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• Do you know about the Visual Studio 2010 Database Projects Guidance?

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Early on in the Team System (now Visual Studio ALM) cycle a new product surfaced within Team System that was affectionately called “Data Dude”, but had the more formal name of “Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals”. The purpose of this product was to try and make the database a “first class citizen” in the development world. Those that started using Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals (Data Dude) loved it, but everyone else did not get it. The capabilities were a little patchy, but the one thing it did bring to the party was the ability to put your database schema under source control. This was revolutionary as previously your DBA sat as far away from the team as possible, and usually in a dark cupboard, now they could partake of all the goodness of Version Control, Work Item Tracking and automated builds. The problem was that the understanding required to manage these projects was very different to that needed previously. Then the Visual Studio ALM Rangers got a hold of it…and produced some of the best guidance available. Figure: Download the guidance from http://vsdatabaseguide.codeplex.com/ This guidance discusses scenarios and approaches of using the Database Projects in Visual Studio 2010 to help you use the tools more effectively and maximize their value to your organization This guidance is focused on these five areas: Solution and Project Management Source Code Control and Configuration Management Integrating External Changes with the Project System Build and Deployment Automation with Visual Studio Database Projects Database Testing and Deployment Verification Each of these areas has common guidance, usage scenarios, hands on labs, and lessons learned from real world engagements and the community discussions.   The guidance is broken down into three packages: Guidance documentation Hands-on-lab (HOL) documentation note: The documentation is available in XPS-only format packages or complete XPS,PDF,DOCX format packages HOL Package If you need assistance and no one else can help, then you may need to call the Visual Studio ALM Rangers. The Visual Studio ALM Rangers have the mission to provide out of band solutions for missing features or guidance. They are supported by Microsoft Product Group, Microsoft Consulting Services, Microsoft Most Valued Professionals (MVPs) and technical specialists from technology communities around the globe, giving you a real-world view from the field, where the technology has been tested and used. For more information on the Rangers please visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ee358786.aspx and for more a list of other Rangers projects please see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ee358787.aspx.

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• Gamification in the enterprise updates, September edition

  - by erikanollwebb

  Things have been a little busy here at GamifyOracle.  Last week, I attended a small conference in San Diego on Enterprise Gamification.  Mario Herger of SAP, Matt Landes of Google and I were on a panel discussion about how to introduce and advocate gamification in your organization.  I gave a talk as well as a workshop on gamification.  The workshop was a new concept, to take our Design Jam from Applications User Experience and try it with people outside of user experience.  I have to say, the whole thing was a great success, in great part because I had some expert help from Teena Singh from Apps UX.  We took a flow from expense reporting and created a scenario about sales reps who are on the road a lot and how we needed them to get their expense reports filed by the end of the fiscal year.  We divided the attendees into groups and gave them a little over two hours to work out how they might use game mechanics to gamify the flows.   We even took the opportunity to re-use the app our fab dev team in our Mexico Development Center put together to gamify the event including badges, points, prizes and a leaderboard.  Since I am a firm believer that you can't gamify everything (or at least, not everything well), I focused my talk prior to the workshop on when it works, and when it might not, including pitfalls to gamifying badly.  I was impressed that the teams all considered what might go wrong with gamifying expenses and built into their designs some protections against that.  I can't wait to take this concept on the road again, it really was a fun day. Now that we have gotten through that set of events, we're wildly working on our next project for next week.  I'm doing a focus group at Oracle OpenWorld on Gamification in the Enterprise.  To do that, Andrea Cantu and I are trying to kill as many trees as possible while we work out some gamification concepts to present (see proof below!).  It should be a great event and I'm hoping we learn a lot about what our customers think about the use of gamification in their companies and in the products they use. So that's the news so far from GamifyOracle land.  I'll try to get more out about those events and more after next week. And if you will be at OOW, ping me and we can discuss in person!  I'd love to know what everyone is thinking in the area.

