Search Results

Search found 15116 results on 605 pages for 'customer experience'.

Page 478/605 | < Previous Page | 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485  | Next Page >

• Proven Approach to Financial Progress Using Modern Best Practice

  - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE by Larry Simcox, Sr. Director, Oracle Midsize Programs Top performing organizations generate 25 percent higher profit margins and grow at twice the rate of their competitors. How do they do it? Recently, Dr. Stephen G. Timme, President of FinListics Solutions and Adjunct Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, joined me on a webcast to answer that question. I've know Dr. Timme since my days at G-log when we worked together to help customers determine the ROI of transportation management solutions. We were also joined by Steve Cox, Vice President of Oracle Midsize Programs, who recently published an Oracle E-book, "Modern Best Practice Explained". In this webcast, Cox provides his perspective on how best performing companies are moving from best practice to modern best practice.  Watch the webcast replay and you'll learn about the easy to follow, top down approach to: Identify processes that should be targeted for improvement Leverage a modern best practice maturity model to start a path to progress Link financial performance gaps to operational KPIs Improve cash flow by benchmarking key financial metrics Develop intelligent estimates of achievable cash flow benefits Click HERE to watch a replay of the webcast. You might also be interested in the following: Video: Modern Best Practices Defined  AppCast: Modern Best Practices for Growing Companies Looking for more news and information about Oracle Solutions for Midsize Companies? Read the latest Oracle for Midsize Companies Newsletter Sign-up to receive the latest communications from Oracle’s industry leaders and experts Larry Simcox Senior Director, Oracle Midsize Programs responsible for supporting and creating marketing content ,communications, sales and partner program support for Oracle's go to market activities for midsize companies. I have over 17 years experience helping customers identify the value and ROI from their IT investment. I live in Charlotte NC with my family and my dog Dingo. The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of Oracle. /* 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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

  Read the article

• The Social Enterprise: Gangnam Style

  - by Mike Stiles

  Are only small and medium businesses able to put social strategies in place, generate consistent, compelling content for customers, and be nimble enough to listen and respond to the social communities they build? Or are enterprise organizations eagerly and effectively adopting social as well? It depends on whom inside the organization you ask. A study from Attensity looked at who “gets” social inside enterprise organizations. The results were unsurprising. Mostly, Generation X and Y employees who came of age with social as part of their lives and as a key communications vehicle understand it. Imagine being a 25-year-old at a company that bans employees from accessing Facebook at work. You may as well tell them they can’t use phones and must do all calculations on an abacus. To them, such policy is absent of real-world logic and signals to them the organization is destined to be the victim of an up-and-comer. After that, it’s senior management that gets social. You don’t get to be in senior management without reading a few things and paying attention. Most senior managers are well aware of the impact social has had and will have, though they may be unsure of what to do about it. The better ones will utilize those on the inside who do inherently know how to communicate and build virtual relationships using social. The very best will get the past out of the way for these social innovators, so the new communications can be enacted minus counterproductive dictums, double-clutching, meeting-creep, and all the other fading internal practices that water down content and impede change. Organizationally, the Attensity study found 81% of enterprise companies believe failing to embrace social will result in their being left behind. Yet our old friend fear still has many captive in its clutches. 79% feel overwhelmed by the volume of social data available, something a social technology partner with goal-oriented analytics expertise could go a long way toward alleviating. Then there’s the fear of social having a negative impact. This comes from a lack of belief in the product, the customer service, or both. The public uses social not to go out and slay brands. They’re using it to be honest. If the fear is that honesty will reflect badly on the brand, the brand has much bigger, broader problems than what happens on Facebook. Sadly, most enterprise organizations still see social as a megaphone, a one-way channel with which to hit people with ads. They either don’t understand social relationships, or don’t want any. The truly unenlightened manager will always say, “We help them by selling them our stuff.” “Brand affinity” is a term, it’s just not one assigned much value in enterprise organizations. Which brings us to Psy, the Korean performer whose Internet video phenom “Gangnam Style,” as of this writing, has been viewed 438,550,238 times on YouTube. It’s bigger than anything a brand will probably ever publish. Most brands would never have seen the point of making or publishing it. But a funny thing happened on the way to Internet success. The video literally doubled the stock price of Psy’s father’s software firm. NH Investment and Securities said, "The positive sentiment has attracted investors just because of the fact the company is owned by Psy's father and uncle.” The company wasn’t mentioned or seen in the video in any way, yet reaped tangible rewards just for being tangentially associated with it. Imagine your brand being visibly and directly responsible for such a smash and tell me it’s worthless. When enterprise organizations embrace the value of igniting passions, making people happier, solving their problems, informing them, helping them have fun, etc., then they will have fully embraced social, and will reap the brand affinity rewards of heightened awareness, brand loyalty and yes, sales.

  Read the article

• Methodology to understanding JQuery plugin & API's developed by third parties

  - by Taoist

  I have a question about third party created JQuery plug ins and API's and the methodology for understanding them. Recently I downloaded the JQuery Masonry/Infinite scroll plug in and I couldn't figure out how to configure it based on the instructions. So I downloaded a fully developed demo, then manually deleted everything that wouldn't break the functionality. The code that was left allowed me to understand the plug in much greater detail than the documentation. I'm now having a similar issue with a plug in called JQuery knob. http://anthonyterrien.com/knob/ If you look at the JQuery Knob readme file it says this is working code: $(function() { $('.dial') .trigger( 'configure', { "min":10, "max":40, "fgColor":"#FF0000", "skin":"tron", "cursor":true } ); }); But as far as I can tell it isn't at all. The read me also says the Plug in uses Canvas. I am wondering if I am suppose to wrap this code in a canvas context or if this functionality is already part of the plug in. I know this kind of "question" might not fit in here but I'm a bit confused on the assumptions around reading these kinds of documentation and thought I would post the query regardless. Curious to see if this is due to my "newbi" programming experience or if this is something seasoned coders also fight with. Thank you. Edit In response to Tyanna's reply. I modified the code and it still doesn't work. I posted it below. I made sure that I checked the Google Console to insure the basics were taken care of, such as not getting a read-error on the library. <!DOCTYPE html> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <title>knob</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.2/themes/hot-sneaks/jquery-ui.css" type="text/css" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.21/jquery-ui.min.js"></script> <script src="js/jquery.knob.js"></script> <div id="button1">test </div> <script> $(function() { $("#button1").click(function () { $('.dial').trigger( 'configure', { "min":10, "max":40, "fgColor":"#FF0000", "skin":"tron", "cursor":true } ); }); }); </script>

