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• Oracle Releases New Mainframe Re-Hosting in Oracle Tuxedo 11g

  - by Jason Williamson

  I'm excited to say that we've released our next generation of Re-hosting in 11g. In fact I'm doing some hands-on labs now for our Systems Integrators in Italy in a couple of weeks and targeting Latin America next month. If you are an SI, or Rehosting firm and are looking to become an Oracle Partner or get a better understanding of Tuxedo and how to use the workbench for rehosting...drop me a line. Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS and Batch 11g provides a CICS API emulation and Batch environment that exploits the full range of Oracle Tuxedo's capabilities. Re-hosted applications run in a multi-node, grid environment with centralized production control. Also, enterprise integration of CICS application services benefits from an open and SOA-enabled framework. Key features include: CICS Application Runtime: Can run IBM CICS applications unchanged in an application grid, which enables the distribution of large workloads across multiple processors and nodes. This simplifies CICS administration and can scale to over 100,000 users and over 50,000 transactions per second. 3270 Terminal Server: Protects business users from change through support for tn3270 terminal emulation. Distributed CICS Resource Management: Simplifies deployment and administration by allowing customers to run CICS regions in a distributed configuration. Batch Application Runtime: Provides robust IBM JES-like job management that enables local or remote job submissions. In addition, distributed batch initiators can enable parallelization of jobs and support fail-over, shortening the batch window and helping to meet stringent SLAs. Batch Execution Environment: Helps to run IBM batch unchanged and also supports JCL functionality and all common batch utilities. Oracle Tuxedo Application Rehosting Workbench 11g provides a set of automated migration tools integrated around a central repository. The tools provide high precision which results in very low error rates and the ability to handle large applications. This enables less expensive, low-risk migration projects. Key capabilities include: Workbench Repository and Cataloguer: Ensures integrity of the migrated application assets through full dependency checking. The Cataloguer generates and maintains all relevant meta-data on source and target components. File Migrator: Supports reliable migration of datasets and flat files to an ISAM or Oracle Database 11g. This is done through the automated migration utilities for data unloading, reloading and validation. It also generates logical access functions to shield developers from data repository changes. DB2 Migrator: Similarly, this tool automates the migration of DB2 schema and data to Oracle Database 11g. COBOL Migrator: Supports migration of IBM mainframe COBOL assets (OLTP and Batch) to open systems. Adapts programs for compiler dialects and data access variations. JCL Migrator: Supports migration of IBM JCL jobs to a Tuxedo ART environment, maintaining the flow and characteristics of batch jobs.

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• JCP.Next - Early Adopters of JCP 2.8

  - by Heather VanCura

  JCP.Next is a series of three JSRs (JSR 348, JSR 355 and JSR 358), to be defined through the JCP process itself, with the JCP Executive Committee serving as the Expert Group. The proposed JSRs will modify the JCP's processes  - the Process Document and Java Specification Participation Agreement (JSPA) and will apply to all new JSRs for all Java platforms.   The first - JCP.next.1, or more formally JSR 348, Towards a new version of the Java Community Process - was completed and put into effect in October 2011 as JCP 2.8. This focused on a small number of simple but important changes to make our process more transparent and to enable broader participation. We're already seeing the benefits of these changes as new and existing JSRs adopt the new requirements. The second - JSR 355, Executive Committee Merge, is also Final. You can read the JCP 2.9 Process Document .  As part of the JSR 355 Final Release, the JCP Executive Committee published revisions to the JCP Process Document (version 2.9) and the EC Standing Rules (version 2.2).  The changes went into effect following the 2012 EC Elections in November. The third JSR 358, A major revision of the Java Community Process was submitted in June 2012.  This JSR will modify the Java Specification Participation Agreement (JSPA) as well as the Process Document, and will tackle a large number of complex issues, many of them postponed from JSR 348. For these reasons, the JCP EC (acting as the Expert Group for this JSR), expects to spend a considerable amount of time working on. The JSPA is defined by the JCP as "a one-year, renewable agreement between the Member and Oracle. The success of the Java community depends upon an open and transparent JCP program.  JSR 358, A major revision of the Java Community Process, is now in process and can be followed on java.net. The following JSRs and Spec Leads were the early adopters of JCP 2.8, who voluntarily migrated their JSRs from JCP 2.x to JCP 2.8 or above.  More candidates for 2012 JCP Star Spec Leads! JSR 236, Concurrency Utilities for Java EE (Anthony Lai/Oracle), migrated April 2012 JSR 308, Annotations on Java Types (Michael Ernst, Alex Buckley/Oracle), migrated September 2012 JSR 335, Lambda Expressions for the Java Programming Language (Brian Goetz/Oracle), migrated October 2012 JSR 337, Java SE 8 Release Contents (Mark Reinhold/Oracle) – EG Formation, migrated September 2012 JSR 338, Java Persistence 2.1 (Linda DeMichiel/Oracle), migrated January 2012 JSR 339, JAX-RS 2.0: The Java API for RESTful Web Services (Santiago Pericas-Geertsen, Marek Potociar/Oracle), migrated July 2012 JSR 340, Java Servlet 3.1 Specification (Shing Wai Chan, Rajiv Mordani/Oracle), migrated August 2012 JSR 341, Expression Language 3.0 (Kin-man Chung/Oracle), migrated August 2012 JSR 343, Java Message Service 2.0 (Nigel Deakin/Oracle), migrated March 2012 JSR 344, JavaServer Faces 2.2 (Ed Burns/Oracle), migrated September 2012 JSR 345, Enterprise JavaBeans 3.2 (Marina Vatkina/Oracle), migrated February 2012 JSR 346, Contexts and Dependency Injection for Java EE 1.1 (Pete Muir/RedHat) – migrated December 2011

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• Caching no .NET Framework 4.0

  - by anobre

  Olá pessoal, como estão? Hoje vou apresentar uma mudança interessante sobre caching, em comparação com versões anteriores. Introdução A versão 4.0 da plataforma .NET trouxe uma mudança estrutural esperada para os recursos de Cache. Nas versão 3.5 (até SP1), a plataforma fornecia uma implementação do Cache através do namespace System.Web.Caching. Nas versões anteriores o cache estava disponível no namespace System.Web, o que criada uma dependência com as classes do ASP.NET. Neste novo framework, o namespace System.Runtime.Caching reúne toda a API necessária para criar todas as tarefas comuns ao ASP.NET Caching de versões anteriores. System.Runtime.Caching e MemoryCache Tudo que precisamos para trabalhar com cache, em aplicações Web ou não, está reunido no namespace System.Runtime.Caching. A unidade básica de trabalho é a classe abstrata ObjectCache, que fornece a base para criar implementações customizadas de cache. E como é de se esperar, a classe MemoryCache é a implementação da classe abstrata ObjectCache para armazenamento das informações em memória. public class MemoryCache : ObjectCache, IEnumerable, IDisposable A utilização do cache é muito simples, bem parecida com o modelo anterior: ObjectCache cache = MemoryCache.Default; string fileContents = cache["filecontents"] as string; if (fileContents == null) { CacheItemPolicy policy = new CacheItemPolicy(); List<string> filePaths = new List<string>(); filePaths.Add("c:\\cache\\example.txt"); policy.ChangeMonitors.Add(new HostFileChangeMonitor(filePaths)); // Fetch the file contents. fileContents = File.ReadAllText("c:\\cache\\example.txt"); cache.Set("filecontents", fileContents, policy); } Label1.Text = fileContents; Extendendo o Cache É possível customizar todo mecanismo de cache através de várias abordagens. ScottGu escreveu sobre isto, que você pode acessar através deste link. Conclusão Algo muito esperado em versões anteriores, finalmente o cache está disponível sem criar relacionamento com assemblies exclusivamente Web. Perfeito para quem desenvolve outros tipos de aplicação, usufruindo deste recurso sem carregar código desnecessário. Abraços!

