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• The type of programmer I want to be [closed]

  - by Aventinus_

  I'm an undergraduate Software Engineer student, although I've decided that pure programming is what I want to do for the rest of my life. The thing is that programming is a vast field and although most of its aspects are extremely interesting, soon or later I'll have to choose one (?) to focus on. I have several ideas on small projects I'd like to develop this summer, having in mind that this will gain me some experience and, in the best scenario, some cash. But the most important reason I'd like to develop something close to “professional” is to give myself direction on what I want to do as a programmer. One path is that of the Web Programmer. I enjoy PHP and MySQL, as well as HTML and CSS, although I don't really like ASP.NET. I can see myself writing web apps, using the above technologies, as well as XML and Javascript. I also have a neat idea on a Facebook app. The other path is that of the Desktop Programmer. This is a little more complicated cause I really-really enjoy high level languages such as Java and Python but not the low level ones, such as C. I use both Linux and Windows for the last 6 years and I like their latest DEs (meaning Gnome Shell and Metro). I can see myself writing desktop applications for both OSs as long as it means high level programming. Ideally I'd like being able to help the development of GNOME. The last path that interests me is the path of the Smartphone Programmer. I have created some sample applications on Android and due to Java I found it a quite interesting experience. I can also see myself as an independent smartphone developer. These 3 paths seem equally interesting at the moment due to the shallowness of my experience, I guess. I know that I should spend time with all of them and then choose the right one for me but I'd like to know what are the pros and cons in terms of learning curve, fun, job finding and of course financial rewards with each of these paths. I have fair or basic understanding of the languages/technologies I described earlier and this question will help me choose where to focus, at least for now.

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• iPhone app development pricing [closed]

  - by AlexMorley-Finch

  I currently manage a website design and development company that integrates itself with print work too. I've been co manager for a couple of months now, however business is slow at the moment. I got an email today from a potential client asking if we do iPhone app development. Obviously we do not. But, seeing as there aren't many other project on the go at the moment, why not give it a go? Searching Google was my first option. I did a bit of background scrubbing. Discovered that I need certain developer tools etc. This can be arranged easily enough. The reason I came to Stack Exchange is for answers to these questions. I am a competant programmer and have had experience in Java, PHP, JavaScript, C++ and C#. So how long would it take me to come to grips with Objective-C? Assuming an 8 hour working day. Not only the language but also the iPhone interface libraries (if any exist) and other native libraries? The potential client said the app will be a catalogue. So I'm assuming either the data will be pulled online or in some kind of local database. I know the requirements are vague but does anyone have any idea of how mug time this would take? To learn the language, design the architecture and code? 40 Hours? 80 Hours? My final question kind of depends on the first two. But obviously the potential client wants a quote. And I have got no idea how much an app costs. I did some research and found a huge range in differences. The majority of the cost would cone from the time to develops the app! So to summarise. How long would it take me to be comfortable coding Objective-C, taking into consideration my past knowledge? I'm assuming a day or two to fully understand but you really don't know. How long would it take me to develop an app? How much should I charge (approx) for the development of this app?

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• Why is Java the lingua franca at so many institutions?

  - by Billy ONeal

  EDIT: This question at first seems to be bashing Java, and I guess at this point it is a bit. However, the bigger point I am trying to make is why any one single language is chosen as the one end all be all solution to all problems. Java happens to be the one that's used so that's the one I had to beat on here, but I'm not intentionality ripping Java a new one :) I don't like Java in most academic settings. I'm not saying the language itself is bad -- it has several extremely desirable aspects, most importantly the ability to run without recompilation on most any platform. Nothing wrong with using the language for Your Next App ^TM. (Not something I would personally do, but that's more because I have less experience with it, rather than it's design being poor) I think it is a waste that high level CS courses are taught using Java as a language. Too many of my co-students cannot program worth a damn, because they don't know how to work in a non-garbage-collected world. They don't fundamentally understand the machines they are programming for. When someone can work outside of a garbage collected world, they can work inside of one, but not vice versa. GC is a tool, not a crutch. But the way it is used to teach computer science students is a as a crutch. Computer science should not teach an entire suite of courses tailored to a single language. Students leave with the idea that all good design is idiomatic Java design, and that Object Oriented Design is the ONE TRUE WAY THAT IS THE ONLY WAY THINGS CAN BE DONE. Other languages, at least one of them not being a garbage collected language, should be used in teaching, in order to give the graduate a better understanding of the machines. It is an embarrassment that somebody with a PHD in CS from a respected institution cannot program their way out of a paper bag. What's worse, is that when I talk to those CS professors who actually do understand how things operate, they share feelings like this, that we're doing a disservice to our students by doing everything in Java. (Note that the above would be the same if I replaced it with any other language, generally using a single language is the problem, not Java itself) In total, I feel I can no longer respect any kind of degree at all -- when I can't see those around me able to program their way out of fizzbuzz problems. Why/how did it get to be this way?