  Read the article

• UK Oracle User Group Event: Trends in Identity Management

  - by B Shashikumar

  As threat levels rise and new technologies such as cloud and mobile computing gain widespread acceptance, security is occupying more and more mindshare among IT executives. To help prepare for the rapidly changing security landscape, the Oracle UK User Group community and our partners at Enline/SENA have put together an User Group event in London on Apr 19 where you can learn more from your industry peers about upcoming trends in identity management. Here are some of the key trends in identity management and security that we predicted at the beginning of last year and look how they have turned out so far. You have to admit that we have a pretty good track record when it comes to forecasting trends in identity management and security. Threat levels will grow—and there will be more serious breaches:   We have since witnessed breaches of high value targets like RSA and Epsilon. Most organizations have not done enough to protect against insider threats. Organizations need to look for security solutions to stop user access to applications based on real-time patterns of fraud and for situations in which employees change roles or employment status within a company. Cloud computing will continue to grow—and require new security solutions: Cloud computing has since exploded into a dominant secular trend in the industry. Cloud computing continues to present many opportunities like low upfront costs, rapid deployment etc. But Cloud computing also increases policy fragmentation and reduces visibility and control. So organizations require solutions that bridge the security gap between the enterprise and cloud applications to reduce fragmentation and increase control. Mobile devices will challenge traditional security solutions: Since that time, we have witnessed proliferation of mobile devices—combined with increasing numbers of employees bringing their own devices to work (BYOD) — these trends continue to dissolve the traditional boundaries of the enterprise. This in turn, requires a holistic approach within an organization that combines strong authentication and fraud protection, externalization of entitlements, and centralized management across multiple applications—and open standards to make all that possible.  Security platforms will continue to converge: As organizations move increasingly toward vendor consolidation, security solutions are also evolving. Next-generation identity management platforms have best-of-breed features, and must also remain open and flexible to remain viable. As a result, developers need products such as the Oracle Access Management Suite in order to efficiently and reliably build identity and access management into applications—without requiring security experts. Organizations will increasingly pursue "business-centric compliance.": Privacy and security regulations have continued to increase. So businesses are increasingly look for solutions that combine strong security and compliance management tools with business ready experience for faster, lower-cost implementations.  If you'd like to hear more about the top trends in identity management and learn how to empower yourself, then join us for the Oracle UK User Group on Thu Apr 19 in London where Oracle and Enline/SENA product experts will come together to share security trends, best practices, and solutions for your business. Register Here.

  Read the article

• How do we provide valid time estimates during Sprint Planning without doing "too much" design?

  - by Michael Edenfield

  My team is getting up to speed with Scrum, but most of us are more familiar with non-agile or "pseudo-"agile methodologies. The part that is the biggest hurdle for us is running an efficient Sprint Planning meeting where we break our backlog items into tasks, and estimate hours. (I'm using the terminology from the VS2010 Scrum Template; apologies if I use the wrong word somewhere.) When we try to figure out how long a task is going to take, we often fall into the trap of designing the feature at the code level -- table layout, interfaces, etc -- in order to figure out how long that's going to take. I'm pretty sure this is not the appropriate place to be doing that kind of design. We should be scheduling tasks for these design meetings during the sprint. However, we are having trouble figuring out how else to come up with meaningful estimates for the tasks. Are there any practical habits/techniques/etc. for making a judgement call about how long a feature is going to take, without knowing how you plan to implement it? If our time estimates are going to change significantly once the design has been completed, how can we properly budget our Sprint backlog ahead of time? EDIT: Just to clarify, since some of the comments/answers are very valid but I think addressing the wrong question. We know that what we're doing is not right, and that we should be building time into the sprint for this design. Conceptually all of the developers understand that. We also also bringing in a team member with Scrum experience to keep us on track if we start going off into the weeds. The problem is that, without going through this design process, we are finding it difficult to provide concrete time estimates for anything. We are constantly saying things like "well if we design it this way it might take 8 hours but if we end up having to do this other way instead that will take about 32 but it might not be as bad once we start trying to write it...". I also assume that this process will get better once we have some historical velocity to work from, but many of the technologies and architectural patterns we are using are new to us. But if potentially-wildly-wrong estimates are just a natural part of adapting this process then we will just need to recondition ourselves to accept that :)

  Read the article

• Showrooming: What's the big deal?

  - by David Dorf

  There's been lots of chatter recently on how retailers will combat showrooming this holiday season.  Best Buy and Target, for example, plan to price-match certain online sites.  But from my perspective, the whole showrooming concept is overblown.  Yes, mobile phones make is easier to comparison-shop, but consumers have been doing that all along.  Retailers have to work hard to merchandise their stores with the right products at the right price with the right promotions.  Its Retail 101. Yeah ok, many websites don't have to charge tax so they have an advantage, but they also have to cover shipping costs. Brick-and-mortar stores have the opportunity to provide expertise, fit, and instant gratification all of which are pretty big advantages. I see lots of studies that claim a large percentage of shoppers are showrooming.  Now I don't do much shopping, but when I do I rarely see anyone scanning UPC codes in the aisles.  If you dig into those studies, the question is usually something like, "have you used your mobile phone to price compare while shopping in the last year."  Well yeah, I did it once -- out of the 20 shopping trips.  And by the way, the in-store price was close enough to just buy the item.  Based on casual observation and informal surveys of friends, showrooming is not the modus-operandi for today's busy shoppers. I never see people showrooming in grocery stores, and most people don't bother for fashion.  For big purchases like appliances and furniture, I bet most people do their research online before entering the store.  The cases where I've done it was to see if a promotion was in fact a good deal.  Or even to make sure the in-store price is the same as the online price for the same brand. So, if you think you're a victim of showrooming, I suggest you look at the bigger picture.  Are you providing an engaging store experience?  Are you allowing customers to shop the way they want to shop, using various touchpoints?  Are you monitoring the competition to ensure prices are competitive?  Are your promotions attracting the right customers? Hubert Jolly, CEO of Best Buy, recently commented that showrooming might just get more people into his stores. "Once customers are in our stores, they're ours to lose."

