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  • RightNow CX @ OpenWorld: What to Experience

    - by Tony Berk
    We want to welcome our RightNow CX customers to Oracle OpenWorld next week. Get ready for a great week and a whole new experience! For a high level overview of what is going on during the week, please review these previous posts: Is There a Cloud Over OpenWorld? and What to "CRM" in San Francisco? CRM Highlights for OpenWorld '12. Also, don't forget you can add on the Customer Experience Summit @ OpenWorld to make your week even more complete and get involved with the Experience Revolution! Below is a highlight of only some of the RightNow related sessions at OpenWorld. Please use OpenWorld Schedule Builder or check the OpenWorld Content Catalog for all of the session details and any time or location changes. Tip: Pre-enrolled session registrants via Schedule Builder are allowed into the session rooms before anyone else, so Schedule Builder will guarantee you a seat. Many of the sessions below will likely be at capacity. No better way to start off than hearing where Oracle RightNow is going! Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Vision and Roadmap (CON9764) - Oct 1, 10:45 AM. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service combines Web, social, and contact center experiences for a unified, cross-channel service solution in the cloud, enabling organizations to increase sales and adoption, build trust, strengthen relationships, and reduce costs and effort. Come to this session to hear from David Vap and his team of Oracle experts about where the product is going and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Interested in the Cloud and want to know why some leading CIOs are moving to the cloud? You can hear first hand from CIOs from Emerson, Intuit and Overstock.com: CIOs and Governance in the Cloud (CON9767) - Oct 3, 11:45 AM.   And of course there are a number of sessions that drill down into more specific areas. Here are just a few: Deliver Outstanding Customer Experiences: Oracle RightNow Dynamic Agent Desktop Cloud Service (CON9771) - Oct 1, 4:45 PM. This session covers how companies have delivered exceptional customer experiences and how the Oracle RightNow Dynamic Agent Desktop Cloud Service roadmap will evolve in the future. The Oracle RightNow Contact Center Experience suite includes incident management, knowledge, guided processes, and other service capabilities to unify the customer experience across channels. Come learn about the powerful tools that enable even your junior agents to consistently provide outstanding service across all customer interaction channels. Self-Service in the Age of Data Intimacy (CON11516) - Oct 1, 3:15. Even though businesses are generating more and more data around their relationships and interactions with customers, very little of the information a business generates ends up available to the contact center and even less is made available to the online service experience. The generic one-size-fits-all approach that typifies most online service experiences ultimately fails to address all user needs, and that failure ultimately leads to the continued use of high-cost agent-assisted channels for low-value interactions. This session introduces Oracle RightNow Web Experience’s Virtual Assistant and discusses how you can deliver rich, engaging, highly personalized experiences with the quality of agent-assisted service at a much lower cost. Improve Chat Experiences: Best Practices for Chat Pilots and Deployments (CON11517) - Oct 1, 4:45 PM. Today’s organizations are challenged to grow revenue and retain customers with fewer resources, and many have turned to chat as an approach to improving the customer experience, increasing sales conversions, and reducing costs at the same time. From setting goals and metrics and training staff to customizing and tuning the solution, this session provides best practices and lessons learned from a broad set of implementations to help you get the most out of your chat solution. Differentiated Experience with Web Service (CON9770) - Oct 2, 1:15 PM. A reputation for excellent customer service can differentiate your brand and drive revenue. In this session, learn how to develop that reputation by transforming your online self-service into a highly interactive, branded customer experience. See live examples of how Oracle RightNow Web Experience has helped customers deliver on their Web service strategies. Unifying the Agent’s Engagement Console (CON11518) - Oct 2, 1:15 PM. Does your customer experience suffer because your agents are toggling between multiple tools? Do your agent productivity and morale suffer as well? Come to this session to learn how Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service seamlessly unifies these disparate systems into a single engagement console. Regardless of channel, powerful adaptive tools consistently guide agents across contextually aware personalized workflows. Great agent experiences drive great customer experiences. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service and the Oracle Customer Experience Portfolio (CON9775) - Oct 3, 10:15 AM. This session covers how Oracle’s integrated suite of customer experience (CX) products fits with the Oracle CX portfolio of products (Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management; the Oracle ATG, Oracle Endeca, and Oracle Knowledge product families; and Oracle Business Intelligence) to increase revenues, strengthen customer relationships, and reduce costs across the entire end-to-end customer lifecycle for companies that sell to consumers and those that sell to businesses. Greater Insights from Customer Engagements (CON9773) Oct 4, 12:45 PM. In this session, hear how to leverage service interaction insights, customer feedback, and segmented service engagements to improve the customer experience. Discover how customers, such as J&P Cycles, learn and take action based on business insights gained through their customer engagements. Again, these are just some of the sessions, so check out the Content Catalog for details on Knowledge Management, Customization, Integration and more in the Oracle Develop stream for Customer Experience. Be sure to visit the Oracle DEMOgrounds in the Moscone West Exhibit Hall. If this is your first OpenWorld, welcome! If you are returning, hi again and enjoy!

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  • Easing the Journey to the Private Cloud with Oracle Consulting

    - by MichaelM-Oracle
    By Sanjai Marimadaiah, Senior Director, Strategy & Business Development – Cloud Solutions, Oracle Consulting Services Business leaders are now leading the charge on how their firms can profit from cloud solutions. Agility and innovation are becoming the primary drivers of the business case for the cloud, even more than the anticipated cost savings. Leaders need to find the right strategy and optimize the use of cloud-based applications across their enterprise-computing infrastructure. The Problem – Current State With prevalent IT practices, many organizations find that they run multiple IT solutions serving similar business needs. This has led to the proliferation of technology stacks, for example: Oracle 10g on Sun T4 running Solaris 9; Oracle 11g on Exadata running Linux; or Oracle 12c on commodity x86 servers. This variance has a huge impact on an organization’s agility and expenses, and requires IT professionals with varied skills as well as on-going training for different systems and tools. Fortunately there is a practical business strategy to overcome this unneeded redundancy. Thus begins a journey to the right cloud computing solution. The Solution – Cloud Services from Oracle Consulting Services (OCS) Oracle Consulting Services (OCS ) works closely with our clients as trusted advisors to proactively respond to business needs and IT concerns. OCS understands that making the transition to cloud solutions begins with a strategic conversation, based on its deep expertise for successfully completing private cloud service engagements with several companies. For a journey to the cloud, Oracle Consulting Services leads the client through four phases– standardization, consolidation, service delivery, and enterprise cloud – to achieve optimal returns. Phase 1 - Standardization Oracle Consulting Services (OCS) works with clients to evaluate their business requirements and propose a set of standard solutions stacks for various IT solutions. This is an opportune time to evaluate cloud ready solutions, such as Oracle 12c, Oracle Exadata, and the Oracle Database Appliance (ODA). The OCS consultants, together with the delivery team, then turn to upgrading and migrating existing solution stacks to standardized offerings. OCS has the expertise and tools to complete this stage in a fraction of the time required by other IT services companies. Clients quickly realize cost savings in tools, processes, and type/number of resources required. This standardization also improves agility of the IT organizations and their abilities to respond to the needs of various business units. Phase 2 - Consolidation During the consolidation phase, OCS consultants programmatically consolidate hundreds of databases into a smaller number of servers to improve utilization, reduce floor space, and optimize maintenance costs. Consolidation helps clients realize huge savings in CapEx investments and shrink OpEx costs. The use of engineered systems, such as Oracle Exadata, greatly reduces the client’s risk of moving to a new solution stack. OCS recommends clients to pursue Phase 1 (Standardization) and Phase 2 (Consolidation) simultaneously to reduce the overall time, effort, and expense of the cloud journey. Phase 3 - Service Delivery Once a client is on a path of standardization and consolidation, OCS consultants create Service Catalogues based on the SLAs requirements and the criticality of the solutions. The number and types of Service Catalogues (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, etc.) vary from client to client. OCS consultants also implement a variety of value-added cloud solutions, including monitoring, metering, and charge-back solutions. At this stage, clients are able to achieve a high level of understanding in their cloud journey. Their IT organizations are operating efficiently and are more agile in responding to the needs of business units. Phase 4 - Enterprise Cloud In the final phase of the cloud journey, the economics of the IT organizations change. Business units can request services on-demand; applications can be deployed and consumed on a pay-as-you-go model. OCS has the expertise and capabilities to establish processes, programs, and solutions required for IT organizations to transform how they interact with business units. The Promise of Cloud Solutions Depending the size and complexity of their business model, some clients are able to abbreviate some phases of their cloud journey. Cloud solutions are still evolving and there is rapid pace of innovation to transform how IT organizations operate. The lesson is clear. Cloud solutions hold a lot of promise for business agility. Business leaders can now leverage an additional set of capabilities and services. They can ramp up their pace of innovation. With cloud maturity, they can compete more effectively in their respective markets. But there are certainly challenges ahead. A skilled consulting services partner can play a pivotal role as a trusted advisor in the successful adoption of cloud solutions. Oracle Consulting Services has expertise and a portfolio of services to help clients succeed on their journey to the cloud.

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  • Best Method For Evaluating Existing Software or New Software

    How many of us have been faced with having to decide on an off-the-self or a custom built component, application, or solution to integrate in to an existing system or to be the core foundation of a new system? What is the best method for evaluating existing software or new software still in the design phase? One of the industry preferred methodologies to use is the Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs (ARID) evaluation process.  ARID is a hybrid mixture of the Active Design Review (ADR) methodology and the Architectural Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM). So what is ARID? ARD’s main goal is to ensure quality, detailed designs in software. One way in which it does this is by empowering reviewers by assigning generic open ended survey questions. This approach attempts to remove the possibility for allowing the standard answers such as “Yes” or “No”. The ADR process ignores the “Yes”/”No” questions due to the fact that they can be leading based on how the question is asked. Additionally these questions tend to receive less thought in comparison to more open ended questions. Common Active Design Review Questions What possible exceptions can occur in this component, application, or solution? How should exceptions be handled in this component, application, or solution? Where should exceptions be handled in this component, application, or solution? How should the component, application, or solution flow based on the design? What is the maximum execution time for every component, application, or solution? What environments can this component, application, or solution? What data dependencies does this component, application, or solution have? What kind of data does this component, application, or solution require? Ok, now I know what ARID is, how can I apply? Let’s imagine that your organization is going to purchase an off-the-shelf (OTS) solution for its customer-relationship management software. What process would we use to ensure that the correct purchase is made? If we use ARID, then we will have a series of 9 steps broken up by 2 phases in order to ensure that the correct OTS solution is purchases. Phase 1 Identify the Reviewers Prepare the Design Briefing Prepare the Seed Scenarios Prepare the Materials When identifying reviewers for a design it is preferred that they be pulled from a candidate pool comprised of developers that are going to implement the design. The believe is that developers actually implementing the design will have more a vested interest in ensuring that the design is correct prior to the start of code. Design debriefing consist of a summary of the design, examples of the design solving real world examples put in to use and should be no longer than two hours typically. The primary goal of this briefing is to adequately summarize the design so that the review members could actually implement the design. In the example of purchasing an OTS product I would attempt to review my briefing prior to its distribution with the review facilitator to ensure that nothing was excluded that should have not been. This practice will also allow me to test the length of the briefing to ensure that can be delivered in an appropriate about of time. Seed Scenarios are designed to illustrate conceptualized scenarios when applied with a set of sample data. These scenarios can then be used by the reviewers in the actual evaluation of the software, All materials needed for the evaluation should be prepared ahead of time so that they can be reviewed prior to and during the meeting. Materials Included: Presentation Seed Scenarios Review Agenda Phase 2 Present ARID Present Design Brainstorm and prioritize scenarios Apply scenarios Summarize Prior to the start of any ARID review meeting the Facilitator should define the remaining steps of ARID so that all the participants know exactly what they are doing prior to the start of the review process. Once the ARID rules have been laid out, then the lead designer presents an overview of the design which typically takes about two hours. During this time no questions about the design or rational are allowed to be asked by the review panel as a standard, but they are written down for use latter in the process. After the presentation the list of compiled questions is then summarized and sent back to the lead designer as areas that need to be addressed further. In the example of purchasing an OTS product issues could arise regarding security, the implementation needed or even if this is this the correct product to solve the needed solution. After the Design presentation a brainstorming and prioritize scenarios process begins by reducing the seed scenarios down to just the highest priority scenarios.  These will then be used to test the design for suitability. Once the selected scenarios have been defined the reviewers apply the examples provided in the presentation to the scenarios. The intended output of this process is to provide code or pseudo code that makes use of the examples provided while solving the selected seed scenarios. As a standard rule, the designers of the systems are not allowed to help the review board unless they all become stuck. When this occurs it is documented and along with the reason why the designer needed to help the review panel back on track. Once all of the scenarios have been completed the review facilitator reviews with the group issues that arise during the process. Then the reviewers will be polled as to efficacy of the review experience. References: Clements, Paul., Kazman, Rick., Klien, Mark. (2002). Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies Indianapolis, IN: Addison-Wesley

