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• Oracle OpenWorld Preview: Let's Get Social and Interactive

  - by Christie Flanagan

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size: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;} On this blog, we often write about getting social and interactive.  Usually, we’re talking about how to create a social business or how to make the customer experience more social and interactive.  Today’s topic is about getting social and interactive as well. But this time we’re talking about getting social and interactive the old fashioned way, face-to-face at Oracle OpenWorld with fellow Oracle WebCenter customers, partners and experts and the broader Oracle community.  Here are some great ways to get social at OpenWorld outside of the exhibition halls and meeting rooms: Oracle OpenWorld Welcome Reception - Sponsored by FujitsuSunday, September 30, 7:00 p.m.–8:30 p.m.Yerba Buena Gardens & Howard Street Tent You’ll definitely want to attend the Opening Ceremonies for Oracle OpenWorld 2012 on Sunday, September 30. Centered in Yerba Buena Gardens (YBG) and shimmying out to other venues, the Opening Ceremonies are not to be missed. Join other attendees for great food and drink, energizing music, networking opportunities, and more. While you’re at YBG (home of ORACLE TEAM USA’s America’s Cup Pavilion), be sure to meet the sailors who will be defending the 34th America’s Cup in 2013. Get a good look at the 161-year old Trophy itself—the oldest trophy still being contested in international sport. And at the AC72 boat display, view a model of the largest wingsail ever built. Oracle WebCenter Customer Appreciation ReceptionTuesday, October 2, 6:30 p.m.—9:30 p.m.The Palace Hotel, Rallston BallroomThose Oracle WebCenter customers who’ve RSVP’d to attend the Oracle WebCenter Customer Appreciation Reception shouldn’t miss this private cocktail reception at one of San Francisco’s finest hotels. Sponsored by Oracle WebCenter partners Fishbowl Solutions, Fujitsu, Keste, Mythics, Redstone Content Solutions, TEAM Informatics, and TekStream, this evening will provide plenty of time to interact with other WebCenter customers, partners and employees over hors d'oeuvres and cocktails. Oracle Appreciation Event – Sponsored by CSC, Fujitsu and IntelWednesday, October 3, 7:30 p.m.—1:00 a.m.Treasure Island, San Francisco On Wednesday night October 3, Treasure Island will be engineered to rock as the Oracle Appreciation Event gets revved up and attendees get rolling. As always at the Oracle Appreciation Event, there will be unlimited refreshments, fun and games, the most awesome views of San Francisco from just about anywhere, and top notch entertainment.  Past performers read like a veritable who’s who of the rock and roll elite. Join us—it's our way of saying thanks to you for supporting Oracle and our flagship conference. Complimentary shuttle service to and from Treasure Island will be provided, so all you have to worry about is having a rocking night of your own. Oracle OpenWorld Music FestivalSeptember 30-October 4, Check schedule for venues and times.Oracle presents the first annual Oracle OpenWorld Musical Festival, featuring some of today’s breakthrough musicians from around the country and the world including Macy Gray, Joss Stone, Jimmy Cliff and The Hives. It’s five nights of back-to-back performances in the heart of San Francisco. Registered Oracle conference attendees get free admission, so remember your badge when you head to a show. With limited space at some venues, these concerts are first-come, first-served. So mark your calendars and get ready for the music to begin. See you there!I hope this give you an idea of the many opportunities to socialize and interact with the Oracle community at OpenWorld, and if you’re a music lover like me, you’re in for a special treat as we debut our first annual Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival.  Check out the links below for more information on these events and the many featured performers: Reflections from the Young Prisms A Brief Soul Session with Joss Stone Mixing It Up with Blues Mix Red Meat’s Music is Rare and Well Done The English Beat’s Dave Wakeling Gets Philosophical Top Ten Reasons to Attend the Oracle Appreciation Event There’s Magic in the Air, There’ll Be Music Everywhere Looking forward to seeing you at OpenWorld!

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• Libnoise producing completely random noise

  - by Doodlemeat

  I am using libnoise in C++ taken and I have some problems with getting coherent noise. I mean, the noise produced now are completely random and it doesn't look like a noise. Here's a to the image produced by my game. I am diving the map into several chunks, but I can't seem to find any problem doing that since libnoise supports tileable noise. The code can be found below. Every chunk is 8x8 tiles large. Every tile is 64x64 pixels. I am also providing a link to download the entire project. It was made in Visual Studio 2013. Download link This is the code for generating a chunk Chunk *World::loadChunk(sf::Vector2i pPosition) { sf::Vector2i chunkPos = pPosition; pPosition.x *= mChunkTileSize.x; pPosition.y *= mChunkTileSize.y; sf::FloatRect bounds(static_cast<sf::Vector2f>(pPosition), sf::Vector2f(static_cast<float>(mChunkTileSize.x), static_cast<float>(mChunkTileSize.y))); utils::NoiseMap heightMap; utils::NoiseMapBuilderPlane heightMapBuilder; heightMapBuilder.SetSourceModule(mNoiseModule); heightMapBuilder.SetDestNoiseMap(heightMap); heightMapBuilder.SetDestSize(mChunkTileSize.x, mChunkTileSize.y); heightMapBuilder.SetBounds(bounds.left, bounds.left + bounds.width - 1, bounds.top, bounds.top + bounds.height - 1); heightMapBuilder.Build(); Chunk *chunk = new Chunk(this); chunk->setPosition(chunkPos); chunk->buildChunk(&heightMap); chunk->setTexture(&mTileset); mChunks.push_back(chunk); return chunk; } This is the code for building the chunk void Chunk::buildChunk(utils::NoiseMap *pHeightMap) { // Resize the tiles space mTiles.resize(pHeightMap->GetWidth()); for (int x = 0; x < mTiles.size(); x++) { mTiles[x].resize(pHeightMap->GetHeight()); } // Set vertices type and size mVertices.setPrimitiveType(sf::Quads); mVertices.resize(pHeightMap->GetWidth() * pHeightMap->GetWidth() * 4); // Get the offset position of all tiles position sf::Vector2i tileSize = mWorld->getTileSize(); sf::Vector2i chunkSize = mWorld->getChunkSize(); sf::Vector2f offsetPositon = sf::Vector2f(mPosition); offsetPositon.x *= chunkSize.x; offsetPositon.y *= chunkSize.y; // Build tiles for (int x = 0; x < mTiles.size(); x++) { for (int y = 0; y < mTiles[x].size(); y++) { // Sometimes libnoise can return a value over 1.0, better be sure to cap the top and bottom.. float heightValue = pHeightMap->GetValue(x, y); if (heightValue > 1.f) heightValue = 1.f; if (heightValue < -1.f) heightValue = -1.f; // Instantiate a new Tile object with the noise value, this doesn't do anything yet.. mTiles[x][y] = new Tile(this, pHeightMap->GetValue(x, y)); // Get a pointer to the current tile's quad sf::Vertex *quad = &mVertices[(y + x * pHeightMap->GetWidth()) * 4]; quad[0].position = sf::Vector2f(offsetPositon.x + x * tileSize.x, offsetPositon.y + y * tileSize.y); quad[1].position = sf::Vector2f(offsetPositon.x + (x + 1) * tileSize.x, offsetPositon.y + y * tileSize.y); quad[2].position = sf::Vector2f(offsetPositon.x + (x + 1) * tileSize.x, offsetPositon.y + (y + 1) * tileSize.y); quad[3].position = sf::Vector2f(offsetPositon.x + x * tileSize.x, offsetPositon.y + (y + 1) * tileSize.y); // find out which type of tile to render, atm only air or stone TileStop *tilestop = mWorld->getTileStopAt(heightValue); sf::Vector2i texturePos = tilestop->getTexturePosition(); // define its 4 texture coordinates quad[0].texCoords = sf::Vector2f(texturePos.x, texturePos.y); quad[1].texCoords = sf::Vector2f(texturePos.x + 64, texturePos.y); quad[2].texCoords = sf::Vector2f(texturePos.x + 64, texturePos.y + 64); quad[3].texCoords = sf::Vector2f(texturePos.x, texturePos.y + 64); } } } All the code that uses libnoise in some way are World.cpp, World.h and Chunk.cpp, Chunk.h in the project.