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• links for 2011-03-15

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Dr. Frank Munz: Resize AWS EC2 Cloud Instances Dr Munz says: "You cannot dynamically resize a running cloud instance. E.g. there is no API call to ask for 2.2 GHz CPU speed instead of 1.8 GHz or to dynamically add another 3.5 GB of RAM." (tags: oracle cloud amazon ec2) Roddy Rodstein: Oracle VM Manager Architecture and Scalability Rodstein says: "Oracle VM Manager can be installed in an all-in-one configuration using the default Oracle 10g Express Database or in a more traditional two tier architecture with an OC4J web tier and a 10 or 11g database tier." (tags: oracle otn virtualization oraclevm) Mark Nelson: Getting started with Continuous Integration for SOA projects Nelson says: "I am exploring how to use Maven and Hudson to create a continuous integration capability for SOA and BPM projects. This will be the first post of several on this topic, and today we will look at setting up some simple continuous integration for a single SOA project." (tags: oracle maven hudson soa bpm) 5 New Java Champions (The Java Source) Tori Wieldt shares the big news. Congratulations to new Java Champs Jonas Bonér, James Strachan, Rickard Oberg, Régina ten Bruggencate, and Clara Ko. (tags: oracle java) Alert for Forms customers running Oracle Forms 10g (Grant Ronald's Blog) Ronald says: "While you might have been happily running your Forms 10g applications for about 5 years or so now, the end of premier support is creeping up and you need to start planning for a move to Oracle Forms 11g." (tags: oracle oracleforms) Brenda Michelson: Enterprise Architecture Rant #4,892 "I’m increasingly concerned about the macro-direction of our field, as we continue to suffer ivory tower enterprise architecture punditry, rigid frameworks and endless philosophical waxing." - Brenda Michelson (tags: entarch enterprisearchitecture ivorytower) Amitabh Apte: Enterprise Architecture - Different Perspectives "Business does not need Enterprise Architecture," says Apte, "it needs value and outcomes from the EA function." (tags: entarch enterprisearchitecture) First Ever MySQL on Windows Online Forum - March 16, 2011 (Oracle's MySQL Blog) Monica Kumar shares the details. (tags: oracle mysql mswindows) Jeff Davies: Running Multiple WebLogic and OSB Domains "There is a small 'gotcha' if you want to create multiple domains on a devevelopment machine," says Jeff Davies. But don't worry - there's a solution. (tags: oracle soa osb weblogic servicebus) The Arup Nanda Blog: Good Engineering "Engineering is not about being superficially creative," Nanda says, "it's about reliability and trustworthiness." (tags: oracle engineering software technology) Welcome to the SOA & E2.0 Partner Community Forum (SOA Partner Community Blog) (tags: ping.fm)

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• Oracle OpenWorld Preview: Get Your Hands Dirty with Oracle WebCenter

  - by Christie Flanagan

  Feel like getting your hands dirty with Oracle WebCenter during Oracle OpenWorld next week?  Roll up your sleeves and sharpen you skills sets by mastering Oracle WebCenter technology in one of our Hand-On Labs.  These labs are self-paced, practical learning sessions where you’re guaranteed to discover new ways to derive maximum benefits from Oracle WebCenter.  Experts will be available in person to answer questions and guide you through each lab. HOL10208 - Add Social Capabilities to Your Enterprise Applications Monday, Oct 1, 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM - Marriott Marquis - Salon 1/2 Oracle Social Network enables you to add real-time collaboration capabilities into your enterprise applications, so that conversations can happen directly within your business systems. In this hands-on lab, you will try out the Oracle Social Network product to collaborate with other attendees, using real-time conversations with document sharing capabilities. Next you will embed social capabilities into a sample Web-based enterprise application, using embedded UI components. Experts will also write simple REST-based integrations, using the Oracle Social Network API to programmatically create social interactions.HOL10194 - Enterprise Content Management Simplified: Oracle WebCenter Content’s Next-Generation UI Tuesday, Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Marriott Marquis - Salon 1/2Regardless of the nature of your business, unstructured content underpins many of its daily functions. Whether you are working with traditional presentations, spreadsheets, or text documents—or even with digital assets such as images and multimedia files—your content needs to be accessible and manageable in convenient and intuitive ways to make working with the content easier. Additionally, you need the ability to easily share documents with coworkers to facilitate a collaborative working environment. Come to this session to see how Oracle WebCenter Content’s next-generation user interface helps modern knowledge workers easily manage personal and enterprise documents in a collaborative environment.HOL10207 - Build an Intranet Portal with Oracle WebCenter Tuesday, Oct 2, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Marriott Marquis - Salon 1/2 Wednesday, Oct 3, 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM - Marriott Marquis - Salon 1/2In this hands-on lab, you’ll work with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle WebCenter Content to build out an enterprise portal that maximizes the productivity of teams and individual contributors. Using browser-based tools, you’ll manage site resources such as page styles, templates, and navigation. You’ll edit content stored in Oracle WebCenter Content directly from your portal. You’ll also experience the latest features that promote collaboration, social networking, and personal productivity.HOL10206 - Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g: Transforming the Content Contributor Experience Wednesday, Oct 3, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Marriott Marquis - Salon 1/2Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g makes it easy for marketers and business users to contribute to and manage Websites with the new visual, contextual, and intuitive Web authoring interface. In this hands-on lab, you will create and manage content for a sports-themed Website, using many of the new and enhanced features of the 11g release. See Your Favorite WebCenter Products in Action Visit us in the exhibition hall to see demonstrations of WebCenter products.  Demo pod locations are in Moscone South, Right: Oracle Social Network: S-244 Oracle WebCenter Content: S-246, S245 Oracle WebCenter Sites: S-247 Oracle WebCenter Portal: S-249 More Info: Oracle OpenWorld Oracle WebCenter Focus On Guide Oracle Customer Experience Summit @ OpenWorld

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• Exam 70-541 - TS: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Application Development

  - by DigiMortal

  Today I passed Microsoft exam 70-541: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Application Development. This exam gives you MCTS certificate. In this posting I will talk about the exam and also give some suggestions about books to read when preparing for exam. About exam This exam was good one I think. The questions were not hard and also not too easy. Just enough to make sure you really know what you do when working with SharePoint. Or at least to make sure you how things work. After couple of years active SharePoint coding this exam needs no additional preparation. The questions covered very different topics like alerts, features, web parts, site definitions, event receivers, workflows, web services and deployments. There are 59 questions in the exam (this information is available in internet) and you have time a little bit more than two hours. It took me about 40 minutes to get questions answered and reviewed. I strongly suggest you to study the parts of WSS 3.0 you don’t know yet and write some code to find out how to use these things through SharePoint API. Good reading For guys with less experience there are some good books to suggest. Take one or both of these books because there are no official study materials or training kits available for this exam. One of my colleagues who is less experienced than me suggested Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by Ted Pattison and Daniel Larson. He told me that he found this book most useful for him to pass this exam.   When I started with SharePoint Services 3.0 my first book was Developer’s Guide To The Windows SharePoint Services v3 Platform by Todd C. Bleeker. It helped me getting started and later it was my main handbook for some time. Of course, there are many other good books and I suggest you to take what you find. Of course, before buying something I suggest you to discuss with guys who have read the book before. And make sure you mention that you are preparing for exam.   Conclusion If you are experienced SharePoint developer then this exam needs no preparation. Okay, some preparation is always good but if you don’t have time you are still able to pass this exam. If you are not experienced SharePoint developer then study before taking this exam – it is not easy stuff for novices. But if you pass this exam you can proudly say – yes, I know something about SharePoint! :)

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• Going Metro

  - by Tony Davis

  When it was announced, I confess was somewhat surprised by the striking new "Metro" User Interface for Windows 8, based on Swiss typography, Bauhaus design, tiles, touches and gestures, and the new Windows Runtime (WinRT) API on which Metro apps were to be built. It all seemed to have come out of nowhere, like field mushrooms in the night and seemed quite out-of-character for a company like Microsoft, which has hung on determinedly for over twenty years to its quaint Windowing system. Many were initially puzzled by the lack of support for plug-ins in the "Metro" version of IE10, which ships with Win8, and the apparent demise of Silverlight, Microsoft's previous 'radical new framework'. Win8 signals the end of the road for Silverlight apps in the browser, but then its importance here has been waning for some time, anyway, now that HTML5 has usurped its most compelling use case, streaming video. As Shawn Wildermuth and others have noted, if you're doing enterprise, desktop development with Silverlight then nothing much changes immediately, though it seems clear that ultimately Silverlight will die off in favor of a single WPF/XAML framework that supports those technologies that were pioneered on the phones and tablets. There is a mystery here. Is Silverlight dead, or merely repurposed? The more you look at Metro, the more it seems to resemble Silverlight. A lot of the philosophies underpinning Silverlight applications, such as the fundamentally asynchronous nature of the design, have moved wholesale into Metro, along with most the Microsoft Silverlight dev team. As Simon Cooper points out, "Silverlight developers, already used to all the principles of sandboxing and separation, will have a much easier time writing Metro apps than desktop developers". Metro certainly has given the framework formerly known as Silverlight a new purpose. It has enabled Microsoft to bestow on Windows 8 a new "duality", as both a traditional desktop OS supporting 'legacy' Windows applications, and an OS that supports a new breed of application that can share functionality such as search, that understands, and can react to, the full range of gestures and screen-sizes, and has location-awareness. It's clear that Win8 is developed in the knowledge that the 'desktop computer' will soon be a very large, tilted, touch-screen monitor. Windows owes its new-found versatility to the lessons learned from Windows Phone, but it's developed for the big screen, and with full support for familiar .NET desktop apps as well as the new Metro apps. But the old mouse-driven Windows applications will soon look very passé, just as MSDOS character-mode applications did in the nineties. Cheers, Tony.