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• 2D collision resolving

  - by Philippe Paré

  I've just worked out an AABB collision algorithm for my 2D game and I was very satisfied until I found out it only works properly with movements of 1 in X and 1 in Y... here it is: public bool Intersects(Rectanglef rectangle) { return this.Left < rectangle.Right && this.Right > rectangle.Left && this.Top < rectangle.Bottom && this.Bottom > rectangle.Top; } public bool IntersectsAny(params Rectanglef[] rectangles) { for (int i = 0; i < rectangles.Length; i++) { if (this.Left < rectangles[i].Right && this.Right > rectangles[i].Left && this.Top < rectangles[i].Bottom && this.Bottom > rectangles[i].Top) return true; } return false; } and here is how I use it in the update function of my player : public void Update(GameTime gameTime) { Rectanglef nextPosX = new Rectanglef(AABB.X, AABB.Y, AABB.Width, AABB.Height); Rectanglef nextPosY; if (Input.Key(Key.Left)) nextPosX.X--; if (Input.Key(Key.Right)) nextPosX.X++; bool xFree = !nextPosX.IntersectsAny(Boxes.ToArray()); if (xFree) nextPosY = new Rectanglef(nextPosX.X, nextPosX.Y, nextPosX.Width, nextPosX.Height); else nextPosY = new Rectanglef(AABB.X, AABB.Y, AABB.Width, AABB.Height); if (Input.Key(Key.Up)) nextPosY.Y--; if (Input.Key(Key.Down)) nextPosY.Y++; bool yFree = !nextPosY.IntersectsAny(Boxes.ToArray()); if (yFree) AABB = nextPosY; else if (xFree) AABB = nextPosX; } What I'm having trouble with, is a system where I can give float values to my movement and make it so there's a smooth acceleration. Do I have to retrieve the collision rectangle (the rectangle created by the other two colliding)? or should I do some sort of vector and go along this axis until I reach the collision? Thanks a lot!

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• password incorrect 3 times + suspected failed update

  - by Cheese

  I have been lurking your site for the past few hours, and have found myself in a bit of a pickle. Visiting my parents, I discover that neither computer, nor laptop work. Long story short, I've got the laptop working, but have completely fudged up the computer. I am a n00b, but I was at least willing to give it a go. The comp originally had ubuntu 11.10 installed, later updated to 12.04. We have cds for both. I do not understand what the initial problem was for my parents, but somehow when I turned on the computer, it worked for me. Soon after, I was nagged to install the latest updates. So, I spent the next half an hour wondering why the updates kept on asking for 11.04 cdroms, until I realised that you could turn off the cdrom necessity. After doing this via console, I installed some of the smaller updates, before being told to do a partial update. This failed a few times, and ended up freezing whilst reinstalling drivers. After a hard restart I continued to type whatever I could find on the forum into the console. At some point, the console started saying that I had 3 incorrect password inputs, and sudo commands stopped altogether. I found another thread discussing this; but people kept on suggesting changing passwords (which I did to no avail) or other things that made use of sudo (which I am locked out of, although I am technically the admin) I found myself somehow on the Ctrl+Alt+F1 console, and after being utterly confused (and Ctrl+AltF5 failing for me), another hard reset occurred. Somewhere along the way I created a USB start up for 14.04, (but this does not seem to work) Now I am left with an admin (and guest) account that log in but have blank screens (with only the desktop background showing) and I can't do anything in the console because I'm locked out. Interestingly, the console now says that I am running 14.04 although all updates said they had failed. Aside from the obvious lessons I have learnt (don't fiddle about in the console when you have no idea what you're doing "Dog wearing safety glasses "I have no idea what I am doing" GIF would be inserted here ) Is there any way I can redeem this almighty muck up? A million thanks for any help!

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• Making CopySourceAsHtml add-on work with VS2010

  - by DigiMortal

  As there are still bloggers who use CopySourceAsHtml add-on for Visual Studio to get syntax highlighted code to their blog posts and there is no guidance in CSAH site how to make it work with Visual Studio 2010 I will give my guidance here. Almost all code in this blog is syntax highlighted by this add-on (read more from my post Visual Studio add-in: CopySourceAsHTML). Last version of CSAH is available for VS2008 but it is easy to make it work with VS2010. Just follow these steps. Close VS2010 if it is opened. Goto folder MyDocuments\Visual Studio 2010. Move to AddIns subfolder (create it if there is no such subfolder). Create file called CopySourceAsHtml.AddIn and open it in text editor. Paste the following XML to editor:   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?> <Extensibility xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AutomationExtensibility"> <HostApplication> <Name>Microsoft Visual Studio Macros</Name> <Version>10.0</Version> </HostApplication> <HostApplication> <Name>Microsoft Visual Studio</Name> <Version>10.0</Version> </HostApplication> <Addin> <FriendlyName>CopySourceAsHtml</FriendlyName> <Description>Adds support to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 for copying source code, syntax highlighting, and line numbers as HTML.</Description> <Assembly>JTLeigh.Tools.Development.CopySourceAsHtml, Version=3.0.3215.1, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=bb2a58bdc03d2e14, processorArchitecture=MSIL</Assembly> <FullClassName>JTLeigh.Tools.Development.CopySourceAsHtml.Connect</FullClassName> <LoadBehavior>1</LoadBehavior> <CommandPreload>0</CommandPreload> <CommandLineSafe>0</CommandLineSafe> </Addin> </Extensibility> Save file and close it. Run VS2010 and activate add-on if it is not activated yet. That’s it. If you are heavy user of CSAH then I recommend you to bookmark this post. :)

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• while(true) and loop-breaking - anti-pattern?