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• Computer Networks UNISA - Chap 8 &ndash; Wireless Networking

  - by MarkPearl

  After reading this section you should be able to Explain how nodes exchange wireless signals Identify potential obstacles to successful transmission and their repercussions, such as interference and reflection Understand WLAN architecture Specify the characteristics of popular WLAN transmission methods including 802.11 a/b/g/n Install and configure wireless access points and their clients Describe wireless MAN and WAN technologies, including 802.16 and satellite communications The Wireless Spectrum All wireless signals are carried through the air by electromagnetic waves. The wireless spectrum is a continuum of the electromagnetic waves used for data and voice communication. The wireless spectrum falls between 9KHZ and 300 GHZ. Characteristics of Wireless Transmission Antennas Each type of wireless service requires an antenna specifically designed for that service. The service’s specification determine the antenna’s power output, frequency, and radiation pattern. A directional antenna issues wireless signals along a single direction. An omnidirectional antenna issues and receives wireless signals with equal strength and clarity in all directions The geographical area that an antenna or wireless system can reach is known as its range Signal Propagation LOS (line of sight) uses the least amount of energy and results in the reception of the clearest possible signal. When there is an obstacle in the way, the signal may… pass through the object or be obsrobed by the object or may be subject to reflection, diffraction or scattering. Reflection – waves encounter an object and bounces off it. Diffraction – signal splits into secondary waves when it encounters an obstruction Scattering – is the diffusion or the reflection in multiple different directions of a signal Signal Degradation Fading occurs as a signal hits various objects. Because of fading, the strength of the signal that reaches the receiver is lower than the transmitted signal strength. The further a signal moves from its source, the weaker it gets (this is called attenuation) Signals are also affected by noise – the electromagnetic interference) Interference can distort and weaken a wireless signal in the same way that noise distorts and weakens a wired signal. Frequency Ranges Older wireless devices used the 2.4 GHZ band to send and receive signals. This had 11 communication channels that are unlicensed. Newer wireless devices can also use the 5 GHZ band which has 24 unlicensed bands Narrowband, Broadband, and Spread Spectrum Signals Narrowband – a transmitter concentrates the signal energy at a single frequency or in a very small range of frequencies Broadband – uses a relatively wide band of the wireless spectrum and offers higher throughputs than narrowband technologies The use of multiple frequencies to transmit a signal is known as spread-spectrum technology. In other words a signal never stays continuously within one frequency range during its transmission. One specific implementation of spread spectrum is FHSS (frequency hoping spread spectrum). Another type is known as DSS (direct sequence spread spectrum) Fixed vs. Mobile Each type of wireless communication falls into one of two categories Fixed – the location of the transmitted and receiver do not move (results in energy saved because weaker signal strength is possible with directional antennas) Mobile – the location can change WLAN (Wireless LAN) Architecture There are two main types of arrangements Adhoc – data is sent directly between devices – good for small local devices Infrastructure mode – a wireless access point is placed centrally, that all devices connect with 802.11 WLANs The most popular wireless standards used on contemporary LANs are those developed by IEEE’s 802.11 committee. Over the years several distinct standards related to wireless networking have been released. Four of the best known standards are also referred to as Wi-Fi. They are…. 802.11b 802.11a 802.11g 802.11n These four standards share many characteristics. i.e. All 4 use half duplex signalling Follow the same access method Access Method 802.11 standards specify the use of CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance) to access a shared medium. Using CSMA/CA before a station begins to send data on an 802.11 network, it checks for existing wireless transmissions. If the source node detects no transmission activity on the network, it waits a brief period of time and then sends its transmission. If the source does detect activity, it waits a brief period of time before checking again. The destination node receives the transmission and, after verifying its accuracy, issues an acknowledgement (ACT) packet to the source. If the source receives the ACK it assumes the transmission was successful, – if it does not receive an ACK it assumes the transmission failed and sends it again. Association Two types of scanning… Active – station transmits a special frame, known as a prove, on all available channels within its frequency range. When an access point finds the probe frame, it issues a probe response. Passive – wireless station listens on all channels within its frequency range for a special signal, known as a beacon frame, issued from an access point – the beacon frame contains information necessary to connect to the point. Re-association occurs when a mobile user moves out of one access point’s range and into the range of another. Frames Read page 378 – 381 about frames and specific 802.11 protocols Bluetooth Networks Sony Ericson originally invented the Bluetooth technology in the early 1990s. In 1998 other manufacturers joined Ericsson in the Special Interest Group (SIG) whose aim was to refine and standardize the technology. Bluetooth was designed to be used on small networks composed of personal communications devices. It has become popular wireless technology for communicating among cellular telephones, phone headsets, etc. Wireless WANs and Internet Access Refer to pages 396 – 402 of the textbook for details.

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• Yes, I did it - Skydiving in Mauritius

  Finally, I did it or better said we did it. Already back in November last year I saw the big billboard advertisement of Skydive Austral Mauritius near Caudan Waterfront in Port Louis and decided for myself that this is going to be the perfect birthday gift for my wife. Simply out of curiosity I would join her tandem jump with a second instructor. Due to her pregnancy of our son I had to be patient... But then finally, her birthday had arrived and on our midnight celebration session I showed her her netbook with the website preloaded. Actually, it was the "perfect" timing... Recovery from her cesarean is fine, local weather conditions are gorgious and the children were under surveillance of my mum - spending her annual holidays on the island. So, after late wake-up in the morning, we packed our stuff and off we went. According to Google Maps direction indication we had to drive for roughly 50km (only) but traffic here in Mauritius is always challenging. The dropzone is at the Zone Industrielle Mon Loisir Sugar Estate near Riviere du Rempart at the northern east coast. Anyways, we were not in a hurry and arrived there shortly after noon. The access road to the airfield are just small down-driven paths through sugar cane fields and according to our daughter "it's bumpy!". True true true... The facilities at Skydive Austral Mauritius are complete except for food. Enough space for parking, easy handling at the reception and a lot to see for the kids. There's even a big terrace with several sets of tables and chairs, small bar for soft drinks, strictly non-alcoholic. The team over there is all welcoming and warm-hearthy! Having the kids with us was no issue at all. Quite the opposite, our daugther was allowed to discover a lot of things than we adults did. Even visiting the small air plane was on the menu for her. Really great stuff! While waiting for our turn we enjoyed watching other people getting ready in the jump gear, taking off with the Cessna, and finally coming back down on the tandem parachute. Actually, the different expressions on their faces was one of the best parts while waiting. Great mental preparation as my wife was getting more anxious about her first jump... {loadposition content_adsense} First, we got some information about the procedures on the plane about how to get seated, tight up with our instructors and how to get ready for the jump off the plane as soon as we arrive the height of 10.000 ft. All well explained and easy to understand after all.Next, we met with our jumpers Chris and Lee aka "Rasta" to get dressed and ready for take-off. Those guys are really cool and relaxed for their job. From that point on, the DVD session / recording for my wife's birthday started and we really had a lot of fun... The difference between that small Cessna and a commercial flight with an Airbus or a Boeing is astronomic! The climb up to 10.000 ft took us roughly 25 minutes and we enjoyed the magnificent view over the turquoise lagunes near Poste de Flacq, Lafayette and Isle d'Ambre on the north-east coast. After flying through the clouds we sun-bathed and looked over "iced-sugar covered" Mauritius. You might have a look at the picture gallery of Skydive Mauritius for better imagination. The moment of truth, or better said, point of no return came after approximately 25 minutes. The door opens, moving into position on the side on top of the wheel and... out! Back flip and free fall! Slight turns and Wooooohooooo! through the clouds... It so amazing and breath-taking! So undescribable! You have to experience this yourself! Some seconds later the parachute opened and we glided smoothly with some turns and spins back down to the dropzone. The rest of the family could hear and see us soon and the landing was easy going. We never had any doubts or fear about our instructors. They did a great job and we are looking forward to book our next job. I might even consider to follow educational classes on skydiving and earn a license. By the way, feel free to get in touch with Skydive Austral Mauritius. Either via contact details on their website or tweeting a little bit with them. Follow the tweets of Chris and fellows on SkydiveAustral.

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• Easiest, most fun way to program 2D games? Flash? XNA? Some other engine?

  - by Maxi

  Hi, this is a post detailing my search for the most enjoyable way for a hobbyist game programmer to sweeten his free time with making a game. My requirements: I looked at Flash first, I made a couple of small games but I'm doubtful of the performance. I would like to make a fairly large strategy game, with several hundred units fighting simultaneously, explosions and animations included. Also zoomable maps. I saw that Adobe has a new 3D API for Flash, but I don't know if that improves 2D performance aswell, I couldn't find anything related to that question on their MAX10 sessions. Would you say that Flash is a good technology for making large 2D games easily? I really like Actionscript, and I love how easy everything is in Flash. There are several engines available which make it even easier. I just do this for fun, and it would be even better if there were proper animation/particle editors available and if the engine I were to use, would be available for multiple platforms. (so more people can play my game once finished). I'd like to have it available on many mobile platforms aswell. (because I love touch input for some reason) I do know the XNA framework pretty well, but there are no good engines available for it, and it will only run on Windows, which is a huge turn off. Even bigger is, that you need to install the XNA redistributable each time you want to give the game to someone. If I use XNA, I would have to make all the tools myself, and I'd probably have to make them with WPF. (I'd love to make tools with Adobe AIR, but unfortunately the API's for image manipulation etc. are far worse in Flash, than they are in XNA/WPF.) Now, I'm aware that I could make my own engine that supports each of those platforms, but quite frankly, that would be too much work plowing through APIs. After all, I want to make a game, not an engine. So the question becomes: Is there maybe a cross platform (free or free to develop?) engine available that I could use for 2D development? I prefer: C#, Actionscript. I don't mind using c++ if the toolset is above average, but I highly doubt that there is something out there like that. Please prove me wrong :) So summary: I'd like to use Flash, but I don't know if it scales well enough. I'm not a scripter, I want some real APIs that I can work with inside a proper IDE. Just for information, I looked at several alternatives, I'm actually looking for a long time already. You'd help me a lot to make a decision finally. Feature-wise the Flatredball engine would be ideal. But I tried their tools, and quite frankly, they are horrible. Absolutely unusable, I'd need to make my own for sure. I didn't look at their API, but if their tools are so bad, I'm not inclined to look further. Unity3D. This one is quite nice, but I really don't need 3D, and it is quite ...a lot of work to learn. I also don't like that it is so expensive to use for different platforms and that I can only code for it through scripting. You have to buy each platform separately. The editor usability is average, the product overall is good enough for most purposes, but learning it myself would be overkill. Shiva 3D. It looks good enough, but again: I don't really need 3D. The editor usability is a little worse than Unity3D in my opinion and it wasn't clear to me how to start programming. I think it requires C++ for coding, so that's a negative too. I want to have fun, and c# is fun ;) SDL. Quite frankly, I'd still need to port to all those different SDL implementations. And I don't like OpenGL style programming, it's just plain ugly. And it needs c++, I know that there might be some wrappers available, but I don't like to use wrappers, because... Irrlicht. A lot of features, but support seems to be low and it is aimed at enthusiasts. C# bindings get dropped repeatedly. I'm not an engine enthusiast, I just want to make a game. I don't see this happening with Irrlicht. Ogre3D. Way too much work, it's just a graphics engine. Also no multiple platform support and c++. Torque2D. Costs something to use, and I didn't hear a lot of good things about support and documentation. Also costs extra for each platform.