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• Guiding Management to the Correct Decision

  - by Blumer

  My supervisor (also a developer) and I have a running joke about writing a book called "Managing From Beneath: Subversively Guiding Management to the Right Decision" and including a number of "techniques" we've developed for helping those who make the decisions to make the right ones. So far, we've got (cynicism warning!): BIC It! BIC stands for "Bury In Committee." When a bad idea comes up that someone wants to champion, we try to get it deferred to a committee for input. Typically it will either get killed outright (especially if other members of the committee are competing for you as a resource), or it will be hung up long enough that the proponent forgets about it. Smart, Stupid, or Expensive? When someone gets a visionary idea, offer them three ways to do it: a smart way, a stupid way, and an expensive way. The hope is that you've at least got a 2/3 shot of not having to do it the way that makes a piece of your soul die. All-Pro. It's a preemptive pro/con list in which you get into the mind of the (pr)opponent and think what would be cons against doing it your way. Twist them into pros and present them in your pro list before they have a chance to present them as cons. Dependicitis. Link pending decisions together, ideally with the proponent's pet project as the final link in the chain. Use this leverage to force action on those that have been put off. Preemptive Acceptance. Sometimes it's clear that management is going to go a particular direction regardless of advice to the contrary, and it's time to make the best of it. Take the opportunity to get something else you need, though. Approach the sponsor out of the blue and take the first step: "You know, I've been thinking about it, and while it's not the route I would advise, as long as we can get the schedule and budget for Project Awesome loosened up, I can work some magic to make your project fly." So ... what techniques have you come up with to try to head off the problem projects or make the best of what may come?

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• RPG Monster-Area, Spawn, Loot table Design

  - by daemonfire300

  I currently struggle with creating the database structure for my RPG. I got so far: tables: area (id) monster (id, area.id, monster.id, hp, attack, defense, name) item (id, some other values) loot (id = monster.id, item = item.id, chance) spawn (id = area.id, monster = monster.id, count) It is a browser-based game like e.g. Castle Age. The player can move from area to area. If a player enters an area the system spawns, based on the area.id and using the spawn table data, new monsters into the monster table. If a player kills a monster, the system picks the monster.id looks up the items via the the loot table and adds those items to the player's inventory. First, is this smart? Second, I need some kind of "monster_instance"-table and "area_instance"-table, since each player enters his very own "area" and does damage to his very own "monsters". Another approach would be adding the / a player.id to the monster table, so each monster spawned, has it's own "player", but I still need to assign them to an area, and I think this would overload the monster table if I put in the player.id and the area.id into the monster table. What are your thoughts? Temporary Solution monster (id, attackDamage, defense, hp, exp, etc.) monster_instance (id, player.id, area_instance.id, hp, attackDamage, defense, monster.id, etc.) area (id, name, area.id access, restriction) area_instance (id, area.id, last_visited) spawn (id, area.id, monster.id) loot (id, monster.id, chance, amount, ?area.id?) An example system-flow would be: Player enters area 1: system creates area_instance of type area.id = 1 and sets player.location to area.id = 1 If Player wants to battle monsters in the current area: system fetches all spawn entries matching area.id == player.location and creates a new monster_instance for each spawn by fetching the according monster-base data from table monster. If a monster is fetched more than once it may be cached. If Player actually attacks a monster: system updates the according monster_instance, if monster dies the instance if removed after creating the loot If Player leaves the area: area_instance.last_visited is set to NOW(), if player doesn't return to data area within a certain amount of time area_instance including all its monster_instances are deleted.

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• Two interfaces with identical signatures

  - by corsiKa

  I am attempting to model a card game where cards have two important sets of features: The first is an effect. These are the changes to the game state that happen when you play the card. The interface for effect is as follows: boolean isPlayable(Player p, GameState gs); void play(Player p, GameState gs); And you could consider the card to be playable if and only if you can meet its cost and all its effects are playable. Like so: // in Card class boolean isPlayable(Player p, GameState gs) { if(p.resource < this.cost) return false; for(Effect e : this.effects) { if(!e.isPlayable(p,gs)) return false; } return true; } Okay, so far, pretty simple. The other set of features on the card are abilities. These abilities are changes to the game state that you can activate at-will. When coming up with the interface for these, I realized they needed a method for determining whether they can be activated or not, and a method for implementing the activation. It ends up being boolean isActivatable(Player p, GameState gs); void activate(Player p, GameState gs); And I realize that with the exception of calling it "activate" instead of "play", Ability and Effect have the exact same signature. Is it a bad thing to have multiple interfaces with an identical signature? Should I simply use one, and have two sets of the same interface? As so: Set<Effect> effects; Set<Effect> abilities; If so, what refactoring steps should I take down the road if they become non-identical (as more features are released), particularly if they're divergent (i.e. they both gain something the other shouldn't, as opposed to only one gaining and the other being a complete subset)? I'm particularly concerned that combining them will be non-sustainable as soon as something changes. The fine print: I recognize this question is spawned by game development, but I feel it's the sort of problem that could just as easily creep up in non-game development, particularly when trying to accommodate the business models of multiple clients in one application as happens with just about every project I've ever done with more than one business influence... Also, the snippets used are Java snippets, but this could just as easily apply to a multitude of object oriented languages.