  - by KeithS

  Consider the following code: public void doSomething(int input) { while(true) { TransformInSomeWay(input); if(ProcessingComplete(input)) break; DoSomethingElseTo(input); } } Assume that this process involves a finite but input-dependent number of steps; the loop is designed to terminate on its own as a result of the algorithm, and is not designed to run indefinitely (until cancelled by an outside event). Because the test to see if the loop should end is in the middle of a logical set of steps, the while loop itself currently doesn't check anything meaningful; the check is instead performed at the "proper" place within the conceptual algorithm. I was told that this is bad code, because it is more bug-prone due to the ending condition not being checked by the loop structure. It's more difficult to figure out how you'd exit the loop, and could invite bugs as the breaking condition might be bypassed or omitted accidentally given future changes. Now, the code could be structured as follows: public void doSomething(int input) { TransformInSomeWay(input); while(!ProcessingComplete(input)) { DoSomethingElseTo(input); TransformInSomeWay(input); } } However, this duplicates a call to a method in code, violating DRY; if TransformInSomeWay were later replaced with some other method, both calls would have to be found and changed (and the fact that there are two may be less obvious in a more complex piece of code). You could also write it like: public void doSomething(int input) { var complete = false; while(!complete) { TransformInSomeWay(input); complete = ProcessingComplete(input); if(!complete) { DoSomethingElseTo(input); } } } ... but you now have a variable whose only purpose is to shift the condition-checking to the loop structure, and also has to be checked multiple times to provide the same behavior as the original logic. For my part, I say that given the algorithm this code implements in the real world, the original code is the most readable. If you were going through it yourself, this is the way you'd think about it, and so it would be intuitive to people familiar with the algorithm. So, which is "better"? is it better to give the responsibility of condition checking to the while loop by structuring the logic around the loop? Or is it better to structure the logic in a "natural" way as indicated by requirements or a conceptual description of the algorithm, even though that may mean bypassing the loop's built-in capabilities?

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• Java Grade Calculator program for class kepp geting the error "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException." [migrated]

  - by user2880621

  this is my first question I've posted. I've used this site to look at other questions to help with similar problems I've had. After some cursory looking I couldn't find quite the answer I was looking for so I decided to finally succumb and create an account. I am fairly new to java, only a few weeks into my first class. Anyway, my project is to create a program which takes any amount of students and their grades, and then assign them a letter grade. The catch is, however, that it is on a sort of curve and the other grades' letter are dependent on the the highest. Anything equal to or 10 points below the best grade is an a, anything 11-20 points below is a b, and so on. I am to use an array, but I get this error when ran "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException." I will go ahead and post my code down below. Thanks for any advice you may be able to give. package grade.calculator; import java.util.Scanner; /** * * @author nichol57 */ public class GradeCalculator { /** * @param args the command line arguments */ public static void main(String[] args) { Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in); System.out.println("Enter the number of students"); int number = input.nextInt(); double[]grades = new double [number]; for (int J = number; J >=0; J--) { System.out.println("Enter the students' grades"); grades[J] = input.nextDouble(); } double best = grades[0]; for (int J = 1; J < number; J++) { if (grades[J] >= best){ best = grades[J]; } } for (int J = 0;J < number; J++){ if (grades[J] >= best - 10){ System.out.println("Student " + J + " score is " + grades[J] + " and grade is " + "A"); } else if (grades[J] >= best - 20){ System.out.println("Student " + J + " score is " + grades[J] + " and grade is " + "B"); } else if (grades[J] >= best - 30) { System.out.println("Student " + J + " score is " + grades[J] + " and grade is " + "C"); } else if (grades[J] >= best - 40) { System.out.println("Student " + J + " score is " + grades[J] + " and grade is " + "D"); } else { System.out.println("Student " + J + " score is " + grades[J] + " and grade is " + "F"); } } // end for loop for output }// end main method }

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• Silverlight 4 Twitter Client &ndash; Part 5

  - by Max

  In this post, we will look at implementing the following in our twitter client - displaying the profile picture in the home page after logging in. So to accomplish this, we will need to do the following steps. 1) First of all, let us create another field in our Global variable static class to hold the profile image url. So just create a static string field in that. public static string profileImage { get; set; } 2) In the Login.xaml.cs file, before the line where we redirect to the Home page if the login was successful. Create another WebClient request to fetch details from this url - .xml">http://api.twitter.com/1/users/show/<TwitterUsername>.xml I am interested only in the “profile_image_url” node in this xml string returned. You can choose what ever field you need – the reference to the Twitter API Documentation is here. 3) This particular url does not require any authentication so no need of network credentials for this and also the useDefaultCredentials will be true. So this code would look like. WebRequest.RegisterPrefix("http://", System.Net.Browser.WebRequestCreator.ClientHttp); WebClient myService = new WebClient(); myService.AllowReadStreamBuffering = myService.UseDefaultCredentials = true; myService.DownloadStringCompleted += new DownloadStringCompletedEventHandler(TimelineRequestCompleted_User);) myService.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("http://api.twitter.com/1/users/show/" + TwitterUsername.Text + ".xml")); 4) To parse the xml file returned by this and get the value of the “profile_image_url” node, the LINQ code will look something like XDocument xdoc; xdoc = XDocument.Parse(e.Result); var answer = (from status in xdoc.Descendants("user") select status.Element("profile_image_url").Value); GlobalVariable.profileImage = answer.First().ToString(); 5) After this, we can then redirect to Home page completing our login formalities. 6) In the home page, add a image tag and give it a name, something like <Image Name="image1" Stretch="Fill" Margin="29,29,0,0" Height="73" VerticalAlignment="Top" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Width="73" /> 7) In the OnNavigated to event in home page, we can set the image source url as below image1.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri(GlobalVariable.profileImage, UriKind.Absolute)); Hope this helps. If you have any queries / suggestions, please feel free to comment below or contact me. Technorati Tags: Silverlight,LINQ,Twitter API,Twitter

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• Multi-threaded JOGL Problem

