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  • Box2D Bicycle Wheels Motor Problem - Flash 2.1a

    - by Craig
    I have made a bicycle with Box2D using several polygons for the frame at different angles connected using weld joints, and I have revolute joints on the wheels with a motor. I have made some basic terrain (straight ground and a small ramp) and added keyboard input to control the bicycle with torque to balance it. All of this is done in with Box2D's Debug Draw. When the bicycle is on its back wheel but diagonally forward (kinda like this position - /) the motors just cause it go spinning backwards over when in reality it should either stay on its back wheel or go down onto both wheels. Here's my code the revolute joints: //Front Wheel Joint var frontWheelJointDef:b2RevoluteJointDef = new b2RevoluteJointDef(); frontWheelJointDef.Initialize(frontWheelBody, secondFrameBody, frontWheelBody.GetWorldCenter()); frontWheelJointDef.enableMotor=true; frontWheelJointDef.maxMotorTorque=10000; frontWheelJoint = _world.CreateJoint(frontWheelJointDef) as b2RevoluteJoint; //Rear Wheel Joint var rearWheelJointDef:b2RevoluteJointDef = new b2RevoluteJointDef(); rearWheelJointDef.Initialize(rearWheelBody, firstFrameBody, rearWheelBody.GetWorldCenter()); rearWheelJointDef.enableMotor=true; rearWheelJointDef.maxMotorTorque=10000; rearWheelJoint = _world.CreateJoint(rearWheelJointDef) as b2RevoluteJoint; And here's the relevant part of my update function: // up and down control wheels motor if (up) { motorSpeed-=0.5; } if (down) { motorSpeed += 0.5; } // left and right control cart torque if (left) { middleCentreFrameBody.ApplyTorque( -3); gearBody.ApplyTorque( -3); firstFrameBody.ApplyTorque( -3); secondFrameBody.ApplyTorque( -3); rearWheelToChainBody.ApplyTorque( -3); chainToFrontFrameBody.ApplyTorque( -3); topMiddleFrameBody.ApplyTorque( -3); } if (right) { middleCentreFrameBody.ApplyTorque( 3); gearBody.ApplyTorque( 3); firstFrameBody.ApplyTorque( 3); secondFrameBody.ApplyTorque( 3); rearWheelToChainBody.ApplyTorque( 3); chainToFrontFrameBody.ApplyTorque( 3); topMiddleFrameBody.ApplyTorque( 3); } // motor friction motorSpeed*=0.99; // motor max speed if (motorSpeed>100) { motorSpeed=100; } rearWheelJoint.SetMotorSpeed(motorSpeed); frontWheelJoint.SetMotorSpeed(motorSpeed); Any ideas what might be causing this? Thanks

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  • Wordpress Installation (on IIS and SQL Server)

    - by Davide Mauri
    To proceed with the installation of Wordpress on SQL Server and IIS, first of all, you need to do the following steps Create a database on SQL Server that will be used by Wordpress Create login that can access to the just created database and put the user into ddladmin, db_datareader, db_datawriter roles Download and unpack Wordpress 3.3.2 (latest version as of 27 May 2012) zip file into a directory of your choice Download the wp-db-abstraction 1.1.4 (latest version as of 27 May 2012) plugin from wordpress.org website Now that the basic action has been done, you can start to setup and configure your Wordpress installation. Unpack and follow the instructions in the README.TXT file to install the Database Abstraction Layer. Mainly you have to: Upload wp-db-abstraction.php and the wp-db-abstraction directory to wp-content/mu-plugins.  This should be parallel to your regular plugins directory.  If the mu-plugins directory does not exist, you must create it. Put the db.php file from inside the wp-db-abstraction.php directory to wp-content/db.php Now you can create an application pool in IIS like the following one Create a website, using the above Application Pool, that points to the folder where you unpacked Wordpress files. Be sure to give the “Write” permission to the IIS account, as pointed out in this (old, but still quite valid) installation manual: http://wordpress.visitmix.com/development/installing-wordpress-on-sql-server#iis Now you’re ready to go. Point your browser to the configured website and the Wordpress installation screen will be there for you. When you’re requested to enter information to connect to MySQL database, simply skip that page, leaving the default values. If you have installed the Database Abstraction Layer, another database installation screen will appear after the one used by MySQL, and here you can enter the configuration information needed to connect to SQL Server. After having finished the installation steps, you should be able to access and navigate your wordpress site.  A final touch, and it’s done: just add the needed rewrite rules http://wordpress.visitmix.com/development/installing-wordpress-on-sql-server#urlrewrite and that’s it! Well. Not really. Unfortunately the current (as of 27 May 2012) version of the Database Abstraction Layer (1.1.4) has some bugs. Luckily they can be quickly fixed: Backslash Fix http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wp-db-abstraction-fix-problems-with-backslash-usage Select Top 0 Fix Make the change to the file “.\wp-content\mu-plugins\wp-db-abstraction\translations\sqlsrv\translations.php” suggested by “debettap”   http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3485384&group_id=315685&atid=1328061 And now you have a 100% working Wordpress installation on SQL Server! Since I also wanted to take advantage of SQL Server Full Text Search, I’ve created a very simple wordpress plugin to setup full-text search and to use it as website search engine: http://wpfts.codeplex.com/ Enjoy!

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  • PCF shadow shader math causing artifacts

    - by user2971069
    For a while now I used PCSS for my shadow technique of choice until I discovered a type of percentage closer filtering. This method creates really smooth shadows and with hopes of improving performance, with only a fraction of texture samples, I tried to implement PCF into my shader. This is the relevant code: float c0, c1, c2, c3; float f = blurFactor; float2 coord = ProjectedTexCoords; if (receiverDistance - tex2D(lightSampler, coord + float2(0, 0)).x > 0.0007) c0 = 1; if (receiverDistance - tex2D(lightSampler, coord + float2(f, 0)).x > 0.0007) c1 = 1; if (receiverDistance - tex2D(lightSampler, coord + float2(0, f)).x > 0.0007) c2 = 1; if (receiverDistance - tex2D(lightSampler, coord + float2(f, f)).x > 0.0007) c3 = 1; coord = (coord % f) / f; return 1 - (c0 * (1 - coord.x) * (1 - coord.y) + c1 * coord.x * (1 - coord.y) + c2 * (1 - coord.x) * coord.y + c3 * coord.x * coord.y); This is a very basic implementation. blurFactor is initialized with 1 / LightTextureSize. So the if statements fetch the occlusion values for the four adjacent texels. I now want to weight each value based on the actual position of the texture coordinate. If it's near the bottom-right pixel, that occlusion value should be preferred. The weighting itself is done with a simple bilinear interpolation function, however this function takes a 2d vector in the range [0..1] so I have to convert my texture coordinate to get the distance from my first pixel to the second one in range [0..1]. For that I used the mod operator to get it into [0..f] range and then divided by f. This code makes sense to me, and for specific blurFactors it works, producing really smooth one pixel wide shadows, but not for all blurFactors. Initially blurFactor is (1 / LightTextureSize) to sample the 4 adjacent texels. I now want to increase the blurFactor by factor x to get a smooth interpolation across maybe 4 or so pixels. But that is when weird artifacts show up. Here is an image: Using a 1x on blurFactor produces a good result, 0.5 is as expected not so smooth. 2x however doesn't work at all. I found that only a factor of 1/2^n produces an good result, every other factor produces artifacts. I'm pretty sure the error lies here: coord = (coord % f) / f; Maybe the modulo is not calculated correctly? I have no idea how to fix that. Is it even possible for pixel that are further than 1 pixel away?