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  • Pace Layering Comes Alive

    - by Tanu Sood
    v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} 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:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Rick Beers is Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle Fusion Middleware. Prior to joining Oracle, Rick held a variety of executive operational positions at Corning, Inc. and Bausch & Lomb. With a professional background that includes senior management positions in manufacturing, supply chain and information technology, Rick brings a unique set of experiences to cover the impact that technology can have on business models, processes and organizations. Rick hosts the IT Leaders Editorial on a monthly basis. By now, readers of this column are quite familiar with Oracle AppAdvantage, a unified framework of middleware technologies, infrastructure and applications utilizing a pace layered approach to enterprise systems platforms. 1. Standardize and Consolidate core Enterprise Applications by removing invasive customizations, costly workarounds and the complexity that multiple instances creates. 2. Move business specific processes and applications to the Differentiate Layer, thus creating greater business agility with process extensions and best of breed applications managed by cross- application process orchestration. 3. The Innovate Layer contains all the business capabilities required for engagement, collaboration and intuitive decision making. This is the layer where innovation will occur, as people engage one another in a secure yet open and informed way. 4. Simplify IT by minimizing complexity, improving performance and lowering cost with secure, reliable and managed systems across the entire Enterprise. But what hasn’t been discussed is the pace layered architecture that Oracle AppAdvantage adopts. What is it, what are its origins and why is it relevant to enterprise scale applications and technologies? It’s actually a fascinating tale that spans the past 20 years and a basic understanding of it provides a wonderful context to what is evolving as the future of enterprise systems platforms. It all begins in 1994 with a book by noted architect Stewart Brand, of ’Whole Earth Catalog’ fame. In his 1994 book How Buildings Learn, Brand popularized the term ‘Shearing Layers’, arguing that any building is actually a hierarchy of pieces, each of which inherently changes at different rates. In 1997 he produced a 6 part BBC Series adapted from the book, in which Part 6 focuses on Shearing Layers. In this segment Brand begins to introduce the concept of ‘pace’. Brand further refined this idea in his subsequent book, The Clock of the Long Now, which began to link the concept of Shearing Layers to computing and introduced the term ‘pace layering’, where he proposes that: “An imperative emerges: an adaptive [system] has to allow slippage between the differently-paced systems … otherwise the slow systems block the flow of the quick ones and the quick ones tear up the slow ones with their constant change. Embedding the systems together may look efficient at first but over time it is the opposite and destructive as well.” In 2000, IBM architects Ian Simmonds and David Ing published a paper entitled A Shearing Layers Approach to Information Systems Development, which applied the concept of Shearing Layers to systems design and development. It argued that at the time systems were still too rigid; that they constrained organizations by their inability to adapt to changes. The findings in the Conclusions section are particularly striking: “Our starting motivation was that enterprises need to become more adaptive, and that an aspect of doing that is having adaptable computer systems. The challenge is then to optimize information systems development for change (high maintenance) rather than stability (low maintenance). Our response is to make it explicit within software engineering the notion of shearing layers, and explore it as the principle that systems should be built to be adaptable in response to the qualitatively different rates of change to which they will be subjected. This allows us to separate functions that should legitimately change relatively slowly and at significant cost from that which should be changeable often, quickly and cheaply.” The problem at the time of course was that this vision of adaptable systems was simply not possible within the confines of 1st generation ERP, which were conceived, designed and developed for standardization and compliance. It wasn’t until the maturity of open, standards based integration, and the middleware innovation that followed, that pace layering became an achievable goal. And Oracle is leading the way. Oracle’s AppAdvantage framework makes pace layering come alive by taking a strategic vision 20 years in the making and transforming it to a reality. It allows enterprises to retain and even optimize their existing ERP systems, while wrapping around those ERP systems three layers of capabilities that inherently adapt as needed, at a pace that’s optimal for the enterprise.

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  • Knowing your user is key--Part 1: Motivation

    - by erikanollwebb
    I was thinking where the best place to start in this blog would be and finally came back to a theme that I think is pretty critical--successful gamification in the enterprise comes down to knowing your user.  Lots of folks will say that gamification is about understanding that everyone is a gamer.  But at least in my org, that argument won't play for a lot of people.  Pun intentional.  It's not that I don't see the attraction to the idea--really, very few people play no games at all.  If they don't play video games, they might play solitaire on their computer.  They may play card games, or some type of sport.  Mario Herger has some great facts on how much game playing there is going on at his Enterprise-Gamification.com website. But at the end of the day, I can't sell that into my organization well.  We are Oracle.  We make big, serious software designed run your whole business.  We don't make Angry Birds out of your financial reporting tools.  So I stick with the argument that works better.  Gamification techniques are really just good principals of user experience packaged a little differently.  Feedback?  We already know feedback is important when using software.  Progress indicators?  Got that too.  Game mechanics may package things in a more explicit way but it's not really "new".  To know how to use game mechanics, and what a user experience team is important for, is totally understanding who our users are and what they are motivated by. For several years, I taught college psychology courses, including Motivation.  Motivation is generally broken down into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.  There's intrinsic, which comes from within the individual.  And there's extrinsic, which comes from outside the individual.  Intrinsic motivation is that motivation that comes from just a general sense of pleasure in the doing of something.  For example, I like to cook.  I like to cook a lot.  The kind of cooking I think is just fun makes other people--people who don't like to cook--cringe.  Like the cake I made this week--the star-spangled rhapsody from The Cake Bible: two layers of meringue, two layers of genoise flavored with a raspberry eau de vie syrup, whipped cream with berries and a mousseline buttercream, also flavored with raspberry liqueur and topped with fresh raspberries and blueberries. I love cooking--I ask for cooking tools for my birthday and Christmas, I take classes like sushi making and knife skills for fun.  I like reading about you can make an emulsion of egg yolks, melted butter and lemon, cook slowly and transform them into a sauce hollandaise (my use of all the egg yolks that didn't go into the aforementioned cake).  And while it's nice when people like what I cook, I don't do it for that.  I do it because I think it's fun.  My former boss, Ultan Ó Broin, loves to fish in the sea off the coast of Ireland.  Not because he gets prizes for it, or awards, but because it's fun.  To quote a note he sent me today when I asked if having been recently ill kept him from the beginning of mackerel season, he told me he had already been out and said "I can fish when on a deathbed" (read more of Ultan's work, see his blogs on User Assistance and Translation.). That's not the kind of intensity you get about something you don't like to do.  I'm sure you can think of something you do just because you like it. So how does that relate to gamification?  Gamification in the enterprise space is about uncovering the game within work.  Gamification is about tapping into things people already find motivating.  But to do that, you need to know what that user is motivated by. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of those areas where over-the-top gamification seems to work (not to plug a competitor in this space, but you can search on what Bunchball* has done with a company just a little north of us on 101 for the CRM crowd).  Sales people are naturally competitive and thrive on that plus recognition of their sales work.  You can use lots of game mechanics like leaderboards and challenges and scorecards with this type of user and they love it.  Show my whole org I'm leading in sales for the quarter?  Bring it on!  However, take the average accountant and show how much general ledger activity they have done in the last week and expose it to their whole org on a leaderboard and I think you'd see a lot of people looking for a new job.  Why?  Because in general, accountants aren't extraverts who thrive on competition in their work.  That doesn't mean there aren't game mechanics that would work for them, but they won't be the same game mechanics that work for sales people.  It's a different type of user and they are motivated by different things. To break this up, I'll stop here and post now.  I'll pick this thread up in the next post. Thoughts? Questions? *Disclosure: To my knowledge, Oracle has no relationship with Bunchball at this point in time.

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  • Gamification = -10#/3mo

    - by erikanollwebb
    One of the purposes of gamification of anything is to see if you can modify the behavior of the user. In the enterprise, that might mean getting sales people to enter more information into a CRM system, encouraging employees to update their HR records, motivating people to participate in forums and discussions, or process invoices more quickly.  Wikipedia defines behavior modification as "the traditional term for the use of empirically demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors, such as altering an individual's behaviors and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behavior and/or the reduction of behavior through its extinction, punishment and/or satiation."  Gamification is just a way to modify someone's behavior using game mechanics. And the magic question is always whether it works. So I thought I would present my own little experiment from the last few months.  This spring, I upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy 4.  It's a pretty sweet phone in many ways, but one of the little extras I discovered was a built in app called S Health. S Health is an app that you can use to track calories, weight, exercise and it has a built in pedometer. I looked at it when I got the phone, but assumed you had to turn it on to use it so I didn't look at it much.  But sometime in July, I realized that in fact, it just ran in the background and was quietly tracking my steps, with a goal of 10,000 per day.  10,000 steps per day is this magic number recommended by the Surgeon General and the American Heart Association.  Dr. Oz pushes it as the goal for daily exercise.  It's about 5 miles of walking. I'm generally not the kind of person who always has my phone with me.  I leave it in my purse and pull it out when I need it.  But then I realized that meant I wasn't getting a good measure of my steps.  I decided to do a little experiment, and carry it with me as much as possible for a week.  That's when I discovered the gamification that changed my life over the last 3 months.  When I hit 10,000 steps, the app jingled out a little "success!" tune and I got a badge.  I was hooked.  I started carrying my phone.  I started making sure I had shoes I could walk in with me.  I started walking at lunch time, because I realized how often I sat at my desk for 8-10 hours every day without moving.  I started pestering my husband to walk with me after work because I hadn't hit my 10,000 yet, leading him at one point to say "I'm not as much a slave to that badge as you are!"  I started looking at parking lots differently.  Can't get a space up close?  No worries, just that many steps toward my 10,000.  I even tried to see if there was a second power user level at 15,000 or 20,000 (*sadly, no).  If I was close at the end of the day, I have done laps around my house until I got my badge.  I have walked around the block one more time to get my badge.  I have mentally chastised myself when I forgot to put my phone in my pocket because I don't know how many steps I got.  The badge below I got when my boss and I were in New York City and we walked around the block of our hotel just to watch the badge pop up. There are a bunch of tools out on the market now that have similar ideas for helping you to track your exercise, make it social.  There are apps (my favorite is still Zombies, Run!).  You could buy a FitBit or UP by Jawbone.   Interactive fitness makes the Expresso stationary bike with built in video games.  All designed to help you be more aware of your activity and keep you engaged and motivated.  And the idea is to help you change your behavior. I know someone who would spend extra time and work hard on the Expresso because he had built up strategies for how to kill the most dragons while he was riding to get more points.  When the machine broke down, he didn't ride a different bike because it just wasn't that interesting. But for me, just the simple jingle and badge have been all I needed.  I admit, I still giggle gleefully when I hear the tune sing out from my pocket. After a few weeks, I noticed I had dropped a few pounds.  Not a lot, just 2-3.  But then I was really hooked.  I started making a point both to eat a little less and hit 10,000 steps as much as I could.  I bemoaned that during the floods in Boulder, I wasn't hitting my 10,000 steps.  And now, a few months later, I'm almost 10 lbs lighter. All for 1 badge a day. So yes, simple gamification can increase motivation and engagement.  And that can lead to changes in behavior.  Now the job is to apply that to the enterprise space in a meaningful and engaging way. 