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• Data Binding to Attached Properties

  - by Chris Gardner

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/freestylecoding/archive/2013/06/14/data-binding-to-attached-properties.aspx When I was working on my C#/XAML game framework, I discovered I wanted to try to data bind my sprites to background objects. That way, I could update my objects and the draw functionality would take care of the work for me. After a little experimenting and web searching, it appeared this concept was an impossible dream. Of course, when has that ever stopped me? In my typical way, I started to massively dive down the rabbit hole. I created a sprite on a canvas, and I bound it to a background object. <Canvas Name="GameField" Background="Black"> <Image Name="PlayerStrite" Source="Assets/Ship.png" Width="50" Height="50" Canvas.Left="{Binding X}" Canvas.Top="{Binding Y}"/> </Canvas> Now, we wire the UI item to the background item. public MainPage() { this.InitializeComponent(); this.Loaded += StartGame; }   void StartGame( object sender, RoutedEventArgs e ) { BindingPlayer _Player = new BindingPlayer(); _Player.X = Window.Current.Bounds.Height - PlayerSprite.Height; _Player.X = ( Window.Current.Bounds.Width - PlayerSprite.Width ) / 2.0; } Of course, now we need to actually have our background object. public class BindingPlayer : INotifyPropertyChanged { private double m_X; public double X { get { return m_X; } set { m_X = value; NotifyPropertyChanged(); } }   private double m_Y; public double Y { get { return m_Y; } set { m_Y = value; NotifyPropertyChanged(); } }   public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; protected void NotifyPropertyChanged( [CallerMemberName] string p_PropertyName = null ) { if( PropertyChanged != null ) PropertyChanged( this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs( p_PropertyName ) ); } } I fired this baby up, and my sprite was correctly positioned on the screen. Maybe the sky wasn't falling after all. Wouldn't it be great if that was the case? I created some code to allow me to move the sprite, but nothing happened. This seems odd. So, I start debugging the application and stepping through code. Everything appears to be working. Time to dig a little deeper. After much profanity was spewed, I stumbled upon a breakthrough. The code only looked like it was working. What was really happening is that there was an exception being thrown in the background thread that I never saw. Apparently, the key call was the one to PropertyChanged. If PropertyChanged is not called on the UI thread, the UI thread ignores the call. Actually, it throws an exception and the background thread silently crashes. Of course, you'll never see this unless you're looking REALLY carefully. This seemed to be a simple problem. I just need to marshal this to the UI thread. Unfortunately, this object has no knowledge of this mythical UI Thread in which we speak. So, I had to pull the UI Thread out of thin air. Let's change our PropertyChanged call to look this. public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; protected void NotifyPropertyChanged( [CallerMemberName] string p_PropertyName = null ) { if( PropertyChanged != null ) Windows.ApplicationModel.Core.CoreApplication.MainView.CoreWindow.Dispatcher.RunAsync( Windows.UI.Core.CoreDispatcherPriority.Normal, new Windows.UI.Core.DispatchedHandler( () => { PropertyChanged( this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs( p_PropertyName ) ); } ) ); } Now, we raised our notification on the UI thread. Everything is fine, people are happy, and the world moves on. You may have noticed that I didn't await my call to the dispatcher. This was intentional. If I am trying to update a slew of sprites, I don't want thread being hung while I wait my turn. Thus, I send the message and move on. It is worth nothing that this is NOT the most efficient way to do this for game programming. We'll get to that in another blog post. However, it is perfectly acceptable for a business app that is running a background task that would like to notify the UI thread of progress on a periodic basis. It is worth noting that this code was written for a Windows Store App. You can do the same thing with WP8 and WPF. The call to the marshaler changes, but it is the same idea.

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• What is Happening vs. What is Interesting

  - by Geertjan

  Devoxx 2011 was yet another confirmation that all development everywhere is either on the web or on mobile phones. Whether you looked at the conference schedule or attended sessions or talked to speakers at any point at all, it was very clear that no development whatsoever is done anymore on the desktop. In fact, that's something Tim Bray himself told me to my face at the speakers dinner. No new developments of any kind are happening on the desktop. Everyone who is currently on the desktop is working overtime to move all of their applications to the web. They're probably also creating a small subset of their application on an Android tablet, with an even smaller subset on their Android phone. Then you scratch that monolithic surface and find some interesting results. Without naming any names, I asked one of these prominent "ah, forget about the desktop" people at the Devoxx speakers dinner (and I have a witness): "Yes, the desktop is dead, but what about air traffic control, stock trading, oil analysis, risk management applications? In fact, what about any back office application that needs to be usable across all operating systems? Here there is no concern whatsoever with 100% accessibility which is, after all, the only thing that the web has over the desktop, (except when there's a network failure, of course, or when you find yourself in the 3/4 of the world where there's bandwidth problems)? There are 1000's of hidden applications out there that have processing requirements, security requirements, and the requirement that they'll be available even when the network is down or even completely unavailable. Isn't that a valid use case and aren't there 1000's of applications that fall into this so-called niche category? Are you not, in fact, confusing consumer applications, which are increasingly web-based and mobile-based, with high-end corporate applications, which typically need to do massive processing, of one kind or another, for which the web and mobile worlds are completely unsuited?" And you will not believe what the reply to the above question was. (Again, I have a witness to this discussion.) But here it is: "Yes. But those applications are not interesting. I do not want to spend any of my time or work in any way on those applications. They are boring." I'm sad to say that the leaders of the software development community, including those in the Java world, either share the above opinion or are led by it. Because they find something that is not new to be boring, they move on to what is interesting and start talking like the supposedly-boring developments don't even exist. (Kind of like a rapper pretending classical music doesn't exist.) Time and time again I find myself giving Java desktop development courses (at companies, i.e., not hobbyists, or students, but companies, i.e., the places where dollars are earned), where developers say to me: "The course you're giving about creating cross-platform, loosely coupled, and highly cohesive applications is really useful to us. Why do we never find information about this topic at conferences? Why can we never attend a session at a conference where the story about pluggable cross-platform Java is told? Why do we get the impression that we are uncool because we're not on the web and because we're not on a mobile phone, while the reason for that is because we're creating $1000,000 simulation software which has nothing to gain from being on the web or on the mobile phone?" And then I say: "Because nobody knows you exist. Because you're not submitting abstracts to conferences about your very interesting use cases. And because conferences tend to focus on what is new, which tends to be web related (especially HTML 5) or mobile related (especially Android). Because you're not taking the responsibility on yourself to tell the real stories about the real applications being developed all the time and every day. Because you yourself think your work is boring, while in fact it is fascinating. Because desktop developers are working from 9 to 5 on the desktop, in secure environments, such as banks and defense, where you can't spend time, nor have the interest in, blogging your latest tip or trick, as opposed to web developers, who tend to spend a lot of time on the web anyway and are therefore much more inclined to create buzz about the kind of work they're doing." So, next time you look at a conference program and wonder why there's no stories about large desktop development projects in the program, here's the short answer: "No one is going to put those items on the program until you start submitting those kinds of sessions. And until you start blogging. Until you start creating the buzz that the web developers have been creating around their work for the past 10 years or so. And, yes, indeed, programmers get the conference they deserve." And what about Tim Bray? Ask yourself, as Google's lead web technology evangelist, how many desktop developers do you think he talks to and, more generally, what his frame of reference is and what, clearly, he considers to be most interesting.