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• Check Your Spelling, Grammar, and Style in Firefox and Chrome

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you tired of making simple writing mistakes that get past your browser’s spell-check?  Here’s how you can get advanced grammar check and more in Firefox and Chrome with After the Deadline. Microsoft Word has spoiled us with grammar, syntax, and spell checking, but the default spell check in Firefox and Chrome still only does basic checks.  Even webapps like Google Docs don’t check more than basic spelling errors.  However, WordPress.com is an exception; it offers advanced spelling, grammar, and syntax checking with its After the Deadline proofing system.  This helps you keep from making embarrassing mistakes on your blog posts, and now, thanks to a couple free browser plugins, it can help you keep from making these mistakes in any website or webapp. After the Deadline in Google Chrome Add the After the Deadline extension (link below) to Chrome as usual. As soon as it’s installed, you’re ready to start improving your online writing.  To check spelling, grammar, and more, click the ABC button that you’ll now see at the bottom of most text boxes online. After a quick scan, grammar mistakes are highlighted in green, complex expressions and other syntax problems are highlighted in blue, and spelling mistakes are highlighted in red as would be expected.  Click on an underlined word to choose one of its recommended changes or ignore the suggestion. Or, if you want more explanation about what was wrong with that word or phrase, click Explain for more info. And, if you forget to run an After the Deadline scan before submitting a text entry, it will automatically check to make sure you still want to submit it.  Click Cancel to go back and check your writing first.   To change the After the Deadline settings, click its icon in the toolbar and select View Options.  Additionally, if you want to disable it on the site you’re on, you can click Disable on this site directly from the popup. From the settings page, you can choose extra things to check for such as double negatives and redundant phrases, as well as add sites and words to ignore. After the Deadline in Firefox Add the After the Deadline add-on to Firefox (link below) as normal. After the Deadline basically the same in Firefox as it does in Chrome.  Select the ABC icon in the lower right corner of textboxes to check them for problems, and After the Deadline will underline the problems as it did in Chrome.  To view a suggested change in Firefox, right-click on the underlined word and select the recommended change or ignore the suggestion. And, if you forget to check, you’ll see a friendly reminder asking if you’re sure you want to submit your text like it is. You can access the After the Deadline settings in Firefox from the menu bar.  Click Tools, then select AtD Preferences.  In Firefox, the settings are in a options dialog with three tabs, but it includes the same options as the Chrome settings page.  Here you can make After the Deadline as correction-happy as you like.   Conclusion The web has increasingly become an interactive place, and seldom does a day go by that we aren’t entering text in forms and comments that may stay online forever.  Even our insignificant tweets are being archived in the Library of Congress.  After the Deadline can help you make sure that your permanent internet record is as grammatically correct as possible.  Even though it doesn’t catch every problem, and even misses some spelling mistakes, it’s still a great help. Links Download the After the Deadline extension for Google Chrome Download the After the Deadline add-on for Firefox Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Tip: Disable Favicons in FirefoxStupid Geek Tricks: Duplicate a Tab with a Shortcut Key in Chrome or FirefoxHow to Disable the New Geolocation Feature in Google ChromeStupid Geek Tricks: Compare Your Browser’s Memory Usage with Google ChromeStop YouTube Videos from Automatically Playing in Chrome TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Easily Search Food Recipes With Recipe Chimp Tech Fanboys Field Guide Check these Awesome Chrome Add-ons iFixit Offers Gadget Repair Manuals Online Vista style sidebar for Windows 7 Create Nice Charts With These Web Based Tools

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• Code Structure / Level Design: Plants vs Zombies game level dissection

  - by lalan

  Hi Friends, I am interested in learning the class structure of Plants vs Zombies, particularly level design; for those who haven't played it - this video contains nice play-through: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89DfdOIJ4xw. How would I go ahead and design the code, mostly structure & classes, which allows for maximum flexibility & clean development? I am familiar with data driven design concepts, and would use events to handle most of dynamic behavior. Dissection at macro level: (Once every Level) Load tilemap, props, etc -- basically build the map (Once every Level) Camera Movement - might consider it as short cut-scene (Once every Level) Show Enemies you'll face during present level (Once every Level) Unit Selection Window/Panel - selection of defensive plants (Once every Level) Camera Movement - might consider it as short cut-scene (Once every Level) HUD Creation - based on unit selection (Level Loop) Enemy creation - based on types of zombies allowed (Level Loop) Sun/Resource generation (Level Loop) Show messages like 'huge wave of zombies coming', 'final wave' (Level Loop) Other unique events - Spawn gifts, money, tombstones, etc (Once every Level) Unlock new plant Potential game scripts: a) Level definitions: Level_1_1.xml, Level_1_2.xml, etc. Level_1_1.xml :: Sample script <map> <tilemap>tilemapFrontLawn</tilemap> <SpawnPoints> tiles where particular type of zombies (land vs water) may spawn</spawnPoints> <props> position, entity array -- lawnmower, </props> </map> <zombies> <... list of zombies who gonna attack by ids...> </zombies> <plants> <... list by plants which are available for defense by ids...> </plants> <progression> <ZombieWave name='first wave' spawnScript='zombieLightWave.lua' unlock='null'> <startMessages time=1.5>Ready</startMessages> <endMessages time=1.5>Huge wave of zombies incoming</endMessages> </ZombieWave> </progression> b) Entities definitions: .xmls containing zombies, plants, sun, lawnmower, coins, etc description. Potential classes: //LevelManager - Based on the level under play, it will load level script. Few of the // functions it may have: class LevelManager { public: bool load(string levelFileName); bool enter(); bool update(float deltatime); bool exit(); private: LevelData* mLevelData; } // LevelData - Contains the details of level loaded by LevelManager. class LevelData { private: string file; // array of camera,dialog,attackwaves, etc in active level LevelCutSceneCamera** mArrayCutSceneCamera; LevelCutSceneDialog** mArrayCutSceneDialog; LevelAttackWave** mArrayAttackWave; .... // which camera,dialog,attackwave is active in level uint mCursorCutSceneCamera; uint mCursorCutSceneDialog; uint mCursorAttackWave; public: // based on cursor, get the next camera,dialog,attackwave,etc in active level // return false/true based on failure/success bool nextCutSceneCamera(LevelCutSceneCamera**); bool nextCutSceneDialog(LevelCutSceneDialog**); } // LevelUnderPlay- LevelManager class LevelUnderPlay { private: LevelCutSceneCamera* mCutSceneCamera; LevelCutSceneDialog* mCutSceneDialog; LevelAttackWave* mAttackWave; Entities** mSelectedPlants; Entities** mAllowedZombies; bool isCutSceneCameraActive; public: bool enter(); bool update(float deltatime); bool exit(); } I am totally confused.. :( Does it make sense of using class composition (have flat class hierarchy) for managing levels. Is it a good idea to just add/remove/update sprites (or any drawable stuff) to current scene from LevelManager or LevelUnderPlay? If I want to make non-linear level design, how should I go ahead? Perhaps I would need a LevelProgression class, which would decide what to do based on decision tree. Any suggestions would be appreciated very much. Thank for your time, lalan

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• Computer Visionaries 2014 Kinect Hackathon

  - by T

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tburger/archive/2014/08/08/computer-visionaries-2014-kinect-hackathon.aspxA big thank you to Computer Vision Dallas and Microsoft for putting together the Computer Visionaries 2014 Kinect Hackathon that took place July 18th and 19th 2014.  Our team had a great time and learned a lot from the Kinect MVP's and Microsoft team.  The Dallas Entrepreneur Center was a fantastic venue. In total, 114 people showed up to form 15 teams. Burger ITS & Friends team members with Ben Lower:  Shawn Weisfeld, Teresa Burger, Robert Burger, Harold Pulcher, Taylor Woolley, Cori Drew (not pictured), and Katlyn Drew (not pictured) We arrived Friday after a long day of work/driving.  Originally, our idea was to make a learning game for kids.  It was intended to be multi-simultaneous players dragging and dropping tiles into a canvas area for kids around 5 years old. We quickly learned that we were limited to two simultaneous players. After working on the game for the rest of the evening and into the next morning we decided that a fast multi-player game with hand gestures was not going to happen without going beyond what was provided with the API. If we were going to have something to show, it was time to switch gears. The next idea on the table was the Photo Anywhere Kiosk. The user can use voice and hand gestures to pick a place they would like to be.  After the user says a place (or anything they want) and then the word "search", the app uses Bing to display a bunch of images for him/her to choose from. With the use of hand gesture (grab and slide to move back and forth and push/pull to select an image) the user can get the perfect image to pose with. I couldn't get a snippet with the hand but when a the app is in use, a hand shows up to cue the user to use their hand to control it's movement. Once they chose an image, we use the Kinect background removal feature to super impose the user on that image. When they are in the perfect position, they say "save" to save the image. Currently, the image is saved in the images folder on the users account but there are many possibilities such as emailing it, posting to social media, etc.. The competition was great and we were honored to be recognized for third place. Other related posts: http://jasongfox.com/computer-visionaries-2014-incredible-success/ A couple of us are continuing to work on the kid's game and are going to make it a Windows 8 multi-player game without Kinect functionality. Stay tuned for more updates.