  - by moeabdol

  I'm writing a simple OpenGL application in Java that implements the Monte Carlo method for estimating the value of PI. The method is pretty easy. Simply, you draw a circle inside a unit square and then plot random points over the scene. Now, for each point that is inside the circle you increment the counter for in points. After determining for all the random points wither they are inside the circle or not you divide the number of in points over the total number of points you have plotted all multiplied by 4 to get an estimation of PI. It goes something like this PI = (inPoints / totalPoints) * 4. This is because mathematically the ratio of a circle's area to a square's area is PI/4, so when we multiply it by 4 we get PI. My problem doesn't lie in the algorithm itself; however, I'm having problems trying to plot the points as they are being generated instead of just plotting everything at once when the program finishes executing. I want to give the application a sense of real-time display where the user would see the points as they are being plotted. I'm a beginner at OpenGL and I'm pretty sure there is a multi-threading feature built into it. Non the less, I tried to manually create my own thread. Each worker thread plots one point at a time. Following is the psudo-code: /* this part of the code exists in display() method in MyCanvas.java which extends GLCanvas and implements GLEventListener */ // main loop for(int i = 0; i < number_of_points; i++){ RandomGenerator random = new RandomGenerator(); float x = random.nextFloat(); float y = random.nextFloat(); Thread pointThread = new Thread(new PointThread(x, y)); } gl.glFlush(); /* this part of the code exists in run() method in PointThread.java which implements Runnable */ void run(){ try{ gl.glPushMatrix(); gl.glBegin(GL2.GL_POINTS); if(pointIsIn) gl.glColor3f(1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); // red point else gl.glColor3f(0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f); // blue point gl.glVertex3f(x, y, 0.0f); // coordinates gl.glEnd(); gl.glPopMatrix(); }catch(Exception e){ } } I'm not sure if my approach to solving this issue is correct. I hope you guys can help me out. Thanks.

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• Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 3: Key Concerns

  - by Tim Murphy

  This is part 3 in a series of posts based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. Keys Concerns Of Smartphones In The Enterprise These are the factors that you need to be aware of and address in order to build successful enterprise smartphone applications.  Most of them have nothing to do with the application itself as you will see here. Managing Devices Managing devices is a factor that is going to effect how much your company will have to spend outside of developing the applications.  How will you track the devices within the corporation?  How often will you have to replace phones and as a consequence have to upgrade your applications to support new phones?  The devices can represent a significant investment of capital.  If these questions are not addressed you will find a number of hidden costs throughout the life of your solution. Purchase or BYOD We have seen the trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) lately within the enterprise.  How many meetings have you been in where someone is on their personal iPad, iPhone, Android phone or Windows Phone?  The issue is if you can afford to support everyone's choice in device? That is a lot to take on even if you only support the current release of each platform. Do you go with the most popular device or do you pick a platform that best matches your current ecosystem and distribute company owned devices?  There is no easy answer here, but you should be able give some dollar value to both hardware and development costs related to platform coverage. Asset Tracking/Insurance Smartphones are devices that are easier to lose or have stolen than laptops and desktops. Not only do you have your normal asset management concerns but also assignment of financial responsibility. You also will need to insure them against damage and theft and add legal documents that spell out the responsibilities of the employees that use these devices. Personal vs. Corporate Data What happens when you terminate an employee?  How do you recover the device?  What happens when they have put personal data on the device?  These are all situation that can cause possible loss of corporate intellectual property or legal repercussions of reclaiming a device with personal data on it.  Policies need to be put in place that protect the company from being exposed to type of loss.  This can mean significant legal and procedural cost that you need to consider. Coming Up In the last installment of this series I will cover application development considerations. del.icio.us Tags: Smartphones,Enterprise Smartphone Apps,Architecture

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• Ubuntu 12.04 - PPTP VPN is the only Internet Access

  - by user212553

  I know this has been covered. I've read dozens of posts but still have questions. I have a work server whose traffic should never leave my house without encryption. The VPN is PPTP. Currently I have a cron job that checks the status of the ppp0 adapter each minute. If the connection drops, which it does fairly often, it shuts key components down. It's fairly easy to restart PPTP with "nmcli con up id 'myVPNServer'" but there's no assurance it will reconnect and I need a better way to stop traffic (other than killing apps) when ppp0 is down. The two options I've seen discussed are the firewall (UFW, Firestarter, IPTables) or the route tables. I could be easily swayed to consider the firewall option but I focused on the route tables since no new function needs to be started. My questions involve the way the route tables change and then specifics on rules. When I start the PPTP VPN the route tables change. That suggests that if the VPN drops, the table will change back, defeating my stated intent of preventing external traffic. How can I make "sticky" changes to the route table that will persist even if the VPN connection drops? Perhaps the check boxes "Ignore automatically obtained routes" or "Use this connection only for resources on it's network" (which are part of the VPN configuration options)? It would seem that, if I can force the active VPN route table to stay in effect, even when the VPN drops, that this will effectively kill any external traffic should the VPN drop. This will give me the latitude to run a routine to restart the VPN from the command line (assuming the route table rules don't prevent me re-establishing the connection). My route table, with the VPN active is (ip route list): Any comments on what 10.10.1.1 is? $ ip route list default dev ppp0 proto static 10.10.1.1 dev ppp0 proto kernel scope link src 10.10.1.11 VPN_Server_IP_Address via 192.168.1.1 dev eth0 proto static VPN_Server_IP_Address via 192.168.1.1 dev eth0 src 192.168.1.60 169.254.0.0/16 dev eth0 scope link metric 1000 192.168.1.0/24 dev eth0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.60 metric 1

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• A better way to organize your Silverlight Code Snippets.