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  • What are the software design essentials? [closed]

    - by Craig Schwarze
    I've decided to create a 1 page "cheat sheet" of essential software design principles for my programmers. It doesn't explain the principles in any great depth, but is simply there as a reference and a reminder. Here's what I've come up with - I would welcome your comments. What have I left out? What have I explained poorly? What is there that shouldn't be? Basic Design Principles The Principle of Least Surprise – your solution should be obvious, predictable and consistent. Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) - the simplest solution is usually the best one. You Ain’t Gonna Need It (YAGNI) - create a solution for the current problem rather than what might happen in the future. Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) - rigorously remove duplication from your design and code. Advanced Design Principles Program to an interface, not an implementation – Don’t declare variables to be of a particular concrete class. Rather, declare them to an interface, and instantiate them using a creational pattern. Favour composition over inheritance – Don’t overuse inheritance. In most cases, rich behaviour is best added by instantiating objects, rather than inheriting from classes. Strive for loosely coupled designs – Minimise the interdependencies between objects. They should be able to interact with minimal knowledge of each other via small, tightly defined interfaces. Principle of Least Knowledge – Also called the “Law of Demeter”, and is colloquially summarised as “Only talk to your friends”. Specifically, a method in an object should only invoke methods on the object itself, objects passed as a parameter to the method, any object the method creates, any components of the object. SOLID Design Principles Single Responsibility Principle – Each class should have one well defined purpose, and only one reason to change. This reduces the fragility of your code, and makes it much more maintainable. Open/Close Principle – A class should be open to extension, but closed to modification. In practice, this means extracting the code that is most likely to change to another class, and then injecting it as required via an appropriate pattern. Liskov Substitution Principle – Subtypes must be substitutable for their base types. Essentially, get your inheritance right. In the classic example, type square should not inherit from type rectangle, as they have different properties (you can independently set the sides of a rectangle). Instead, both should inherit from type shape. Interface Segregation Principle – Clients should not be forced to depend upon methods they do not use. Don’t have fat interfaces, rather split them up into smaller, behaviour centric interfaces. Dependency Inversion Principle – There are two parts to this principle: High-level modules should not depend on low-level modules. Both should depend on abstractions. Abstractions should not depend on details. Details should depend on abstractions. In modern development, this is often handled by an IoC (Inversion of Control) container.

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  • introducing pointers to a large software project

    - by stefan
    I have a fairly large software project written in c++. In there, there is a class foo which represents a structure (by which i don't mean the programmers struct) in which foo-objects can be part of a foo-object. Here's class foo in simplest form: class Foo { private: std::vector<unsigned int> indices; public: void addFooIndex(unsigned int); unsigned int getFooIndex(unsigned int); }; Every foo-object is currently stored in an object of class bar. class Bar { private: std::vector<Foo> foos; public: void addFoo(Foo); std::vector<Foo> getFoos(); } So if a foo-object should represent a structure with a "inner" foo-object, I currently do Foo foo; Foo innerFoo; foo.addFooIndex(bar.getFoos().size() - 1); bar.addFoo(innerFoo); And to get it, I obviously use: Foo foo; for ( unsigned int i = 0; i < foo.getFooIndices().size(); ++i ) { Foo inner_foo; assert( foo.getFooIndices().at(i) < bar.getFoos().size() ); inner_foo = bar.getFoos().at(foo.getFooIndices().at(i)); } So this is not a problem. It just works. But it's not the most elegant solution. I now want to make the inner foos to be "more connected" with the foo-object. It would be obviously to change class foo to: class Foo { private: std::vector<Foo*> foo_pointers; public: void addFooPointer(Foo*); std::vector<Foo*> getFooPointers(); }; So now, for my question: How to gently change this basic class without messing up the whole code? Is there a "clean way"?

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  • JavaScript: Code Folding

    - by Petr
    Today I would like to mentioned code folding in the new JavaScript editor support, which is available in the continual builds from our server. It's a basic feature, but was mentioned in a comment under the mentioned post. So you can fold comments and every code block between { and }. The current support allows only methods to be folded. The difference is shown below. In the picture on the left side is the current folding and on the right side the new one.   The code folding can be switched off in the Editor Options (Tools main menu -> Options -> Editor category -> General Tab). In this dialog you can also define which folds should be collapsed by default when you open a file. These options more closely fit Java editor needs, but you can see in the next picture how the options are mapped for JavaScript code.  The Method option folds all functions in the code. Other code blogs are fold through the option Tags and Other Code Blogs.  The documentation comments (starts with /**) are fold through Javadoc Comments and when you check Initial Comment, then all comments that start with /* are folded by default.  The new JavaScript editor also supports custom folds. To add your custom fold, type in two special comments as shown in this example: // <editor-fold> Your code goes here... // </editor-fold> You can define the default description of a collapsed fold by adding a "desc" attribute: // <editor-fold desc="This is my super secret genius code."> Your code goes here... // </editor-fold> You can set a fold to be collapsed by default by adding a "defaultstate" attribute: // <editor-fold defaultstate="collapsed"> Your code goes here... // </editor-fold> There is a code template that helps with writing custom fold comments. The abbreviation for the template is fcom. As I wrote the new JS support is available in the continual builds. Go here for more info.