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• Fluid VS Responsive Website Development Questions

  - by Aditya P

  As I understand these form the basis for targeting a wide array of devices based on the browser size, given it would be a time consuming to generate different layouts targeting different/specific devices and their resolutions. Questions: Firstly right to the jargon, is there any actual difference between the two or do they mean the same? Is it safe to classify the current development mainly a html5/css3 based one? What popular frameworks are available to easily implement this? What testing methods used in this regard? What are the most common compatibility issues in terms of different browser types? I understand there are methods like this http://css-tricks.com/resolution-specific-stylesheets/ which does this come under?. Are there any external browser detection methods besides the API calls specific to the browser that are employed in this regard? Points of interest [Prior Research before asking these questions] Why shouldn't "responsive" web design be a consideration? Responsive Web Design Tips, Best Practices and Dynamic Image Scaling Techniques A recent list of tutorials 30 Responsive Web Design and Development Tutorials by Eric Shafer on May 14, 2012 Update Ive been reading that the basic point of designing content for different layouts to facilitate a responsive web design is to present the most relevant information. now obviously between the smallest screen width and the highest we are missing out on design elements. I gather from here http://flashsolver.com/2012/03/24/5-top-commercial-responsive-web-designs/ The top of the line design layouts (widths) are desktop layout (980px) tablet layout (768px) smartphone layout – landscape (480px) smartphone layout – portrait (320px) Also we have a popular responsive website testing site http://resizemybrowser.com/ which lists different screen resolutions. I've also come across this while trying to find out the optimal highest layout size to account for http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10538599/default-web-page-width-1024px-or-980px which brings to light seemingly that 1366x768 is a popular web resolution. Is it safe to assume that just accounting for proper scaling from width 980px onwards to the maximum size would be sufficient to accommodate this? given we aren't presenting any new information for the new size. Does it make sense to have additional information ( which conflicts with purpose of responsive web design) to utilize the top size and beyond?

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• JavaFX, Google Maps, and NetBeans Platform

  - by Geertjan

  Thanks to a great new article by Rob Terpilowski, and other work and research he describes in that article, it's now trivial to introduce a map component to a NetBeans Platform application. Making use of the GMapsFX library, as described in Rob's article, which provides a JavaFX API for Google Maps, you can very quickly knock this application together. Click to enlarge the image. Here's all the code (from Rob's article): @TopComponent.Description( preferredID = "MapTopComponent", persistenceType = TopComponent.PERSISTENCE_ALWAYS ) @TopComponent.Registration(mode = "editor", openAtStartup = true) @ActionID(category = "Window", id = "org.map.MapTopComponent") @ActionReference(path = "Menu/Window" /*, position = 333 */) @TopComponent.OpenActionRegistration( displayName = "#CTL_MapWindowAction", preferredID = "MapTopComponent" ) @NbBundle.Messages({ "CTL_MapWindowAction=Map", "CTL_MapTopComponent=Map Window", "HINT_MapTopComponent=This is a Map window" }) public class MapWindow extends TopComponent implements MapComponentInitializedListener { protected GoogleMapView mapComponent; protected GoogleMap map; private static final double latitude = 52.3667; private static final double longitude = 4.9000; public MapWindow() { setName(Bundle.CTL_MapTopComponent()); setToolTipText(Bundle.HINT_MapTopComponent()); setLayout(new BorderLayout()); JFXPanel panel = new JFXPanel(); Platform.setImplicitExit(false); Platform.runLater(() -> { mapComponent = new GoogleMapView(); mapComponent.addMapInializedListener(this); BorderPane root = new BorderPane(mapComponent); Scene scene = new Scene(root); panel.setScene(scene); }); add(panel, BorderLayout.CENTER); } @Override public void mapInitialized() { //Once the map has been loaded by the Webview, initialize the map details. LatLong center = new LatLong(latitude, longitude); MapOptions options = new MapOptions(); options.center(center) .mapMarker(true) .zoom(9) .overviewMapControl(false) .panControl(false) .rotateControl(false) .scaleControl(false) .streetViewControl(false) .zoomControl(false) .mapType(MapTypeIdEnum.ROADMAP); map = mapComponent.createMap(options); //Add a couple of markers to the map. MarkerOptions markerOptions = new MarkerOptions(); LatLong markerLatLong = new LatLong(latitude, longitude); markerOptions.position(markerLatLong) .title("My new Marker") .animation(Animation.DROP) .visible(true); Marker myMarker = new Marker(markerOptions); MarkerOptions markerOptions2 = new MarkerOptions(); LatLong markerLatLong2 = new LatLong(latitude, longitude); markerOptions2.position(markerLatLong2) .title("My new Marker") .visible(true); Marker myMarker2 = new Marker(markerOptions2); map.addMarker(myMarker); map.addMarker(myMarker2); //Add an info window to the Map. InfoWindowOptions infoOptions = new InfoWindowOptions(); infoOptions.content("<h2>Center of the Universe</h2>") .position(center); InfoWindow window = new InfoWindow(infoOptions); window.open(map, myMarker); } } Awesome work Rob, will be useful for many developers out there.

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• clear explanation sought: throw() and stack unwinding

  - by Jerry Gagelman

  I'm not a programmer but have learned a lot watching others. I am writing wrapper classes to simplify things with a really technical API that I'm working with. Its routines return error codes, and I have a function that converts those to strings: static const char* LibErrString(int errno); For uniformity I decided to have member of my classes throw an exception when an error is encountered. I created a class: struct MyExcept : public std::exception { const char* errstr_; const char* what() const throw() {return errstr_;} MyExcept(const char* errstr) : errstr_(errstr) {} }; Then, in one of my classes: class Foo { public: void bar() { int err = SomeAPIRoutine(...); if (err != SUCCESS) throw MyExcept(LibErrString(err)); // otherwise... } }; The whole thing works perfectly: if SomeAPIRoutine returns an error, a try-catch block around the call to Foo::bar catches a standard exception with the correct error string in what(). Then I wanted the member to give more information: void Foo::bar() { char adieu[128]; int err = SomeAPIRoutine(...); if (err != SUCCESS) { std::strcpy(adieu,"In Foo::bar... "); std::strcat(adieu,LibErrString(err)); throw MyExcept((const char*)adieu); } // otherwise... } However, when SomeAPIRoutine returns an error, the what() string returned by the exception contains only garbage. It occurred to me that the problem could be due to adieu going out of scope once the throw is called. I changed the code by moving adieu out of the member definition and making it an attribute of the class Foo. After this, the whole thing worked perfectly: a try-call block around a call to Foo::bar that catches an exception has the correct (expanded) string in what(). Finally, my question: what exactly is popped off the stack (in sequence) when the exception is thrown in the if-block when the stack "unwinds?" As I mentioned above, I'm a mathematician, not a programmer. I could use a really lucid explanation of what goes onto the stack (in sequence) when this C++ gets converted into running machine code.