  - by mbcrump

  I hate re-writing code. I also hate it when I find a great code snippet on the web and forget to bookmark it or it gets lost in my endless sea of bookmarks. So what do you do to get around this? This is the question that I was asking myself at the end of 2010. How can I get my Silverlight code organized? My requirements for a snippet manager were: Needs to be FREE. An easy way to view XAML/C# code behind together in one “view”. I wanted the ability to store the code snippets in cloud in case my HDD dies. Searchable Keywords to quickly find code snippets. I started looking for a snippet manager that would allow me to do just that and finally found Snippet Manager. Before going any further, I think that one of the most important things to note here is that this software supports 37 languages. It’s not just for Silverlight developers nor C# only guys. The software supports Java, SQL and even COBOL.   Below is a screenshot of the Snippet Manager that shows my Silverlight code snippet. You will notice that I have highlighted two sections. The top part is my XAML and the bottom is my C# code behind. I’ve included a sample below of my code snippets so that you can get an idea of how I organized it. Another thing that’s great about this software is that it supports plain text. I added some connection strings in the TEXT section below.  Once you have finished adding your code snippets, you can store them in the cloud. I created a FTP directory called “snippets” on my FTP Server and hit the upload button once I am finished adding my new codes snippets. This will allow me to use the code snippets on another computer with this application on my USB Key. See screenshots below: Enter your FTP credentials below: Hit the Uploads button on the Toolbar: Login in to your FTP Server and verify the following files are now on the FTP Server: Another great feature of the Snippet Manager is that you can also integrate this into VS2010 by clicking Tools –> External Tools: And setting up your External Screen to point to the Executable: You can now launch it by going to Tools –> Snippet Manager. If you want you could also a shortcut to launch the program with HotKeys. As you can see, this is a nice little program that includes everything needed to organize your code snippets very clean. I didn’t go over every feature but this is something that you might want to download and give it a shot.  Subscribe to my feed CodeProject

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• Ad-hoc reporting similar to Microstrategy/Pentaho - is OLAP really the only choice (is OLAP even sufficient)?

  - by TheBeefMightBeTough

  So I'm getting ready to develop an API in Java that will provide all dimensions, metrics, hierarchies, etc to a user such that they can pick and choose what they want (say, e.g., dimensions of Location (a store) and Weekly, and the metric Product Sales $), provide their choices to the api, and have it spit out an object that contains the answer to their question (the object would probably be a set of cells). I don't even believe there will be much drill up/down. The data warehouse the APIwill interface with is in a standard form (FACT tables, dimensions, star schema format). My question is, is an OLAP framework such as Mondrian the only way to achieve something akin to ad-hoc reporting? I can envisage a really large Cube (or VirtualCube) that contains most of the dimensions and metrics the user could ever want, which would give the illusion of ad-hoc reporting. The problem is that there is a ton of setup to do (so much XML) to get the framework to work with the data. Further it requires specific knowledge, such as MDX, and even moreso learning the framework peculiars (Mondrian API). Finally, I am not positive it will scale much better than simply making queries against a SQL database. OLAP to me feels like very old technology. Is performance really an issue anymore? The alternative I can think of would be dynamic SQL. If the existing tables in the data warehouse conform to a naming scheme (FACT_, DIM_, etc), or if a very simple config file/ database table containing config information existed that stored which tables are fact tables, which are dimensions, and what metrics are available, then couldn't the api read from that and assembly the appropriate sql query? Would this necessarily be harder than learning MDX, Mondrian (or another OLAP framework), and creating all the cubes? In general, I feel that OLAP is at the same time too powerful (supports drill up/down, complex functions) and outdated and am reluctant to base my architecture on it. However, I am unsure if the alternative(s), such as rolling my own ad-hoc reporting framework using dynamic SQL would remove any complexity while still fulfilling requirements, both functional and non-functional (e.g., scalability; some FACT tables have many millions of rows). I also wonder about other techniques (e.g., hive). Has anyone here tried to do ad-hoc reporting? Any advice? I expect this project to take a pretty long time (3 months min, but probably longer), so I just do not want to commit to an architecture without being absolutely sure of its pros and cons. Thanks so much.

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• Windows Phone 7, taking the mobile out of mobile

  - by markritchie

  I’ll start off this blog entry with a little background which is necessary for you to understand my situation. I moved from to the UK to Germany about three years ago and while I can converse in German, English is still very much my first language and the language I want my content delivered in. I happily purchased a HTC HD7 when WP7 was released here in Germany thinking foolishly that Microsoft really would get internationalization and localization as it’s at the heart of their business and developer products. Overall I’m very happy with my WP7, the camera sucks but that’s more HTC’s fault that Microsoft, but other than that it’s a very promising platform. My problems started when I purchased my first app. Initially everything appeared to be fine and things were as smooth as things had been with my previous free applications, however about a month after I received an email from Zune informing me that the credit card that they had registered against my account had expired. No problem I foolishly thought; I’ll simply add a new one. I don’t want to bore you with the details of what I’ve been through other than to take the low-lights: trying numerous websites, posts on Microsoft Answers and a tweet to Microsoft Support all to no avail. Today somebody suggested that I call the Xbox support line in the UK as they had solved their billing problems this way. So I called up the Xbox support line since I hadn’t resolved the problem using the Zune portal to resolve my problem with my WP7 (anybody else thinks Microsoft might need some consolidation here). After being on the phone with a very friendly representative in Ireland I was informed that because my British credit card has a billing address in Germany they are unable to accept it as a credit card. Because my Live ID and Zune Tag are registered in the UK they cannot take my card. Their solution is that I have to create a new Zune Tag that has its locale in Germany and then associate it with my phone. Now, first thing I go to register for a Zune Tag with a German locale it very kindly switches into German for me, nothing quite like reading a EULA in a language you’re not fluent in. I’ve no idea how this will affect the apps that are available to me in the app store, and I’m pretty sure it means that all my Xbox live achievements will become history. And what if I was to move to say France at some point do I have to go through all this again? At the end of the day I’m trying to set something up so I can give them my money and they’re making it VERY difficult for me. Could you imagine walking into a book store when you were on holiday and being told by the clerk that they couldn’t take your credit card because you came from another country?