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  • Part 8: How to name EBS Customizations

    - by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com
    You might wonder why I am discussing this here. The reason is simple: nearly every project has a bit different naming conventions, which makes a the life always a bit complicated (for developers, but also setup responsible, and also for consultants).  Although we always create a document to describe the technical object naming conventions, I have rarely seen a dedicated document  with functional naming conventions. To be precisely, from my stand point, there should always be one global naming definition for an implementation! Let me discuss some related questions: What is the best convention for the customization reference? How to name database objects (tables, packages etc.)? How to name functional objects like Value Sets, Concurrent Programs, etc. How to separate customizations from standard objects best? What is the best convention for the customization reference? The customization reference is the key you use to reference your customization from other lists, from the project plan etc. Usually it is something like XXHU_CONV_22 (HU=customer abbreviation, CONV=Conversion object #22) or XXFA_DEPRN_RPT_02 (FA=Fixed Assets, DEPRN=Short object group, here depreciation, RPT=Report, 02=2nd report in this area) As this is just a reference (not an object name yet), I would prefer the second option. XX=Customization, FA=Main EBS Module linked (you may have sometimes more, but FA is the main) DEPRN_RPT=Short name to specify the customization 02=a unique number Important here is that the HU isn’t used, because XX is enough to mark a custom object, and the 3rd+4th char can be used by the EBS module short name. How to name database objects (tables, packages etc.)? I was leading different developer teams, and I know that one common way is it to take the Customization reference and add more chars behind to classify the object (like _V for view and _T1 for triggers etc.). The only concern I have with this approach is the reusability. If you name your view XXFA_DEPRN_RPT_02_V, no one will by choice reuse this nice view, as it seams to be specific for this CEMLI. My suggestion is rather to name the view XXFA_DEPRN_PERIODS_V and allow herewith reusability for other CEMLIs (although the view will be deployed primarily with CEMLI package XXFA_DEPRN_RPT_02). (check also one of the following Blogs where I will talk about deployment.) How to name Value Sets, Concurrent Programs, etc. For Value Sets I would go with the same convention as for database objects, starting with XX<Module> …. For Concurrent Programs the situation is a bit different. This “object” is seen and used by a lot of users, and they will search for. In many projects it is common to start again with the company short name, or with XX. My proposal would differ. If you have created your own report and you name it “XX: Invoice Report”, the user has to remember that this report does not start with “I”, it starts with X. Would you like typing an X if you are looking for an Invoice report? No, you wouldn’t! So my advise would be to name it:   “Invoice Report (XXAP)”. Still we know it is custom (because of the XXAP), but the end user will type the key “i” to get it (and will see similar reports starting also with “i”). I hope that the general schema behind has now become obvious. How to separate customizations from standard objects best? I would not have this section here if the naming would not play an important role. Unfortunately, we can not always link a custom application to our own object, therefore the naming is really important. In the file system structure we use our $XXyy_TOP, in JAVA_TOP it is perhaps also “xx” in front. But in the database itself? Although there are different concepts in place, still many implementations are using the standard “apps” approach, means custom objects are stored in the apps schema (which should not cause any trouble). Final advise: review the naming conventions regularly, once a month. You may have to add more! And, publish them! To summarize: Technical and functional customized objects should always follow a naming convention. This naming convention should be project wide, and only one place shall be used to maintain (like in a Wiki). If the name is for the end user, rather put a customization identifier at the end; if it is an internal name, start with XX…

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  • Most Innovative IDM Projects: Awards at OpenWorld

    - by Tanu Sood
    On Tuesday at Oracle OpenWorld 2012, Oracle recognized the winners of Innovation Awards 2012 at a ceremony presided over by Hasan Rizvi, Executive Vice President at Oracle. Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards recognize customers for achieving significant business value through innovative uses of Oracle Fusion Middleware offerings. Winners are selected based on the uniqueness of their business case, business benefits, level of impact relative to the size of the organization, complexity and magnitude of implementation, and the originality of architecture. This year’s Award honors customers for their cutting-edge solutions driving business innovation and IT modernization using Oracle Fusion Middleware. The program has grown over the past 6 years, receiving a record number of nominations from customers around the globe. The winners were selected by a panel of judges that ranked each nomination across multiple different scoring categories. Congratulations to both Avea and ETS for winning this year’s Innovation Award for Identity Management. Identity Management Innovation Award 2012 Winner – Avea Company: Founded in 2004, AveA is the sole GSM 1800 mobile operator of Turkey and has reached a nationwide customer base of 12.8 million as of the end of 2011 Region: Turkey (EMEA) Products: Oracle Identity Manager, Oracle Identity Analytics, Oracle Access Management Suite Business Drivers: ·         To manage the agility and scale required for GSM Operations and enable call center efficiency by enabling agents to change their identity profiles (accounts and entitlements) rapidly based on call load. ·         Enhance user productivity and call center efficiency with self service password resets ·         Enforce compliance and audit reporting ·         Seamless identity management between AveA and parent company Turk Telecom Innovation and Results: ·         One of the first Sun2Oracle identity management migrations designed for high performance provisioning and trusted reconciliation built with connectors developed on the ICF architecture that provides custom user interfaces for  dynamic and rapid management of roles and entitlements along with entitlement level attestation using closed loop remediation between Oracle Identity Manager and Oracle Identity Analytics. ·         Dramatic reduction in identity administration and call center password reset tasks leading to 20% reduction in administration costs and 95% reduction in password related calls. ·         Enhanced user productivity by up to 25% to date ·         Enforced enterprise security and reduced risk ·         Cost-effective compliance management ·         Looking to seamlessly integrate with parent and sister companies’ infrastructure securely. Identity Management Innovation Award 2012 Winner – Education Testing Service (ETS)       See last year's winners here --Company: ETS is a private nonprofit organization devoted to educational measurement and research, primarily through testing. Region: U.S.A (North America) Products: Oracle Access Manager, Oracle Identity Federation, Oracle Identity Manager Business Drivers: ETS develops and administers more than 50 million achievement and admissions tests each year in more than 180 countries, at more than 9,000 locations worldwide.  As the business becomes more globally based, having a robust solution to security and user management issues becomes paramount. The organizations was looking for: ·         Simplified user experience for over 3000 company users and more than 6 million dynamic student and staff population ·         Infrastructure and administration cost reduction ·         Managing security risk by controlling 3rd party access to ETS systems ·         Enforce compliance and manage audit reporting ·         Automate on-boarding and decommissioning of user account to improve security, reduce administration costs and enhance user productivity ·         Improve user experience with simplified sign-on and user self service Innovation and Results: 1.    Manage Risk ·         Centralized system to control user access ·         Provided secure way of accessing service providers' application using federated SSO. ·         Provides reporting capability for auditing, governance and compliance. 2.    Improve efficiency ·         Real-Time provisioning to target systems ·         Centralized provisioning system for user management and access controls. ·         Enabling user self services. 3.    Reduce cost ·         Re-using common shared services for provisioning, SSO, Access by application reducing development cost and time. ·         Reducing infrastructure and maintenance cost by decommissioning legacy/redundant IDM services. ·         Reducing time and effort to implement security functionality in business applications (“onboard” instead of new development). ETS was able to fold in new and evolving requirement in addition to the initial stated goals realizing quick ROI and successfully meeting business objectives. Congratulations to the winners once again. We will be sure to bring you more from these Innovation Award winners over the next few months.

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  • Webcor Builders Coordinates Construction Schedules and Mitigates Potential Delays More Efficiently with Integrated Project Management

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    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:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} With more than 40 years of commercial construction experience, Webcor Builders is a leading builder of distinguished, high-profile projects, including high-rise condominiums and hotels, laboratories, healthcare centers, and public works projects. Webcor is also known for its award-winning concrete, interior construction, historic restoration, and seismic renovation work. The company has completed more than 50 million square feet of projects to date. Considering the variety and complexity of the construction projects Webcor undertakes, an integrated project management solution is critical to ensuring optimal efficiency and completing client projects on time and on budget. The company previously used a number of scheduling systems for its various building projects. These packages provided different levels of schedule detail and required schedulers, engineers, and other employees to learn multiple systems. From an IT cost and complexity perspective, the company had to manage multiple scheduling systems and pay for multiple sets of licenses. The company looked to standardize on an enterprise project management system, and selected Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management. Webcor uses the solution’s advanced capabilities to schedule complex projects, analyze delays, model and propose multiple scenarios to demonstrate and mitigate delays and cost overruns, and process that information efficiently to deliver the scheduling precision that public and private projects require. In fact, the solution was instrumental in helping the company’s expansion into public sector projects during the recent economic downturn, and with Primavera P6 in place, it can deliver the precise schedule reporting required for large public projects. With Primavera P6 in place, the company could deliver the precise scheduling and milestone reporting capabilities required for large public projects. The solution is in managing the high-profile University of California – Berkeley Memorial Stadium project. Webcor was hired as construction manager and general contractor for the stadium renovation project, which is a fast-paced project located near the seismically active Hayward Fault Zone. Due to the University of California’s football schedule, meeting the Universities deadline for the coming season placed Webcor in a situation where risk awareness and early warnings of issues would be paramount. Webcor and the extended project team needed a solution that could instantly analyze alternate scenarios to mitigate potential delays; Primavera would deliver those answers.The team would also need to enable multiple stakeholders to use an internet-based platform to access the schedule from various locations, and model complicated sequencing requirements where swift decisions would be made to keep the project on track. The schedule is an integral part of Webcor’s construction management process for the stadium project. Rather than providing the client with the industry-standard monthly update, Webcor updates the critical path method (CPM) schedule on a weekly basis. The project team also reviews the schedule and updates weekly to confirm that progress and forecasted performance are accurate. Hired by the University for their ability to deliver in high risk environments The Webcor team was hit recently with a design supplement that could have added up to 70 days to the project. Using Oracle Primavera P6 the team sprung into action analyzing multiple “what if” scenarios to review mitigation means and methods.  Determined to make sure the Bears could take the field in the coming season the project team nearly eliminated the impact with their creative analysis in working the schedule. The total time from the issuance of the final design supplement to an agreed mitigation response was less than one week; leveraging the Oracle Primavera solution Webcor was able to deliver superior customer value With the ability to efficiently manage projects and schedules, Webcor can ensure it completes its projects on time and on budget, as well as inform clients about what changes to plans will mean in terms of delays and additional costs. Read the complete customer case study at :  http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/customers/customersearch/webcor-builders-1-primavera-ss-1639886.html

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  • Why everybody should do Sales!