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• SQL SERVER – OLEDB – Link Server – Wait Type – Day 23 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  When I decided to start writing about this wait type, the very first question that came to my mind was, “What does ‘OLEDB’ stand for?” A quick search on Wikipedia tells me that OLEDB means Object Linking and Embedding Database. (How many of you knew this?) Anyway, I found it very interesting that this wait type was in one of the top 10 wait types in many of the systems I have come across in my performance tuning experience. Books On-Line: ????OLEDB occurs when SQL Server calls the SQL Server Native Client OLE DB Provider. This wait type is not used for synchronization. Instead, it indicates the duration of calls to the OLE DB provider. OLEDB Explanation: This wait type primarily happens when Link Server or Remove Query has been executed. The most common case wherein this wait type is visible is during the execution of Linked Server. When SQL Server is retrieving data from the remote server, it uses OLEDB API to retrieve the data. It is possible that the remote system is not quick enough or the connection between them is not fast enough, leading SQL Server to wait for the result’s return from the remote (or external) server. This is the time OLEDB wait type occurs. Reducing OLEDB wait: Check the Link Server configuration. Checking Disk-Related Perfmon Counters Average Disk sec/Read (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk sec/Write (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk Read/Write Queue Length (Consistent higher value than benchmark is not good) At this point in time, I am not able to think of any more ways on reducing this wait type. Do you have any opinion about this subject? Please share it here and I will share your comment with the rest of the Community, and of course, with due credit unto you. Please read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussion of Wait Stats in this blog is generic and varies from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• View Docs and PDFs Directly in Google Chrome

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to view documents, presentations, and PDFs directly in Google Chrome?  Here’s a handy extension that makes Google Docs your default online viewer so don’t have to download the file first. Getting Started By default, when you come across a PDF or other common document file online in Google Chrome, you’ll have to download the file and open it in a separate application. It’d be much easier to simply view online documents directly in Chrome.  To do this, head over to the Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer page on the Chrome Extensions site (link below), and click Install to add it to your browser. Click Install to confirm that you want to install this extension. Extensions don’t run by default in Incognito mode, so if you’d like to always view documents directly in Chrome, open the Extensions page and check Allow this extension to run in incognito. Now, when you click a link for a document online, such as a .docx file from Word, it will open in the Google Docs viewer. These documents usually render in their original full-quality.  You can zoom in and out to see exactly what you want, or search within the document.  Or, if it doesn’t look correct, you can click the Download link in the top left to save the original document to your computer and open it in Office.   Even complex PDF render very nicely.  Do note that Docs will keep downloading the document as you’re reading it, so if you jump to the middle of a document it may look blurry at first but will quickly clear up. You can even view famous presentations online without opening them in PowerPoint.  Note that this will only display the slides themselves, but if you’re looking for information you likely don’t need the slideshow effects anyway.   Adobe Reader Conflicts If you already have Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader installed on your computer, PDF files may open with the Adobe plugin.  If you’d prefer to read your PDFs with the Docs PDF Viewer, then you need to disable the Adobe plugin.  Enter the following in your Address Bar to open your Chrome Plugins page: chrome://plugins/ and then click Disable underneath the Adobe Acrobat plugin. Now your PDFs will always open with the Docs viewer instead. Performance Who hasn’t been frustrated by clicking a link to a PDF file, only to have your browser pause for several minutes while Adobe Reader struggles to download and display the file?  Google Chrome’s default behavior of simply downloading the files and letting you open them is hardly more helpful.  This extension takes away both of these problems, since it renders the documents on Google’s servers.  Most documents opened fairly quickly in our tests, and we were able to read large PDFs only seconds after clicking their link.  Also, the Google Docs viewer rendered the documents much better than the HTML version in Google’s cache. Google Docs did seem to have problem on some files, and we saw error messages on several documents we tried to open.  If you encounter this, click the Download link in the top left corner to download the file and view it from your desktop instead. Conclusion Google Docs has improved over the years, and now it offers fairly good rendering even on more complex documents.  This extension can make your browsing easier, and help documents and PDFs feel more like part of the Internet.  And, since the documents are rendered on Google’s servers, it’s often faster to preview large files than to download them to your computer. Link Download the Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer extension from Google Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Integrate Google Docs with Outlook the Easy WayGoogle Image Search Quick FixView the Time & Date in Chrome When Hiding Your TaskbarView Maps and Get Directions in Google ChromeHow To Export Documents from Google Docs to Your Computer TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium

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• Oracle Delivers Latest Release of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c

  - by Scott McNeil

  Richer Service Catalog for Database and Middleware as a Service; Enhanced Database and Middleware Management Help Drive Enterprise-Scale Private Cloud Adoption News Summary IT organizations are adopting private clouds as a stepping-stone to business-driven, self-service IT. Successful implementations hinge on the ability to efficiently deploy and manage cloud services at enterprise scale. Having a complete cloud management solution integrated with an enterprise-class technology stack is a fundamental requirement for IT. Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 4 meets that requirement by helping businesses become more agile and responsive, while reducing cost, complexity, and risk. News Facts Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 4, available today, lets organizations rapidly adopt Oracle-based, enterprise-scale private clouds. New capabilities provide advanced technology stack management, secure database administration, and enterprise service governance, enabling Oracle customers and partners to maximize database and application performance and drive innovation using self-service IT platforms. The enhancements have been driven by customers and the growing Oracle Enterprise Manager Ecosystem, comprised of more than 750 Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized partners. Oracle and its partners and customers have built over 140 plug-ins and connectors for Oracle Enterprise Manager. Watch the video highlights. Automation for Broader Cloud Services Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 4 allows for a rapid enterprise-wide adoption of database, middleware and infrastructure services in the private cloud, driven by an enhanced API-enabled service catalog. The release features “push button” style provisioning of complete environments such as SOA and Oracle Active Data Guard, and fast data cloning that enables rapid deployment and testing of enterprise applications. Out-of-the-box capabilities to detect data and configuration vulnerabilities provide enhanced cloud service governance along with greater operational control through a flexible and extensible showback mechanism. Enhanced Database Management A new performance warehouse enables predictive database diagnostics and trend analysis and helps identify database problems before they occur. New enterprise data-governance capabilities enhance security by helping systematically discover and protect sensitive data. Step-by-step orchestration of upgrades with the ability to rollback changes enables faster adoption of Oracle Database 12c. Expanded Fusion Middleware Management A new consolidated view of Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c deployments with a guided management capability lets administrators apply best management practices to diverse middleware environments and identify performance issues quickly. A Java VM Diagnostics as a Service feature allows governed access to diagnostics data for IT workers across multiple disciplines for accelerated DevOps resolutions of defects and performance optimization. New automated provisioning for SOA lets middleware administrators perform mass SOA provisioning with ease. Superior Enterprise-Grade Management Private roles and preferred credentials have been added to Oracle Enterprise Manager to provide additional fine-grained security for organizations with complex access control requirements. A new security console provides a single point of control for managing the security of Oracle Enterprise Manager environments. Support for the latest industry standard SNMP v3 protocol, including encryption, enables more secure heterogeneous management. “Smart monitoring” adapts to observed environmental changes and adds self-management capabilities to help Oracle Enterprise Manager run at peak performance, while demanding less IT supervision. Supporting Quotes “Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a strong tradition of technology breakthroughs and leadership. As a member of Oracle’s Customer Advisory Board for Oracle Enterprise Manager, we have consistently provided feedback and guidance in the areas of enterprise-scale cloud, self-diagnosability, and secure administration for the product,” said Tim Frazier, CIO, NIF and Photon Sciences, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “We intend to take advantage of the Release 4 features that support enterprise-scale availability and fine-grained security capabilities for private cloud deployments.” “IDC's most recent CloudTrack survey shows that most enterprises plan to adopt hybrid cloud architectures over the next three years,” said Mary Johnston Turner, Research Vice President, Enterprise System Management Software, IDC. “These organizations plan to deploy a wide range of workloads into cloud environments including mission critical database and middleware services that require high levels of fault tolerance and disaster recovery. Such capabilities were traditionally custom configured for each application but cloud offers the possibility to incorporate such properties within the service definition, enabling organizations to adopt cloud without compromise. With the latest release of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c, Oracle is providing customers with an out-of-the-box experience for delivering highly-resilient cloud services for databases and applications.” “Since its inception, Oracle has been leading the way in innovative, scalable and high performance solutions for the enterprise. With this release of Oracle Enterprise Manager, we are extending this leadership by providing enterprise-scale capabilities for planning, delivering, and managing private clouds. We call this ‘zero-to-cloud – accelerated.’ These enhancements help our customers to expedite their adoption of cloud computing and prepares them for the next generation of self-service IT,” said Prakash Ramamurthy, senior vice president of Systems and Cloud Management at Oracle. Supporting Resources Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Video: Cerner Delivers High Performance Private Cloud Video: BIAS Achieves Outstanding Results with Private Cloud Press Release Stay Connected: Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Linkedin | Newsletter Download the Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Mobile app

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• Superpower Your Touchpad Computer with Scrybe