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• SOA, Cloud & Service Technology Symposium 2012 London

  - by JuergenKress

  Registration Is Now Open With Special Pricing For Oracle Promotional Discount For Exclusive Oracle Discount, Enter Promo Code: Djmxz370 OVERVIEW The International SOA, Cloud + Service Technology Symposium is a yearly event that features the top experts and authors from around the world, providing a series of keynotes, talks, demonstrations, and panels, as well as training and certification workshops - all dedicated to empowering IT professionals to realize modern service technologies and practices in the real world. Click here for a two-page printable conference overview (PDF). KEYNOTES & SPEAKERS More than 80 international subject matter experts will be speaking at the Symposium. Below are confirmed keynotes and speakers so far. Over 50% of the agenda has not yet been finalized. Many more speakers to come. View the partial program calendars on the Conference Agenda page. Keynotes and Speakers Thomas Erl Arcitura Education "SOA, Cloud Computing & Semantic Web Technology: The Sequel - The Era of Intelligent Service Technology" Markus Zirn Oracle "Big Data with CEP and SOA" Clemens Utschig Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma Manas Deb Oracle "The Successful Execution of the SOA and BPM Vision Tim E. Hall Oracle "Community Management: The Next Wave of SOA Governance and API Management" Registration is Now Open with Special Pricing for Oracle Promotional discount for exclusive Oracle discount, Enter Promo Code: DJMXZ370. SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES The Symposium provides an excellent opportunity to promote your organization in the lead-up to the event, to delegates during the Symposium, and after when the proceedings are made available on the Symposium web site. There are a limited number of premier sponsorship packages available, and a package can be tailored to your needs and budget. Download the Symposium Sponsorship Guide. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: SOA Symposium,SOA Cloud Service Technology Symposium,Thomas Erl,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,BPM Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Playing with F#

  - by mroberts

  Project Euler is a awesome site.   When working with a new language it can be tricky to find problems that need solving, that are more complex than "Hello World" and simpler than a full blown application. Project Euler gives use just that, cool and thought provoking problems that usually don't take days to solve.  I've solved a number of questions with C# and some with Java.  BTW, I used Java because it had BigInteger support before .Net. A couple weeks ago, back when winter had a firm grip on Columbus, OH, I began playing (researching) with F#.  I began with Problem #1 from Project Euler.  I started by looking at my solution in C#. Here is my solution in C#. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3:   4: namespace Problem001 5: { 6: class Program 7: { 8: static void Main(string[] args) 9: { 10: List<int> values = new List<int>(); 11:   12: for (int i = 1; i < 1000; i++) 13: { 14: if (i % 3 == 0 || i % 5 == 0) 15: values.Add(i); 16: } 17: int total = 0; 18:   19: values.ForEach(v => total += v); 20:   21: Console.WriteLine(total); 22: Console.ReadKey(); 23: } 24: } 25: }   Now, after much tweaking and learning, here is my solution in F#.   1: open System 2:   3: let calc n = 4: [1..n] 5: |> List.map (fun x -> if (x % 3 = 0 || x % 5 = 0) then x else 0) 6: |> List.sum 7:   8: let main() = 9: calc 999 10: |> printfn "result = %d" 11: Console.ReadKey(true) |> ignore 12:   13: main() Just this little example highlights some cool things about F#. Type inference. F# infers the type of a value.  In the C# code above we declare a number of variables, the list, and a couple ints.  F# does not require this, it infers the calc (a function) accepts a int and returns a int. Great built in functionality for Lists.  List.map for example. BTW, I don’t think I’m spilling the beans by giving away the code for Problem 1.  It by far is the easiest question, IMHO, solved by 92,000+ people. Next I’ll look into writing a class library with F#.