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• Windows Phone 8 Announcement

  - by Tim Murphy

  As if the Surface announcement on Monday wasn’t exciting enough, today Microsoft announce that Windows Phone 8 will be coming this fall.  That itself is great news, but the features coming were like confetti flying in all different directions.  Given this speed I couldn’t capture every feature they covered.  A summary of what I did capture is listed below starting with their eight main features. Common Core The first thing that they covered is that Windows Phone 8 will share a core OS with Windows 8.  It will also run natively on multiple cores.  They mentioned that they have run it on up to 64 cores to this point.  The phones as you might expect will at least start as dual core.  If you remember there were metrics saying that Windows Phone 7 performed operations faster on a single core than other platforms did with dual cores.  The metrics they showed here indicate that Windows Phone 8 runs faster on comparable dual core hardware than other platforms. New Screen Resolutions Screen resolution has never been an issue for me, but it has been a criticism of Windows Phone 7 in the media.  Windows Phone 8 will supports three screen resolutions: WVGA 800 x 480, WXGA 1280 x 768, and 720 1280x720.  Hopefully this makes pixel counters a little happier. MicroSD Support This was one of my pet peeves when I got my Samsung Focus. With Windows Phone 8 the operating system will support adding MicroSD cards after initial setup.  Of course this is dependent on the hardware company on implementing it, but I think we have seen that even feature phone manufacturers have not had a problem supporting this in the past. NFC NFC has been an anticipated feature for some time.  What Microsoft showed today included the fact that they didn’t just want it to be for the phone.  There is cross platform NFC functionality between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8.  The demos , while possibly a bit fanciful, showed would could be achieved even in a retail environment.  We are getting closer and closer to a Minority Report world with these technologies. Wallet Windows Phone 8 isn’t the first platform to have a wallet concept.  What they have done to differentiate themselves is to make it sot that it is not dependent on a SIM type chip like other platforms.  They have also expanded the concept beyond just banks to other types of credits such as airline miles. Nokia Mapping People have been envious of the Lumia phones having the Nokia mapping software.  Now all Windows Phone 8 devices will use NavTeq data and will have the capability to run in an offline fashion.  This is a major step forward from the Bing “touch for the next turn” maps. IT Administration The lack of features for enterprise administration and deployment was a complaint even before the Windows Phone 7 was released.  With the Windows Phone 8 release such features as Bitlocker and Secure boot will be baked into the OS. We will also have the ability to privately sign and distribute applications. Changing Start Screen Joe Belfiore made a big deal about this aspect of the new release.  Users will have more color themes available to them and the live tiles will be highly customizable. You will have the ability to resize and organize the tiles in a more dynamic way.  This allows for less important tiles or ones with less information to be made smaller.  And There Is More So what other tidbits came out of the presentation?  Later this summer the API for WP8 will be available.  There will be developer events coming to a city near you.  Another announcement of interest to developers is the ability to write applications at a native code level.  This is a boon for game developers and those who need highly efficient applications. As a topper on the cake there was mention of in app payment. On the consumer side we also found out that all updates will be available over the air.  Along with this came the fact that Microsoft will support all devices with updates for at least 18 month and you will be able to subscribe for early updates.  Update coming for Windows Phone 7.5 customers to WP7.8.  The main enhancement will be the new live tile features.  The big bonus is that the update will bypass the carriers.  I would assume though that you will be brought up to date with all previous patches that your carrier may not have released. There is so much more, but that is enough for one post.  Needless to say, EXCITING! del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone 8,WP8,Windows Phone 7,WP7,Announcements,Microsoft

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• What Counts for A DBA - Logic

  - by drsql

  "There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who will always wonder why there are only two items in my list and those who will figured it out the first time they saw this very old joke."  Those readers who will give up immediately and get frustrated with me for not explaining it to them are not likely going to be great technical professionals of any sort, much less a programmer or administrator who will be constantly dealing with the common failures that make up a DBA's day.  Many of these people will stare at this like a dog staring at a traffic signal and still have no more idea of how to decipher the riddle. Without explanation they will give up, call the joke "stupid" and, feeling quite superior, walk away indignantly to their job likely flipping patties of meat-by-product. As a data professional or any programmer who has strayed  to this very data-oriented blog, you would, if you are worth your weight in air, either have recognized immediately what was going on, or felt a bit ignorant.  Your friends are chuckling over the joke, but why is it funny? Unfortunately you left your smartphone at home on the dresser because you were up late last night programming and were running late to work (again), so you will either have to fake a laugh or figure it out.  Digging through the joke, you figure out that the word "two" is the most important part, since initially the joke mentioned 10. Hmm, why did they spell out two, but not ten? Maybe 10 could be interpreted a different way?  As a DBA, this sort of logic comes into play every day, and sometimes it doesn't involve nerdy riddles or Star Wars folklore.  When you turn on your computer and get the dreaded blue screen of death, you don't immediately cry to the help desk and sit on your thumbs and whine about not being able to work. Do that and your co-workers will question your nerd-hood; I know I certainly would. You figure out the problem, and when you have it narrowed down, you call the help desk and tell them what the problem is, usually having to explain that yes, you did in fact try to reboot before calling.  Of course, sometimes humility does come in to play when you reach the end of your abilities, but the ‘end of abilities’ is not something any of us recognize readily. It is handy to have the ability to use logic to solve uncommon problems: It becomes especially useful when you are trying to solve a data-related problem such as a query performance issue, and the way that you approach things will tell your coworkers a great deal about your abilities.  The novice is likely to immediately take the approach of  trying to add more indexes or blaming the hardware. As you become more and more experienced, it becomes increasingly obvious that performance issues are a very complex topic. A query may be slow for a myriad of reasons, from concurrency issues, a poor query plan because of a parameter value (like parameter sniffing,) poor coding standards, or just because it is a complex query that is going to be slow sometimes. Some queries that you will deal with may have twenty joins and hundreds of search criteria, and it can take a lot of thought to determine what is going on.  You can usually figure out the problem to almost any query by using basic knowledge of how joins and queries work, together with the help of such things as the query plan, profiler or monitoring tools.  It is not unlikely that it can take a full day’s work to understand some queries, breaking them down into smaller queries to find a very tiny problem. Not every time will you actually find the problem, and it is part of the process to occasionally admit that the problem is random, and everything works fine now.  Sometimes, it is necessary to realize that a problem is outside of your current knowledge, and admit temporary defeat: You can, at least, narrow down the source of the problem by looking logically at all of the possible solutions. By doing this, you can satisfy your curiosity and learn more about what the actual problem was. For example, in the joke, had you never been exposed to the concept of binary numbers, there is no way you could have known that binary - 10 = decimal - 2, but you could have logically come to the conclusion that 10 must not mean ten in the context of the joke, and at that point you are that much closer to getting the joke and at least won't feel so ignorant.

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• Disable Windows 8 edge gestures/hot corners for multi-touch applications while running in full screen

  - by Bondye

  I have a full screen AS3 game maby with Adobe AIR that runs in Windows 7. In this game it may not be easy to exit (think about kiosk mode, only exit by pressing esc and enter a password). Now I want this game to run in Windows 8. The game is working like expected but the anoying things are these edge gestures/hot corners (left, top, right, bottom) and the shortcuts. I've read articles but none helped me. People talk about registery edits, but I dont get this working + the user needs to restart his/hers computer. I want to open my game, turn off gestures/hot corners and when the game closes the gestures/hot corners need to come back available again. I have seen some applications doing the same what I want to accomplish. I found this so I am able to detect the gestures. But how to ignore they're actions? I also read ASUS Smart Gestures but this is for the touch-pad. And I have tried Classic Shell but I need to disable the edge gestures/hot corners without such programs, just on-the-fly. I also found this but I don't know how to implement this. HRESULT SetTouchDisableProperty(HWND hwnd, BOOL fDisableTouch) { IPropertyStore* pPropStore; HRESULT hrReturnValue = SHGetPropertyStoreForWindow(hwnd, IID_PPV_ARGS(&pPropStore)); if (SUCCEEDED(hrReturnValue)) { PROPVARIANT var; var.vt = VT_BOOL; var.boolVal = fDisableTouch ? VARIANT_TRUE : VARIANT_FALSE; hrReturnValue = pPropStore->SetValue(PKEY_EdgeGesture_DisableTouchWhenFullscreen, var); pPropStore->Release(); } return hrReturnValue; } Does anyone know how I can do this? Or point me into the right direction? I have tried some in C# and C++, but I aint a skilled C#/C++ developer. Also the game is made in AS3 so it will be hard to implement this in C#/C++. I work on the Lenovo aio (All in one) with Windows 8.