    - by FelixWehmeyer
    I speak with many business students and ask them what job they want to get into. Most of them tell me they want a job in Marketing, Management Consulting or Finance. I hardly ever hear “Sales, that is what I want to do”, and I often wonder why. I would like to start with a quote from Zig Ziglar, a successful salesman: "Nothing happens until someone sells something." But to get back to the main point, why wouldn’t you want to get in sales? When people think of sales, they picture a typical salesman in their head and think that selling is scary and all about manipulating, pressuring and pushing someone into buying something they don’t need. Are these stereotypes accurate? I don’t believe so: So why should you want to be in sales? If you think about selling as providing the solution for the problem and talking about the benefits of making a decision, then every job in this world comes out of selling. In every job you deal with coworkers that you want to convince of your ideas or convincing your boss that the project you want to work on is good for the company.  These days, consumers and businesses are very well informed about services and products. When we are talking about highly complex products, such as IT solutions, businesses don’t accept your run-of-the-mill salesman who is pushing a sale. These are often long projects where salespeople have a consulting and leading role. Salespeople need to be able to consult companies and customers with their problem and convince a client that their solution is the best fit. Next to the fact that sales, is by far, not as scary and shady as you thought, there are a few points that will make you want to consider a sales career: Negotiating skills – When you are in sales you will learn how to negotiate. Salespeople learn to listen to their customers and try to make them happy, overcoming objections and come to a final agreement that both parties are happy with. Persistence/Challenge – As a salesperson you will often hear a negative answer, in a sales role you will start to embrace this and see a ‘no’ as a challenge not as a rejection. This attitude change can help you a lot in your career, but also in your personal life. You will become more optimistic and gain a go-getter attitude. Salary – As salespeople are seen as the moneymakers for the company, companies often reward their sales teams generously. Most likely in a sales role, you will receive a good basic salary and often you get nice bonuses on top of that based on your performance. Oracle is, for instance, the company that offers the highest average commission in the world. Further you can expect many other benefits as companies know that there is a high demand for good salespeople. Teamwork – Sales is a lot like having your own business, you are responsible for your own territory or set of clients. You are the one who is responsible for the revenue coming from that territory. So in order to gain revenue you will have to work together with many departments and people to make that happen. Every (potential) client could be seen as a different project, and you are the project leader. Understanding customers and the business – From any job that you choose sales will get you the most insight in the market. Salespeople are usually well-connected, talk with different customers and learn about the market and are up-to-date about all latest changes. Even if you want to change to a different role in the long run, you have a great head start as you understand the market and customers like no one else. Job security – Look at all the job postings out there. Many of them are sales-related. So if you want to have a steady job, plenty of choice and companies willing to invest in you, sales could be something for you.  Are you interested in exploring a sales career? At Oracle we are always looking for good sales professionals and fresh graduates who want to get into sales! For many languages such as Flemish, Dutch, German, French, Swedish and Norwegian (and more) we are currently looking for graduates who want to develop their career in Oracle. Please have a look at this article for the experience of a Business Development Consultant at Oracle in Dublin. Want to learn more about this job check out this link or send an email to jessica.ebbelaar-at-oracle.com! Have a look at our website http://campus.oracle.com for all of our other latest sales and non-sales vacancies!

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  • Speakers, Please Check Your Time

    - by AjarnMark
    Woodrow Wilson was once asked how long it would take him to prepare for a 10 minute speech. He replied "Two weeks". He was then asked how long it would take for a 1 hour speech. "One week", he replied. 2 hour speech? "I'm ready right now," he replied.  Whether that is a true story or an urban legend, I don’t really know, but either way, it is a poignant reminder for all speakers, and particularly apropos this week leading up to the PASS Community Summit. (Cross-posted to the PASS Professional Development Virtual Chapter blog #PASSProfDev.) What’s the point of that story?  Simply this…if you have plenty of time to do your presentation, you don’t need to prepare much because it is easy to throw in more and more material to stretch out to your allotted time.  But if you are on a tight time constraint, then it will take significant preparation to distill your talk down to only the essential points. I have attended seven of the last eight North American Summit events, and every one of them has been fantastic.  The speakers are great, the material is timely and relevant, and the networking opportunities are awesome.  And every year, there is one little thing that just bugs me…speakers going over their allotted time.  Why does it bother me so?  Well, if you look at a typical schedule for a Summit, you’ll see that there are six or more sessions going on at the same time, and only 15 minutes to move from one to another.  If you’re trying to maximize your training dollar by attending something during every session time slot, and you don’t want to be the last guy trying to squeeze into the middle of the row, then those 15 minutes can be critical.  All the more so if you need to stop and use the bathroom or if you have to hike to the opposite end of the convention center.  It is really a bad position to find yourself having to choose between learning the last key points of Speaker A who is going over time, and getting over to Speaker B on time so you don’t miss her key opening remarks. And frankly, I think it is just rude.  Yes, the speakers are the function, after all they are bringing the content that the rest of us are paying to learn.  But it is also an honor to be given the opportunity to speak at a conference like this, and no one speaker is so important that the conference would be a disaster without him.  Speakers know when they submit their abstract, long before the conference, how much time they will have.  It has been the same pattern at the Summit for at least the last eight years.  Program Sessions are 75 minutes long.  Some speakers who have a good track record, and meet other qualifying criteria, are extended an invitation to present a Spotlight Session which is 90 minutes (a 20% increase).  So there really is no excuse.  It’s not like you were promised a 2-hour segment and then discovered when you got here that it was only 75 minutes.  In fact, it’s not like PASS advertised 90-minute sessions for everyone and then a select few were cut back to only 75.  As a speaker, you know well before you get here which type of session you are doing and how long it is, so as a professional, you should plan accordingly. Now you might think that this only happens to rookies, but I’ll tell you that some of the worst offenders are big-name veterans who draw huge attendance numbers for their sessions.  Some attendees blow this off as, “Hey, it’s so-and-so, and I’d stay here for hours and listen to him/her talk.”  To which I would reply, “Then they should have submitted for a pre- or post-conference day-long seminar instead, but don’t try to squeeze your day-long talk into a 90-minute session.”  Now I don’t really believe that these speakers are being malicious or just selfishly trying to extend their time in the spotlight.  I think that most of them are merely being undisciplined and did not trim their presentation sufficiently, or allowed themselves to get off-track (often in a generous attempt to help someone in the audience with a question or problem that really should have been noted for further discussion after the session). So here is my recommendation…my plea, even.  TRIM THE FAT!  Now.  Before it’s too late.  Before you even get on the airplane, take a long, hard look at your presentation and eliminate some of the points that you originally thought you had to make, but in reality are not truly crucial to your main topic.  Delete a few slides.  Test your demos and have them already scripted rather than typing them during your talk.  It is better to cut out too much and end up with plenty of time at the end for Questions & Answers.  And you can always keep some notes on the stuff that you cut out so that you could fill it back in at the end as bonus material if you really do end up with a whole bunch of time on your hands.  But I don’t think you will.  And if you do, that will look even better to the audience as it will look like you’re giving them something extra that not every audience gets.  And they will thank you for that.

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  • Examine your readiness for managing Enterprise Private Cloud

    - by Anand Akela
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin: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;} Cloud computing promises to deliver greater agility to meet demanding  business needs, operational efficiencies, and lower cost. However these promises cannot be realized and enterprises may not be able to get the best value out of their enterprise private cloud computing infrastructure without a comprehensive cloud management solution . 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:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Take this new self-assessment quiz that measures the readiness of your enterprise private cloud. It scores your readiness in the following areas and discover where and how you can improve to gain total cloud control over your enterprise private cloud. 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;} Complete Cloud Lifecycle Solution Check if you are ready to manage all phases of the building, managing, and consuming an enterprise cloud. You will learn how Oracle can help build and manage a rich catalog of cloud services – whether it is Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Database-as-a-Service, or Platform-as-a-Service, all from a single product. Integrated Cloud Stack Management Integrated management of the entire cloud stack – all the way from application to disk, is very important to eliminate the integration pains and costs that customers would have to otherwise incur by trying to create a cloud environment by integrating multiple point solutions. Business-Driven Clouds It is critical that an enterprise Cloud platform is not only able to run applications but also has deep business insight and visibility. Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c enables creation of application-aware and business-driven clouds that has deep insight into applications, business services and transactions. As the leading providers of business applications and the middleware, we are able to offer you a cloud solution that is optimized for business services. Proactive Management Integration of the enterprise cloud infrastructure with support can allow cloud administrators to benefit from Automatic Service Requests (ASR), proactive patch recommendations, health checks and end-of-life advisory for all of the technology deployed within cloud. Learn more about solution for Enterprise Cloud and Cloud management by attending various sessions , demos and hand-on labs at Oracle Open World 2012 . Stay Connected: Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Newsletter

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  • Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 2: Platforms and Features

    - by Tim Murphy
    This is part 2 in a series of posts based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. In the previous post I discussed what reasons a company might have for creating a smartphone application.  In this installment I will cover some of history and state of the different platforms as well as features that can be leveraged for building enterprise smartphone applications. Platforms Before you start choosing a platform to develop your solutions on it is good to understand how we got here and what features you can leverage. History To my memory we owe all of this to a product called the Apple Newton that came out in 1987. It was the first PDA and back then I was much more of an Apple fan.  I was very impressed with this device even though it never really went anywhere.  The Palm Pilot by US Robotics was the next major advancement in PDA. It had a simple short hand window that allowed for quick stylus entry.. Later, Windows CE came out and started the broadening of the PDA market. After that it was the Palm and CE operating systems that started showing up on cell phones and for some time these were the two dominant operating systems that were distributed with devices from multiple hardware vendors. Current The iPhone was the first smartphone to take away the stylus and give us a multi-touch interface.  It was a revolution in usability and really changed the attractiveness of smartphones for the general public.  This brought us to the beginning of the current state of the market with the concept of an online store that makes it easy for customers to get new features and functionality on demand. With Android, Google made this more than a one horse race.  Not only did they come to compete, their low cost actually made them the leading OS.  Of course what made Android so attractive also is its major fault.  It is so open that it has been a target for malware which leaves consumers exposed.  Fortunately for Google though, most consumers aren’t aware of the threat that they are under. Although Microsoft had put out one of the first smart phone operating systems with CE it had to play catch up and finally came out with the Windows Phone.  They have gone for a market approach between those of iOS and Android.  They support multiple hardware vendors like Google, but they kept a certification process for applications that is similar to Apple.  They also created a user interface that was different enough to give it a clear separation from the other two platforms. The result of all this is hundreds of millions of smartphones being sold monthly across all three platforms giving us a wide range of choices and challenges when it comes to developing solutions. Features So what are the features that make these devices flexible enough be considered for use in the enterprise? The biggest advantage of today's devices is network connectivity.  The ability to access information from multiple sources at a moment’s notice is critical for businesses.  Add to that the ability to communicate over a variety of text, voice and video modes and we have a powerful starting point. Every smartphone has a cameras and they are not just useful for posting to Instagram. We are seeing more applications such as Bing vision that allow us to scan just about any printed code or text to find information.  These capabilities have been made available to developers in the form of standard libraries for reading barcodes of just about an flavor and optical character recognition (OCR) interpretation. Bluetooth give us the ability to communicate with multiple devices. Whether these are headsets, keyboard or printers the wireless communication capabilities are just starting to evolve.  The more these wireless communication protocols grow, the more opportunities we will see to transfer data between users and a variety of devices. Local storage of information that can be called up even when the device cannot reach the network is the other big capability.  This give users the ability to work offline as well and transmit information when connections are restored. These are the tools that we have to work with to build applications that can be leveraged to gain a competitive advantage for companies that implement them. Coming Up In the third installment I will cover key concerns that you face when building enterprise smartphone apps. del.icio.us Tags: smartphones,enterprise smartphone Apps,architecture,iOS,Android,Windows Phone

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  • Is software support an option for your career?