  Read the article

• Monitoring C++ applications

  - by Scott A

  We're implementing a new centralized monitoring solution (Zenoss). Incorporating servers, networking, and Java programs is straightforward with SNMP and JMX. The question, however, is what are the best practices for monitoring and managing custom C++ applications in large, heterogenous (Solaris x86, RHEL Linux, Windows) environments? Possibilities I see are: Net SNMP Advantages single, central daemon on each server well-known standard easy integration into monitoring solutions we run Net SNMP daemons on our servers already Disadvantages: complex implementation (MIBs, Net SNMP library) new technology to introduce for the C++ developers rsyslog Advantages single, central daemon on each server well-known standard unknown integration into monitoring solutions (I know they can do alerts based on text, but how well would it work for sending telemetry like memory usage, queue depths, thread capacity, etc) simple implementation Disadvantages: possible integration issues somewhat new technology for C++ developers possible porting issues if we switch monitoring vendors probably involves coming up with an ad-hoc communication protocol (or using RFC5424 structured data; I don't know if Zenoss supports that without custom Zenpack coding) Embedded JMX (embed a JVM and use JNI) Advantages consistent management interface for both Java and C++ well-known standard easy integration into monitoring solutions somewhat simple implementation (we already do this today for other purposes) Disadvantages: complexity (JNI, thunking layer between native C++ and Java, basically writing the management code twice) possible stability problems requires a JVM in each process, using considerably more memory JMX is new technology for C++ developers each process has it's own JMX port (we run a lot of processes on each machine) Local JMX daemon, processes connect to it Advantages single, central daemon on each server consistent management interface for both Java and C++ well-known standard easy integration into monitoring solutions Disadvantages: complexity (basically writing the management code twice) need to find or write such a daemon need a protocol between the JMX daemon and the C++ process JMX is new technology for C++ developers CodeMesh JunC++ion Advantages consistent management interface for both Java and C++ well-known standard easy integration into monitoring solutions single, central daemon on each server when run in shared JVM mode somewhat simple implementation (requires code generation) Disadvantages: complexity (code generation, requires a GUI and several rounds of tweaking to produce the proxied code) possible JNI stability problems requires a JVM in each process, using considerably more memory (in embedded mode) Does not support Solaris x86 (deal breaker) Even if it did support Solaris x86, there are possible compiler compatibility issues (we use an odd combination of STLPort and Forte on Solaris each process has it's own JMX port when run in embedded mode (we run a lot of processes on each machine) possibly precludes a shared JMX server for non-C++ processes (?) Is there some reasonably standardized, simple solution I'm missing? Given no other reasonable solutions, which of these solutions is typically used for custom C++ programs? My gut feel is that Net SNMP is how people do this, but I'd like other's input and experience before I make a decision.

  Read the article

• Business Analytics Oracle Partner Advisory Council 2013

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  72 544x376 WHEN: Friday the 20th of September 2013 (just before OpenWorld) Register by: 1st of August 2013 WHERE: Sofitel San Francisco Bay 223 Twin Dolphin Drive, 94065 REDWOOD CITY, CA, USA Don’t miss this once a year opportunity to meet and drive a closer engagement with Oracle’s global Product Management Team: Oracle global Product Management will host this workshop. Target group: ACE Directors, Lead Consultants and key architects from our partners Topics: Product Development Roadmap, Partner project experience, your feedback, Q&A session For any inquiries please contact [email protected] As part of registering for the event, please note that you will need to complete the BI / EPM PAC-survey. Thank you for taking the time to provide this, your valuable input. The PAC (one for BI, and a separate track for Hyperion) is free of charge, but is only for OPN Specialised member partners, and is subject to availability. (Please do not attend unless you have received a confirmation from Oracle to do so.) Registration Link Coming Soon We do hope you will be able to join us - and I look forward to welcoming you in San Francisco. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; 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;}

  Read the article

• We have our standards, and we need them

  - by Tony Davis

  The presenter suddenly broke off. He was midway through his section on how to apply to the relational database the Continuous Delivery techniques that allowed for rapid-fire rounds of development and refactoring, while always retaining a “production-ready” state. He sighed deeply and then launched into an astonishing diatribe against Database Administrators, much of his frustration directed toward Oracle DBAs, in particular. In broad strokes, he painted the picture of a brave new deployment philosophy being frustratingly shackled by the relational database, and by especially by the attitudes of the guardians of these databases. DBAs, he said, shunned change and “still favored tools I’d have been embarrassed to use in the ’80′s“. DBAs, Oracle DBAs especially, were more attached to their vendor than to their employer, since the former was the primary source of their career longevity and spectacular remuneration. He contended that someone could produce the best IDE or tool in the world for Oracle DBAs and yet none of them would give a stuff, unless it happened to come from the “mother ship”. I sat blinking in astonishment at the speaker’s vehemence, and glanced around nervously. Nobody in the audience disagreed, and a few nodded in assent. Although the primary target of the outburst was the Oracle DBA, it made me wonder. Are we who work with SQL Server, database professionals or merely SQL Server fanbois? Do DBAs, in general, have an image problem? Is it a good career-move to be seen to be holding onto a particular product by the whites of our knuckles, to the exclusion of all else? If we seek a broad, open-minded, knowledge of our chosen technology, the database, and are blessed with merely mortal powers of learning, then we like standards. Vendors of RDBMSs generally don’t conform to standards by instinct, but by customer demand. Microsoft has made great strides to adopt the international SQL Standards, where possible, thanks to considerable lobbying by the community. The implementation of Window functions is a great example. There is still work to do, though. SQL Server, for example, has an unusable version of the Information Schema. One cast-iron rule of any RDBMS is that we must be able to query the metadata using the same language that we use to query the data, i.e. SQL, and we do this by running queries against the INFORMATION_SCHEMA views. Developers who’ve attempted to apply a standard query that works on MySQL, or some other database, but doesn’t produce the expected results on SQL Server are advised to shun the Standards-based approach in favor of the vendor-specific one, using the catalog views. The argument behind this is sound and well-documented, and of course we all use those catalog views, out of necessity. And yet, as database professionals, committed to supporting the best databases for the business, whatever they are now and in the future, surely our heart should sink somewhat when we advocate a vendor specific approach, to a developer struggling with something as simple as writing a guard clause. And when we read messages on the Microsoft documentation informing us that we shouldn’t rely on INFORMATION_SCHEMA to identify reliably the schema of an object, in SQL Server!