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  • My grid based collision detection is slow

    - by Fibericon
    Something about my implementation of a basic 2x4 grid for collision detection is slow - so slow in fact, that it's actually faster to simply check every bullet from every enemy to see if the BoundingSphere intersects with that of my ship. It becomes noticeably slow when I have approximately 1000 bullets on the screen (36 enemies shooting 3 bullets every .5 seconds). By commenting it out bit by bit, I've determined that the code used to add them to the grid is what's slowest. Here's how I add them to the grid: for (int i = 0; i < enemy[x].gun.NumBullets; i++) { if (enemy[x].gun.bulletList[i].isActive) { enemy[x].gun.bulletList[i].Update(timeDelta); int bulletPosition = 0; if (enemy[x].gun.bulletList[i].position.Y < 0) { bulletPosition = (int)Math.Floor((enemy[x].gun.bulletList[i].position.X + 900) / 450); } else { bulletPosition = (int)Math.Floor((enemy[x].gun.bulletList[i].position.X + 900) / 450) + 4; } GridItem bulletItem = new GridItem(); bulletItem.index = i; bulletItem.type = 5; bulletItem.parentIndex = x; if (bulletPosition > -1 && bulletPosition < 8) { if (!grid[bulletPosition].Contains(bulletItem)) { for (int j = 0; j < grid.Length; j++) { grid[j].Remove(bulletItem); } grid[bulletPosition].Add(bulletItem); } } } } And here's how I check if it collides with the ship: if (ship.isActive && !ship.invincible) { BoundingSphere shipSphere = new BoundingSphere( ship.Position, ship.Model.Meshes[0].BoundingSphere.Radius * 9.0f); for (int i = 0; i < grid.Length; i++) { if (grid[i].Contains(shipItem)) { for (int j = 0; j < grid[i].Count; j++) { //Other collision types omitted else if (grid[i][j].type == 5) { if (enemy[grid[i][j].parentIndex].gun.bulletList[grid[i][j].index].isActive) { BoundingSphere bulletSphere = new BoundingSphere(enemy[grid[i][j].parentIndex].gun.bulletList[grid[i][j].index].position, enemy[grid[i][j].parentIndex].gun.bulletModel.Meshes[0].BoundingSphere.Radius); if (shipSphere.Intersects(bulletSphere)) { ship.health -= enemy[grid[i][j].parentIndex].gun.damage; enemy[grid[i][j].parentIndex].gun.bulletList[grid[i][j].index].isActive = false; grid[i].RemoveAt(j); break; //no need to check other bullets } } else { grid[i].RemoveAt(j); } } What am I doing wrong here? I thought a grid implementation would be faster than checking each one.

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  • Getting Started with Kinect for Windows.

    - by Vishal
    Hello folks,      Recently I got involved in a project for building a demo application for one of our customers with Kinect for Windows. Yes, something similar what Tom Cruise did in the movie Minority Report. Waving arms, moving stuff around, swipes, speech recognition, manipulating computer screens without even touching it. Pretty cool!!! The idea in the movie showed us how technology would be after 50 years from that day.   Minority Report Movie clip.           Well, that 50 years of time frame got squeezed and recently on Feb 1st 2012, Microsoft released the official Kinect for Windows SDK. That’s just 10 years from the movie release. Although, the product is in it early stages but with developer creativity and continuously improving hardware, those features shown in the movie are not very far away from becoming a reality. Soon after releasing the SDK, Microsoft again announced in March the release of its new Kinect for Windows SDK version 1.5 which is coming out in sometime May. More history about Kinect. Anyways, so for a newbie with Kinect, where would you start. Here is what I would suggest you can do. Watch the Kinect for Windows Quick start Series by Den Fernandez. Download the Kinect for Windows SDK and start playing around with the demos in it. It also comes with some basic Kinect documentation. Coding4Fun Kinect Projects | Lot many more videos and open sources projects information. Kinect for Windows Session at Techdays NL demo by Jesus Rodriguez. Book: Beginning Kinect Programming with the Microsoft Kinect SDK.  | I did go through few of the chapters in this book and based on that, it does talk deeply about core Kinect concepts but in very easy to understand way. I would definitely suggest this book for any Kinect developers. I liked the way it explained the Gestures recognition in Chapter 6. Buy your Kinect device from either Amazon or NewEgg. You will get it cheaper then buying it from Microsoft Store. Personally, I love Newegg.com as I never had any order related or shipping issues with them. I always hate developing UI application but well, you would need to get your hands dirty with WPF too in order to work with Kinect. So get started with WPF concepts too. I will keep adding stuff to the list once I come across them but so far the above list would definitely get you started building your first Kinect apps. Till then Happy Kinecting…!!!!! Thanks, Vishal Mody

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  • Authenticating your windows domain users in the cloud

    - by cibrax
    Moving to the cloud can represent a big challenge for many organizations when it comes to reusing existing infrastructure. For applications that drive existing business processes in the organization, reusing IT assets like active directory represent good part of that challenge. For example, a new web mobile application that sales representatives can use for interacting with an existing CRM system in the organization. In the case of Windows Azure, the Access Control Service (ACS) already provides some integration with ADFS through WS-Federation. That means any organization can create a new trust relationship between the STS running in the ACS and the STS running in ADFS. As the following image illustrates, the ADFS running in the organization should be somehow exposed out of network boundaries to talk to the ACS. This is usually accomplish through an ADFS proxy running in a DMZ. This is the official story for authenticating existing domain users with the ACS.  Getting an ADFS up and running in the organization, which talks to a proxy and also trust the ACS could represent a painful experience. It basically requires  advance knowledge of ADSF and exhaustive testing to get everything right.  However, if you want to get an infrastructure ready for authenticating your domain users in the cloud in a matter of minutes, you will probably want to take a look at the sample I wrote for talking to an existing Active Directory using a regular WCF service through the Service Bus Relay Binding. You can use the WCF ability for self hosting the authentication service within a any program running in the domain (a Windows service typically). The service will not require opening any port as it is opening an outbound connection to the cloud through the Relay Service. In addition, the service will be protected from being invoked by any unauthorized party with the ACS, which will act as a firewall between any client and the service. In that way, we can get a very safe solution up and running almost immediately. To make the solution even more convenient, I implemented an STS in the cloud that internally invokes the service running on premises for authenticating the users. Any existing web application in the cloud can just establish a trust relationship with this STS, and authenticate the users via WS-Federation passive profile with regular http calls, which makes this very attractive for web mobile for example. This is how the WCF service running on premises looks like, [ServiceBehavior(Namespace = "http://agilesight.com/active_directory/agent")] public class ProxyService : IAuthenticationService { IUserFinder userFinder; IUserAuthenticator userAuthenticator;   public ProxyService() : this(new UserFinder(), new UserAuthenticator()) { }   public ProxyService(IUserFinder userFinder, IUserAuthenticator userAuthenticator) { this.userFinder = userFinder; this.userAuthenticator = userAuthenticator; }   public AuthenticationResponse Authenticate(AuthenticationRequest request) { if (userAuthenticator.Authenticate(request.Username, request.Password)) { return new AuthenticationResponse { Result = true, Attributes = this.userFinder.GetAttributes(request.Username) }; }   return new AuthenticationResponse { Result = false }; } } Two external dependencies are used by this service for authenticating users (IUserAuthenticator) and for retrieving user attributes from the user’s directory (IUserFinder). The UserAuthenticator implementation is just a wrapper around the LogonUser Win Api. The UserFinder implementation relies on Directory Services in .NET for searching the user attributes in an existing directory service like Active Directory or the local user store. public UserAttribute[] GetAttributes(string username) { var attributes = new List<UserAttribute>();   var identity = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(new PrincipalContext(this.contextType, this.server, this.container), IdentityType.SamAccountName, username); if (identity != null) { var groups = identity.GetGroups(); foreach(var group in groups) { attributes.Add(new UserAttribute { Name = "Group", Value = group.Name }); } if(!string.IsNullOrEmpty(identity.DisplayName)) attributes.Add(new UserAttribute { Name = "DisplayName", Value = identity.DisplayName }); if(!string.IsNullOrEmpty(identity.EmailAddress)) attributes.Add(new UserAttribute { Name = "EmailAddress", Value = identity.EmailAddress }); }   return attributes.ToArray(); } As you can see, the code is simple and uses all the existing infrastructure in Azure to simplify a problem that looks very complex at first glance with ADFS. All the source code for this sample is available to download (or change) in this GitHub repository, https://github.com/AgileSight/ActiveDirectoryForCloud