    - by Maria Sandu
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 If you have a technical background, why should you choose a career in support? We have invited Serban to answer these questions and to give us an overview of one of the biggest technical teams in Oracle Romania. He’s been with Oracle for 7 years leading the local PeopleSoft Financials & Supply Chain Support team. Back in 2013 Serban started building a new support team in Romania – Fusion HCM. His current focus is building a strong support team for Fusion HCM, latest solution for Business HR Professionals from Oracle. The solution is offered both on Premise (customer site installation) but more important as a Cloud offering – SaaS.  So, why should a technical person choose Software Support over other technical areas?  “I think it is mainly because of the high level of technical skills required to provide the best technical solutions to our customers. Oracle Software Support covers complex solutions going from Database or Middleware to a vast area of business applications (basically covering any needs that a large enterprise may have). Working with such software requires very strong skills both technical and functional for the different areas, going from Finance, Supply Chain Management, Manufacturing, Sales to other very specific business processes. Our customers are large enterprises that already have a support layer inside their organization and therefore the Oracle Technical Support Engineers are working with highly specialized staff (DBA’s, System/Application Admins, Implementation Consultants). This is a very important aspect for our engineers because they need to be highly skilled to match our customer’s specialist’s expectations”.  What’s the career path in your team? “Technical Analysts joining our teams have a clear growth path. The main focus is to become a master of the product they will support. I think one need 1 or 2 years to reach a good level of understanding the product and delivering optimal solutions because of the complexity of our products. At a later stage, engineers can choose their professional development areas based on the business needs and preferences and then further grow towards as technical expert or a management role. We have analysts that have more than 15 years of technical expertise and they still learn and grow in technical area. Important fact is, due to the expansion of the Romanian Software support center, there are various management opportunities. So, if you want to leverage your experience and if you want to have people management responsibilities Oracle Software Support is the place to be!”  Our last question to Serban was about the benefits of being part of Oracle Software Support. Here is what he said: “We believe that Oracle delivers “State of the art” Support level to our customers. This is not possible without high investment in our staff. We commit from the start to support any technical analyst that joins us (being junior or very senior) with any training needs they have for their job. We have various technical trainings as well as soft-skills trainings required for a customer facing professional to be successful in his role. Last but not least, we’re aiming to make Oracle Romania SW Support a global center of excellence which means we’re investing a lot in our employees.”  If you’re looking for a job where you can combine your strong technical skills with customer interaction Oracle Software Support is the place to be! Send us your CV at [email protected]. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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  • Determining the angle to fire a shot when target and shooter moves, and bullet moves with shooter velocity added in

    - by Azaral
    I saw this question: Predicting enemy position in order to have an object lead its target and followed the link in the answer to stack overflow. In the stack overflow page I used the 2nd answer, the one that is a large mathematical derivation. My situation is a little different though. My first question though is will the answer provided in the stack overflow page even work to begin with, assuming the original circumstances of moving target and stationary shooter. My situation is a little different than that situation. My target moves, the shooter moves, and the bullets from the shooter start off with the velocities in x and y added to the bullets' x and y velocities. If you are sliding to the right, the bullets will remain in front of you as you move so as long as your velocity remains constant. What I'm trying to do is to get the enemy to be able to determine where they need to shoot in order to hit the player. Unless the player and enemy is stationary, the velocity from the ship adding to the velocity of the bullets will cause a miss. I'd rather like to prevent that. I used the formula in the stack overflow answer and did what I thought were the appropriate adjustments. I've been banging at this for the last four hours and I just can't make it click. It is probably something really simple and boneheaded that I am missing (that seems to be a lot of my problems lately). Here is the solution presented from the stack overflow answer: It boils down to solving a quadratic equation of the form: a * sqr(x) + b * x + c == 0 Note that by sqr I mean square, as opposed to square root. Use the following values: a := sqr(target.velocityX) + sqr(target.velocityY) - sqr(projectile_speed) b := 2 * (target.velocityX * (target.startX - cannon.X) + target.velocityY * (target.startY - cannon.Y)) c := sqr(target.startX - cannon.X) + sqr(target.startY - cannon.Y) Now we can look at the discriminant to determine if we have a possible solution. disc := sqr(b) - 4 * a * c If the discriminant is less than 0, forget about hitting your target -- your projectile can never get there in time. Otherwise, look at two candidate solutions: t1 := (-b + sqrt(disc)) / (2 * a) t2 := (-b - sqrt(disc)) / (2 * a) Note that if disc == 0 then t1 and t2 are equal. If there are no other considerations such as intervening obstacles, simply choose the smaller positive value. (Negative t values would require firing backward in time to use!) Substitute the chosen t value back into the target's position equations to get the coordinates of the leading point you should be aiming at: aim.X := t * target.velocityX + target.startX aim.Y := t * target.velocityY + target.startY Here is my code, after being corrected by Sam Hocevar (thank you again for your help!). It still doesn't work. For some reason it never enters the section of code inside the if(disc = 0) (obviously because it is always less than zero but...). However, if I plug the numbers from my game log on the enemy and player positions and velocities it outputs a valid firing solution. I have looked at the code side by side a couple of times now and I can't find any differences. There has got to be something simple I'm missing here. If someone else could look at this code and determine what is going on here I'd appreciate it. I know it's not going through that section because if it were, shouldShoot would become true and the enemy would be blasting away at the player. This section calls the function in question, CalculateShootHeading() if(shouldMove) { UseEngines(); } x += xVelocity; y += yVelocity; CalculateShootHeading(); if(shouldShoot) { ShootWeapons(); } UpdateWeapons(); This is CalculateShootHeading(). This is inside the enemy class so x and y are the enemy's x and y and the same with velocity. One output from my game log gives Player X = 2108, Player Y = -180.956, Player X velocity = 10.9949, Player Y Velocity = -6.26017, Enemy X = 1988.31, Enemy Y = -339.051, Enemy X velocity = 1.81666, Enemy Y velocity = -9.67762, 0 enemy projectiles. The output from the console tester is Bullet position = 2210.49, -239.313 and Player Position = 2210.49, -239.313. This doesn't make any sense. The only thing that could be different is the code or the input into my function in the game and I've checked that and I don't think that it is wrong as it's updated before this and never changed. float const bulletSpeed = 30.f; float const dx = playerX - x; float const dy = playerY - y; float const vx = playerXVelocity - xVelocity; float const vy = playerYVelocity - yVelocity; float const a = vx * vx + vy * vy - bulletSpeed * bulletSpeed; float const b = 2.f * (vx * dx + vy * dy); float const c = dx * dx + dy * dy; float const disc = b * b - 4.f * a * c; shouldShoot = false; if (disc >= 0.f) { float t0 = (-b - std::sqrt(disc)) / (2.f * a); float t1 = (-b + std::sqrt(disc)) / (2.f * a); if (t0 < 0.f || (t1 < t0 && t1 >= 0.f)) { t0 = t1; } if (t0 >= 0.f) { float shootx = vx + dx / t0; float shooty = vy + dy / t0; heading = std::atan2(shooty, shootx) * RAD2DEGREE; } shouldShoot = true; }

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  • ComboBox Data Binding

    - by Geertjan
    Let's create a databound combobox, levering MVC in a desktop application. The result will be a combobox, provided by the NetBeans ChoiceView, that displays data retrieved from a database: What follows is not much different from the NetBeans Platform CRUD Application Tutorial and you're advised to consult that document if anything that follows isn't clear enough. One kind of interesting thing about the instructions that follow is that it shows that you're able to create an application where each element of the MVC architecture can be located within a separate module: Start by creating a new NetBeans Platform application named "MyApplication". Model We're going to start by generating JPA entity classes from a database connection. In the New Project wizard, choose "Java Class Library". Click Next. Name the Java Class Library "MyEntities". Click Finish. Right-click the MyEntities project, choose New, and then select "Entity Classes from Database". Work through the wizard, selecting the tables of interest from your database, and naming the package "entities". Click Finish. Now a JPA entity is created for each of the selected tables. In the Project Properties dialog of the project, choose "Copy Dependent Libraries" in the Packaging panel. Build the project. In your project's "dist" folder (visible in the Files window), you'll now see a JAR, together with a "lib" folder that contains the JARs you'll need. In your NetBeans Platform application, create a module named "MyModel", with code name base "org.my.model". Right-click the project, choose Properties, and in the "Libraries" panel, click Add Dependency button in the Wrapped JARs subtab to add all the JARs from the previous step to the module. Also include "derby-client.jar" or the equivalent driver for your database connection to the module. Controler In your NetBeans Platform application, create a module named "MyControler", with code name base "org.my.controler". Right-click the module's Libraries node, in the Projects window, and add a dependency on "Explorer & Property Sheet API". In the MyControler module, create a class with this content: package org.my.controler; import org.openide.explorer.ExplorerManager; public class MyUtils { static ExplorerManager controler; public static ExplorerManager getControler() { if (controler == null) { controler = new ExplorerManager(); } return controler; } } View In your NetBeans Platform application, create a module named "MyView", with code name base "org.my.view".  Create a new Window Component, in "explorer" view, for example, let it open on startup, with class name prefix "MyView". Add dependencies on the Nodes API and on the Explorer & Property Sheet API. Also add dependencies on the "MyModel" module and the "MyControler" module. Before doing so, in the "MyModel" module, make the "entities" package and the "javax.persistence" packages public (in the Libraries panel of the Project Properties dialog) and make the one package that you have in the "MyControler" package public too. Define the top part of the MyViewTopComponent as follows: public final class MyViewTopComponent extends TopComponent implements ExplorerManager.Provider { ExplorerManager controler = MyUtils.getControler(); public MyViewTopComponent() { initComponents(); setName(Bundle.CTL_MyViewTopComponent()); setToolTipText(Bundle.HINT_MyViewTopComponent()); setLayout(new BoxLayout(this, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS)); controler.setRootContext(new AbstractNode(Children.create(new ChildFactory<Customer>() { @Override protected boolean createKeys(List list) { EntityManager entityManager = Persistence. createEntityManagerFactory("MyEntitiesPU").createEntityManager(); Query query = entityManager.createNamedQuery("Customer.findAll"); list.addAll(query.getResultList()); return true; } @Override protected Node createNodeForKey(Customer key) { Node customerNode = new AbstractNode(Children.LEAF, Lookups.singleton(key)); customerNode.setDisplayName(key.getName()); return customerNode; } }, true))); controler.addPropertyChangeListener(new PropertyChangeListener() { @Override public void propertyChange(PropertyChangeEvent evt) { Customer selectedCustomer = controler.getSelectedNodes()[0].getLookup().lookup(Customer.class); StatusDisplayer.getDefault().setStatusText(selectedCustomer.getName()); } }); JPanel row1 = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.LEADING)); row1.add(new JLabel("Customers: ")); row1.add(new ChoiceView()); add(row1); } @Override public ExplorerManager getExplorerManager() { return controler; } ... ... ... Now run the application and you'll see the same as the image with which this blog entry started.

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  • To Make Diversity Work, Managers Must Stop Ignoring Difference

    - by HCM-Oracle
    By Kate Pavao - Originally posted on Profit Executive coaches Jane Hyun and Audrey S. Lee noticed something during their leadership development coaching and consulting: Frustrated employees and overwhelmed managers. “We heard from voices saying, ‘I wish my manager understood me better’ or ‘I hope my manager would take the time to learn more about me and my background,’” remembers Hyun. “At the same token, the managers we were coaching had a hard time even knowing how to start these conversations.”  Hyun and Lee wrote Flex to address some of the fears managers have when it comes to leading diverse teams—such as being afraid of offending their employees by stumbling into sensitive territory—and also to provide a sure-footed strategy for becoming a more effective leader. Here, Hyun talks about what it takes to create innovate and productive teams in an increasingly diverse world, including the key characteristics successful managers share. Q: What does it mean to “flex”? Hyun: Flexing is the art of switching between leadership styles to work more effectively with people who are different from you. It’s not fundamentally changing who you are, but it’s understanding when you need to adapt your style in a situation so that you can accommodate people and make them feel more comfortable. It’s understanding the gap that might exist between you and others who are different, and then flexing across that gap to get the result that you're looking for. It’s up to all of us, not just managers, but also employees, to learn how to flex. When you hire new people to the organization, they're expected to adapt. The new people in the organization may need some guidance around how to best flex. They can certainly take the initiative, but if you can give them some direction around the important rules, and connect them with insiders who can help them figure out the most critical elements of the job, that will accelerate how quickly they can contribute to your organization. Q: Why is it important right now for managers to understand flexing? Hyun: The workplace is becoming increasingly younger, multicultural and female. The numbers bear it out. Millennials are entering the workforce and becoming a larger percentage of it, which is a global phenomenon. Thirty-six percent of the workforce is multicultural, and close to half is female. It makes sense to better understand the people who are increasingly a part of your workforce, and how to best lead them and manage them as well. Q: What do companies miss out on when managers don’t flex? Hyun: There are high costs for losing people or failing to engage them. The estimated costs of replacing an employee is about 150 percent of that person’s salary. There are studies showing that employee disengagement costs the U.S. something like $450 billion a year. But voice is the biggest thing you miss out on if you don’t flex. Whenever you want innovation or increased productivity from your people, you need to figure out how to unleash these things. The way you get there is to make sure that everybody’s voice is at the table. Q: What are some of the common misassumptions that managers make about the people on their teams? Hyun: One is what I call the Golden Rule mentality: We assume when we go to the workplace that people are going to think like us and operate like us. But sometimes when you work with people from a different culture or a different generation, they may have a different mindset about doing something, or a different approach to solving a problem, or a different way to manage some situation. When see something that’s different, we don't understand it, so we don't trust it. We have this hidden bias for people who are like us. That gets in the way of really looking at how we can tap our team members best potential by understanding how their difference may help them be effective in our workplace. We’re trained, especially in the workplace, to make assumptions quickly, so that you can make the best business decision. But with people, it’s better to remain curious. If you want to build stronger cross-cultural, cross-generational, cross-gender relationships, before you make a judgment, share what you observe with that team member, and connect with him or her in ways that are mutually adaptive, so that you can work together more effectively. Q: What are the common characteristics you see in leaders who are successful at flexing? Hyun: One is what I call “adaptive ability”—leaders who are able to understand that someone on their team is different from them, and willing to adapt his or her style to do that. Another one is “unconditional positive regard,” which is basically acceptance of others, even in their vulnerable moments. This attitude of grace is critical and essential to a healthy environment in developing people. If you think about when people enter the workforce, they're only 21 years old. It’s quite a formative time for them. They may not have a lot of management experience, or experience managing complex or even global projects. Creating the best possible condition for their development requires turning their mistakes into teachable moments, and giving them an opportunity to really learn. Finally, these leaders are not rigid or constrained in a single mode or style. They have this insatiable curiosity about other people. They don’t judge when they see behavior that doesn’t make sense, or is different from their own. For example, maybe someone on their team is a less aggressive than they are. The leader needs to remain curious and thinks, “Wow, I wonder how I can engage in a dialogue with this person to get their potential out in the open.”

