce number of support requests. Follow us / Community Facebook / Twitter / Google+: links to the company's pages/accounts on various social networks. Legal Terms / Terms of use / Terms & Conditions: rules users must follow when browsing the website. Privacy / Privacy Statement: explanations as to how the company deals with users' personal data and what users can do about it (request information to be deleted...). cookies: page that starts appearing on more and more websites due to new regulation (notably EU) imposing more transparency and control for users about cookies (e.g. BBC cookie page). Any input is welcome PS: if someone with enough rep could add the footer tag that would be great (min. 300 required).

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