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• Using PHP substr() and strip_tags() while retaining formatting and without breaking HTML

  - by Peter

  I have various HTML strings to cut to 100 characters (of the stripped content, not the original) without stripping tags and without breaking HTML. Original HTML string (288 characters): $content = "<div>With a <span class='spanClass'>span over here</span> and a <div class='divClass'>nested div over <div class='nestedDivClass'>there</div> </div> and a lot of other nested <strong><em>texts</em> and tags in the air <span>everywhere</span>, it's a HTML taggy kind of day.</strong></div>"; Standard trim: Trim to 100 characters and HTML breaks, stripped content comes to ~40 characters: $content = substr($content, 0, 100)."..."; /* output: <div>With a <span class='spanClass'>span over here</span> and a <div class='divClass'>nested div ove... */ Stripped HTML: Outputs correct character count but obviously looses formatting: $content = substr(strip_tags($content)), 0, 100)."..."; /* output: With a span over here and a nested div over there and a lot of other nested texts and tags in the ai... */ Partial solution: using HTML Tidy or purifier to close off tags outputs clean HTML but 100 characters of HTML not displayed content. $content = substr($content, 0, 100)."..."; $tidy = new tidy; $tidy->parseString($content); $tidy->cleanRepair(); /* output: <div>With a <span class='spanClass'>span over here</span> and a <div class='divClass'>nested div ove</div></div>... */ Challenge: To output clean HTML and n characters (excluding character count of HTML elements): $content = cutHTML($content, 100); /* output: <div>With a <span class='spanClass'>span over here</span> and a <div class='divClass'>nested div over <div class='nestedDivClass'>there</div> </div> and a lot of other nested <strong><em>texts</em> and tags in the ai</strong></div>..."; Similar Questions How to clip HTML fragments without breaking up tags Cutting HTML strings without breaking HTML tags

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• 2d trajectory planning of a spaceship with physics.

  - by egarcia

  I'm implementing a 2D game with ships in space. In order to do it, I'm using LÖVE, which wraps Box2D with Lua. But I believe that my question can be answered by anyone with a greater understanding of physics than myself - so pseudo code is accepted as a response. My problem is that I don't know how to move my spaceships properly on a 2D physics-enabled world. More concretely: A ship of mass m is located at an initial position {x, y}. It has an initial velocity vector of {vx, vy} (can be {0,0}). The objective is a point in {xo,yo}. The ship has to reach the objective having a velocity of {vxo, vyo} (or near it), following the shortest trajectory. There's a function called update(dt) that is called frequently (i.e. 30 times per second). On this function, the ship can modify its position and trajectory, by applying "impulses" to itself. The magnitude of the impulses is binary: you can either apply it in a given direction, or not to apply it at all). In code, it looks like this: def Ship:update(dt) m = self:getMass() x,y = self:getPosition() vx,vy = self.getLinearVelocity() xo,yo = self:getTargetPosition() vxo,vyo = self:getTargetVelocity() thrust = self:getThrust() if(???) angle = ??? self:applyImpulse(math.sin(angle)*thrust, math.cos(angle)*thrust)) end end The first ??? is there to indicate that in some occasions (I guess) it would be better to "not to impulse" and leave the ship "drift". The second ??? part consists on how to calculate the impulse angle on a given dt. We are in space, so we can ignore things like air friction. Although it would be very nice, I'm not looking for someone to code this for me; I put the code there so my problem is clearly understood. What I need is an strategy - a way of attacking this. I know some basic physics, but I'm no expert. For example, does this problem have a name? That sort of thing. Thanks a lot.

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• ANTLR: using stringTemplate

  - by Kevin Won

  (I'm a Noob with Antlr)... I'm having difficulties getting my grammar with StringTemplates. Basically I'm trying to write a little DSL. I can get my grammar the way I want (it parses correctly), but I can't get the generation of the target code to work with templates. So here's a snippet of my grammar: grammar Pfig; options { output=template; language=CSharp2; } conf : globalName ; globalName : 'GlobalName:' ID -> localConf(name ={$ID.text}) ; I simplified it quite a bit just to get the essence across. Basically, when the lex/parse comes across `GlobalName: Foo' I want it to spit out text based on the StringTemplate called 'localConf'. Super straightforward. So now, let's fire up the parser in a test app and have it process an input file. // C# processing a file with the lex/parser. // the 'app.pfig' file just has one line that reads 'GlobalName: Bla' using (FileStream fs = File.OpenRead("c:\\app.pfig")) { PfigParser parser = new PfigParser(new CommonTokenStream( new PfigLexer(new ANTLRInputStream(fs)))); using (TextReader tr = File.OpenText("./Pfig.stg")) { parser.TemplateLib = new StringTemplateGroup(tr); } var parseResult = parser.conf(); string code = parseResult.Template.ToString(); // Fail: template is null } I can step through the parser code and see that it correctly identifies my text and applies the stringTemplate correctly. The problem is that since this 'globalName' rule is a subrule of 'conf' it doesn't get executed directly--the method just finds it and returns. But the calling 'Conf' method does not keep the return value from the subrule--it goes to thin air. This means that my resultant template on the last line is null. If I get rid of the 'conf' rule in my grammar and call 'globalName' directly, it will work (since it's the only rule on the stack). But I obviously want more than one rule. I've generated the parser in Java and it does the same thing: // antlr generated parser code public PfigParser.conf_return conf() // throws RecognitionException [1] { PfigParser.conf_return retval = new PfigParser.conf_return(); try { { PushFollow(FOLLOW_globalName_in_conf30); globalName(); // <- it calls globalName() but doesn't keep the return. state.followingStackPointer--; } retval.Stop = input.LT(-1); } // snip It's simple to see I don't get some basic concept with how the Template approach is supposed to work with Antlr. I'm quite sure this is my problem but I'm a loggerheads to know what I'm doing wrong... the examples I've seen don't really show real-world template emission of code.

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• Any software for pattern-matching and -rewriting source code?

  - by Steven A. Lowe

  I have some old software (in a language that's not dead but is dead to me ;-)) that implements a basic pattern-matching and -rewriting system for source code. I am considering resurrecting this code, translating it into a modern language, and open-sourcing the project as a refactoring power-tool. Before I go much further, I want to know if anything like this exists already (my google-fu is fanning air on this tonight). Here's how it works: the pattern-matching part matches source-code patterns spanning multiple lines of code using a template with binding variables, the pattern-rewriting part uses a template to rewrite the matched code, inserting the contents of the bound variables from the matching template matching and rewriting templates are associated (1:1) by a simple (unconditional) rewrite rule the software operates on the abstract syntax tree (AST) of the input application, and outputs a modified AST which can then be regenerated into new source code for example, suppose we find a bunch of while-loops that really should be for-loops. The following template will match the while-loop pattern: Template oldLoopPtrn int @cnt@ = 0; while (@cnt@ < @max@) { … @body@ ++@cnt@; } End_Template while the following template will specify the output rewrite pattern: Template newLoopPtrn for(int @cnt@ = 0; @cnt@ < @max@; @cnt@++) { @body@ } End_Template and a simple rule to associate them Rule oldLoopPtrn --> newLoopPtrn so code that looks like this int i=0; while(i<arrlen) { printf("element %d: %f\n",i,arr[i]); ++i; } gets automatically rewritten to look like this for(int i = 0; i < arrlen; i++) { printf("element %d: %f\n",i,arr[i]); } The closest thing I've seen like this is some of the code-refactoring tools, but they seem to be geared towards interactive rewriting of selected snippets, not wholesale automated changes. I believe that this kind of tool could supercharge refactoring, and would work on multiple languages (even HTML/CSS). I also believe that converting and polishing the code base would be a huge project that I simply cannot do alone in any reasonable amount of time. So, anything like this out there already? If not, any obvious features (besides rewrite-rule conditions) to consider? EDIT: The one feature of this system that I like very much is that the template patterns are fairly obvious and easy to read because they're written in the same language as the target source code, not in some esoteric mutated regex/BNF format.

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• How to remove lowercase sentence fragments from text?

  - by Aaron

  Hello: I'm tyring to remove lowercase sentence fragments from standard text files using regular expresions or a simple Perl oneliner. These are commonly referred to as speech or attribution tags, for example - he said, she said, etc. This example shows before and after using manual deletion: Original: "Ah, that's perfectly true!" exclaimed Alyosha. "Oh, do leave off playing the fool! Some idiot comes in, and you put us to shame!" cried the girl by the window, suddenly turning to her father with a disdainful and contemptuous air. "Wait a little, Varvara!" cried her father, speaking peremptorily but looking at them quite approvingly. "That's her character," he said, addressing Alyosha again. "Where have you been?" he asked him. "I think," he said, "I've forgotten something... my handkerchief, I think.... Well, even if I've not forgotten anything, let me stay a little." He sat down. Father stood over him. "You sit down, too," said he. All lower case sentence fragments manually removed: "Ah, that's perfectly true!" "Oh, do leave off playing the fool! Some idiot comes in, and you put us to shame!" "Wait a little, Varvara!" "That's her character," "Where have you been?" "I think," "I've forgotten something... my handkerchief, I think.... Well, even if I've not forgotten anything, let me stay a little." He sat down. Father stood over him. "You sit down, too," I've changed straight quotes " to balanced and tried: ” (...)+[.] Of course, this removes some fragments but deletes some text in balanced quotes and text starting with uppercase letters. [^A-Z] didn't work in the above expression. I realize that it may be impossible to achieve 100% accuracy but any useful expression, perl, or python script would be deeply appreciated. Cheers, Aaron

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• Google Checkout. Show shipping rates before logging in possible?