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you looking for a way to help your Touchpad computer make you more productive?  Here’s a quick look at Scrybe, a new application from Synaptics that lets you superpower it. Touchpad devices have become increasingly more interesting as they’ve included support for multi-touch gestures.  Scrybe takes it to the next level and lets you use your touchpad as an application launcher.  You can launch any application, website, or complete many common commands on your computer with a simple gesture.  Scrybe works with most modern Synaptics touchpads, which are standard on most laptops and netbooks.  It is optimized for newer multi-touch touchpads, but can also work with standard single-touch touchpads.  It works on Windows 7, Vista, and XP, so chances are it will work with your laptop or netbook. Get Started With Scrybe Head over to the Scrybe website and download the latest version (link below).  You are asked to enter your email address, name, and information about your computer…but you actually only have to enter your email address.  Click Download when finished. Run the installer when it’s download.  It will automatically download the latest Synaptics driver for your touchpad and any other components needed for Scrybe.  Note that the Scrybe installer will ask to install the Yahoo! toolbar, so uncheck this to avoid adding this worthless browser toolbar. Using Scrybe To open an application or website with a gesture, press 3 fingers on your touchpad at once, or if your touchpad doesn’t support multi-touch gestures, then press Ctrl+Alt and press 1 finger on your touchpad.  This will open the Scrype input pane; start drawing a gesture, and you’ll see it on the grey square.  The input pane shows some default gestures you can try. Here we drew an “M”, which opens our default Music player.  As soon as you finish the gesture and lift up your finger, Scrybe will open the application or website you selected. A notification balloon will let you know what gesture was preformed. When you’re entering your gesture, the input pane will show white “ink”.  The “ink” will turn blue if the command is recognized, but will turn red if it isn’t.  If Scrybe doesn’t recognize your command, press 3 fingers and try again. Scrybe Control Panel You can open the Scrybe Control panel to enter or change commands by entering a box-like gesture, or right-clicking the Scrybe icon in your system tray and selecting “Scrybe Control Panel”. Scrybe has many pre-configured gestures that you can preview and even practice. All of the gestures in the Popular tab are preset and cannot be changed.  However, the ones in the favorites tab can be edited.  Select the gesture you wish to edit, and click the gear icon to change it.  Here we changed the email gesture to open Hotmail instead of the default Yahoo Mail. Scrybe can also help you perform many common Windows commands such as Copy and Undo.  Select the Tools tab to see all of these commands.   Scrybe has many settings you may wish to change.  Select the Preferences button in the Control Panel to change these.  Here’s some of the settings we changed. Uncheck “Display a message” to turn off the tooltip notifications when you enter a gesture Uncheck “Show symbol hints” to turn off the sidebar on the input pane Select the search engine you want to open with the Search Gesture.  The default is Yahoo, but you can choose your favorite. Adding a new Scrybe Gesture The default Scrybe options are useful, but the best part is that you can assign gestures to your own programs or websites.  Open the Scrybe control panel, and click the plus sign on the bottom left corner.  Enter a name for your gesture, and then choose if it is for a website or an application. If you want the gesture to open a website, enter the address in the box. Alternately, if you want your gesture to open an application, select Launch Application and then either enter the path to the application, or click the button beside the Launch field and browse to it. Now click the down arrow on the blue box and choose one of the gestures for your application or website. Your new gesture will show up under the Favorites tab in the Scrybe control panel, and you can use it whenever you want from Scrybe, or practice the gesture by selecting the Practice button. Conclusion If you enjoy multi-touch gestures, you may find Scrybe very useful on your laptop or netbook.  Scrybe recognizes gestures fairly easily, even if you don’t enter them perfectly correctly.  Just like pinch-to-zoom and two-finger scroll, Scrybe can quickly become something you miss on other laptops. Download Scrybe (registration required) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fixing Firefox Scrolling Problems with Dell Synaptics TouchpadRemove Synaptics Touchpad Icon from System TrayRoll Back Troublesome Device Drivers in Windows VistaChange Your Computer Name in Windows 7 or VistaLet Somebody Use Your Computer Without Logging Off in Ubuntu TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day Check the Average Speed of YouTube Videos You’ve Watched OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics How to Add Exceptions to the Windows Firewall Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott

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• Frustrated where I am, but not sure where to go with my career [closed]

  - by Tom Pickles

  I work (3 years now) as a lead developer for a team developing internal tools and websites for a customer account within large outsourcing company. I'm a self taught programmer and my previous incarnation was a 3rd line support guy, so I have a solid infrastructure knowledge. We use VB.Net/MSSQL/SSIS/SSRS ASP.NET (nTier) in house and I have about 8 years coding experience. Without going into too much detail, my boss is very ambitious and uses our team as his footing to get up the ladder. I've been in the team from the start and the only new dev's we have brought in have been people with a bit of VBA/VBScript experience, much to my chagrin, to bolster his empire. It's been a lot of hard work to bring them up to a standard, but there's still a lot for them to learn. This makes my life stressful as I always get the high profile/complex project work to do as other's simply cannot do it, or it'd take them twice/three times longer to do it. My boss is always seeking stuff for us to build for people who haven't asked for it, which usually get's thrown to me as I have the most experience and can pick new API's (etc) up quicker. He doesn't give us proper requirements, we don't get time to design properly before we code, he wants us to throw something (quick and dirty as he calls it) together so we can get it out ASAP. I take pride in my work so I like to do it properly, make my code clean, maintainable etc, and I train the other guys in the team to do the same. But, we always fall on our faces. The customer we drop the apps on say it doesn't do what they need (due to few requirements), or my boss doesn't like it/changes the spec, so we have to rework it, it get's drawn out, and it makes us and me look and feel like fools. We then get accused by boss of not being reactive enough to change. I've had enough. In order to get my skills and knowledge gap's filled, I've been reading Code Complete 2nd Ed (McConnell) and the Head First Design Patterns books. I'm forcing myself to move into C# from VB at home to broaden my horizons. I'm not sure where to go from here. I don't want to code all my life as I'd like to move into a higher level design/architects role at some point in time (I'm 35). Where do I/can I go from here?

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• Silverlight Cream for April 18, 2010 -- #840

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: CrocusGirl, Giorgetti Alessandro(-2-), smartyP, Pete Brown, David Poll, David Anson, and Bill Reiss. Shoutouts: Yasser Makram has a post up discussing Human Centered ALM with Telerik TeamPulse and Team Foundation Server. I saw this demo'd at DevConnnections and it definitely deserves a look. Shawn Wildermuth posted his materials from DevConnections all on one post: Back from DevConnections with SourceCode Shawn Wildermuth also posted an Updated RIA Services + MVVM Example Laurent Bugnion announced a Small change in MVVM Light Toolkit templates for Blend 4 RC Laurent Bugnion also announced Crowdsourcing MVVM Light Toolkit support The Expression Blend and Design Blog announced Expression Blend 4 Release Candidate Available! Dan Wahlin posted Slides and Code from my Silverlight MVVM Talk at DevConnections From SilverlightCream.com: Windows Phone 7 Design Notes – Part#1: Metro Resources CrocusGirl has blogged about WP7 and the Metro design concept. She has a bunch of resources up and information about Metro and the design methodology. Stay tuned for Part 2. Silverlight, M-V-VM ... and IoC - part 1 Giorgetti Alessandro has part 1 of a multi-parter up on IoC and MVVM for LOB apps in Silverlight ... a pretty quick into to MVVM. Silverlight, M-V-VM … and IoC – part 2 Giorgetti Alessandro also posted part 2 of his series, and this one digs deeper into the code and discusses what goes into the view and the model. Using the Facebook Developer Toolkit With Windows Phone 7 smartyP has a post addressing using the Facebook Developer toolkit with WP7... it took some hacking, and he explains it, and provides it for download. Silverlight and WPF Tip: Fitting items in a ListBox Having trouble fitting items into a Listbox in Silverlight or WPF without getting horizontal scrollbars? Pete Brown has a solution for you in 4 steps. Making printing easier in Silverlight 4 David Poll has a great detailed post up about printing in SL4, taking it to building a higher-level API that allows printing of collections... all demos and source included. Detailed information about the Silverlight Toolkit's new stacked series support David Anson details the improvements to Data Visualization in the Toolkit release from last week. Space Rocks game step 9: the asteroid sprite Bill Reiss has his latest game episode up and this time he's putting asteroid sprites in play. No placement, movement, or collisions yet, but it's a beginning. And, he's updated all his code to Silverlight 4. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Searching for the Perfect Developer&rsquo;s Laptop.