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• Calling home, receiving calls and smartphone data from the US

  - by Rob Farley

  I got asked about calling home from the US, by someone going to the PASS Summit. I found myself thinking “there should be a blog post about this”... The easiest way to phone home is Skype - no question. Use WiFi, and if you’re calling someone who has Skype on their phone at the other end, it’s free. Even if they don’t, it’s still pretty good price-wise. The PASS Summit conference centre has good WiFI, as do the hotels, and plenty of other places (like Starbucks). But if you’re used to having data all the time, particularly when you’re walking from one place to another, then you’ll want a sim card. This also lets you receive calls more easily, not just solving your data problem. You’ll need to make sure your phone isn’t locked to your local network – get that sorted before you leave. It’s no trouble to drop by a T-mobile or AT&T store and getting a prepaid sim. You can’t get one from the airport, but if the PASS Summit is your first stop, there’s a T-mobile store on 6th in Seattle between Pine & Pike, so you can see it from the Sheraton hotel if that’s where you’re staying. AT&T isn’t far away either. But – there’s an extra step that you should be aware of. If you talk to one of these US telcos, you’ll probably (hopefully I’m wrong, but this is how it was for me recently) be told that their prepaid sims don’t work in smartphones. And they’re right – the APN gets detected and stops the data from working. But luckily, Apple (and others) have provided information about how to change the APN, which has been used by a company based in New Zealand to let you get your phone working. Basically, you send your phone browser to http://unlockit.co.nz and follow the prompts. But do this from a WiFi place somewhere, because you won’t have data access until after you’ve sorted this out... Oh, and if you get a prepaid sim with “unlimited data”, you will still need to get a Data Feature for it. And just for the record – this is WAY easier if you’re going to the UK. I dropped into a T-mobile shop there, and bought a prepaid sim card for five quid, which gave me 250MB data and some (but not much) call credit. In Australia it’s even easier, because you can buy data-enabled sim cards that work in smartphones from the airport when you arrive. I think having access to data really helps you feel at home in a different place. It means you can pull up maps, see what your friends are doing, and more. Hopefully this post helps, but feel free to post comments with extra information if you have it. @rob_farley

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• ASP.NET Web Forms is bad, or what am I missing?

  - by iveqy

  Being a PHP guy myself I recently had to write a spider to an asp.net site. I was really surprised by the different approach to ajax and form-handling. For example, in the PHP sites I've worked with, a deletion of a database entry would be something like: GET delete.php?id=&confirm=yes and get a "success" back in some form (in the ajax case, probably a json reply). In this asp.net application you would instead post a form, including all inputs on the page, with a huge __VIEWSTATE and __EVENTVALIDATION. This would be more than 10 times as big as above. The reply would be the complete side again, with a footer containing some structured data for javascript to parse and display the result. Again, the whole page is sent, and then throwed away(?) since it's already displayed. Why not just send the footer with the data to parse (it's not json nor xml but a | separated list). I really can't see why you would design a system that way. Usually you've a fast client, and a somewhat fast server but a really slow connection. Why not keep the datatransfer to a minimum? Why those huge __VIEWSTATE and __EVENTVALIDATION? It seems that everything is done way to chatty and way to complicated. I really can't see the point and that usually means that I'm missing something. So please tell me, what are the reasons for this design and what benefits (and weaknesses) does it have? (Yes I know that __VIEWSTATE is used to tell what type of form-konfiguration should be sent back to the server. But WHY is this needed?) Please keep this discussion strictly technical and avoid flamewars. Update: Please excuse the somewhat rantish question. I tried to explain my view to be able to get a better answer. I am not saying that asp.net is bad, I am saying that I don't understand the meaning of those concepts. Usually that means that I've things to learn instead of the concepts beeing wrong. I appreciate the explanations about that "you don't have to do this way in asp.net", I'll read up on MVC and other .net technologies. However, there most be a reason for this site (the one I referred to) to be written the way it is. It's written by professionals for a big organisation with far more experience than what I've. Any explanation about their (possible) design choice would be welcome.

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• The Uganda .NET Usergroup meeting for January 2011 - a look back.