  - by Roeland

  I am trying to integrate google checkout with my current site. I am calculating the shipping on my end, before passing it to google checkout. The problem is, when a person click the "google checkout" button, it takes them to google checkout but it does not show the shipping. It actually states it will be calculated on next step. In the next step it actually shows a drop down with the ONE option for shipping that I passed, which is a flat rate.. The problem is, to get to the next step you have to enter a credit card. Also, my shop has the shipping shown in the cart, so it would seem confusing to go to checkout and have a price without shipping. Here is the test code I am using right now to see if I can get it to show shipping before logging in (sample it here: http://sensenich.bythepixel.com/test.html) <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> <title>Site Title</title> </head> <body> <form method="POST" action="https://sandbox.google.com/checkout/api/checkout/v2/checkoutForm/Merchant/468503062558352" accept-charset="utf-8"> <input type="hidden" name="item_name_1" value="Peanut Butter"/> <input type="hidden" name="item_description_1" value="Chunky peanut butter."/> <input type="hidden" name="item_quantity_1" value="1"/> <input type="hidden" name="item_price_1" value="3.99"/> <input type="hidden" name="item_currency_1" value="USD"/> <input type="hidden" name="checkout-flow-support.merchant-checkout-flow-support.shipping-methods.flat-rate-shipping-1.name" value="UPS Next Day Air"/> <input type="hidden" name="checkout-flow-support.merchant-checkout-flow-support.shipping-methods.flat-rate-shipping-1.price" value="20.00"/> <input type="hidden" name="checkout-flow-support.merchant-checkout-flow-support.shipping-methods.flat-rate-shipping-1.price.currency" value="USD"/> <input type="hidden" name="_charset_" /> <!-- Button code --> <input type="image" name="Google Checkout" alt="Fast checkout through Google" src="http://sandbox.google.com/checkout/buttons/checkout.gif?merchant_id=468503062558352&w=180&h=46&style=white&variant=text&loc=en_US" height="46" width="180" /> </form> </body> </html>

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• Learning to create beautiful /next-generation GUI

  - by ShaChris23

  I really want to create a stunning-looking GUI desktop application that looks like, for example: Mac OS X interface Picasa desktop client on windows IPhone apps Office 2007 I've mostly been programming GUI using Qt/Swing/WinForm and I'm tired of creating so plain looking GUI, lol. So I was thinking about diving into stuff like: jQuery WPF/C# iPhone SDK Silverlight Adobe Air/Flex Just to get some ideas on how to create really cool looking UI. Does that sound like a good list? Any developers here that could share what platform they use to create very cool looking desktop app? On a sidenote, I really wonder what developers at Apple / Microsoft use to develop their own cool-looking software. EDIT A lot of responses talk about the importance of usability over "cool-looking".. I totally agree that usability and simplicity are the most important aspects of user interface design. I've been doing GUI development for a while now ( 3 years), so that I understand. But using cool-looking UI also improves user experience + it could make big difference on whether or not your software sells. I mean, otherwise why would Microsoft/Apple try to make their OS UI look "cooler" everytime there's a new version? Why would websites like pragprog.com, or versionsapp.com. make their websites look like that? Basically you kill 2 birds with one stone: stunnning-looking UI + super usability (because it looks simple and intuitive). That is what I'm striving for. And as far as I know, I cannot achieve that using Qt/Winform. Most of the books I have read just show you how to make average-looking (read: 1990's) UI. I want to learn how to create cool-looking UI. And the only place I see cool-looking UIs these days are the technology I list above. I'm not enamored with any technology; but I just want to know how things are done in other technology to see if I could apply them to the technology I'm using, or see if I could use those technology in my line of work. An example: if I were to pick between this UI and this UI, I probably would pick the latter, if just based on looks alone. Functionally, they are just the same UI; they both allow you to keep track of your time. They both contain buttons and textboxes, etc. But the fact that they look different, also differentiate them in terms of attractiveness. So in all, I think the "ice on the cake" is very important. I would say it's the thing you strive for after you are certain you have a totally intuitive, usable UI.

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• Matlab wont extract first row & column because of matrix dimensions !

  - by ZaZu

  Hey guys, I am tracking an object that is thrown in air, and this object governs a parabolic pattern. Im tracking the object through a series of 30 images. I managed to exclude all the background and keep the object apparent, then used its centroid to get its coordinates and plot them. Now im supposed to predict where the object is going to fall, so I used polyfit & polyval .. the problem is, matlab says ??? Index exceeds matrix dimensions. Now the centroid creates its own structure with a row and 2 columns. Everytime the object moves in the loop, it updates the first row only .. Here is part of the code : For N=1:30 . . . x=centroid(1,1); % extract first row and column for x y=centroid(1,2); % extract secnd row and column for x plot_xy=plot(x,y) set(plot_xy,'XData',x(1:N),'YData',y(1:N)); fitting=polyfit(x(1:N),y(1:N),2); parabola=plot(x,nan(23,1)); evaluate=polyval(fitting,x); set(parabola,'YData',evaluate) . . end The error message I get is ??? Index exceeds matrix dimensions. It seems that (1:N) is causing the problems .. I honestly do not know why .. But when I remove N, the object is plotted along with its points, but polyfitting wont work, it gives me an error saying : Warning: Polynomial is not unique; degree >= number of data points. > In polyfit at 72 If I made it (1:N-1) or something, it plots more points before it starts giving me the same error (not unique ...) . Any ideas why ?? Thanks alot !!

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• crazy asp.net error

  - by dominic

  Hi I am having a problem debugging an issue on a website. Everything works locally, the local and server databases are the same The strange thing about the error is that it points to my local dev machine in the error stack. Is that crazy or what, The files are published and being hosted on a server machine and the error is pointing to a line of code on my local dev box. I feel like I am losing the plot. Can someone pls help be clear the air here because this is very weird Error in '/' Application. Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection. Parameter name: index Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection. Parameter name: index Source Error: An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below. Stack Trace: [ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection. Parameter name: index] System.Collections.ArrayList.get_Item(Int32 index) +10066148 System.Collections.Specialized.NameObjectCollectionBase.BaseGet(Int32 index) +17 System.Web.HttpFileCollection.get_Item(Int32 index) +9 System.Web.HttpFileCollectionWrapper.get_Item(Int32 index) +18 PitchPortal.Web.Binders.DocumentModelBinder.ValidateAndAssignPostedFile(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, Document doc) in C:\Users\Bich Vu\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\PitchPortal\PitchPortal.Web\Binders\DocumentModelBinder.cs:73 PitchPortal.Web.Binders.DocumentModelBinder.BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext) in C:\Users\Bich Vu\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\PitchPortal\PitchPortal.Web\Binders\DocumentModelBinder.cs:45 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.GetParameterValue(ControllerContext controllerContext, ParameterDescriptor parameterDescriptor) +404 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.GetParameterValues(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor) +140 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeAction(ControllerContext controllerContext, String actionName) +658084 System.Web.Mvc.Controller.ExecuteCore() +125 System.Web.Mvc.<c_DisplayClass8.b_4() +48 System.Web.Mvc.Async.<c_DisplayClass1.b_0() +21 System.Web.Mvc.Async.<c__DisplayClass81.<BeginSynchronous>b__7(IAsyncResult _) +15 System.Web.Mvc.Async.WrappedAsyncResult1.End() +85 System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +51 System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +454 System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +263

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• iPhone Image Resources, ICO vs PNG, app bundle filesize

  - by Jasarien

  My application has a collection of around 1940 icons that are used throughout. They're currently in ICO and new images provided to me come in ICO format too. I have noticed that they contain a 16x16 and 32x32 representation of each icon in one file. Each file is roughly 4KB in filesize (as reported by finder, but ls reports that they vary from being ~1000 bytes to 5000 bytes) A very small number of these icons only contain the 32x32 representation, and as a result are only around 700 bytes in size. Currently I am bundling these icons with my application and they are inflating the size of the app a bit more than I would like. Altogether, the images total just about 25.5MB. Xcode must do some kind of compression because the resulting app bundle is about 12.4MB. Compressing this further into a ZIP (as it would be when submitted to the App Store), results in a final file of 5.8MB. I'm aware that the maximum limit for over the air App Store downloads has been raised to 20MB since the introduction of the iPad (I'm not sure if that extends to iPhone apps as well as iPad apps though, if not the limit would be 10MB). My worry is that new icons are going to be added (sometimes up to 10 icons per week), and will continue to inflate the app bundle over time. What is the best way to distribute these icons with my app? Things I've tried and not had much success with: Converting the icons from ICO to PNG: I tried this in the hopes that the pngcrush utility would help out with the filesize. But it appears that it doesn't make much of a difference between a normal PNG and a crushed png (I believe it just optimises the image for display on the iPhone's GPU rather than compress it's size). Also in going from ICO to PNG actually increased the size of the icon file... Zipping the images, and then uncompressing them on first run. While this did reduce the overall image sizes, I found that the effort needed to unzip them, copy them to the documents folder and ensure that duplication doesn't happen on upgrades was too much hassle to be worth the benefit. Also, on original and 3G iPhones unzipping and copying around 25MB of images takes too long and creates a bad experience... Things I've considered but not yet tried: Instead of distributing the icons within the app bundle, host them online, and download each icon on demand (it depends on the user's data as to which icons will actually be displayed and when). Issues with this is that bandwidth costs money, and image downloads will be bandwidth intensive. However, my app currently has a small userbase of around 5,500 users (of which I estimate around 1500 to be active based on Flurry stats), and I have a huge unused bandwidth allowance with my current hosting package. So I'm open to thoughts on how to solve this tricky issue.