  - by mbcrump

  I have been in the market for a new computer for several months. I set out with a budget of around $1200. I knew up front that the machine would be used for developing applications and maybe some light gaming. I kept switching between buying a laptop or a desktop but the laptop won because: With a Laptop, I can carry it everywhere and with a desktop I can’t. I searched for about 2 weeks and narrowed it down to a list of must-have’s : i7 Processor (I wasn’t going to settle for an i5 or AMD. I wanted a true Quad-core machine, not 2 dual-core fused together). 15.6” monitor SSD 128GB or Larger. – It’s almost 2011 and I don’t want an old standard HDD in this machine. 8GB of DDR3 Ram. – The more the better, right? 1GB Video Card (Prefer NVidia) – I might want to play games with this. HDMI Port – Almost a standard on new Machines. This would be used when I am on the road and want to stream Netflix to the HDTV in the Hotel room. Webcam Built-in – This would be to video chat with the wife and kids if I am on the road. 6-Cell Battery. – I’ve read that an i7 in a laptop really kills the battery. A 6-cell or 9-cell is even better. That is a pretty long list for a budget of around $1200. I searched around the internet and could not buy this machine prebuilt for under $1200. That was even with coupons and my company’s 10% Dell discount. The only way that I would get a machine like this was to buy a prebuilt and replace parts. I chose the  Lenovo Y560 on Newegg to start as my base. Below is a top-down picture of it.   Part 1: The Hardware The Specs for this machine: Color :  GrayOperating System : Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bitCPU Type : Intel Core i7-740QM(1.73GHz)Screen : 15.6" WXGAMemory Size : 4GB DDR3Hard Disk : 500GBOptical Drive : DVD±R/RWGraphics Card : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730Video Memory : 1GBCommunication : Gigabit LAN and WLANCard slot : 1 x Express Card/34Battery Life : Up to 3.5 hoursDimensions : 15.20" x 10.00" x 0.80" - 1.30"Weight : 5.95 lbs. This computer met most of the requirements above except that it didn’t come with an SSD or have 8GB of DDR3 Memory. So, I needed to start shopping except this time for an SSD. I asked around on twitter and other hardware forums and everyone pointed me to the Crucial C300 SSD. After checking prices of the drive, it was going to cost an extra $275 bucks and I was going from a spacious 500GB drive to 128GB. After watching some of the SSD videos on YouTube I started feeling better. Below is a pic of the Crucial C300 SSD. The second thing that I needed to upgrade was the RAM. It came with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, but it was slow. I decided to buy the Crucial 8GB (4GB x 2) Kit from Newegg. This RAM cost an extra $120 and had a CAS Latency of 7. In the end this machine delivered everything that I wanted and it cost around $1300. You are probably saying, well your budget was $1200. I have spare parts that I’m planning on selling on eBay or Anandtech.  =) If you are interested then shoot me an email and I will give you a great deal mbcrump[at]gmail[dot]com. 500GB Laptop 7200RPM HDD 4GB of DDR3 RAM (2GB x 2) faceVision HD 720p Camera – Unopened In the end my Windows Experience Rating of the SSD was 7.7 and the CPU 7.1. The max that you can get is a 7.9. Part 2: The Software I’m very lucky that I get a lot of software for free. When choosing a laptop, the OS really doesn’t matter because I would never keep the bloatware pre-installed or Windows 7 Home Premium on my main development machine. Matter of fact, as soon as I got the laptop, I immediately took out the old HDD without booting into it. After I got the SSD into the machine, I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit. The BIOS was out of date, so I updated that to the latest version and started downloading drivers off of Lenovo’s site. I had to download the Wireless Networking Drivers to a USB-Key before I could get my machine on my wireless network. I also discovered that if the date on your computer is off then you cannot join the Windows 7 Homegroup until you fix it. I’m aware that most people like peeking into what programs other software developers use and I went ahead and listed my “essentials” of a fresh build. I am a big Silverlight guy, so naturally some of the software listed below is specific to Silverlight. You should also check out my master list of Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer. See a killer app that I’m missing? Feel free to leave it in the comments below. My Software Essential List. CPU-Z Dropbox Everything Search Tool Expression Encoder Update Expression Studio 4 Ultimate Foxit Reader Google Chrome Infragistics NetAdvantage Ultimate Edition Keepass Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Microsoft Security Essentials 2  Mindscape Silverlight Elements Notepad 2 (with shell extension) Precode Code Snippet Manager RealVNC Reflector ReSharper v5.1.1753.4 Silverlight 4 Toolkit Silverlight Spy Snagit 10 SyncFusion Reporting Controls for Silverlight Telerik Silverlight RadControls TweetDeck Virtual Clone Drive Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2 Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate VS KB2403277 Update to get Feature Pack 2 to work. Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit Windows Live Essentials 2011 Windows Live Writer Backup. Windows Phone Development Tools That is pretty much it, I have a new laptop and am happy with the purchase. If you have any questions then feel free to leave a comment below.  Subscribe to my feed

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• Using commands with ApplicationBarMenuItem and ApplicationBarButton in Windows Phone 7

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  Unfortunately, in the current version of the Windows Phone 7 Silverlight framework, it is not possible to attach any command on the ApplicationBarMenuItem and ApplicationBarButton controls. These two controls appear in the Application Bar, for example with the following markup: <phoneNavigation:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar> <shell:ApplicationBar x:Name="MainPageApplicationBar"> <shell:ApplicationBar.MenuItems> <shell:ApplicationBarMenuItem Text="Add City" /> <shell:ApplicationBarMenuItem Text="Add Country" /> </shell:ApplicationBar.MenuItems> <shell:ApplicationBar.Buttons> <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="/Resources/appbar.feature.video.rest.png" /> <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="/Resources/appbar.feature.settings.rest.png" /> <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="/Resources/appbar.refresh.rest.png" /> </shell:ApplicationBar.Buttons> </shell:ApplicationBar> </phoneNavigation:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar> This code will create the following UI: Application bar, collapsed Application bar, expanded ApplicationBarItems are not, however, controls. A quick look in MSDN shows the following hierarchy for ApplicationBarMenuItem, for example: Unfortunately, this prevents all the mechanisms that are normally used to attach a Command (for example a RelayCommand) to a control. For example, the attached behavior present in the class ButtonBaseExtension (from the Silverlight 3 version of the MVVM Light toolkit) can only be attached to a DependencyObject. Similarly, Blend behaviors (such as EventToCommand from the toolkit’s Extras library) needs a FrameworkElement to work. Using code behind The alternative is to use code behind. As I said in my MIX10 talk, the MVVM police will not take your family away if you use code behind (this quote was actually suggested to me by Glenn Block); the code behind is there for a reason. In our case, invoking a command in the ViewModel requires the following code: In MainPage.xaml: <shell:ApplicationBarMenuItem Text="My Menu 1" Click="ApplicationBarMenuItemClick"/> In MainPage.xaml.cs private void ApplicationBarMenuItemClick( object sender, System.EventArgs e) { var vm = DataContext as MainViewModel; if (vm != null) { vm.MyCommand.Execute(null); } } Conclusion Resorting to code behind to bridge the gap between the View and the ViewModel is less elegant than using attached behaviors, either through an attached property or through a Blend behavior. It does, however, work fine. I don’t have any information if future changes in the Windows Phone 7 Application Bar API will make this easier. In the mean time, I would recommend using code behind instead.   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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• Victor Grazi, Java Champion!

  - by Tori Wieldt

  Congratulations to Victor Grazi, who has been made a Java Champion! He was nominated by his peers and selected as a Java Champion for his experience as a developer, and his work in the Java and Open Source communities. Grazi is a Java evangelist and serves on the Executive Committee of the Java Community Process, representing Credit Suisse - the first non-technology vendor on the JCP. He also arranges the NY Java SIG meetings at Credit Suisse's New York campus each month, and he says it has been a valuable networking opportunity. He also is the spec lead for JSR 354, the Java Money and Currency API. Grazi has been building real time financial systems in Java since JDK version 1.02! In 1996, the internet was just starting to happen, Grazi started a dot com called Supermarkets to Go, that provided an on-line shopping presence to supermarkets and grocers. Grazi wrote most of the code, which was a great opportunity for him to learn Java and UI development, as well as database management. Next, he went to work at Bank of NY building a trading system. He studied for Java certification, and he noted that getting his certification was a game changer because it helped him started to learn the nuances of the Java language. He has held other development positions, "You may have noticed that you don't get as much junk mail from Citibank as you used to - that is thanks to one of my projects!" he told us. Grazi joined Credit Suisse in 2005 and is currently Vice President on the central architecture team. Grazi is proud of his open source project, Java Concurrent Animated, a series of animations that visualize the functionality of the components in the java.util.concurrent library. "It has afforded me the opportunity to speak around the globe" and because of it, has discovered that he really enjoys doing public presentations. He is a fine addition to the Java Champions program. The Java Champions are an exclusive group of passionate Java technology and community leaders who are community-nominated and selected under a project sponsored by Oracle. Nominees are named and selected through a peer review process. Java Champions get the opportunity to provide feedback, ideas, and direction that will help Oracle grow the Java Platform. This interchange may be in the form of technical discussions and/or community-building activities with Oracle's Java Development and Developer Program teams.