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• Optionally Running SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges with Delgates

  - by Damon Armstrong

  I was writing some SharePoint code today where I needed to give people the option of running some code with elevated permission.  When you run code in an elevated fashion it normally looks like this: SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(()=> {     //Code to run }); It wasn’t a lot of code so I was initially inclined to do something horrible like this: public void SomeMethod(bool runElevated) {     if(runElevated)     {         SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(()=>         {             //Code to run         });     }     else     {         //Copy of code to run     } } Easy enough, but I did not want to draw the ire of my coworkers for employing the CTRL+C CTRL+V design pattern.  Extracting the code into a whole new method would have been overkill because it was a pretty brief piece of code.  But then I thought, hey, wait, I’m basically just running a delegate, so why not define the delegate once and run it either in an elevated context or stand alone, which resulted in this version which I think is much cleaner because the code is only defined once and it didn’t require a bunch of extra lines of code to define a method: public void SomeMethod(bool runElevated) {     var code = new SPSecurity.CodeToRunElevated(()=>     {         //Code to run     });     if(runElevated)     {         SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPermissions(code);         }     else     {         Code();     } }

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• Which one to select for my future career; Java, C#, Azure or Apex?

  - by user636195

  Hi folks, This time, I am going to studying Masters in Computer Science in U.S.A after a week. I have been doing my B.Sc for the past three years and after my freshman year I started working on projects (in C# and very rarely in Java) for the past two years.(i.e while I was a second and third year student). Now I am in a college where all of the programming courses are going to be taken in Java only (using Eclipse) and I am going to stay in this college for 8 months on campus and then fully employed for two years in other companies as a CPT. I really love to work on Microsoft products because, for me, they are simple and easy to use and understand. My future plan is to work in Cloud computing and be a Cloud based business owner in the near future. Since the college is going to teach us and let us do every project in Java, I was confused which programming language to use that will help me and enhance me in my career, and of course I wanted to select the one I liked to do everytime. I also heard a lot about Azure (Microsoft’s ) and Apex (Salesforce.com’s cloud computing programming language). Would you please give me your advice and recommendation based on my situation? Should I have to study only Java, or should I have to study C# or Azure beside Java on my own? The reason I asked this is because, since I have no clue how Azure works and how long it will take me to know the language, I am really confused which one to select (Java Vs C# and Azure Vs Apex or if there is any popular and mostly used Cloud Computing langauge). Do you think I can get a job in cloud computing if I study Azure or Apex by my own without experience? There is also one issue I want to consider which is a short term issue is. i.e Salary. Since I have to pay my student loan, I also need to get a good job which will let me pay my loan within two years. But, as I said, my long term plan is, get experience in Cloud Computing (from programming to administrative part,i.e every area of cloud computing) and then have my own business may be within 5-10 years. What do you think? Thank you for your time.

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• Usage of Pirated software at a company

  - by hakesh

  Hi, I am redirected from stack over flow since the topic is ethics rather than about programming. Thank you for letting me know that. and please give me advices. So, I started to work at a company as an engineer a couple of months ago. It's a small company and what they basically do is answering service on phones. Now they are switching from normal phones to IP phones so that computers take more important place in the work. However, all the computers used by workers are equipped with pirated software ,even their operating systems are. Moreover, they don't even buy one license to make copies for other computers. In other words, they do not spend any money for the software in office. I am not saying copying a licensed one is legit, but the situation is too much. There is one guy who did installing those pirated soft. He does not feel any sense of guilt and even justified when I asked about it. and he is not even a specialist. He just searched on the internet to install pirated software. Our boss does not have any knowledge of computers, so he took cheaper way. How do you guys think about this? Since I am still new to the company, I am not doing maintenance or managing on those cracked computers. But I have to use those software daily. And later on I will be doing support, help desk kind of staff. I really don't want to take responsibility for operating pirated software. and from an aspect of developer and engineer, pirated software are not able to get legal support and it may work unexpectedly. So, I am thinking about changing job. Am I thinking too much? should I wait until I have more credit from the boss and try to change his policy? So far, the boss does not take any words from me. Any opinions are welcome. Thank you

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• IPv6, isn't it just a few extra bits?

  - by rclewis

  It's always an interesting task, to try and explain what you do to family and friends. I have described IPv6 as the "Next Generation Internet"  or "Second Internet" but the hollow expressions on my kids faces scream for the instant relief of the latest video game.  Never one to give up easily, I have formulated a new example - the Post Office... Similar to the Post Office the Internet delivers mail and packages based on addresses. As the number of residences, businesses, and delivery locations increased, the 5 digit ZIP Code (Washington, DC 20005) was expanded to ZIP+4  allowing for more precise delivery points (Postmaster General, Washington, DC 20260-3100). Ah, if only computers were as simple.  IPv6 isn't an add-on or expansion of the existing IPv4 Addressing, it is a new addressing model which will allow the internet to grow from a single computer in the basement of a university or your parents kitchen table, to support the multitude of smart phones, smart TV's, tablets, dvr's, and disk players, all clambering to connect for information. Unfortunetly there are only a finite number of IPv4 public addresses left, and those are being consumed at an ever increasing rate. Few people could have predicted the explosive growth of the internet or the shortage of IPv4 addresses we now face - but there is a "Plan B" and that is the vastly larger address space of IPv6.  Many in the industry have labeled this a "business continuity" problem,  when in fact most companies will be able to continue conducting business once they run out of existing IPv4 Addresses. The problem is really a Customer Continuity problem, how will businesses communicate with existing customers and reach new customers online who's only option is to adopt IPv6 when IPv4 is depleted? Perhaps a first step is publishing a blog that is also accessible via IPv6, it's just a few extra bits. Join us for the Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Session:   Navigating IPv6 @ Oracle Thursday, Oct. 4th 2:15PM - 3:15PM  Palace Hotel - Concert   Learn more about IPv6 Technologies at Oracle