  Read the article

• Professional immigration

  - by etranger

  Hello all, Does anyone here have a practical advice on professional relocation from Russia to Europe? The reasons behind making such a decision are far beyond the subject, perhaps, so I'll stick to the practical part. Having done some of the "common stuff" for finding a job, I am now facing two serious problems: I am a "dual-class" person, with university degree in marketing, and multiple years of self-studied computer competence (hence my writing here). Have professional experience in both areas. I don't currently hold a European work permit. From what I can see, this results in normal HR person throwing out my CV as either being "overqualified" or "too much trouble with making the permit". I do have the skills and character to start my own business, but it requires start-up capital that I don't have, over the last years I had to pay high bills for medical treatment of my family member, who had deceased. Now, I'm almost out of debts. As you can probably guess, English is not a problem, and I'm open to new languages, but first steps of entering the market, or the society, is the problematic part. I live close to Norway, and am trying to get some professional contacts there, but it hasn't got me any practical perspective so far. Any advice is greatly appreciated. EDIT: I am currently making my living off web site development, and occasional consulting services both in IT and marketing. For purely geographic reasons I'm dealing with clients that reside in the same city where I live, pop. 350 000. Being quite local, market requirements for web sites are simple and stable — clients need to control navigation, write articles in a word-like editor, upload illustrations and place ad banners, all with no additional programming. As many web developers do, I'm using my own content management system that fits these expectations. I have also started developing a newer version of this system that has better support for international environments, but I'm too distant from the real market demand in Europe to speak of the right track here. Technically it's based on php/mysql and uses xslt for templating. It allows for quick website deployment, and has architectural neatness, lack of which made me abandon similar opensource solutions (Joomla and the like). Deploying time from rasterized design proofs is normally under 6-8 working hours, don't know how that compares to the world practice. EDIT 2: Can anyone share what Norwegian (Scandinavian) web solutions market currently demands?

  Read the article

• I cannot remove/install software some dependency issue?

  - by Ryuzaki

  I'm having difficulty trying to install/uninstall applications in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I have this warning error that appears on my desktop in the form of a red icon with a line through it and it states: An error occurred, please run Package Manager from the right-click menu or apt-get in a terminal to see what is wrong. The error message was: 'Error: BrokenCount 0' — This usually means that your installed packages have unmet dependencies. I tried to repair automatically through ubuntu software center and I kept getting errors or it just didn't seem to work. Afterwards, I opened terminal and used sudo apt-get check command to see what the problem was and the results yielded: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these. The following packages have unmet dependencies: libjack-jackd2-0 : Breaks: libjack-jackd2-0:i386 (!= 1.9.8~dfsg.1-1ubuntu1) but 1.9.8~dfsg.2-1precise1 is installed libjack-jackd2-0:i386 : Breaks: libjack-jackd2-0 (!= 1.9.8~dfsg.2-1precise1) but 1.9.8~dfsg.1-1ubuntu1 is installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f. After I ran sudo apt-get -f install (in an attempt to fix the issue at hand), I encountered the following errors/code: okudaira@haru-kano:~$ sudo apt-get -f install Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies... Done The following extra packages will be installed: libjack-jackd2-0 Suggested packages: jackd2 The following packages will be upgraded: libjack-jackd2-0 1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 24 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 0 B/197 kB of archives. After this operation, 3,072 B of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y (Reading database ... 181702 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace libjack-jackd2-0 1.9.8~dfsg.1-1ubuntu1 (using .../libjack-jackd2-0_1.9.8~dfsg.2-1precise1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement libjack-jackd2-0 ... dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libjack-jackd2-0_1.9.8~dfsg.2-1precise1_amd64.deb (--unpack): './usr/share/doc/libjack-jackd2-0/buildinfo.gz' is different from the same file on the system dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe) Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/libjack-jackd2-0_1.9.8~dfsg.2-1precise1_amd64.deb localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/locale: 0 KiB localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/man: 0 KiB localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/gnome/help: 0 KiB localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/omf: 0 KiB Total disk space freed by localepurge: 0 KiB E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) The real problem I'm having is interpreting what is being stated. I'm fairly new to the ubuntu experience so I'm not very well-versed with the terminology and the entire in's and out's. Can someone tell me what's wrong with my system? I can no longer install/remove any programs at all.

  Read the article

• The Minimalist Approach to Content Governance - Create Phase

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

   Originally posted by John Brunswick. In this installment of our Minimalist Approach to Content Governance we finally get to the fun part of the content creation process! Once the content requester has addressed the items outlined in the Request Phase it is time to setup and begin the production of content.   For this to be done correctly it is important the the content be assigned appropriate workflow and security information. As in our prior phase, let's take a look at what can be done to streamline this process - as contributors are focused on getting information to their end users as quickly as possible. This often means that details around how to ensure that the materials are properly managed can be overlooked, but fortunately there are some techniques that leverage our content management system's native capabilities to automatically take care of some of the details. 1. Determine Access Why - Even if content is not something that needs to restricted due to security reasons, it is helpful to apply access rights so that the content ends up being visible only to users that it relates to. This will greatly improve user experience. For instance, if your team is working on a group project many of your fellow company employees do not need to see the content that is being worked on for that project. How - Make use of native content features that allow propagation of security and meta data from parent folders within your content system that have been setup for your particular effort. This makes it painless to enforce security, as well as meta data policies for even the most unorganized users. The default settings at a parent level can be set once the content creation request has been accepted and a location in the content management system is assigned for your specific project. Impact - Users can find information will less effort, as they will only be exposed to what they need for their work and can leverage advanced search features to take advantage of meta data assigned to content. The combination of default security and meta data will also help in running reports against the content in the Manage and Retire stages that we will discuss in the next 2 posts. 2. Assign Workflow (optional depending on nature of content) Why - Every case for workflow is going to be a bit different, but it generally involves ensuring that content conforms to management, legal and or editorial requirements. How - Oracle's Universal Content Management offers two ways of helping to workflow content without much effort. Workflow can be applied to content based on Criteria acting on meta data or explicitly assigned to content with a Basic workflow. Impact - Any content that needs additional attention before release is addressed, allowing users to comment and version until a suitable result is reached. By using inheritance from parent folders within the content management system content can automatically be given the right security, meta data and workflow information for a particular project's content. This relieves the burden of doing this for every piece of content from management teams and content contributors. We will cover more about the management phase within the content lifecycle in our next installment.

  Read the article

• Independent Research on 1500 Companies Reveals Challenges in Performance Visibility – Part 1