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  • Certification Notes: 70-583 Designing and Developing Windows Azure Applications

    - by BuckWoody
    It’s time for another certification, and we’ve just release the 70-583 exam on Windows Azure. I’ve blogged my “study plans” here before on other certifications, so I thought I would do the same for this one. I’ll also need to take exam 70-513 and 70-516; but I’ll post my notes on those separately. None of these are “brain dumps” or any questions from the actual tests - just the books, links and notes I have from my studies. I’ll update these references as I’m studying, so bookmark this site and watch my Twitter and Facebook posts for when I’ll update them, or just subscribe to the RSS feed. A “Green” color on the check-block means I’ve done that part so far, red means I haven’t. First, I need to refresh my memory on some basic coding, so along with the Azure-specific information I’m reading the following general programming books: Introducing Microsoft .NET (Pro-Developer): http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Microsoft-Pro-Developer-David-Platt/dp/0735619182/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296339237&sr=1-1 Head First C#, 2E: A Learner's Guide to Real-World Programming with Visual C# and .NET: http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-2E-Real-World-Programming/dp/1449380344/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296339176&sr=8-1 Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Step by Step : http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Visual-2008-Step/dp/0735624305/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296339208&sr=1-1 c The first place to start is at the official site for the certification. That’s here: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exam.aspx?ID=70-583&Locale=en-us c On that page you’ll find several resources, and the first you should follow is the “Save to my learning” so you have a place to track everything. Then click the “Related Learning Plans” link and follow the videos and read the documentation in each of those bullets. There are six areas on the learning plan that you should focus on - make sure you open the learning plan to drill into the specifics. c Designing Data Storage Architecture (18%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Optimizing Data Access and Messaging (17%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Designing the Application Architecture (19%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Preparing for Application and Service Deployment (15%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Investigating and Analyzing Applications (16%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Designing Integrated Solutions (15%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes:

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  • How can I convert a 2D bitmap (Used for terrain) to a 2D polygon mesh for collision?

    - by Megadanxzero
    So I'm making an artillery type game, sort of similar to Worms with all the usual stuff like destructible terrain etc... and while I could use per-pixel collision that doesn't give me collision normals or anything like that. Converting it all to a mesh would also mean I could use an existing physics library, which would be better than anything I can make by myself. I've seen people mention doing this by using Marching Squares to get contours in the bitmap, but I can't find anything which mentions how to turn these into a mesh (Unless it refers to a 3D mesh with contour lines defining different heights, which is NOT what I want). At the moment I can get a basic Marching Squares contour which looks something like this (Where the grid-like lines in the background would be the Marching Squares 'cells'): That needs to be interpolated to get a smoother, more accurate result but that's the general idea. I had a couple ideas for how to turn this into a mesh, but many of them wouldn't work in certain cases, and the one which I thought would work perfectly has turned out to be very slow and I've not even finished it yet! Ideally I'd like whatever I end up using to be fast enough to do every frame for cases such as rapidly-firing weapons, or digging tools. I'm thinking there must be some kind of existing algorithm/technique for turning something like this into a mesh, but I can't seem to find anything. I've looked at some things like Delaunay Triangulation, but as far as I can tell that won't correctly handle concave shapes like the above example, and also wouldn't account for holes within the terrain. I'll go through the technique I came up with for comparison and I guess I'll see if anyone has a better idea. First of all interpolate the Marching Squares contour lines, creating vertices from the line ends, and getting vertices where lines cross cell edges (Important). Then, for each cell containing vertices create polygons by using 2 vertices, and a cell corner as the 3rd vertex (Probably the closest corner). Do this for each cell and I think you should have a mesh which accurately represents the original bitmap (Though there will only be polygons at the edges of the bitmap, and large filled in areas in between will be empty). The only problem with this is that it involves lopping through every pixel once for the initial Marching Squares, then looping through every cell (image height + 1 x image width + 1) at least twice, which ends up being really slow for any decently sized image...

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  • A Generic Boolean Value Converter

    - by codingbloke
    On fairly regular intervals a question on Stackoverflow like this one:  Silverlight Bind to inverse of boolean property value appears.  The same answers also regularly appear.  They all involve an implementation of IValueConverter and basically include the same boilerplate code. The required output type sometimes varies, other examples that have passed by are Boolean to Brush and Boolean to String conversions.  Yet the code remains pretty much the same.  There is therefore a good case to create a generic Boolean to value converter to contain this common code and then just specialise it for use in Xaml. Here is the basic converter:- BoolToValueConverter using System; using System.Windows.Data; namespace SilverlightApplication1 {     public class BoolToValueConverter<T> : IValueConverter     {         public T FalseValue { get; set; }         public T TrueValue { get; set; }         public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)         {             if (value == null)                 return FalseValue;             else                 return (bool)value ? TrueValue : FalseValue;         }         public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)         {             return value.Equals(TrueValue);         }     } } With this generic converter in place it easy to create a set of converters for various types.  For example here are all the converters mentioned so far:- Value Converters using System; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Media; namespace SilverlightApplication1 {     public class BoolToStringConverter : BoolToValueConverter<String> { }     public class BoolToBrushConverter : BoolToValueConverter<Brush> { }     public class BoolToVisibilityConverter : BoolToValueConverter<Visibility> { }     public class BoolToObjectConverter : BoolToValueConverter<Object> { } } With the specialised converters created they can be specified in a Resources property on a user control like this:- <local:BoolToBrushConverter x:Key="Highlighter" FalseValue="Transparent" TrueValue="Yellow" /> <local:BoolToStringConverter x:Key="CYesNo" FalseValue="No" TrueValue="Yes" /> <local:BoolToVisibilityConverter x:Key="InverseVisibility" TrueValue="Collapsed" FalseValue="Visible" />

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  • OSB 11g & SAP – Single Channel/Program ID for Multiple IDOCs