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• Why Swift is 100 times slower than C in this image processing test?

  - by xiaobai

  Like many other developers I have been very excited at the new Swift language from Apple. Apple has boasted its speed is faster than Objective C and can be used to write operating system. And from what I learned so far, it's a very type-safe language and able to have precisely control over the exact data type (like integer length). So it does look like having good potential handling performance critical tasks, like image processing, right? That's what I thought before I carried out a quick test. The result really surprised me. Here is a much simplified image alpha blending code snippet in C: test.c: #include <stdio.h> #include <stdint.h> #include <string.h> uint8_t pixels[640*480]; uint8_t alpha[640*480]; uint8_t blended[640*480]; void blend(uint8_t* px, uint8_t* al, uint8_t* result, int size) { for(int i=0; i<size; i++) { result[i] = (uint8_t)(((uint16_t)px[i]) *al[i] /255); } } int main(void) { memset(pixels, 128, 640*480); memset(alpha, 128, 640*480); memset(blended, 255, 640*480); // Test 10 frames for(int i=0; i<10; i++) { blend(pixels, alpha, blended, 640*480); } return 0; } I compiled it on my Macbook Air 2011 with the following command: gcc -O3 test.c -o test The 10 frame processing time is about 0.01s. In other words, it takes the C code 1ms to process one frame: $ time ./test real 0m0.010s user 0m0.006s sys 0m0.003s Then I have a Swift version of the same code: test.swift: let pixels = UInt8[](count: 640*480, repeatedValue: 128) let alpha = UInt8[](count: 640*480, repeatedValue: 128) let blended = UInt8[](count: 640*480, repeatedValue: 255) func blend(px: UInt8[], al: UInt8[], result: UInt8[], size: Int) { for(var i=0; i<size; i++) { var b = (UInt16)(px[i]) * (UInt16)(al[i]) result[i] = (UInt8)(b/255) } } for i in 0..10 { blend(pixels, alpha, blended, 640*480) } The build command line is: xcrun swift -O3 test.swift -o test Here I use the same O3 level optimization flag to make the comparison hopefully fair. However, the resulting speed is 100 time slower: $ time ./test real 0m1.172s user 0m1.146s sys 0m0.006s In other words, it takes Swift ~120ms to processing one frame which takes C just 1 ms. I also verified the memory initialization time in both test code are very small compared to the blend processing function time. What happened?

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• Is it possible to make this Flex/Flash application safe?

  - by Frank

  I'm back with another Flex/Flash security question. I've already received some help from the community on this topic, but I'm still not quite sure this is the best way to do. Here's the thing. A flex web app, a lot of users (1000+), custom configuration of the application depending of the user group. Can I make this thing safe... or safer. For the moment, when a user comes to the application, there is only one configuration possible, but for the next version we've implented a multi-configuration protocol, this way : 1. The user connect to Default.aspx, server code process the windows credentials (whe are on intranet) and give the correct xml configuration file. 2. The flex app loads with the xml conf file as a flashvar and then the app 'builds' itself with the content of the xml file. As we know, since this is a flex application the swf is downloaded on the client computer and the xml file too. If more than one user connects to the app, from the same computer, the can possibly see the other xml file in the windows temp folder. The current directory of the application looks that way : Web site |-> default.aspx |-> index.swf |-> configAdmin.xml |-> configUserType1.xml |-> configUserType2.xml |-> com |-> a lot of swf and xml files I was first thinking making another directory (without read access for the client) containing all the configurations xml files, picking the right one, copying it to the client and deleting it afterwards. But it seems like I must let know the user know when downloading/deleting content on it's computer... I'm running out of ideas, so I hope you have some great ones. It's there are some design flaws (in the way the app is build, not in Flash :p) please share. I'm always looking forward to improve. Thanks Update : In browser Flash/Flex (without AIR that is) doesn't allow deleting file localy silently (on the client computer, where the application is). It's also not yet possible to get session data.

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• WinInet Apps failing when Internet Explorer is set to Offline Mode

  - by Rick Strahl

  Ran into a nasty issue last week when all of a sudden many of my old applications that are using WinInet for HTTP access started failing. Specifically, the WinInet HttpSendRequest() call started failing with an error of 2, which when retrieving the error boils down to: WinInet Error 2: The system cannot find the file specified Now this error can pop up in many legitimate scenarios with WinInet such as when no Internet connection is available or the HTTP configuration (usually configured in Internet Explorer’s options) is misconfigured. The error typically means that the server in question cannot be found or more specifically an Internet connection can’t be established. In this case the problem started suddenly and was causing some of my own applications (old Visual FoxPro apps using my own wwHttp library) and all Adobe Air applications (which apparently uses WinInet for its basic HTTP stack) along with a few more oddball applications to fail instantly when trying to connect via HTTP. Most other applications – all of my installed browsers, email clients, various social network updaters all worked just fine. It seems it was only WinInet apps that were failing. Yet oddly Internet Explorer appeared to be working. So the problem seemed to be isolated to those ‘classic’ applications using WinInet. WinInet’s base configuration uses the Internet Explorer options dialog. To check this out I typically go to the Internet Explorer options and find the Connection tab, and check out the LAN Setup. Make sure there are no rogue proxy settings or configuration scripts that are invalid. Trying with Auto-configuration on and off also can often fix ‘real’ configuration errors. This time however this wasn’t a problem – nothing in the LAN configuration was set (all default). I also played with the Automatic detection of settings which also had no effect. I also tried to use Fiddler to see if that would tell me something. Fiddler has a few additional WinInet configuration options in its configuration. Running Fiddler and hitting an HTTP request using WinInet would never actually hit Fiddler – the failure would occur before WinInet ever fired up the HTTP connection to go through the Fiddler HTTP proxy. And the Culprit is: Internet Explorer’s Work Offline Option The culprit in this situation was Internet Explorer which at some point, unknown to me switched into Offline Mode and was then shut down: When this Offline mode is checked when IE is running *or* if IE gets shut down with this flag set, all applications using WinInet by default assume that it’s running in offline mode. Depending on your caching HTTP headers and whether the page was cached previously you may or may not get a response or an error. For an independent non-browser application this will be highly unpredictable and likely result in failures getting online – especially if the application forces requests to always reload by disabling HTTP caching (as I do on most of my dynamic HTTP clients). What makes this especially tricky is that even when IE is in offline mode in the browser, you can still browse around the Web *if* you have a connection. IE will try to load anything it has cached from the local cache, but as soon as you hit a URL that isn’t cached it will automatically try to access that URL and uncheck the Work Offline option. Conversely if you get knocked off the Internet and browse in IE 9, IE will automatically go into offline mode. I never explicitly set offline mode – it just automatically sets itself on and off depending on the connection. Problem is if you’re not using IE all the time (as I do – rarely and just for testing so usually a few commonly used URLs) and you left it in offline mode when you exit, offline mode stays set which results in the above head scratcher. Ack. This isn’t new behavior in IE 9 BTW – this behavior has always been there, but I think what’s different is that IE now automatically switches between online and offline modes without notifying you at all, so it’s hard to tell when you are offline. Fixing the Issue in your Code If you have an application that is using WinInet, there’s a WinInet option called INTERNET_OPTION_IGNORE_OFFLINE. I just checked this out in my own applications and Internet Explorer 9 and it works, but apparently it’s been broken for some older releases (I can’t confirm how far back though) – lots of posts seem to suggest the flag doesn’t work. However, in IE 9 at least it does seem to work if you call InternetSetOption before you call HttpOpenRequest with the Http Session handle. In FoxPro code I use: DECLARE INTEGER InternetSetOption ;    IN WININET.DLL ;    INTEGER HINTERNET,;    INTEGER dwFlags,;    INTEGER @dwValue,;    INTEGER cbSize lnOptionValue = 1   && BOOL TRUE pass by reference   *** Set needed SSL flags lnResult=InternetSetOption(this.hHttpSession,;    INTERNET_OPTION_IGNORE_OFFLINE ,;  && 77    @lnOptionValue ,4)   DECLARE INTEGER HttpOpenRequest ;    IN WININET.DLL ;    INTEGER hHTTPHandle,;    STRING lpzReqMethod,;    STRING lpzPage,;    STRING lpzVersion,;    STRING lpzReferer,;    STRING lpzAcceptTypes,;    INTEGER dwFlags,;    INTEGER dwContextw     hHTTPResult=HttpOpenRequest(THIS.hHttpsession,;    lcVerb,;    tcPage,;    NULL,NULL,NULL,;    INTERNET_FLAG_RELOAD + ;    IIF(THIS.lsecurelink,INTERNET_FLAG_SECURE,0) + ;    this.nHTTPServiceFlags,0) …  And this fixes the issue at least for IE 9… In my FoxPro wwHttp class I now call this by default to never get bitten by this again… This solves the problem permanently for my HTTP client. I never want to see offline operation in an HTTP client API – it’s just too unpredictable in handling errors and the last thing you want is getting unpredictably stale data. Problem solved but this behavior is – well ugly. But then that’s to be expected from an API that’s based on Internet Explorer, eh?© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in HTTP  Windows  