  - by ndwyouell

  At the end of May I was joined by Professor Andy Neely of Cambridge University on a webinar, with an audience of over 700, to discuss the results of this extensive study which covered 13 countries and nearly every commercial and industrial sector.  What stunned both of us was not so much the number listening but the 100 questions they asked in just 1 hour.  This certainly represents a record in my experience and for those that organized the webinar. So what was all the fuss about?  Well, to begin with this was a pretty big sample and it represented organizations with over $100m sales across the USA, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. It also delivered some pretty interesting results across a wide range of EPM subjects such as profitability, planning and reporting.  Let’s look at some of those findings. We kicked off with profitability, one of the key factors in driving performance, or that is what you would think, but in fact 82% of our respondents said they did not have complete visibility into the profitability of their organization. 91% of these went further to say that, not surprisingly, this lack of knowledge into the profitability has implications with over half citing 3 or more implications.  Implications cited included misallocated resources, revenue opportunities not maximized, erroneous decisions made and impaired financial performance.  Quite a list of implications, especially given the difficult economic circumstances many organizations are operating in at this time. So why is this?  Well other results in the study point to some of the potential reasons.  Firstly 59% of respondents that use spreadsheets use them for monitoring profitability and 93% of all managers responding to the study use spreadsheets to gather and analyze information.  This is an enormous proportion given the problems with using spreadsheets based performance management systems that have been widely talked about for many years.  For profitability analysis this is particularly important when you consider the typical requirement will be to allocate cost and revenue across 6+ dimensions based on many different allocation methods.  Not something that can be done easily in spreadsheets plus it gets to be a nightmare once you want to change allocations, run different scenarios and then change the basis of your planning and budgeting! It is no wonder so many organizations have challenges in performance visibility. My next blog will look at the fragmented nature of many organizations’ planning.  In the meantime if you want to read the complete report on the research go to: http://www.oracle.com/webapps/dialogue/ns/dlgwelcome.jsp?p_ext=Y&p_dlg_id=10077790&src=7038701&Act=29

  Read the article

• Welcome to ubiquitous file sharing (December 08, 2009)

  - by user12612012

  The core of any file server is its file system and ZFS provides the foundation on which we have built our ubiquitous file sharing and single access control model.  ZFS has a rich, Windows and NFSv4 compatible, ACL implementation (ZFS only uses ACLs), it understands both UNIX IDs and Windows SIDs and it is integrated with the identity mapping service; it knows when a UNIX/NIS user and a Windows user are equivalent, and similarly for groups.  We have a single access control architecture, regardless of whether you are accessing the system via NFS or SMB/CIFS.The NFS and SMB protocol services are also integrated with the identity mapping service and shares are not restricted to UNIX permissions or Windows permissions.  All access control is performed by ZFS, the system can always share file systems simultaneously over both protocols and our model is native access to any share from either protocol.Modal architectures have unnecessary restrictions, confusing rules, administrative overhead and weird deployments to try to make them work; they exist as a compromise not because they offer a benefit.  Having some shares that only support UNIX permissions, others that only support ACLs and some that support both in a quirky way really doesn't seem like the sort of thing you'd want in a multi-protocol file server.  Perhaps because the server has been built on a file system that was designed for UNIX permissions, possibly with ACL support bolted on as an add-on afterthought, or because the protocol services are not truly integrated with the operating system, it may not be capable of supporting a single integrated model.With a single, integrated sharing and access control model: If you connect from Windows or another SMB/CIFS client: The system creates a credential containing both your Windows identity and your UNIX/NIS identity.  The credential includes UNIX/NIS IDs and SIDs, and UNIX/NIS groups and Windows groups. If your Windows identity is mapped to an ephemeral ID, files created by you will be owned by your Windows identity (ZFS understands both UNIX IDs and Windows SIDs). If your Windows identity is mapped to a real UNIX/NIS UID, files created by you will be owned by your UNIX/NIS identity. If you access a file that you previously created from UNIX, the system will map your UNIX identity to your Windows identity and recognize that you are the owner.  Identity mapping also supports access checking if you are being assessed for access via the ACL. If you connect via NFS (typically from a UNIX client): The system creates a credential containing your UNIX/NIS identity (including groups). Files you create will be owned by your UNIX/NIS identity. If you access a file that you previously created from Windows and the file is owned by your UID, no mapping is required. Otherwise the system will map your Windows identity to your UNIX/NIS identity and recognize that you are the owner.  Again, mapping is fully supported during ACL processing. The NFS, SMB/CIFS and ZFS services all work cooperatively to ensure that your UNIX identity and your Windows identity are equivalent when you access the system.  This, along with the single ACL-based access control implementation, results in a system that provides that elusive ubiquitous file sharing experience.

  Read the article

• Speaker Notes...

  - by wulfers

  At a .Net User Group meeting this week, I experienced two poorly prepared speakers floundering through presentations….  As a Lead Technologist at the company I work for, I have experience training technical staff and also giving presentations at code camps.  Here are a few guidelines for aspiring speakers you might find helpful…   1.       Do not stand in front of your audience and read your slides.  This is  offensive to your audience and not what they came for...  Your slides are there to reinforce the information you are presenting and to give the audience a little clarification on some terms you may use and as a visual aid for some complicated issues. 2.       Have someone review your presentation (slides, notes, …) who speaks the language you will be presenting in fluently.  Also record at least ten minutes of your presentation and have that same person review that.  One of the speakers this week used the word “Basically” fifty times in less than thirty minutes…  I started to flinch every time he used the term. 3.       Be Prepared  -  before the presentation begins.  Don’t make any last minute changes to your presentation or demo code the night before.  Don’t patch your laptop or demo servers the night before.  If possible create a virtual image that you only use for presentations and use that (refreshed before every presentation). 4.       Know the level of expertise of your audience.  Speaking above or below their abilities will make or break your presentation. 5.       Deliver what you promise. The presentation this week was supposed to be on BDD (Behavior Driven Develpment).  The presenter completely ran off track and 90% of the discussion was how his team mistakenly used TDD (Test Driven Development), and was unhappy with the results.  Based on his loss of focus we only heard a rushed 10 minute presentation on DBB which was a disservice to the audience. 6.       Practice your presentation with your own small team before you try this on a room full of people you don’t know.  A side benefit of doing this with your own team is that you can get candid feedback from your team and also get kudos for training your own team.  I find I can also turn my presentations into technical white papers and get a third benefit from the work I’ve put into a presentation. 7.       Sharpen your own saw.  Pick a topic that is fairly current.  Something you would like to learn about and would benefit your current career path. 8.       Have fun doing it.

  Read the article

• Do I need to go to a big-name university?