    - by Shub Lahiri, A-Team
    Background This note is a supplement to the blog entry, SOA 11g & SAP – Single Channel/Program ID for Multiple IDOCs by Greg Mally. Greg has shown how a single SOA Suite composite can be used with iWay Adapters to receive multiple IDOC types via a single channel in the adapter, corresponding to a single programID on the SAP system. We will try to address the same requirements within the OSB framework here. Project Built - Design Time The basic build of an OSB project with iWay SAP Adapter, as seen in another entry in this blog, consists of working in OSB Design console and Application Explorer. OSB Design Time - Part 1 We will create a placeholder project first in OSB with a proper directory structure, so that we can export the WSDL, XSD and the JCA binding information from Application Explorer directly into this project. Application Explorer - iWay Design Time Tool Receiving IDOCs is classified as an inbound event within Application Explorer. For setting up events, a channel is first defined (e.g. iDoc_Channel) using the same PROGRAMID (RFC destination), as defined within SAP for the OSB server. Next, the same channel is used to export the JCA Inbound Event artifacts for the candidate IDOC, e.g. DEBMAS06 directly to the pre-created OSB project. Note that the validation for schema has been turned off. As a result, this will allow the adapter, at runtime, to use a single channel to receive multiple IDOC types from SAP and pass them on to the OSB runtime engine without any validation. In other words, we do not have to repeat the above step for each IDOC type. OSB Design Time - Part 2 Create 2 simple XML based Business Services to write to a file, e.g.  SAP_DEBMAS_File and SAP_MATMAS_File. Next, generate a Proxy Service using the JCA binding file exported from Application Explorer in the previous section. In the generated proxy service, edit the message flow and add a route node. Add a routing table in the route node with the following routing function. fn:local-name-from-QName(fn:node-name($body/*[1])) This function takes advantage of the fact that the XML payload at runtime, after translation by adapter, has the IDOC type as the top element. With the routing function in place, build the routing table to add 2 branches to route the IDOCs to the appropriate Business Service for writing the XML payload to files in separate directories. This completes the build of the OSB project. Testing - Run-Time After deployment and activation, the SAP adapter will wait to receive multiple types of IDOCs sent from the SAP system using a single channel. Upon receipt of the IDOCs, the OSB project will route them appropriately to save the corresponding XML payloads for different IDOC types in different directories.

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  • Three Global Telecoms Soar With Siebel

    - by michael.seback
    Deutsche Telekom Group Selects Oracle's Siebel CRM to Underpin Next-Generation CRM Strategy The Deutsche Telekom Group (DTAG), one of the world's leading telecommunications companies, and a customer of Oracle since 2001, has invested in Oracle's Siebel CRM as the standard platform for its Next Generation CRM strategy; a move to lower the cost of managing its 120 million customers across its European businesses. Oracle's Siebel CRM is planned to be deployed in Germany and all of the company's European business within five years. "...Our Next-Generation strategy is a significant move to lower our operating costs and enhance customer service for all our European customers. Not only is Oracle underpinning this strategy, but is also shaping the way our company operates and sells to customers. We look forward to working with Oracle over the coming years as the technology is extended across Europe," said Dr. Steffen Roehn, CIO Deutsche Telekom AG... "The telecommunications industry is currently undergoing some major changes. As a result, companies like Deutsche Telekom are needing to be more intelligent about the way they use technology, particularly when it comes to customer service. Deutsche Telekom is a great example of how organisations can use CRM to not just improve services, but also drive more commercial opportunities through the ability to offer highly tailored offers, while the customer is engaged online or on the phone," said Steve Fearon, vice president CRM, EMEA Read more. Telecom Argentina S.A. Accelerates Time-to-Market for New Communications Products and Services Telecom Argentina S.A. offers basic telephone, urban landline, and national and international long-distance services...."With Oracle's Siebel CRM and Oracle Communication Billing and Revenue Management, we started a technological transformation that allows us to satisfy our critical business needs, such as improving customer service and quickly launching new phone and internet products and services." - Saba Gooley, Chief Information Officer, Wire Line and Internet Services, Telecom Argentina S.A.Read more. Türk Telekom Develops Benefits-Driven CRM Roadmap Türk Telekom Group provides integrated telecommunication services from public switched telephone network (PSTN) and global systems for mobile communications technology (GSM). to broadband internet...."Oracle Insight provided us with a structured deployment approach that makes sense for our business. It quantified the benefits of the CRM solution allowing us to engage with the relevant business owners; essential for a successful transformation program." - Paul Taylor, VP Commercial Transformation, Türk Telekom Read more.

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  • SQL Azure and Trust Services

    - by BuckWoody
    Microsoft is working on a new Windows Azure service called “Trust Services”. Trust Services takes a certificate you upload and uses it to encrypt and decrypt sensitive data in the cloud. Of course, like any security service, there’s a bit more to it than that. I’ll give you a quick overview of how you can use this product to protect data you send to SQL Azure. The primary issue with storing data in the cloud is that you are in an environment that isn’t under your control – in fact, that’s the benefit of being in a distributed computing environment in the first place. On premises you’re able to encrypt data you don’t want anyone else to see, using various methods such as passwords (not very strong) or certificates (stronger). When you use a certificate, it’s vital that you create (or procure) and protect it yourself. When you store data remotely, regardless of IaaS, PaaS or SaaS, you don’t own the machines where the data lives. That means if you use a certificate from the cloud vendor to encrypt the data, you have to trust that the data won’t be accessed by the vendor. In some cases having a signed agreement with the vendor that they won’t access your data is sufficient, in other cases that doesn’t meet the requirements your system has for security. With the new Trust Services service, the basic process is that you use a Portal to create a Trust Server using policies and other controls. You place a X.509 Certificate you create or procure in that server. Using the Software development Kit (SDK), the developer has access to an Application Layer Encryption Framework to set fields of data they want to encrypt. From there, the data can be stored in SQL Azure as a standard field – only it is encrypted before it ever arrives. The portion of the client software that decrypts the data uses the same service, so the authenticated user sees the data if they are allowed to do so. The data remains encrypted “at rest”.  You can learn more about this product and check it out in the SQL Azure labs at Microsoft Codename "Trust Services"

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  • Android Touch Event Collision Detection