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  • What's New in SGD 5.1?

    - by Fat Bloke
    Oracle announced the latest version of Secure Global Desktop (SGD) this week with 3 major themes: Support for Android devices; Support for Desktop Chrome clients;  Support for Oracle Unified Directory. I'll talk about the new features in a moment, but a bit of context first: Oracle SGD - what, how and why?  Oracle Secure Global Desktop is Oracle's secure remote access product which allows users on almost any device, to access almost any type application which  is hosted in the data center, from almost any location. And it does this by sitting on the edge of the datacenter, between the user and the applications: This is actually a really smart environment for an increasing number of use cases where: Users need mobility of location AND device (i.e. work from anywhere); IT needs to ensure security of applications and data (of course!) The application requires an end-user environment which can't be guaranteed and IT may not own the client platform (e.g. BYOD, working from home, partners or contractors). Oracle has a a specific interest in this of course. As the leading supplier of enterprise applications, many of Oracle's customers, and indeed Oracle itself, fit these criteria. So, as an IT guy rolling out an application to your employees, if one of your apps absolutely needs, say,  IE10 with Java 6 update 32, how can you be sure that the user population has this, especially when they're using their own devices? In the SGD model you, the IT guy, can set up, say, a Windows Server running the exact environment required, and then use SGD to publish this app, without needing to worry any further about the device the end user is using. What's new?  So back to SGD 5.1 and what is new there: Android devices Since we introduced our support for iPad tablets in SGD 5.0 we've had a big demand from customers to extend this to Android tablets too, and so we're pleased to announce that 5.1 supports Android 4.x tablets such as Nexus 7 and 10, and the Galaxy Tab. Here's how it works, with screenshots from my Nexus 7: Simply point your browser to the SGD server URL and login; The workspace is the list of apps that the admin has deemed ok for you to run. You click on an application to run it (here's Excel and Oracle E-Business Suite): There's an extended on-screen keyboard (extended because desktop apps need keys that don't appear on a tablet keyboard such as ctrl, WIndow key, etc) and touch gestures can be mapped to desktop events (such as tap and hold to right click) All in all a pretty nice implementation for Android tablet users. Desktop Chrome Browsers SGD has always been designed around using a browser to access your applications. But traditionally, this has involved using Java to deliver the SGD client component. With HTML5 and Javascript engines becoming so powerful, we thought we'd see how well a pure web client could perform with desktop apps. And the answer was, surprisingly well. So with this release we now offer this additional way of working, which can be enabled by a simple bit of configuration. Here's a Linux desktop running in a tab in Chrome. And if you resize the browser window, the Linux desktop is resized by SGD too. Very cool! Oracle Unified Directory As I mentioned above, a lot of Oracle users already benefit from SGD. And a lot of Oracle customers use Oracle Unified Directory as their Enterprise and Carrier grade user directory. So it makes a lot of sense that SGD now supports this LDAP directory for both Authentication and as a means to determine which users get which applications, e.g. publish the engineering app to the guys in the Development group, but give everyone E-Business Suite to let them do their expenses. Summary With new devices, and faster 4G networking becoming more prevalent, the pressure for businesses to move to a increasingly mobile enterprise is stronger than ever. SGD is good for users, and even better for IT. By offering the user the ability to work from anywhere, and IT the control and security they need, everyone wins with SGD. To try this for yourself, download SGD 5.1 (look under Desktop Virtualization Products) from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud or if you're an existing customer, get it from My Oracle Support.  -FB 

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  • BIP 11g Dynamic SQL

    - by Tim Dexter
    Back in the 10g release, if you wanted something beyond the standard query for your report extract; you needed to break out your favorite text editor. You gotta love 'vi' and hate emacs, am I right? And get to building a data template, they were/are lovely to write, such fun ... not! Its not fun writing them by hand but, you do get to do some cool stuff around the data extract including dynamic SQL. By that I mean the ability to add content dynamically to your your query at runtime. With 11g, we spoiled you with a visual builder, no more vi or notepad sessions, a friendly drag and drop interface allowing you to build hierarchical data sets, calculated columns, summary columns, etc. You can still create the dynamic SQL statements, its not so well documented right now, in lieu of doc updates here's the skinny. If you check out the 10g process to create dynamic sql in the docs. You need to create a data trigger function where you assign the dynamic sql to a global variable that's matched in your report SQL. In 11g, the process is really the same, BI Publisher just provides a bit more help to define what trigger code needs to be called. You still need to create the function and place it inside a package in the db. Here's a simple plsql package with the 'beforedata' function trigger. Spec create or replace PACKAGE BIREPORTS AS whereCols varchar2(2000); FUNCTION beforeReportTrig return boolean; end BIREPORTS; Body create or replace PACKAGE BODY BIREPORTS AS   FUNCTION beforeReportTrig return boolean AS   BEGIN       whereCols := ' and d.department_id = 100';     RETURN true;   END beforeReportTrig; END BIREPORTS; you'll notice the additional where clause (whereCols - declared as a public variable) is hard coded. I'll cover parameterizing that in my next post. If you can not wait, check the 10g docs for an example. I have my package compiling successfully in the db. Now, onto the BIP data model definition. 1. Create a new data model and go ahead and create your query(s) as you would normally. 2. In the query dialog box, add in the variables you want replaced at runtime using an ampersand rather than a colon e.g. &whereCols.   select     d.DEPARTMENT_NAME, ...  from    "OE"."EMPLOYEES" e,     "OE"."DEPARTMENTS" d  where   d."DEPARTMENT_ID"= e."DEPARTMENT_ID" &whereCols   Note that 'whereCols' matches the global variable name in our package. When you click OK to clear the dialog, you'll be asked for a default value for the variable, just use ' and 1=1' That leading space is important to keep the SQL valid ie required whitespace. This value will be used for the where clause if case its not set by the function code. 3. Now click on the Event Triggers tree node and create a new trigger of the type Before Data. Type in the default package name, in my example, 'BIREPORTS'. Then hit the update button to get BIP to fetch the valid functions.In my case I get to see the following: Select the BEFOREREPORTTRIG function (or your name) and shuttle it across. 4. Save your data model and now test it. For now, you can update the where clause via the plsql package. Next time ... parametrizing the dynamic clause.

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  • Using a mounted NTFS share with nginx