  - by itaiferber

  As a soon-to-be graduating high school senior in the U.S., I'm going to be facing a tough decision in a few months: which college should I go to? Will it be worth it to go to Cornell or Stanford or Carnegie Mellon (assuming I get in, of course) to get a big-name computer science degree, internships, and connections with professors, while taking on massive debt; or am I better off going to SUNY Binghamton (probably the best state school in New York) and still get a pretty decent education while saving myself from over a hundred-thousand dollars worth of debt? Yes, I know questions like this has been asked before (namely here and here), but please bear with me because I haven't found an answer that fits my particular situation. I've read the two linked questions above in depth, but they haven't answered what I want to know: Yes, I understand that going to a big-name college can potentially get me connected with some wonderful professors and leaders in the field, but on average, how does that translate financially? I mean, will good connections pay off so well that I'd be easily getting rid of over a hundred-thousand dollars of debt? And how does the fact that I can get a fifth-years master's degree at Carnegie Mellon play into the equation? Will the higher degree right off the bat help me get a better-paying job just out of college, or will the extra year only put me further into debt? Not having to go to graduate school to get a comparable degree will, of course, be a great financial relief, but will getting it so early give it any greater worth? And if I go to SUNY Binghamton, which is far lesser-known than what I've considered (although if there are any alumni out there who want to share their experience, I would greatly appreciate it), would I be closing off doors that would potentially offset my short-term economic gain with long-term benefits? Essentially, is the short-term benefit overweighed by a potential long-term loss? The answers to these questions all tie in to my final college decision (again, permitting I make it to these schools), so I hope that asking the skilled and knowledgeable people of the field will help me make the right choice (if there is such a thing). Also, please note: I'm in a rather peculiar situation where I can't pay for college without taking out a bunch of loans, but will be getting little to no financial aid (likely federal or otherwise). I don't want to elaborate on this too much (so take it at face value), but this is mainly the reason I'm asking the question. Thanks a lot! It means a lot to me.

  Read the article

• Best Advice Ever: Learn By Helping Others

  - by Argenis

  I remember when back in 2001 my friend and former SQL Server MVP Carlos Eduardo Rojas was busy earning his MVP street-cred in the NNTP forums, aka Newsgroups. I always thought he was playing the Sheriff trying to put some order in a Wild Wild West town by trying to understand what these people were asking. He spent a lot of time doing this stuff – and I thought it was just plain crazy. After all, he was doing it for free. What was he gaining from all of that work? It was not until the advent of Twitter and #SQLHelp that I realized the real gain behind helping others. Forget about the glory and the laurels of others thanking you (and thinking you’re the best thing ever – ha!), or whatever award with whatever three letter acronym might be given to you. It’s about what you learn in the process of helping others. See, when you teach something, it’s usually at a fixed date and time, and on a specific topic. But helping others with their issues or general questions is something that goes on 24x7, on whatever topic under the sun. Just go look at sites like DBA.StackExchange.com, or the SQLServerCentral forums. It’s questions coming in literally non-stop from all corners or the world. And yet a lot of people are willing to help you, regardless of who you are, where you come from, or what time of day it is. And in my case, this process of helping others usually leads to me learning something new. Especially in those cases where the question isn’t really something I’m good at. The delicate part comes when you’re ready to give an answer, but you’re not sure. Often times I’ll try to validate with Internet searches and what have you. Often times I’ll throw in a question mark at the end of the answer, so as not to look authoritative, but rather suggestive. But as time passes by, you get more and more comfortable with that topic. And that’s the real gain.  I have done this for many years now on #SQLHelp, which is my preferred vehicle for providing assistance. I cannot tell you how much I’ve learned from it. By helping others, by watching others help. It’s all knowledge and experience you gain…and you might not be getting all that in your day job today. Such thing, my dear reader, is invaluable. It’s what will differentiate yours amongst a pack of resumes. It’s what will get you places. Take it from me - a guy who, like you, knew nothing about SQL Server.

  Read the article

• Oracle OpenWorld / JavaOne Where I'll Be

  - by Shay Shmeltzer

  It's that time of the year again when San Francisco get flooded with Oracle and Java geeks for the annual OpenWorld and JavaOne conferences. Here are some of the places where you'll be able to find me: Sunday has a bunch of great ADF content in the ADF Enterprise Methodology Group track - I'm not sure if I'll make it there but I'm sure those who will will get some serious knowledge transfer. I'm starting Monday at the Keynote for Developers (10:45 in Salon 8 at the Marriott) - that's a great place for ADF developers to start the official week with an overview of what's new and upcoming in the world of development with ADF. While I'm not presenting this session - Chris Tonas who leads the development tools org will -  a demo that I built will be shown. So I'll be sitting in the audience crossing my fingers praying for the demo gods (and the wifi connection to work). My presentation part of the week starts on Monday at 12:15 at Moscone South room 306 where I'll be presenting "CON3004 - Understanding Oracle ADF and Its Role in Oracle Fusion"  . A basic introduction to ADF, it's architecture, development experience and how it integrates and works with the rest of the Fusion Middleware components.  After the session between 2-4 I'll be at the JDeveloper demo booth in Moscone South to answer any questions people might have. Then at 6:15 together with Grant we'll host BOF4492 - How to Get Started with Oracle ADF where we'll try and explain some of the learning paths and resources that are available for people who want to start learning ADF. This is a birds-of-a-feather so we'll also love to hear ideas from the audience about what paths they took and what things work or need improvment. Tuesday is relatively a quite day for me with a shift at the Oracle ADF Essentials pod at JavaOne from 1:30-3:30. There are several very good ADF architecture and best practices sessions on that day - so I'll try and hit those. Wednesday starts with another shift at the JDeveloper booth at JavaOne. Then at 4:30, instead of doing what all the ADF developers should do and heading over to the ADF meetup at the OTN Lounge, I'll be heading over to JavaOne for my CON3770 - Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle ADF: What’s New session. It's been a couple of years since the last time JDeveloper or ADF got any airtime at JavaOne - so it will be a great opportunity to show those in the Java community with open minds our approach to Java development. Now that ADF Essentials offers a free way to develop with ADF on GlassFish, I hope we'll be getting more people from the core Java camp interested in what we have to offer. Thursday is another relaxed day for me - who knows maybe I'll even be able to catch a session or two on that day. If you want to learn more about the ADF related sessions at OOW check out our full list here.

  Read the article

• Creating a voxel chunk with a VBO - How to translate the coordinates of each block and add it to the VBO chunk?