    - by chrissb
    I'm relatively new to both Java and Android, so hopefully the problem I'm having is stemming from something pretty minor that I've overlooked. I've got a (very early stage) game that I've started working on, for Android using Java. At this stage, when the user touches the screen, if they touched a point at which there is an enemy, the enemies health is decreased and they become immobile (for the current implementation at least). The issue that I'm having is that the touch detection doesn't always seem to work. I've got a testing sprite set up that goes to the eventX and eventY coordinates of the touch down event, and it always seems to collide with the enemy object. Yet, the enemy doesn't always register as being hit, and sometimes a hit is registered when the sprite indicates the touch coordinates were outside of the enemies bounding box. I realise that this probably doesn't mean much without any code, so here's what I've got so far. Be gentle, as this is literally my first attempt at something more than basic movement etc. First off, the MainGamePanel class registers the touch event, and informs the levelmanager class (which is what I set up to monitor/handle enemies) public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) { if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN){ levelManager.handleActionDown((int)event.getX(), (int)event.getY()); targetX=event.getX(); targetY=event.getY(); } if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE) { //the gestures } if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) { //touch was released } return true; } From there, in the levelmanager class the touch event is passed on to all of the enemies within a list array: public static void handleActionDown(int eventX,int eventY){ hit=false; for (enemy1 en : enemy1array){ en.handleActionDown(eventX, eventY); } } The rest of the collision code is handled within the enemies handleActionDown function: public void handleActionDown(int eventX, int eventY) { if(eventX>this.x-enemy1bitmap.getWidth() && eventX<this.x+enemy1bitmap.getWidth() && eventY>this.y-enemy1bitmap.getHeight() && eventY<this.x+enemy1bitmap.getHeight()){ takeDamage(1); levelmanager.setHit(); } } I should probably be using getWidth()/2 and getHeight()/2 for it to be more accurate, but I expanded the area to test this - although I've noticed no improvement. At this stage, the games detection over whether or not the enemy is hit is spotty at best. Generally it takes two or three attempts before a collision is successfully registered, even though the sprite that is being used for testing and set to the eventX and eventY coordinates always indicates that the collision should have worked. Hopefully someone can steer me in the right direction here, and if more information is needed, ask away! Cheers, -Chris

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  • Music Notation Editor - Refactoring view creation logic elseware

    - by Cyril Silverman
    Let me preface by saying that knowing some elementary music theory and music notation may be helpful in grasping the problem at hand. I'm currently building a Music Notation and Tablature Editor (in Javascript). But I've come to a point where the core parts of the program are more or less there. All functionality I plan to add at this point will really build off the foundation that I've created. As a result, I want to refactor to really solidify my code. I'm using an API called VexFlow to render notation. Basically I pass the parts of the editor's state to VexFlow to build the graphical representation of the score. Here is a rough and stripped down UML diagram showing you the outline of my program: In essence, a Part has many Measures which has many Notes which has many NoteItems (yes, this is semantically weird, as a chord is represented as a Note with multiple NoteItems, individual pitches or fret positions). All of the relationships are bi-directional. There are a few problems with my design because my Measure class contains the majority of the entire application view logic. The class holds the data about all VexFlow objects (the graphical representation of the score). It contains the graphical Staff object and the graphical notes. (Shouldn't these be placed somewhere else in the program?) While VexFlowFactory deals with actual creation (and some processing) of most of the VexFlow objects, Measure still "directs" the creation of all the objects and what order they are supposed to be created in for both the VexFlowStaff and VexFlowNotes. I'm not looking for a specific answer as you'd need a much deeper understanding of my code. Just a general direction to go in. Here's a thought I had, create an MeasureView/NoteView/PartView classes that contains the basic VexFlow objects for each class in addition to any extraneous logic for it's creation? but where would these views be contained? Do I create a ScoreView that is a parallel graphical representation of everything? So that ScoreView.render() would cascade down PartView and call render for each PartView and casade down into each MeasureView, etc. Again, I just have no idea what direction to go in. The more I think about it, the more ways to go seem to pop into my head. I tried to be as concise and simplistic as possible while still getting my problem across. Please feel free to ask me any questions if anything is unclear. It's quite a struggle trying to dumb down a complicated problem to its core parts.

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  • Will polishing my current project be a better learning experience than starting a new one?

    - by Alejandro Cámara
    I started programming many years ago. Now I'm trying to make games. I have read many recommendations to start cloning some well known games like galaga, tetris, arkanoid, etc. I have also read that I should go for the whole game (including menus, sound, score, etc.). Yesterday I finished the first complete version of my arkanoid clone. But it is far from over. I can still work on it for months (I program as a hobby in my free time) implementing a screen resolution switcher, remap of the control keys, power-ups falling from broken bricks, and a huge etc. But I do not want to be forever learning how to clone ONE game. I have the urge to get to the next clone in order to apply some design ideas I have come upon while developing this arkanoid clone (at the same time I am reading the GoF book and much source code from Ludum Dare 21 game contest). So the question is: Should I keep improving the arkanoid clone until it has all the features the original game had? or should I move to the next clone (there are almost infinite games to clone) and start mending the things I did wrong with the previous clone? This can be a very subjective question, so please restrain the answers to the most effective way to learn how to make my own games (not cloning someone ideas). Thank you! CLARIFICATION In order to clarify what I have implemented I make this list: Features implemented: Bouncing capabilities (the ball bounces on walls, on bricks, and on the bar). Sounds when bouncing on bricks and the bar, and when the player wins or loses. Basic title menu (new game and exit only). Also in-game menu and win/lose menus. Only three levels, but the map system is so easy I do not think it will teach me much (am I wrong?). Features not-implemented: Power-ups when breaking the bricks. Complex bricks (with more than one "hit point" and invincible). Better graphics (I am not really good at it). Programming polishing (use more intensively the design patterns). Here's a link to its (minimal) webpage: http://blog.acamara.es/piperine/ I kind of feel ashamed to show it, so please do not hit me too hard :-) My question was related to the not-implemented features. I wondered what was the fastest (optimal) path to learn. 1) implement the not-implemented features in this project which is getting big, or 2) make a new game which probably will teach me those lessons and new ones. ANSWER I choose @ashes999 answer because, in my case, I think I should polish more and try to "ship" the game. I think all the other answers are also important to bear in mind, so if you came here having the same question, before taking a rush decision read all the discussion. Thank you all!

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  • How Microsoft Market DotNet?

    - by Fendy
    I just read an Joel's article about Microsoft's breaking change (non-backwards compatibility) with dot net's introduction. It is interesting and explicitly reflected the condition during that time. But now almost 10 years has passed. The breaking change It is mainly on how bad is Microsoft introducing non-backwards compatibility development tools, such as dot net, instead of improving the already-widely used asp classic or VB6. As much have known, dot net is not natively embedded in windows XP (yes in vista or 7), so in order to use the .net apps, you need to install the .net framework of over 300mb (it's big that day). However, as we see that nowadays many business use .net as their main development tools, with asp.net or mvc as their web-based applications. C# nowadays be one of tops programming languages (the most questions in stackoverflow). The more interesing part is, win32api still alive even there is newer technology out there (and still widely used). Imagine if microsoft does not introduce the breaking change, there will many corporates still uses asp classic or vb-based applications (there still is, but not that much). There are many corporates use additional services such as azure or sharepoint (beside how expensive is it). Please note that I also know there are many flagships applications (maybe adobe's and blizzard's) still use C-based or older language and not porting to newer high-level language. The question How can Microsoft persuade the users to migrate their old applications into dot net? As we have known it is very hard and give no immediate value when rewrite the applications (netscape story), and it is very risky. I am more interested in Microsoft's way and not opinion such as "because dot net is OOP, or dot net is dll-embedable, etc". This question may be constructive, as the technology is vastly changes over times lately. As we can see, Microsoft changes Asp.Net webform to MVC, winform is legacy now, it is starting to change to use windows store rather than basic-installment, touchscreen and later on we will have see-through applications such as google class. And that will be breaking changes. We will need to account portability as an issue nowadays. We will need other than just mere technology choice, but also migration plans. Even maybe as critical as we might need multiplatform language compiler, as approached by Joel's Wasabi. (hey, I read his articles too much!)