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• Oracle Business Intelligence Customers: Have Your Voice Heard in the "2011Wisdom of the Crowds Business Intelligence Market Survey"

  - by tobin.gilman(at)oracle.com

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; 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;} Old friend and industry colleague Howard Dresner has just launched the second edition of his "Wisdom of the Crowds Business Intelligence Survey".  I was hoping Howard would offer me a 60 inch flat panel TV, or at least an iPad 2 if I promote the survey in a blog post.  It saddens me to report that no spiffs of any kind are forthcoming. Zip, zilch, nada.   Not even a Dresner Advisory Services LLC mouse pad!   But I'm going to use this space to encourage Oracle BI customers to participate in the survey anyway. The Wisdom of the Crowds survey combines social media, crowd sourcing, and good old fashioned market research to provide vendors and customers alike an unvarnished and insightful snap shot of what's top of mind with business intelligence professionals.  If you are an Oracle BI user, here's what you get in return for the ten minutes it takes to complete the survey.  First, you get your voice heard. Second, Dresner Advisory Services will give you a complimentary copy of the final report for your own use.   Here's the link:   http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/woc2011-oracle  Act now.  Take the survey and get the complimentary report.  It's almost as good as a 60 inch flat panel or an iPad 2.

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• Finding "Stuff" In OUM

  - by Dave Burke

  One of the first questions people asked when they start using the Oracle Unified Method (OUM) is “how do I find X ?” Well of course no one is really looking for “X”!! but typically an OUM user might know the Task ID, or part of the Task Name, or maybe they just want to find out if there is any content within OUM that is related to a couple of keys words they have in their mind. Here are three quick tips I give people: 1. Open up one of the OUM Views, then click “Expand All”, and then use your Browser’s search function to locate a key Word. For example, Google Chrome or Internet Explorer: <CTRL> F, then type in a key Word, i.e. Architecture This is fast and easy option to use, but it only searches the current OUM page 2. Use the PDF view of OUM Open up one of the OUM Views, and then click the PDF View button located at the top of the View. Depending on your Browser’s settings, the PDF file will either open up in a new Window, or be saved to your local machine. In either case, once the PDF file is open, you can use the built in PDF search commands to search for key words across a large portion of the OUM Method Pack. This is great option for searching the entire Full Method View of OUM, including linked HTML pages, however the search will not included linked Documents, i.e. Word, Excel. 3. Use your operating systems file index to search for key words This is my favorite option, and one I use virtually every day. I happen to use Windows Search, but you could also use Google Desktop Search, of Finder on a MAC. All you need to do (on a Windows machine) is to make sure your local OUM folder structure is included in the Windows Index. Go to Control Panel, select Indexing Options, and ensure your OUM folder is included in the Index, i.e. C:/METHOD/OM40/OUM_5.6 Once your OUM folders are indexed, just open up Windows Search (or Google Desktop Search) and type in your key worlds, i.e. Unit Testing The reason I use this option the most is because the Search will take place across the entire content of the Indexed folders, included linked files. Happy searching!

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• Redesigning an Information System - Part 1

  - by dbradley

  Through the next few weeks or months I'd like to run a small series of articles sharing my experiences from the largest of the project I've worked on and explore some of the real-world problems I've come across and how we went about solving them. I'm afraid I can't give too many specifics on the project right now as it's not yet complete so you'll have to forgive me for being a little abstract in places! To start with I'm going to run through a little of the background of the problem and the motivations to re-design from scratch. Then I'll work through the approaches taken to understanding the requirements, designing, implementing, testing and migrating to the new system. Motivations for Re-designing a Large Information System The system is one that's been in place for a number of years and was originally designed to do a significantly different one to what it's now being used for. This is mainly due to the product maturing as well as client requirements changing. As with most information systems this one can be defined in four main areas of functionality: Input – adding information to the system Storage – persisting information in an efficient, searchable structure Output – delivering the information to the client Control – management of the process There can be a variety of reasons to re-design an existing system; a few of our own turned out to be factors such as: Overall system reliability System response time Failure isolation and recovery Maintainability of code and information General extensibility to solve future problem Separation of business and product concerns New or improved features The factor that started the thought process was the desire to improve the way in which information was entered into the system. However, this alone was not the entire reason for deciding to redesign. Business Drivers Typically all software engineers would always prefer to do a project from scratch themselves. It generally means you don't have to deal with problems created by predecessors and you can create your own absolutely perfect solution. However, the reality of working within a business is that the bottom line comes down to return on investment. For a medium sized business such as mine there must be actual value able to be delivered within a reasonable timeframe for any work to be started. As a result, any long term project will generally take a lot of effort and consideration to be approved by those in charge and therefore it might be better to break down the project into more manageable chunks which allow more frequent deliverables and also value within a shorter timeframe. As the only thing of concern was the methods for inputting information, this is where we started with requirements gathering and design. However knowing that there might be more to the problem and not limiting your design decisions before the requirements is key to finding the best solutions.