  - by sunsunsunsunsun

  Im trying to make a voxel engine similar to minecraft as a little learning experience and a way to learn some opengl. I have created a chunk class and I want to put all of the vertices for the whole chunk into a single VBO. I was previously only putting each block into a vbo and making a call to render each block. Anyways, I am a bit confused about how I can translate the coordinates of each block in the chunk when I'm putting all vertices into one vbo. This is what I have at the moment. public void putVertices(float tx, float ty, float tz) { float l_length = 1.0f; float l_height = 1.0f; float l_width = 1.0f; vertexPositionData.put(new float[]{ xOffset + l_length + tx, l_height + ty, zOffset + -l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, l_height + ty, zOffset + -l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, l_height + ty, zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + l_length + tx, l_height + ty, zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + l_length + tx, -l_height + ty, zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, -l_height + ty, zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, -l_height + ty, zOffset + -l_width + tz, xOffset + l_length + tx, -l_height + ty, zOffset + -l_width + tz, xOffset + l_length + tx, l_height + ty, zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, l_height + ty,zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, -l_height + ty,zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + l_length + tx, -l_height + ty, zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + l_length + tx, -l_height + ty, zOffset + -l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, -l_height + ty,zOffset + -l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, l_height + ty, zOffset + -l_width + tz, xOffset + l_length + tx, l_height + ty, zOffset + -l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, l_height + ty, zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, l_height + ty, zOffset + -l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, -l_height + ty, zOffset + -l_width + tz, xOffset + -l_length + tx, -l_height + ty,zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + l_length + tx, l_height + ty,zOffset + -l_width + tz, xOffset + l_length + tx, l_height + ty, zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + l_length + tx, -l_height + ty, zOffset + l_width + tz, xOffset + l_length + tx, -l_height + ty, zOffset + -l_width + tz }); } public void createChunk() { vertexPositionData = BufferUtils.createFloatBuffer((24*3)*activateBlocks); Random random = new Random(); for (int x = 0; x < CHUNK_SIZE; x++) { for (int y = 0; y < CHUNK_SIZE; y++) { for (int z = 0; z < CHUNK_SIZE; z++) { if(blocks[x][y][z].getActive()) { putVertices(x*2.0f, y*2.0f, z*2.0f); } } } } Whats any easy way to translate the vertices of each block into its correct position? I was previously using glTranslatef with each call to render block but this wont work now. What I am doing now also does not work, the blocks all render in stacks on top of each other and it looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/NyFtBTI.png Thanks

  Read the article

• Good, simple reasons for having multiple environments

  - by smp7d

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

  Read the article

• "static" as a semantic clue about statelessness?

  - by leoger

  this might be a little philosophical but I hope someone can help me find a good way to think about this. I've recently undertaken a refactoring of a medium sized project in Java to go back and add unit tests. When I realized what a pain it was to mock singletons and statics, I finally "got" what I've been reading about them all this time. (I'm one of those people that needs to learn from experience. Oh well.) So, now that I'm using Spring to create the objects and wire them around, I'm getting rid of static keywords left and right. (If I could potentially want to mock it, it's not really static in the same sense that Math.abs() is, right?) The thing is, I had gotten into the habit of using static to denote that a method didn't rely on any object state. For example: //Before import com.thirdparty.ThirdPartyLibrary.Thingy; public class ThirdPartyLibraryWrapper { public static Thingy newThingy(InputType input) { new Thingy.Builder().withInput(input).alwaysFrobnicate().build(); } } //called as... ThirdPartyLibraryWrapper.newThingy(input); //After public class ThirdPartyFactory { public Thingy newThingy(InputType input) { new Thingy.Builder().withInput(input).alwaysFrobnicate().build(); } } //called as... thirdPartyFactoryInstance.newThingy(input); So, here's where it gets touchy-feely. I liked the old way because the capital letter told me that, just like Math.sin(x), ThirdPartyLibraryWrapper.newThingy(x) did the same thing the same way every time. There's no object state to change how the object does what I'm asking it to do. Here are some possible answers I'm considering. Nobody else feels this way so there's something wrong with me. Maybe I just haven't really internalized the OO way of doing things! Maybe I'm writing in Java but thinking in FORTRAN or somesuch. (Which would be impressive since I've never written FORTRAN.) Maybe I'm using staticness as a sort of proxy for immutability for the purposes of reasoning about code. That being said, what clues should I have in my code for someone coming along to maintain it to know what's stateful and what's not? Perhaps this should just come for free if I choose good object metaphors? e.g. thingyWrapper doesn't sound like it has state indepdent of the wrapped Thingy which may itself be mutable. Similarly, a thingyFactory sounds like it should be immutable but could have different strategies that are chosen among at creation. I hope I've been clear and thanks in advance for your advice!

  Read the article

• Is Innovation Dead?

  - by wulfers

  My question is has innovation died?  For large businesses that do not have a vibrant, and fearless leadership (see Apple under Steve jobs), I think is has.  If you look at the organizational charts for many of the large corporate megaliths you will see a plethora of middle managers who are so risk averse that innovation (any change involves risk) is choked off since there are no innovation champions in the middle layers.  And innovation driven top down can only happen when you have a visionary in the top ranks, and that is also very rare.So where is actual innovation happening, at the bottom layer, the people who live in the trenches…   The people who live for a challenge. So how can big business leverage this innovation layer?  Remove the middle management layer.   Provide an innovation champion who has an R&D budget and is tasked with working with the bottom layer of a company, the engineers, developers  and business analysts that live on the edge (Where the corporate tires meet the road). Here are two innovation failures I will tell you about, and both have been impacted by a company so risk averse it is starting to fail in its primary business ventures: This company initiated an innovation process several years ago.  The process was driven companywide with team managers being the central points of collection of innovative ideas.  These managers were given no budget to do anything with these ideas.  There was no process or incentive for these managers to drive it about their team.  This lasted close to a year and the innovation program slowly slipped into oblivion…. A second example:  This same company failed an attempt to market a consumer product in a line where there was already a major market leader.  This product was under development for several years and needed to provide some major device differentiation form the current market leader.  This same company had a large Lead Technologist community made up of real innovators in all areas of technology.  Did this same company leverage the skills and experience of this internal community,   NO!!! So to wrap this up, if large companies really want to survive, then they need to start acting like a small company.  Support those innovators and risk takers!  Reward them by implementing their innovative ideas.  Champion (from the top down) innovation (found at the bottom) in your companies.  Remember if you stand still you are really falling behind.Do it now!  Take a risk!

  Read the article

• SQL to select random mix of rows fairly [migrated]