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• SharePoint 2010 Data Retrival Techinques

  - by Jayant Sharma

  In SharePoint, we have two options to perform CRUD operation.1. using server side code2. using client side codeusing server side code, we have 1. CAML2. LINQusing client side code, we have 1. Client Object Model    1.1.      Managed Client Object Model     1.2.     Silverlight Client Object Model    1.3.     ECMA Client Object Model2. SharePoint Web Services3. ADO Data Service (based on REST Web Services)4. Using RPC Call (owssvr.dll)Which and when these options are used depend upon requirements. Every options are certain advantages and disadvantages. So, before start development of any new sharepoint project, it is important to understand the limitations of different methods.Server Object Model is used when our application is host on the same server on which sharepoint is installed. while Client Side code is used to access sharepoint from client system. In SharePoint 2010 specially Client Object Model (COM) are introduced to perform the sharepoint operations from client system. Advantage of CAML:    -  It is fast.    -  Can be use it from all kind of technology like Silverlight, or Jquery    -  You can use U2U CAML Query builder to generate CAML Query.Disadvantage Of CAML:    - Error Prone, as we can detect the error only at runtimeAdvantage of LINQ:    -  Object Oriented technique (Object Relation Model)    -  LINQ  to SharePoint provider are working with Strongly Type List Item Objects, So intellisence are present at runtime    -  No need of knowledge of CAML    -  Less Error Prone as it as it uses C# syntex.    -  You can compare two Fields of SharePoint ListDisadvantage Of LINQ:    -  List Attachment is not supported in SPMetal Tool    -  Created By, Created, Modified and Modified By Fields are not created by SPMetal Tool.    -  Custom fields are not created by SPMetal Tools    -  External Lists are not supported    -  Though at backend LINQ genenates CAML Query so it is slower than directly using CAML in Code.  Advantage of Client Object Model    -  Used to access sharepoint from client system    -  No WebServer is required at Client End    - Can use Silverlight and JavaScripts to make better and fast User experienceDisadvantage of Client Object Model    -  You cannot use RunwithEleveatedPrivilege    - Cross Site Collection query are not possible    - Lesser API's are availableADO.Net Data Services:    -  Only List based operations are possible, other type of operations are not possible.SharePoint Web Services and RPC Call:    - Previously it was used in SharePoint 2007 but after the introduction  of Client Object Model,  Microsoft recommends not to use Web Services to fetch data from SharePoint. In SharePoint 2010 it is avaliable only for backward compatibility.Ref: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee539764Jayant Sharma

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• Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools - January 2011 Update

  - by Nikita Polyakov

  Long time no talk? So to make up for it, here is something very new – update to WP7 Dev Tools! The Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools January 2011 Update provides bits that you would install on TOP of the current WP7 Dev tools on your machine. If you are just installing the tools for the first time, this update replaces previously released October patch. In fact, it is no longer available as this January 2011 update replaces the patch entirely. What is in this update? TextBox support for Copy&Paste Updated Emulator Image that contains Copy&Paste for your testing There have been performance tweaks for the OS Minor Bugs and Fixes How does it Work? The Copy&Paste extends a existing TextBox control to have this new functionality, There is no current API access to the Clipboard or support for other controls that are not based on TextBox. If I have/Do I need to: A current application in the marketplace/No action is required Have an application that contains a TextBox in a Pivot or Panorama control surface/Text your application in provided emulator Recommendation is to move TextBox controls from directly top of controls that listen to Gesture movement to their own pop-off screens or entire pages as this might interfear with select behavior for Copy&Paste Have controls that do no inherit from TextBox/Such controls will not get new Copy&Paste behavior Note: The update materials, FAQ and Q&A do not answer WHEN the update for the OS will be sent to the phones.  Also to note - this update does NOT update your developer phone to enable Copy&Paste or any other features. Windows Phone 7 Training Kit February Update Windows Phone Training Kit has also been updated – you can grab a fresh copy here.   Where to I find more good information, documentation and training? This very awesome blog post from the Windows Phone Developer Blog - Windows Phone 7 Documentation Landscape. Official Blog Post on the Update is here. Happy coding! -Nikita   PS: I am well aware that it is Feb 4th and not January :) If you were disappointed at CES that Microsoft said nothing at all about future of WP7, don’t forget that MWC 2011 is Feb 14th – I am going to be listening for Windows Phone announcements then, as that is where the announcements were made about Windows Phone 7.

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• Mixed Emotions: Humans React to Natural Language Computer

  - by Applications User Experience

  There was a big event in Silicon Valley on Tuesday, November 15. Watson, the natural language computer developed at IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and its inventor and principal research investigator, David Ferrucci, were guests at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California for another round of the television game Jeopardy. You may have read about or watched on YouTube how Watson beat Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, two top Jeopardy competitors, last February. This time, Watson swept the floor with two Silicon Valley high-achievers, one a venture capitalist with a background  in math, computer engineering, and physics, and the other a technology and finance writer well-versed in all aspects of culture and humanities. Watson is the product of the DeepQA research project, which attempts to create an artificially intelligent computing system through advances in natural language processing (NLP), among other technologies. NLP is a computing strategy that seeks to provide answers by processing large amounts of unstructured data contained in multiple large domains of human knowledge. There are several ways to perform NLP, but one way to start is by recognizing key words, then processing  contextual  cues associated with the keyword concepts so that you get many more “smart” (that is, human-like) deductions,  rather than a series of “dumb” matches.  Jeopardy questions often require more than key word matching to get the correct answer; typically several pieces of information put together, often from vastly different categories, to come up with a satisfactory word string solution that can be rephrased as a question.  Smarter than your average search engine, but is it as smart as a human? Watson was especially fast at descrambling mixed-up state capital names, and recalling and pairing movie titles where one started and the other ended in the same word (e.g., Billion Dollar Baby Boom, where both titles used the word Baby). David said they had basically removed the variable of how fast Watson hit the buzzer compared to human contestants, but frustration frequently appeared on the faces of the contestants beaten to the punch by Watson. David explained that top Jeopardy winners like Jennings achieved their success with a similar strategy, timing their buzz to the end of the reading of the clue,  and “running the board”, being first to respond on about 60% of the clues.  Similar results for Watson. It made sense that Watson would be good at the technical and scientific stuff, so I figured the venture capitalist was toast. But I thought for sure Watson would lose to the writer in categories such as pop culture, wines and foods, and other humanities. Surprisingly, it held its own. I was amazed it could recognize a word definition of a syllogism in the category of philosophy. So what was the audience reaction to all of this? We started out expecting our formidable human contestants to easily run some of their categories; however, they started off on the wrong foot with the state capitals which Watson could unscramble so efficiently. By the end of the first round, contestants and the audience were feeling a little bit, well, …. deflated. Watson was winning by about $13,000, and the humans had gone into negative dollars. The IBM host said he was going to “slow Watson down a bit,” and the humans came back with respectable scores in Double Jeopardy. This was partially thanks to a very sympathetic audience (and host, also a human) providing “group-think” on many questions, especially baseball ‘s most valuable players, which by the way, couldn’t have been hard because even I knew them.  Yes, that’s right, the humans cheated. Since Watson could speak but not hear us (it didn’t have speech recognition capability), it was probably unaware of this. In Final Jeopardy, the single question had to do with law. I was sure Watson would blow this one, but all contestants were able to answer correctly about a copyright law. In a career devoted to making computers more helpful to people, I think I may have seen how a computer can do too much. I’m not sure I’d want to work side-by-side with a Watson doing my job. Certainly listening and empathy are important traits we humans still have over Watson.  While there was great enthusiasm in the packed room of computer scientists and their friends for this standing-room-only show, I think it made several of us uneasy (especially the poor human contestants whose egos were soundly bashed in the first round). This computer system, by the way , only took 4 years to program. David Ferrucci mentioned several practical uses for Watson, including medical diagnoses and legal strategies. Are you “the expert” in your job? Imagine NLP computing on an Oracle database.   This may be the user interface of the future to enable users to better process big data. How do you think you’d like it? Postscript: There were three little boys sitting in front of me in the very first row. They looked, how shall I say it, … unimpressed!

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