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• Sql Table Refactoring Challenge

  Ive been working a bit on cleaning up a large table to make it more efficient.  I pretty much know what I need to do at this point, but I figured Id offer up a challenge for my readers, to see if they can catch everything I have as well as to see if Ive missed anything.  So to that end, I give you my table: CREATE TABLE [dbo].[lq_ActivityLog]( [ID] [bigint] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [PlacementID] [int] NOT NULL, [CreativeID] [int] NOT NULL, [PublisherID] [int] NOT NULL, [CountryCode] [nvarchar](10) NOT NULL, [RequestedZoneID] [int] NOT NULL, [AboveFold] [int] NOT NULL, [Period] [datetime] NOT NULL, [Clicks] [int] NOT NULL, [Impressions] [int] NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_lq_ActivityLog2] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [Period] ASC, [PlacementID] ASC, [CreativeID] ASC, [PublisherID] ASC, [RequestedZoneID] ASC, [AboveFold] ASC, [CountryCode] ASC)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]) ON [PRIMARY] And now some assumptions and additional information: The table has 200,000,000 rows currently PlacementID ranges from 1 to 5000 and should support at least 50,000 CreativeID ranges from 1 to 5000 and should support at least 50,000 PublisherID ranges from 1 to 500 and should support at least 50,000 CountryCode is a 2-character ISO standard (e.g. US) and there is a country table with an integer ID already.  There are < 300 rows. RequestedZoneID ranges from 1 to 100 and should support at least 50,000 AboveFold has values of 1, 0, or 1 only. Period is a date (no time). Clicks range from 0 to 5000. Impressions range from 0 to 5000000. The table is currently write-mostly.  Its primary purpose is to log advertising activity as quickly as possible.  Nothing in the rest of the system reads from it except for batch jobs that pull the data into summary tables. Heres the current information on the database tables size: Design Goals This table has been in use for about 5 years and has performed very well during that time.  The only complaints we have are that it is quite large and also there are occasionally timeouts for queries that reference it, particularly when batch jobs are pulling data from it.  Any changes should be made with an eye toward keeping write performance optimal  while trying to reduce space and improve read performance / eliminate timeouts during read operations. Refactor There are, I suggest to you, some glaringly obvious optimizations that can be made to this table.  And Im sure there are some ninja tweaks known to SQL gurus that would be a big help as well.  Ill post my own suggested changes in a follow-up post for now feel free to comment with your suggestions. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Tiling Problem Solutions for Various Size "Dominoes"

  - by user67081

  I've got an interesting tiling problem, I have a large square image (size 128k so 131072 squares) with dimensons 256x512... I want to fill this image with certain grain types (a 1x1 tile, a 1x2 strip, a 2x1 strip, and 2x2 square) and have no overlap, no holes, and no extension past the image boundary. Given some probability for each of these grain types, a list of the number required to be placed is generated for each. Obviously an iterative/brute force method doesn't work well here if we just randomly place the pieces, instead a certain algorithm is required. 1) all 2x2 square grains are randomly placed until exhaustion. 2) 1x2 and 2x1 grains are randomly placed alternatively until exhaustion 3) the remaining 1x1 tiles are placed to fill in all holes. It turns out this algorithm works pretty well for some cases and has no problem filling the entire image, however as you might guess, increasing the probability (and thus number) of 1x2 and 2x1 grains eventually causes the placement to stall (since there are too many holes created by the strips and not all them can be placed). My approach to this solution has been as follows: 1) Create a mini-image of size 8x8 or 16x16. 2) Fill this image randomly and following the algorithm specified above so that the desired probability of the entire image is realized in the mini-image. 3) Create N of these mini-images and then randomly successively place them in the large image. Unfortunately there are some downfalls to this simplification. 1) given the small size of the mini-images, nailing an exact probability for the entire image is not possible. Example if I want p(2x1)=P(1x2)=0.4, the mini image may only give 0.41 as the closes probability. 2) The mini-images create a pseudo boundary where no overlaps occur which isn't really descriptive of the model this is being used for. 3) There is only a fixed number of mini-images so i'm not sure how random this really is. I'm really just looking to brainstorm about possible solutions to this. My main concern is really to nail down closer probabilities, now one might suggest I just increase the mini-image size. Well I have, and it turns out that in certain cases(p(1x2)=p(2x1)=0.5) the mini-image 16x16 isn't even iteratively solvable.. So it's pretty obvious how difficult it is to randomly solve this for anything greater than 8x8 sizes.. So I'd love to hear some ideas. Thanks

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• Is Ubuntu recognizing and/or using my NVIDIA graphics card?

  - by user212860

  This is my first post here, and I'm pretty new to Ubuntu/Linux. I currently have no other OS except for Ubuntu 13.10. (I used to have Win7 until i got a new terabyte hard drive). My current PC build, if any of this helps: CPU: Intel i5 quad-core Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 RAM: 8 GB HDD: 1 TB SATA 3 Motherboard: MSi Z77 A-G41 OS Ubuntu 13.10 So I recently installed Ubuntu 13.10 and put Steam on it, and I'm seeing that my games run a lot slower than they did when I had Win7. I figured it was a graphics problem, so I checked System Settings Details Overview. It says in "Graphics" that I have "Gallium 0.4 on NVE7" (don't really know what that is). Does this mean that Ubuntu is not using my graphics card? In System Settings Software & Updates Additional Drivers, it clearly shows like this: NVIDIA Corporation: GK107 [GeForce GTX 650] -This device is using an alternative driver (And then it shows a list of drivers that I can switch back and forth to) So this is a bit confusing. In Software and Updates, it clearly shows that I have my NVIDIA card installed, and that I have a driver selected for it. But in System Settings, it shows I have some Gallium 0.4 thing. I had done a bit of research, and ended up typing command: "lspci|grep VGA" in the Terminal. It showed this in response: VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 [GeForce GTX 650] (rev a1) The Terminal seems to recognize my graphics card. What it looks like to me, is that I don't have the proper driver, and I might be using my CPU's integrated graphics. When I switch around which driver I am using in that list, it still does not see my card in System Settings. Some of the drivers in the list give me some sort of OpenGL error when I try to run a game. It might just be that my games are running slow because the game developers have not optimized it for Ubuntu that well. However, that still doesn't take away from the fact that System Settings is not showing my NVIDIA card. TL;DR Version: How do I know if my video card is being recognized/used? If my video card is not being used, what is the best way fix that? Please make your answers easy to understand. I do not mind wordy responses, as long as I can follow what you're saying. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Jabber5

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