  - by Matt Sieker

  Here's my problem: I have a set of tables in a database populated with data from a client that contains product information. In addition to the basic product information, there is also information about the manufacturer, and categories for those products (a product can be in one or more categories). These categories are then referred to as "Product Categories", and which stores these products are available at. These tables are updated once a week from a feed from the customer. Since for our purposes, some of the product categories are the same, or closely related for our purposes, there is another level of categories called "General Categories", a general category can have one or more product categories. For the scope of these tables, here's some rough numbers: Data Tables: Products: 475,000 Manufacturers: 1300 Stores: 150 General Categories: 245 Product Categories: 500 Mapping Tables: Product Category -> Product: 655,000 Stores -> Products: 50,000,000 Now, for the actual problem: As part of our software, we need to select n random products, given a store and a general category. However, we also need to ensure a good mix of manufacturers, as in some categories, a single manufacturer dominates the results, and selecting rows at random causes the results to strongly favor that manufacturer. The solution that is currently in place, works for most cases, involves selecting all of the rows that match the store and category criteria, partition them on manufacturer, and include their row number from within their partition, then select from that where the row number for that manufacturer is less than n, and use ROWCOUNT to clamp the total rows returned to n. This query looks something like this: SET ROWCOUNT 6 select p.Id, GeneralCategory_Id, Product_Id, ISNULL(m.DisplayName, m.Name) AS Vendor, MSRP, MemberPrice, FamilyImageName from (select p.Id, gc.Id GeneralCategory_Id, p.Id Product_Id, ctp.Store_id, Manufacturer_id, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY Manufacturer_id ORDER BY NEWID()) AS 'VendorOrder', MSRP, MemberPrice, FamilyImageName from GeneralCategory gc inner join GeneralCategoriesToProductCategories gctpc ON gc.Id=gctpc.GeneralCategory_Id inner join ProductCategoryToProduct pctp on gctpc.ProductCategory_Id = pctp.ProductCategory_Id inner join Product p on p.Id = pctp.Product_Id inner join StoreToProduct ctp on p.Id = ctp.Product_id where gc.Id = @GeneralCategory and ctp.Store_id=@StoreId and p.Active=1 and p.MemberPrice >0) p inner join Manufacturer m on m.Id = p.Manufacturer_id where VendorOrder <=6 order by NEWID() SET ROWCOUNT 0 (I've tried to somewhat format it to make it cleaner, but I don't think it really helps) Running this query with an execution plan shows that for the majority of these tables, it's doing a Clustered Index Seek. There are two operations that take up roughly 90% of the time: Index Seek (Nonclustered) on StoreToProduct: 17%. This table just contains the key of the store, and the key of the product. It seems that NHibernate decided not to make a composite key when making this table, but I'm not concerned about this at this point, as compared to the other seek... Clustered Index Seek on Product: 69%. I really have no clue how I could make this one more performant. On categories without a lot of products, performance is acceptable (<50ms), however larger categories can take a few hundred ms, with the largest category taking 3s (which has about 170k products). It seems I have two ways to go from this point: Somehow optimize the existing query and table indices to lower the query time. As almost every expensive operation is already a clustered index scan, I don't know what could be done there. The inner query could be tuned to not return all of the possible rows for that category, but I am unsure how to do this, and maintain the requirements (random products, with a good mix of manufacturers) Denormalize this data for the purpose of this query when doing the once a week import. However, I am unsure how to do this and maintain the requirements. Does anyone have any input on either of these items?

  Read the article

• Bump mapping Problem GLSL

  - by jmfel1926

  I am having a slight problem with my Bump Mapping project. Although everything works OK (at least from what I know) there is a slight mistake somewhere and I get incorrect shading on the brick wall when the light goes to the one side or the other as seen in the picture below: The light is on the right side so the shading on the wall should be the other way. I have provided the shaders to help find the issue (I do not have much experience with shaders). Shaders: varying vec3 viewVec; varying vec3 position; varying vec3 lightvec; attribute vec3 tangent; attribute vec3 binormal; uniform vec3 lightpos; uniform mat4 cameraMat; void main() { gl_TexCoord[0] = gl_MultiTexCoord0; gl_Position = ftransform(); position = vec3(gl_ModelViewMatrix * gl_Vertex); lightvec = vec3(cameraMat * vec4(lightpos,1.0)) - position ; vec3 eyeVec = vec3(gl_ModelViewMatrix * gl_Vertex); viewVec = normalize(-eyeVec); } uniform sampler2D colormap; uniform sampler2D normalmap; varying vec3 viewVec; varying vec3 position; varying vec3 lightvec; vec3 vv; uniform float diffuset; uniform float specularterm; uniform float ambientterm; void main() { vv=viewVec; vec3 normals = normalize(texture2D(normalmap,gl_TexCoord[0].st).rgb * 2.0 - 1.0); normals.y = -normals.y; //normals = (normals * gl_NormalMatrix).xyz ; vec3 distance = lightvec; float dist_number =length(distance); float final_dist_number = 2.0/pow(dist_number,diffuset); vec3 light_dir=normalize(lightvec); vec3 Halfvector = normalize(light_dir+vv); float angle=max(dot(Halfvector,normals),0.0); angle= pow(angle,specularterm); vec3 specular=vec3(angle,angle,angle); float diffuseterm=max(dot(light_dir,normals),0.0); vec3 diffuse = diffuseterm * texture2D(colormap,gl_TexCoord[0].st).rgb; vec3 ambient = ambientterm *texture2D(colormap,gl_TexCoord[0].st).rgb; vec3 diffusefinal = diffuse * final_dist_number; vec3 finalcolor=diffusefinal+specular+ambient; gl_FragColor = vec4(finalcolor, 1.0); }

  Read the article

• How to run software, that is not offered though package managers, that requires ia32-libs

  - by Onno

  I'm trying to install the Arma 2 OA dedicated server on a Virtualbox VM so I can test my own missions in a sandbox environment in a way that lets me offload them to another computer in my network. (The other computer is running the VM, but it's a windows machine, and I didn't want to hassle with its installation) It needs at least 2, and preferably 4GB of ram, so I thought I would install the AMD64 version of ubuntu 13.10 to get this going. 'How do you run a 32-bit program on a 64-bit version of Ubuntu?' already explained how to install 32bit software though apt-get and/or dpkg, but that doesn't apply in this case. The server is offered as a compressed download on the site of BI Studio, the developer of the Arma games. Its installation instructions are obviously slightly out of date with the current state of the art. (probably because the state of the art has been updated quite recently :) ) It states that I have to install ia32-libs, which has now apparently been deprecated. Now I have to find out how to get the right packages installed to make sure that it will run. My experience level is like novice-intermediate when it comes to these issues. I've installed a lot of packages though apt-get; I've solved dependency issues in the past; I haven't installed much software without using package managers. I can handle myself with basic administrative work like editing conf files and such. I have just gone ahead and tried to install it without installing ia32-libs through apt-get but to install gcc to get the libs after all. My reasoning being that gcc will include the files for backward compatibility coding and on linux all libs are (as far as I can tell) installed at a system level in /libs . So far it seems to start up. (I can connect with the game server trough my in-game network browser, so it's communicating) I'm not sure if there's any dependency checking going on when running the game server program, so I'm left with a couple of questions: Does 13.10 catch any calls to ia32libs libraries and translate the calls to the right code on amd64? If it runs, does that mean that all required libraries have been loaded correctly, or is there a change of it crashing later on when a library that was needed is missing after all? Is it necessary to do a workaround such as installing gcc? How do I find out what libraries I might need to run this software? (or any other piece of 32-bit software that isn't offered through a package manager)

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485  | Next Page >