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  • Extracting the Layout of all the Data Forms from the Relational Database

    - by RahulS
    Today I came across a question from one of our clients that: "what members are used on each data form WITHOUT having to go through the report generated out of our Planning app". We worked with client on this and reached to a simple query. All the form related information is stored in the following tables: HSP_FORM HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF_MBR HSP_FORM_ATTRIBUTES HSP_FORM_CALCS HSP_FORM_DV_CONDITION HSP_FORM_DV_PM_RULE HSP_FORM_DV_RULE HSP_FORM_DV_USER_IN_PM_RULE HSP_FORM_LAYOUT HSP_FORM_MENUS HSP_FORM_VARIABLES If we want to retrieve just the members included, we can concentrate on: HSP_OBJECT to get the Object_ID for form, Object_Type is 7 for forms. (Ex: Select * from HSP_OBJECT where OBJECT_TYPE = 7) HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF Find the OBJDEF_ID for a particular form HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF_MBR Use the above OBJDEF_ID to find the members: Here the Mbr_ID is the Id of the member and Query_Type is the Function like Idesc, Level0 etc and Sequce is you sequence, And the final table we can use is HSP_FORM_LAYOUT: Layout_Type: 0->Pov 1-> Page, 2->Row, 3->Col, DIM_ID is the dimension ID and Ordinal is position. Here is the Query: SELECT HSP_OBJECT.OBJECT_NAME AS 'Form',  HSP_OBJECT_2.OBJECT_NAME AS 'Dimension',  HSP_OBJECT_1.OBJECT_NAME AS 'Member',  HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF_MBR.QUERY_TYPE FROM  <DatabaseName>.dbo.HSP_FORM_LAYOUT HSP_FORM_LAYOUT,  <DatabaseName>.dbo.HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF,  <DatabaseName>.dbo.HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF_MBR HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF_MBR,  <DatabaseName>.dbo.HSP_MEMBER HSP_MEMBER,  <DatabaseName>.dbo.HSP_OBJECT HSP_OBJECT,  <DatabaseName>.dbo.HSP_OBJECT HSP_OBJECT_1,  <DatabaseName>.dbo.HSP_OBJECT HSP_OBJECT_2 WHERE  HSP_OBJECT.OBJECT_ID = HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF.FORM_ID AND  HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF_MBR.OBJDEF_ID = HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF.OBJDEF_ID AND  HSP_MEMBER.MEMBER_ID = HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF_MBR.MBR_ID AND  HSP_OBJECT_1.OBJECT_ID = HSP_MEMBER.MEMBER_ID AND  HSP_OBJECT_2.OBJECT_ID = HSP_MEMBER.DIM_ID AND  HSP_FORM_LAYOUT.DIM_ID = HSP_MEMBER.DIM_ID AND  HSP_FORM_LAYOUT.FORM_ID = HSP_FORMOBJ_DEF.FORM_ID AND  ((HSP_OBJECT.OBJECT_TYPE=7)) ORDER BY HSP_OBJECT.OBJECT_NAME  Concentrate on Test1 data form and Actual Layout of it as follows: Corresponding Query_type for few of the functions: 9  for Idesc, 3  for Ancestors, -9 for ILvl0Des, 8  for Desc, 4  for IAncestors Its just a basic idea you can do lot on the basis of this. Cheers..!!! Rahul S. http://www.facebook.com/pages/HyperionPlanning/117320818374228

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  • What is required for a scope in an injection framework?

    - by johncarl
    Working with libraries like Seam, Guice and Spring I have become accustomed to dealing with variables within a scope. These libraries give you a handful of scopes and allow you to define your own. This is a very handy pattern for dealing with variable lifecycles and dependency injection. I have been trying to identify where scoping is the proper solution, or where another solution is more appropriate (context variable, singleton, etc). I have found that if the scope lifecycle is not well defined it is very difficult and often failure prone to manage injections in this way. I have searched on this topic but have found little discussion on the pattern. Is there some good articles discussing where to use scoping and what are required/suggested prerequisites for scoping? I interested in both reference discussion or your view on what is required or suggested for a proper scope implementation. Keep in mind that I am referring to scoping as a general idea, this includes things like globally scoped singletons, request or session scoped web variable, conversation scopes, and others. Edit: Some simple background on custom scopes: Google Guice custom scope Some definitions relevant to above: “scoping” - A set of requirements that define what objects get injected at what time. A simple example of this is Thread scope, based on a ThreadLocal. This scope would inject a variable based on what thread instantiated the class. Here's an example of this: “context variable” - A repository passed from one object to another holding relevant variables. Much like scoping this is a more brute force way of accessing variables based on the calling code. Example: methodOne(Context context){ methodTwo(context); } methodTwo(Context context){ ... //same context as method one, if called from method one } “globally scoped singleton” - Following the singleton pattern, there is one object per application instance. This applies to scopes because there is a basic lifecycle to this object: there is only one of these objects instantiated. Here's an example of a JSR330 Singleton scoped object: @Singleton public void SingletonExample{ ... } usage: public class One { @Inject SingeltonExample example1; } public class Two { @Inject SingeltonExample example2; } After instantiation: one.example1 == two.example2 //true;

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  • Suggestions for getting an open source electron beam tracking code going

    - by Boaz
    I work in the field of accelerator physics and synchrotron radiation. High energy electrons circulating in large rings of magnets produce x-rays that are used for a variety of different kinds of science. Running and improving these facilities requires controlling and modelling the electron beam as it circulates in the ring. A code to model this basically requires trackers to follow the electrons through the elements (something called a symplectic integrator), and then the computation of different parameters associated with this motion. The problem with these codes is that every facility has there own. In principle the code is not so complex. And as a modelling project, one might think it has some general interest. Who doesn't want to be able to create a track in space out of magnets and watch the electrons circulate? There is a Matlab based code to do this called Accelerator Toolbox, but the creator of the code is no longer in the field. I put the code in Sourceforge under the name atcollab. The basic resource is in C- it is the set of symplectic integrators. These are available in the atcollab code here. It has been useful to put the code on Sourceforge in order to exchange code, but the community of users is quite small and most are too busy to put that much time into collaboration. So in terms of really improving the code, I don't think it has been so successful. Any piece of this picture could be recreated without that much difficulty, but overall it is a bit complex, and because each lab has their own installation with lots of add-on Matlab code, people find it hard to really work together and share code. Somehow I think we need to involve a wider community in our development, or just use some standard tools. But for that, I suppose it needs to be of some general interest. I think symplectic integrators may have some general interest. And the part about a plug-in architecture to build up the ring ought to fit other patterns. Or the other option is to just accept that this is not a problem of general interest, and work harder within our small community. Suggestions, or anecdotes of analogous experience would be appreciated.