    - by Hoff
    I have set up a local testing VM with Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS and the LEMP stack. It's kind of an unconventional setup because instead of having all my PHP scripts on the local machine, I've mounted an NTFS share as the document root because I do my development on Windows. I had everything working perfectly up until this morning, now I keep getting a dreaded 'File not found.' error. I am almost certain this must be somehow permission related, because if I copy my site over to /var/www, nginx and php-fpm have no problems serving my PHP scripts. What I can't figure out is why all of a sudden (after a reboot of the server), no PHP files will be served but instead just the 'File not found.' error. Static files work fine, so I think it's PHP that is causing the headache. Both nginx and php-fpm are configured to run as the user www-data: root@ubuntu-server:~# ps aux | grep 'nginx\|php-fpm' root 1095 0.0 0.0 5816 792 ? Ss 11:11 0:00 nginx: master process /opt/nginx/sbin/nginx -c /etc/nginx/nginx.conf www-data 1096 0.0 0.1 6016 1172 ? S 11:11 0:00 nginx: worker process www-data 1098 0.0 0.1 6016 1172 ? S 11:11 0:00 nginx: worker process root 1130 0.0 0.4 175560 4212 ? Ss 11:11 0:00 php-fpm: master process (/etc/php5/php-fpm.conf) www-data 1131 0.0 0.3 175560 3216 ? S 11:11 0:00 php-fpm: pool www www-data 1132 0.0 0.3 175560 3216 ? S 11:11 0:00 php-fpm: pool www www-data 1133 0.0 0.3 175560 3216 ? S 11:11 0:00 php-fpm: pool www root 1686 0.0 0.0 4368 816 pts/1 S+ 11:11 0:00 grep --color=auto nginx\|php-fpm I have mounted the NTFS share at /mnt/webfiles by editing /etc/fstab and adding the following line: //192.168.0.199/c$/Websites/ /mnt/webfiles cifs username=Jordan,password=mypasswordhere,gid=33,uid=33 0 0 Where gid 33 is the www-data group and uid 33 is the user www-data. If I list the contents of one of my sites you can in fact see that they belong to the user www-data: root@ubuntu-server:~# ls -l /mnt/webfiles/nTv5-2.0 total 8 drwxr-xr-x 0 www-data www-data 0 Jun 6 19:12 app drwxr-xr-x 0 www-data www-data 0 Aug 22 19:00 assets -rwxr-xr-x 0 www-data www-data 1150 Jan 4 2012 favicon.ico -rwxr-xr-x 0 www-data www-data 1412 Dec 28 2011 index.php drwxr-xr-x 0 www-data www-data 0 Jun 3 16:44 lib drwxr-xr-x 0 www-data www-data 0 Jan 3 2012 plugins drwxr-xr-x 0 www-data www-data 0 Jun 3 16:45 vendors If I switch to the www-data user, I have no problem creating a new file on the share: root@ubuntu-server:~# su www-data $ > /mnt/webfiles/test.txt $ ls -l /mnt/webfiles | grep test\.txt -rwxr-xr-x 0 www-data www-data 0 Sep 8 11:19 test.txt There should be no problem reading or writing to the share with php-fpm running as the user www-data. When I examine the error log of nginx, it's filled with a bunch of lines that look like the following: 2012/09/08 11:22:36 [error] 1096#0: *1 FastCGI sent in stderr: "Primary script unknown" while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.199, server: , request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock:", host: "192.168.0.123" 2012/09/08 11:22:39 [error] 1096#0: *1 FastCGI sent in stderr: "Primary script unknown" while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.199, server: , request: "GET /apc.php HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock:", host: "192.168.0.123" It's bizarre that this was working previously and now all of sudden PHP is complaining that it can't "find" the scripts on the share. Does anybody know why this is happening? EDIT I tried editing php-fpm.conf and changing chdir to the following: chdir = /mnt/webfiles When I try and restart the php-fpm service, I get the error: Starting php-fpm [08-Sep-2012 14:20:55] ERROR: [pool www] the chdir path '/mnt/webfiles' does not exist or is not a directory This is a total load of bullshit because this directory DOES exist and is mounted! Any ls commands to list that directory work perfectly. Why the hell can't PHP-FPM see this directory?! Here are my configuration files for reference: nginx.conf user www-data; worker_processes 2; error_log /var/log/nginx/nginx.log info; pid /var/run/nginx.pid; events { worker_connections 1024; multi_accept on; } http { include fastcgi.conf; include mime.types; default_type application/octet-stream; set_real_ip_from 127.0.0.1; real_ip_header X-Forwarded-For; ## Proxy proxy_redirect off; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; client_max_body_size 32m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_connect_timeout 90; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 90; proxy_buffers 32 4k; ## Compression gzip on; gzip_types text/plain text/css application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript; gzip_disable "MSIE [1-6]\.(?!.*SV1)"; ### TCP options tcp_nodelay on; tcp_nopush on; keepalive_timeout 65; sendfile on; include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*; } my site config server { listen 80; access_log /var/log/nginx/$host.access.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log; root /mnt/webfiles/nTv5-2.0/app/webroot; index index.php; ## Block bad bots if ($http_user_agent ~* (HTTrack|HTMLParser|libcurl|discobot|Exabot|Casper|kmccrew|plaNETWORK|RPT-HTTPClient)) { return 444; } ## Block certain Referers (case insensitive) if ($http_referer ~* (sex|vigra|viagra) ) { return 444; } ## Deny dot files: location ~ /\. { deny all; } ## Favicon Not Found location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; } ## Robots.txt Not Found location = /robots.txt { access_log off; log_not_found off; } if (-f $document_root/maintenance.html) { rewrite ^(.*)$ /maintenance.html last; } location ~* \.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)$ { # Some basic cache-control for static files to be sent to the browser expires max; add_header Pragma public; add_header Cache-Control "max-age=2678400, public, must-revalidate"; } location / { try_files $uri $uri/ index.php; if (-f $request_filename) { break; } rewrite ^(.+)$ /index.php?url=$1 last; } location ~ \.php$ { include /etc/nginx/fastcgi.conf; fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock; } } php-fpm.conf ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; FPM Configuration ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; All relative paths in this configuration file are relative to PHP's install ; prefix (/opt/php5). This prefix can be dynamicaly changed by using the ; '-p' argument from the command line. ; Include one or more files. If glob(3) exists, it is used to include a bunch of ; files from a glob(3) pattern. This directive can be used everywhere in the ; file. ; Relative path can also be used. They will be prefixed by: ; - the global prefix if it's been set (-p arguement) ; - /opt/php5 otherwise ;include=etc/fpm.d/*.conf ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Global Options ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; [global] ; Pid file ; Note: the default prefix is /opt/php5/var ; Default Value: none pid = /var/run/php-fpm.pid ; Error log file ; Note: the default prefix is /opt/php5/var ; Default Value: log/php-fpm.log error_log = /var/log/php5-fpm/php-fpm.log ; Log level ; Possible Values: alert, error, warning, notice, debug ; Default Value: notice ;log_level = notice ; If this number of child processes exit with SIGSEGV or SIGBUS within the time ; interval set by emergency_restart_interval then FPM will restart. A value ; of '0' means 'Off'. ; Default Value: 0 ;emergency_restart_threshold = 0 ; Interval of time used by emergency_restart_interval to determine when ; a graceful restart will be initiated. This can be useful to work around ; accidental corruptions in an accelerator's shared memory. ; Available Units: s(econds), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays) ; Default Unit: seconds ; Default Value: 0 ;emergency_restart_interval = 0 ; Time limit for child processes to wait for a reaction on signals from master. ; Available units: s(econds), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays) ; Default Unit: seconds ; Default Value: 0 ;process_control_timeout = 0 ; Send FPM to background. Set to 'no' to keep FPM in foreground for debugging. ; Default Value: yes ;daemonize = yes ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Pool Definitions ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Multiple pools of child processes may be started with different listening ; ports and different management options. The name of the pool will be ; used in logs and stats. There is no limitation on the number of pools which ; FPM can handle. Your system will tell you anyway :) ; Start a new pool named 'www'. ; the variable $pool can we used in any directive and will be replaced by the ; pool name ('www' here) [www] ; Per pool prefix ; It only applies on the following directives: ; - 'slowlog' ; - 'listen' (unixsocket) ; - 'chroot' ; - 'chdir' ; - 'php_values' ; - 'php_admin_values' ; When not set, the global prefix (or /opt/php5) applies instead. ; Note: This directive can also be relative to the global prefix. ; Default Value: none ;prefix = /path/to/pools/$pool ; The address on which to accept FastCGI requests. ; Valid syntaxes are: ; 'ip.add.re.ss:port' - to listen on a TCP socket to a specific address on ; a specific port; ; 'port' - to listen on a TCP socket to all addresses on a ; specific port; ; '/path/to/unix/socket' - to listen on a unix socket. ; Note: This value is mandatory. ;listen = 127.0.0.1:9000 listen = /var/run/php5-fpm.sock ; Set listen(2) backlog. A value of '-1' means unlimited. ; Default Value: 128 (-1 on FreeBSD and OpenBSD) ;listen.backlog = -1 ; List of ipv4 addresses of FastCGI clients which are allowed to connect. ; Equivalent to the FCGI_WEB_SERVER_ADDRS environment variable in the original ; PHP FCGI (5.2.2+). Makes sense only with a tcp listening socket. Each address ; must be separated by a comma. If this value is left blank, connections will be ; accepted from any ip address. ; Default Value: any ;listen.allowed_clients = 127.0.0.1 ; Set permissions for unix socket, if one is used. In Linux, read/write ; permissions must be set in order to allow connections from a web server. Many ; BSD-derived systems allow connections regardless of permissions. ; Default Values: user and group are set as the running user ; mode is set to 0666 ;listen.owner = www-data ;listen.group = www-data ;listen.mode = 0666 ; Unix user/group of processes ; Note: The user is mandatory. If the group is not set, the default user's group ; will be used. user = www-data group = www-data ; Choose how the process manager will control the number of child processes. ; Possible Values: ; static - a fixed number (pm.max_children) of child processes; ; dynamic - the number of child processes are set dynamically based on the ; following directives: ; pm.max_children - the maximum number of children that can ; be alive at the same time. ; pm.start_servers - the number of children created on startup. ; pm.min_spare_servers - the minimum number of children in 'idle' ; state (waiting to process). If the number ; of 'idle' processes is less than this ; number then some children will be created. ; pm.max_spare_servers - the maximum number of children in 'idle' ; state (waiting to process). If the number ; of 'idle' processes is greater than this ; number then some children will be killed. ; Note: This value is mandatory. pm = dynamic ; The number of child processes to be created when pm is set to 'static' and the ; maximum number of child processes to be created when pm is set to 'dynamic'. ; This value sets the limit on the number of simultaneous requests that will be ; served. Equivalent to the ApacheMaxClients directive with mpm_prefork. ; Equivalent to the PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN environment variable in the original PHP ; CGI. ; Note: Used when pm is set to either 'static' or 'dynamic' ; Note: This value is mandatory. pm.max_children = 50 ; The number of child processes created on startup. ; Note: Used only when pm is set to 'dynamic' ; Default Value: min_spare_servers + (max_spare_servers - min_spare_servers) / 2 pm.start_servers = 20 ; The desired minimum number of idle server processes. ; Note: Used only when pm is set to 'dynamic' ; Note: Mandatory when pm is set to 'dynamic' pm.min_spare_servers = 5 ; The desired maximum number of idle server processes. ; Note: Used only when pm is set to 'dynamic' ; Note: Mandatory when pm is set to 'dynamic' pm.max_spare_servers = 35 ; The number of requests each child process should execute before respawning. ; This can be useful to work around memory leaks in 3rd party libraries. For ; endless request processing specify '0'. Equivalent to PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS. ; Default Value: 0 pm.max_requests = 500 ; The URI to view the FPM status page. If this value is not set, no URI will be ; recognized as a status page. By default, the status page shows the following ; information: ; accepted conn - the number of request accepted by the pool; ; pool - the name of the pool; ; process manager - static or dynamic; ; idle processes - the number of idle processes; ; active processes - the number of active processes; ; total processes - the number of idle + active processes. ; max children reached - number of times, the process limit has been reached, ; when pm tries to start more children (works only for ; pm 'dynamic') ; The values of 'idle processes', 'active processes' and 'total processes' are ; updated each second. The value of 'accepted conn' is updated in real time. ; Example output: ; accepted conn: 12073 ; pool: www ; process manager: static ; idle processes: 35 ; active processes: 65 ; total processes: 100 ; max children reached: 1 ; By default the status page output is formatted as text/plain. Passing either ; 'html' or 'json' as a query string will return the corresponding output ; syntax. Example: ; http://www.foo.bar/status ; http://www.foo.bar/status?json ; http://www.foo.bar/status?html ; Note: The value must start with a leading slash (/). The value can be ; anything, but it may not be a good idea to use the .php extension or it ; may conflict with a real PHP file. ; Default Value: not set pm.status_path = /status ; The ping URI to call the monitoring page of FPM. If this value is not set, no ; URI will be recognized as a ping page. This could be used to test from outside ; that FPM is alive and responding, or to ; - create a graph of FPM availability (rrd or such); ; - remove a server from a group if it is not responding (load balancing); ; - trigger alerts for the operating team (24/7). ; Note: The value must start with a leading slash (/). The value can be ; anything, but it may not be a good idea to use the .php extension or it ; may conflict with a real PHP file. ; Default Value: not set ping.path = /ping ; This directive may be used to customize the response of a ping request. The ; response is formatted as text/plain with a 200 response code. ; Default Value: pong ping.response = pong ; The timeout for serving a single request after which the worker process will ; be killed. This option should be used when the 'max_execution_time' ini option ; does not stop script execution for some reason. A value of '0' means 'off'. ; Available units: s(econds)(default), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays) ; Default Value: 0 ;request_terminate_timeout = 0 ; The timeout for serving a single request after which a PHP backtrace will be ; dumped to the 'slowlog' file. A value of '0s' means 'off'. ; Available units: s(econds)(default), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays) ; Default Value: 0 ;request_slowlog_timeout = 0 ; The log file for slow requests ; Default Value: not set ; Note: slowlog is mandatory if request_slowlog_timeout is set ;slowlog = log/$pool.log.slow ; Set open file descriptor rlimit. ; Default Value: system defined value ;rlimit_files = 1024 ; Set max core size rlimit. ; Possible Values: 'unlimited' or an integer greater or equal to 0 ; Default Value: system defined value ;rlimit_core = 0 ; Chroot to this directory at the start. This value must be defined as an ; absolute path. When this value is not set, chroot is not used. ; Note: you can prefix with '$prefix' to chroot to the pool prefix or one ; of its subdirectories. If the pool prefix is not set, the global prefix ; will be used instead. ; Note: chrooting is a great security feature and should be used whenever ; possible. However, all PHP paths will be relative to the chroot ; (error_log, sessions.save_path, ...). ; Default Value: not set ;chroot = ; Chdir to this directory at the start. ; Note: relative path can be used. ; Default Value: current directory or / when chroot ;chdir = /var/www ; Redirect worker stdout and stderr into main error log. If not set, stdout and ; stderr will be redirected to /dev/null according to FastCGI specs. ; Note: on highloaded environement, this can cause some delay in the page ; process time (several ms). ; Default Value: no ;catch_workers_output = yes ; Pass environment variables like LD_LIBRARY_PATH. All $VARIABLEs are taken from ; the current environment. ; Default Value: clean env ;env[HOSTNAME] = $HOSTNAME ;env[PATH] = /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin ;env[TMP] = /tmp ;env[TMPDIR] = /tmp ;env[TEMP] = /tmp ; Additional php.ini defines, specific to this pool of workers. These settings ; overwrite the values previously defined in the php.ini. The directives are the ; same as the PHP SAPI: ; php_value/php_flag - you can set classic ini defines which can ; be overwritten from PHP call 'ini_set'. ; php_admin_value/php_admin_flag - these directives won't be overwritten by ; PHP call 'ini_set' ; For php_*flag, valid values are on, off, 1, 0, true, false, yes or no. ; Defining 'extension' will load the corresponding shared extension from ; extension_dir. Defining 'disable_functions' or 'disable_classes' will not ; overwrite previously defined php.ini values, but will append the new value ; instead. ; Note: path INI options can be relative and will be expanded with the prefix ; (pool, global or /opt/php5) ; Default Value: nothing is defined by default except the values in php.ini and ; specified at startup with the -d argument ;php_admin_value[sendmail_path] = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i -f [email protected] ;php_flag[display_errors] = off ;php_admin_value[error_log] = /var/log/fpm-php.www.log ;php_admin_flag[log_errors] = on ;php_admin_value[memory_limit] = 32M php_admin_value[sendmail_path] = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i