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• Installing PhotoShop CS5 in windows XP error: (when up to 12% of the installation);

  - by Croplio

  Error Log: ---------- Exit Code: 6 -------------------------------------- Summary -------------------------------------- - 0 fatal error(s), 43 error(s), 41 warning(s) WARNING: The payload: Adobe Photoshop CS5 Core {7DFEBBA4-81E1-425B-BBAA-06E9E5BBD97E} requires a UI parent with following specification: Family: Photoshop ProductName: Adobe Photoshop CS5 Core_x64 This parent relationship is not satisfied, because this payload is not present in this session. WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure WARNING: Payload cannot be installed due to dependent operation failure ERROR: The following payload errors were found during install: ERROR: - Adobe CSXS Infrastructure CS5: Install failed ERROR: - Microsoft_VC90_ATL_x86: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe Media Player: Install failed ERROR: - Microsoft_VC90_CRT_x86: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe Photoshop CS5 Support: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe Bridge CS5: Install failed ERROR: - Microsoft_VC80_ATL_x86: Install failed ERROR: - DeviceCentral_DeviceCentral3LP-zh_CN: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe XMP Panels CS5: Install failed ERROR: - Photoshop Camera Raw: Install failed ERROR: - AdobeColorCommonSetCMYK: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe Mini Bridge CS5: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe Photoshop CS5 Chinese Language Pack_AdobePhotoshop12-zh_CN: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe ReviewPanel CS5: Install failed ERROR: - Microsoft_VC90_MFC_x86: Install failed ERROR: - Suite Shared Configuration CS5: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe Linguistics CS5: Install failed ERROR: - DeviceCentral: Failed due to Language Pack installation failure ERROR: - AdobeColorEU CS5: Install failed ERROR: - AdobeTypeSupport CS5: Install failed ERROR: - AdobeColorVideoProfilesCS CS5: Install failed ERROR: - AdobeColorCommonSetRGB: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe Photoshop CS5 Core: Failed due to Language Pack installation failure ERROR: - Adobe CSXS Extensions CS5: Install failed ERROR: - AdobeOutputModule: Install failed ERROR: - Microsoft_VC80_CRT_x86: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe WinSoft Linguistics Plugin CS5: Install failed ERROR: - AdobePDFL CS5: Install failed ERROR: - AdobeCMaps CS5: Install failed ERROR: - AdobeColorNA CS5: Install failed ERROR: - Required Common Fonts Installation: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe SwitchBoard 2.0: Install failed ERROR: - Microsoft_VC80_MFC_x86: Install failed ERROR: - AdobeColorPhotoshop CS5: Install failed ERROR: - Microsoft_VC80_MFCLOC_x86: Install failed ERROR: - PDF Settings CS5: Install failed ERROR: - Recommended Common Fonts Installation: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe Extension Manager CS5: Install failed ERROR: - AdobeColorJA CS5: Install failed ERROR: - AdobeJRE: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit CS5: Install failed ERROR: - Adobe AIR: Install failed ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hava tried many time and the issue is still there, any help will be appriciated, thanks!

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• Another Marketing Conference, part two – the afternoon

  - by Roger Hart

  In my previous post, I’ve covered the morning sessions at AMC2012. Here’s the rest of the write-up. I’ve skipped Charles Nixon’s session which was a blend of funky futurism and professional development advice, but you can see his slides here. I’ve also skipped the Google presentation, as it was a little thin on insight. 6 – Brand ambassadors: Getting universal buy in across the organisation, Vanessa Northam Slides are here This was the strongest enforcement of the idea that brand and campaign values need to be delivered throughout the organization if they’re going to work. Vanessa runs internal communications at e-on, and shared her experience of using internal comms to align an organization and thereby get the most out of a campaign. She views the purpose of internal comms as: “…to help leaders, to communicate the purpose and future of an organization, and support change.” This (and culture) primes front line staff, which creates customer experience and spreads brand. You ensure a whole organization knows what’s going on with both internal and external comms. If everybody is aligned and informed, if everybody can clearly articulate your brand and campaign goals, then you can turn everybody into an advocate. Alignment is a powerful tool for delivering a consistent experience and message. The pathological counter example is the one in which a marketing message goes out, which creates inbound customer contacts that front line contact staff haven’t been briefed to handle. The NatWest campaign was again mentioned in this context. The good example was e-on’s cheaper tariff campaign. Building a groundswell of internal excitement, and even running an internal launch meant everyone could contribute to a good customer experience. They found that meter readers were excited – not a group they’d considered as obvious in providing customer experience. But they were a group that has a lot of face-to-face contact with customers, and often were asked questions they may not have been briefed to answer. Being able to communicate a simple new message made it easier for them, and also let them become a sales and marketing asset to the organization. 7 – Goodbye Internet, Hello Outernet: the rise and rise of augmented reality, Matt Mills I wasn’t going to write this up, because it was essentially a sales demo for Aurasma. But the technology does merit some discussion. Basically, it replaces QR codes with visual recognition, and provides a simple-looking back end for attaching content. It’s quite sexy. But here’s my beef with it: QR codes had a clear visual language – when you saw one you knew what it was and what to do with it. They were clunky, but they had the “getting started” problem solved out of the box once you knew what you were looking at. However, they fail because QR code reading isn’t native to the platform. You needed an app, which meant you needed to know to download one. Consequentially, you can’t use QR codes with and ubiquity, or depend on them. This means marketers, content providers, etc, never pushed them, and they remained and awkward oddity, a minority sport. Aurasma half solves problem two, and re-introduces problem one, making it potentially half as useful as a QR code. It’s free, and you can apparently build it into your own apps. Add to that the likelihood of it becoming native to the platform if it takes off, and it may have legs. I guess we’ll see. 8 – We all need to code, Helen Mayor Great title – good point. If there was anybody in the room who didn’t at least know basic HTML, and if Helen’s presentation inspired them to learn, that’s fantastic. However, this was a half hour sales pitch for a basic coding training course. Beyond advocating coding skills it contained no useful content. Marketers may also like to consider some of these resources if they’re looking to learn code: Code Academy – free interactive tutorials Treehouse – learn web design, web dev, or app dev WebPlatform.org – tutorials and documentation for web tech  11 – Understanding our inner creativity, Margaret Boden This session was the most theoretical and probably least actionable of the day. It also held my attention utterly. Margaret spoke fluently, fascinatingly, without slides, on the subject of types of creativity and how they work. It was splendid. Yes, it raised a wry smile whenever she spoke of “the content of advertisements” and gave an example from 1970s TV ads, but even without the attempt to meet the conference’s theme this would have been thoroughly engaging. There are, Margaret suggested, three types of creativity: Combinatorial creativity The most common form, and consisting of synthesising ideas from existing and familiar concepts and tropes. Exploratory creativity Less common, this involves exploring the limits and quirks of a particular constraint or style. Transformational creativity This is uncommon, and arises from finding a way to do something that the existing rules would hold to be impossible. In essence, this involves breaking one of the constraints that exploratory creativity is composed from. Combinatorial creativity, she suggested, is particularly important for attaching favourable ideas to existing things. As such is it probably worth developing for marketing. Exploratory creativity may then come into play in something like developing and optimising an idea or campaign that now has momentum. Transformational creativity exists at the edges of this exploration. She suggested that products may often be transformational, but that marketing seemed unlikely to in her experience. This made me wonder about Listerine. Crucially, transformational creativity is characterised by there being some element of continuity with the strictures of previous thinking. Once it has happened, there may be  move from a revolutionary instance into an explored style. Again, from a marketing perspective, this seems to chime well with the thinking in Youngme Moon’s book: Different Talking about the birth of Modernism is visual art, Margaret pointed out that transformational creativity has historically risked a backlash, demanding what is essentially an education of the market. This is best accomplished by referring back to the continuities with the past in order to make the new familiar. Thoughts The afternoon is harder to sum up than the morning. It felt less concrete, and was troubled by a short run of poor presentations in the middle. Mainly, I found myself wrestling with the internal comms issue. It’s one of those things that seems astonishingly obvious in hindsight, but any campaign – particularly any large one – is doomed if the people involved can’t believe in it. We’ve run things here that haven’t gone so well, of course we have; who hasn’t? I’m not going to air any laundry, but people not being informed (much less aligned) feels like a common factor. It’s tough though. Managing and anticipating information needs across an organization of any size can’t be easy. Even the simple things like ensuring sales and support departments know what’s in a product release, and what messages go with it are easy to botch. The thing I like about framing this as a brand and campaign advocacy problem is that it makes it likely to get addressed. Better is always sexier than less-worse. Any technical communicator who’s ever felt crowded out by a content strategist or marketing copywriter  knows this – increasing revenue gets a seat at the table far more readily than reducing support costs, even if the financial impact is identical. So that’s it from AMC. The big thought-provokers were social buying behaviour and eliciting behaviour change, and the value of internal communications in ensuring successful campaigns and continuity of customer experience. I’ll be chewing over that for a while, and I’d definitely return next year.      

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