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  • Investing in Servers by Intel

    - by Koushal Deshpande
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/BizTalkAndOtherTechs/archive/2013/10/31/investing-in-servers-by-intel.aspxA nice article reference from Intel, refer here. Referees to cloud as well. Choose correctly what you need. 1 Do determine right server for your company. There is no use getting a server that has redundant services but still add to the costs. 2 Do get servers that can be upgraded. A server with limited memory and storage may not be able to keep up with your business growth. The basic memory and storage options might not be sufficient. Consider at least 8GB of RAM and 1 terabyte of hard disk space. 3 Do check the server has at least one Gigabit Ethernet port. This allows high speed transferring of files and increases productivity for your employees. USB and Firewire ports may not be enough as their transfer speed is too low and will affect the productivity of your company. Infinite Technologies is ready to help perform this upgrade. Contact Infinite Technologies now View our other resellers » 4 Do verify that the server comes with documentation. Documentation allows you to make a claim when your server breaks down and is supported by a warranty. 6 Do check the support options for the server from the manufacturer. Different manufacturer has different support options such as maintenance plans and software upgrades. 5 Do always look into the warranty. Get an enhanced warranty that guarantees response and repair time to avoid disruption. 7 Do get server management tools that can be used on any computer. Server management tools should be cross compatible across different operating systems to take into account future PC replacements. 8 Do check the power usage of the servers. Get the right power supply to avoid damaging server hardware and consider the Intel® Xeon® E3 processor to help save on your electricity bills. 9 Do check what built-in security packages are available. Ensure that your server is protected. Built-in security1 helps you save on getting add on security packages.

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  • how to convert avi (xvid) to mkv or mp4 (h264)

    - by bcsteeve
    Very noob when it comes to video. I'm trying to make sense of what I"m finding via Google... but its mostly Greek to me. I have a bunch of Avi files that won't play in my WD TV Play box. Mediainfo tells me they are xvid. Specs for the box show that should be fine... but digging through forums says its hit-and-miss. So I'd like to try converting them to h264 encoded MKV or mp4 files. I gather avconv is the tool, but reading the manual just has me really really confused. I tried the very basic example of: avconv -i file.avi -c copy file.mp4 it took less than 4 seconds. And it worked... sort of. It "played" in that something came up on the screen... but there was horrible artifacting and scenes would just sort of melt into each other. I want to preserve quality if possible. I'm not concerned about file size. I'm not terribly concerned with the time it takes either, provided I can do them in a batch. Can someone familiar with the process please give me a command with the options? Thank you for your help. I'm posting the mediainfo in case it helps: General Complete name : \\SERVER\Video\Public\test.avi Format : AVI Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave File size : 189 MiB Duration : 11mn 18s Overall bit rate : 2 335 Kbps Writing application : Lavf52.32.0 Video ID : 0 Format : MPEG-4 Visual Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5 Format settings, BVOP : 2 Format settings, QPel : No Format settings, GMC : No warppoints Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263) Muxing mode : Packed bitstream Codec ID : XVID Codec ID/Hint : XviD Duration : 11mn 18s Bit rate : 2 129 Kbps Width : 720 pixels Height : 480 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate : 29.970 fps Standard : NTSC Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Compression mode : Lossy Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.206 Stream size : 172 MiB (91%) Writing library : XviD 1.2.1 (UTC 2008-12-04) Audio ID : 1 Format : MPEG Audio Format version : Version 1 Format profile : Layer 3 Mode : Joint stereo Mode extension : MS Stereo Codec ID : 55 Codec ID/Hint : MP3 Duration : 11mn 18s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 192 Kbps Channel(s) : 2 channels Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 15.5 MiB (8%) Alignment : Aligned on interleaves Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.72 video frame)

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  • Creating a Corporate Data Hub

    - by BuckWoody
    The Windows Azure Marketplace has a rich assortment of data and software offerings for you to use – a type of Software as a Service (SaaS) for IT workers, not necessarily for end-users. Among those offerings is the “Data Hub” – a  codename for a project that ironically actually does what the codename says. In many of our organizations, we have multiple data quality issues. Finding data is one problem, but finding it just once is often a bigger problem. Lots of departments and even individuals have stored the same data more than once, and in some cases, made changes to one of the copies. It’s difficult to know which location or version of the data is authoritative. Then there’s the problem of accessing the data. It’s fairly straightforward to publish a database, share or other location internally to store the data. But then you have to figure out who owns it, how it is controlled, and pass out the various connection strings to those who want to use it. And then you need to figure out how to let folks access the internal data externally – bringing up all kinds of security issues. Finally, in many cases our user community wants us to combine data from the internally sources with external data, bringing up the security, strings, and exploration features up all over again. Enter the Data Hub. This is an online offering, where you assign an administrator and data stewards. You import the data into the service, and it’s available to you - and only you and your organization if you wish. The basic steps for this service are to set up the portal for your company, assign administrators and permissions, and then you assign data areas and import data into them. From there you make them discoverable, and then you have multiple options that you or your users can access that data. You’re then able, if you wish, to combine that data with other data in one location. So how does all that work? What about security? Is it really that easy? And can you really move the data definition off to the Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) that know the particular data stack better than the IT team does? Well, nothing good is easy – but using the Data Hub is actually pretty simple. I’ll give you a link in a moment where you can sign up and try this yourself. Once you sign up, you assign an administrator. From there you’ll create data areas, and then use a simple interface to bring the data in. All of this is done in a portal interface – nothing to install, configure, update or manage. After the data is entered in, and you’ve assigned meta-data to describe it, your users have multiple options to access it. They can simply use the portal – which actually has powerful visualizations you can use on any platform, even mobile phones or tablets.     Your users can also hit the data with Excel – which gives them ultimate flexibility for display, all while using an authoritative, single reference for the data. Since the service is online, they can do this wherever they are – given the proper authentication and permissions. You can also hit the service with simple API calls, like this one from C#: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh921924  You can make HTTP calls instead of code, and the data can even be exposed as an OData Feed. As you can see, there are a lot of options. You can check out the offering here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlazurelabs/labs/data-hub.aspx and you can read the documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh921938

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