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  • Unable to set maxReceivedMessageSize through web.config

    - by Michael Mortensen
    Hello there, I have now investigated the 400 - BadRequest code for the last two hours. A lot of sugestions goes towards ensuring the bindingConfiguration attribute is set correctly, and in my case, it is. Now, I need YOUR help before destroying the building i am in :-) I run a WCF RestFull service (very lightweight, using this resource for inspiration: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd315413.aspx) which (for now) accepts an XmlElement (POX) provided through the POST verb. I am currently ONLY using Fiddler's request builder before implementing a true client (as this is mixed environments). When I do this for XML smaller than 65K, it works fine - larger, it throws this exception: The maximum message size quota for incoming messages (65536) has been exceeded. To increase the quota, use the MaxReceivedMessageSize property on the appropriate binding element. Here is my web.config file (which I even included the client-tag for (desperate times!)): <system.web> <httpRuntime maxRequestLength="1500000" executionTimeout="180"/> </system.web> <system.serviceModel> <diagnostics> <messageLogging logEntireMessage="true" logMalformedMessages="true" logMessagesAtServiceLevel="true" logMessagesAtTransportLevel="true" /> </diagnostics> <bindings> <webHttpBinding> <binding name="WebHttpBinding" maxReceivedMessageSize="1500000" maxBufferPoolSize="1500000" maxBufferSize="1500000" closeTimeout="00:03:00" openTimeout="00:03:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:03:00"> <readerQuotas maxStringContentLength="1500000" maxArrayLength="1500000" maxBytesPerRead="1500000" /> <security mode="None"/> </binding> </webHttpBinding> </bindings> <client> <endpoint address="" binding="webHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="WebHttpBinding" contract="Commerce.ICatalogue"/> </client> <services> <service behaviorConfiguration="ServiceBehavior" name="Catalogue"> <endpoint address="" behaviorConfiguration="RestFull" binding="webHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="WebHttpBinding" contract="Commerce.ICatalogue" /> <!-- endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" / --> </service> </services> <behaviors> <endpointBehaviors> <behavior name="RestFull"> <webHttp/> </behavior> </endpointBehaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="ServiceBehavior"> <serviceDebug httpHelpPageEnabled="true" includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> </system.serviceModel> Thanks in advance for any help leading to succesfull call with 65K XML ;-)

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  • Android - Key Dispatching Timed Out

    - by Donal Rafferty
    In my Android application I am getting a very strange crash, when I press a button (Image) on my UI the entire application freezes and after a couple of seconds I getthe dreaded force close dialog appearing. Here is what gets printed in the log: WARN/WindowManager(88): Key dispatching timed out sending to package name/Activity WARN/WindowManager(88): Dispatch state: {{KeyEvent{action=1 code=5 repeat=0 meta=0 scancode=231 mFlags=8} to Window{432bafa0 com.android.launcher/com.android.launcher.Launcher paused=false} @ 1281611789339 lw=Window{432bafa0 com.android.launcher/com.android.launcher.Launcher paused=false} lb=android.os.BinderProxy@431ee8e8 fin=false gfw=true ed=true tts=0 wf=false fp=false mcf=Window{4335fc58 package name/Activity paused=false}}} WARN/WindowManager(88): Current state: {{null to Window{4335fc58 package name/Activity paused=false} @ 1281611821193 lw=Window{4335fc58 package name/Activity paused=false} lb=android.os.BinderProxy@434c9bd0 fin=false gfw=true ed=true tts=0 wf=false fp=false mcf=Window{4335fc58 package name/Activity paused=false}}} INFO/ActivityManager(88): ANR in process: package name (last in package name) INFO/ActivityManager(88): Annotation: keyDispatchingTimedOut INFO/ActivityManager(88): CPU usage: INFO/ActivityManager(88): Load: 5.18 / 5.1 / 4.75 INFO/ActivityManager(88): CPU usage from 7373ms to 1195ms ago: INFO/ActivityManager(88): package name: 6% = 1% user + 5% kernel / faults: 7 minor INFO/ActivityManager(88): system_server: 5% = 4% user + 1% kernel / faults: 27 minor INFO/ActivityManager(88): tiwlan_wifi_wq: 3% = 0% user + 3% kernel INFO/ActivityManager(88): mediaserver: 0% = 0% user + 0% kernel INFO/ActivityManager(88): logcat: 0% = 0% user + 0% kernel INFO/ActivityManager(88): TOTAL: 12% = 5% user + 6% kernel + 0% softirq INFO/ActivityManager(88): Removing old ANR trace file from /data/anr/traces.txt INFO/Process(88): Sending signal. PID: 1812 SIG: 3 INFO/dalvikvm(1812): threadid=7: reacting to signal 3 INFO/dalvikvm(1812): Wrote stack trace to '/data/anr/traces.txt' This is the code for the Button (Image): findViewById(R.id.endcallimage).setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() { public void onClick(View v) { mNotificationManager.cancel(2); Log.d("Handler", "Endcallimage pressed"); if(callConnected) elapsedTimeBeforePause = SystemClock.elapsedRealtime() - stopWatch.getBase(); try { serviceBinder.endCall(lineId); } catch (RemoteException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } dispatchKeyEvent(new KeyEvent(KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN,KeyEvent.FLAG_SOFT_KEYBOARD)); dispatchKeyEvent(new KeyEvent(KeyEvent.ACTION_UP, KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK)); } }); If I comment the following out the pressing of the button (image) doesn't cause the crash: try { serviceBinder.endCall(lineId); } catch (RemoteException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } The above code calls down through several levels of the app and into the native layer (NDK), could the call passing through several objects be leading to the force close? It seems unlikely as several other buttons do the same without issue. How about the native layer? Could some code I've built with the NDK be causing the issue? Any other ideas as to what the cause of the issue might be?

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  • jquery ui tabs close button beneath the text

    - by Pradyut Bhattacharya
    Hi I m using jquery ui tabs and i m using them with the function of dynamically closing them. the example page here where clicking on the link 'add tab' leads to adding of tabs in the tabs panel... now in firefox the close buttons are displayed beneath the text of the tab which is leading to garbled text in the tab panel or the body of the tabs like other browsers how can i display it in same line the css i m using is .ui-tabs { padding: .20em; zoom: 1; } .ui-tabs .ui-tabs-nav { list-style: none; position: relative; padding: .2em .2em 0; height:27px; } .ui-tabs .ui-tabs-nav li { position: relative; float: left; border-bottom-width: 0 !important; margin: 0 .2em -1px 0; padding: 0; font-size:63.5%; } .ui-tabs .ui-tabs-nav li a { float: left; text-decoration: none; padding: .5em 1em; } .ui-tabs .ui-tabs-nav li.ui-tabs-selected { padding-bottom: 1px; border-bottom-width: 0; } .ui-tabs .ui-tabs-nav li.ui-tabs-selected a, .ui-tabs .ui-tabs-nav li.ui-state-disabled a, .ui-tabs .ui-tabs-nav li.ui-state-processing a { cursor: text; } .ui-tabs .ui-tabs-nav li a, .ui-tabs.ui-tabs-collapsible .ui-tabs-nav li.ui-tabs-selected a { cursor: pointer; font: 62.5%; } .ui-tabs .ui-tabs-panel { padding: 1em 1.4em; display: block; border-width: 0; background:black; color:white; font-size: 12px; } .ui-tabs .ui-tabs-hide { display: none !important; font: 62.5%; } #tabs .ui-tabs-nav li a:hover { float: left; text-decoration: none; padding: .5em 1em; background-color: #868472; } #tabs-profile .ui-tabs-nav li { position: relative; float: left; border-bottom-width: 0 !important; margin: 0 .2em -1px 0; padding: 0; font-size:75%; } Please help thanks Pradyut India

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  • Make Bluetooth on Android 2.1 discoverable indefinitely

    - by kanov-baekonfat
    Hello all. I'm working on a research project which involves Bluetooth and the Android OS. I need to make Bluetooth discoverable indefinitely in order for the project to continue. The Problem: Android limits discoverability to 300 seconds. I cannot ask the user every 300 seconds to turn discoverability back on as my application is designed to run in the background without disturbing the user. As far as I am aware, there is no way to increase the time though Android's GUI. Some sources have called this a safety feature, others have called this a bug. There may be a bit of truth in both... What I'm Trying / Have Tried: I'm trying to edit a stable release of cyanogenmod to turn the discoverability timer off (it's possible; there's a configuration file that needs to have a single number changed). This isn't working because I'm having verification problems with the resulting package. During the past week, I downloaded the cyanogenmod source code, changed a relevant class in the hope that it would make Bluetooth discoverable indefinitely, and tried to recompile. This did not work because (a) the repo is frequently changed, leading to an unstable code base which fails to compile (OR, it could be that I'm using it incorrectly; just because it looked like it was the code's fault in many instances doesn't mean I should blame it for all the problems I encountered!) and (b) the repo decides to periodically "ignore" me (but not always, as I have gotten the code base before!), replying to my synchronization/connection attempts with: fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly As you might imagine, the above two issues are problematic and very frustrating to deal with. More Info: I'm running Android 2.1 via cyanogenmod (v5 I believe). This means the phone is also rooted. I have a developer phone, which means that the bootloader is unlocked. My phone is an HTC Magic (32B). The Big Question: How can I make Bluetooth indefinitely discoverable on Android? Thanks for your time and input. I feel like I'm spinning my tires on this issue and I'd like to move past it.

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  • Problems related to showing MessageBox from non-GUI threads

    - by Hans Løken
    I'm working on a heavily data-bound Win.Forms application where I've found some strange behavior. The app has separate I/O threads receiving updates through asynchronous web-requests which it then sends to the main/GUI thread for processing and updating of application-wide data-stores (which in turn may be data-bound to various GUI-elements, etc.). The server at the other end of the web-requests requires periodic requests or the session times out. I've gone through several attempted solutions of dealing with thread-issues etc. and I've observed the following behavior: If I use Control.Invoke for sending updates from I/O-thread(s) to main-thread and this update causes a MessageBox to be shown the main form's message pump stops until the user clicks the ok-button. This also blocks the I/O-thread from continuing eventually leading to timeouts on the server. If I use Control.BeginInvoke for sending updates from I/O-thread(s) to main-thread the main form's message pump does not stop, but if the processing of an update leads to a messagebox being shown, the processing of the rest of that update is halted until the user clicks ok. Since the I/O-threads keep running and the message pump keeps processing messages several BeginInvoke's for updates may be called before the one with the message box is finished. This leads to out-of-sequence updates which is unacceptable. I/O-threads add updates to a blocking queue (very similar to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/530211/creating-a-blocking-queuet-in-net/530228#530228). GUI-thread uses a Forms.Timer that periodically applies all updates in the blocking queue. This solution solves both the problem of blocking I/O threads and sequentiality of updates i.e. next update will be never be started until previous is finished. However, there is a small performance cost as well as introducing a latency in showing updates that is unacceptable in the long run. I would like update-processing in the main-thread to be event-driven rather than polling. So to my question. How should I do this to: avoid blocking the I/O-threads guarantee that updates are finished in-sequence keep the main message pump running while showing a message box as a result of an update.

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