  - by Malisa L. Ncube

  We had a very interesting meeting on Friday 28th last week. We had 10 attendees and two speakers. The first topic presented was Cloud Computing, presented by Allan Rwakatungu @arwakatungu who works with MTN Uganda. He gave a very brilliant outline of how Cloud computing and service oriented applications had begun changing the platform for operating business and the costs it saves because of scalability and elasticity. He went on to demonstrate the steps you would take if you are beginning a new Windows Azure project. He explained the history and evolution of the Windows Azure, SQL Azure and cloud services offered by Amazon and google.com. The attendees had many questions to ask (obviously), but they were all answered very well. We once again thank Allan, for taking time to prepare the presentation and demonstrating for us. We recorded a video on the entire presentation and after doing some editing we will publish it. One wish which was echoed by most members was that Microsoft should open the cloud services and development for Africa. Microsoft currently does not even have servers here in Africa and so far, that does not put African developers in the same platform as other developers in other continents. Now is the time considering the improvements in network speeds and joining of the Seacom network and broadband.   I presented on Parallelism and Multithreading using .NET 4.0, I also gave some details on the language changes in C# 5.0 and the async keyword and the TaskEx class. I explained the Task, Scheduling of parallel tasks and demonstrated problems that may arise from using parallelism inappropriately. I also demonstrated the performance improvements that may be achieved by taking advantage of multi-core processors. You may download the presentation on Parallelism and Multi-threading from here. The resolution of the meeting was that we should meet more than once a month and begin other activities which should be more fun. e.g. Geek Dinner, Geek Beer or CodeCamp. Based on that we all agreed we shall have a mid-month meeting starting from February. Cheers folks! del.icio.us Tags: .net,usergroup,cloud computing,parallelism,multi-threading

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• How do I make this rendering thread run together with the main one?

  - by funk

  I'm developing an Android game and need to show an animation of an exploding bomb. It's a spritesheet with 1 row and 13 different images. Each image should be displayed in sequence, 200 ms apart. There is one Thread running for the entire game: package com.android.testgame; import android.graphics.Canvas; public class GameLoopThread extends Thread { static final long FPS = 10; // 10 Frames per Second private final GameView view; private boolean running = false; public GameLoopThread(GameView view) { this.view = view; } public void setRunning(boolean run) { running = run; } @Override public void run() { long ticksPS = 1000 / FPS; long startTime; long sleepTime; while (running) { Canvas c = null; startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); try { c = view.getHolder().lockCanvas(); synchronized (view.getHolder()) { view.onDraw(c); } } finally { if (c != null) { view.getHolder().unlockCanvasAndPost(c); } } sleepTime = ticksPS - (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime); try { if (sleepTime > 0) { sleep(sleepTime); } else { sleep(10); } } catch (Exception e) {} } } } As far as I know I would have to create a second Thread for the bomb. package com.android.testgame; import android.graphics.Bitmap; import android.graphics.Canvas; import android.graphics.Rect; public class Bomb { private final Bitmap bmp; private final int width; private final int height; private int currentFrame = 0; private static final int BMPROWS = 1; private static final int BMPCOLUMNS = 13; private int x = 0; private int y = 0; public Bomb(GameView gameView, Bitmap bmp) { this.width = bmp.getWidth() / BMPCOLUMNS; this.height = bmp.getHeight() / BMPROWS; this.bmp = bmp; x = 250; y = 250; } private void update() { currentFrame++; new BombThread().start(); } public void onDraw(Canvas canvas) { update(); int srcX = currentFrame * width; int srcY = height; Rect src = new Rect(srcX, srcY, srcX + width, srcY + height); Rect dst = new Rect(x, y, x + width, y + height); canvas.drawBitmap(bmp, src, dst, null); } class BombThread extends Thread { @Override public void run() { try { sleep(200); } catch(InterruptedException e){ } } } } The Threads would then have to run simultaneously. How do I do this?

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• Cloud Computing: Start with the problem

  - by BuckWoody

  At one point in my life I would build my own computing system for home use. I wanted a particular video card, a certain set of drives, and a lot of memory. Not only could I not find those things in a vendor’s pre-built computer, but those were more expensive – by a lot. As time moved on and the computing industry matured, I actually find that I can buy a vendor’s system as cheaply – and in some cases far more cheaply – than I can build it myself.   This paradigm holds true for almost any product, even clothing and furniture. And it’s also held true for software… Mostly. If you need an office productivity package, you simply buy one or use open-sourced software for that. There’s really no need to write your own Word Processor – it’s kind of been done a thousand times over. Even if you need a full system for customer relationship management or other needs, you simply buy one. But there is no “cloud solution in a box”.  Sure, if you’re after “Software as a Service” – type solutions, like being able to process video (Windows Azure Media Services) or running a Pig or Hive job in Hadoop (Hadoop on Windows Azure) you can simply use one of those, or if you just want to deploy a Virtual Machine (Windows Azure Virtual Machines) you can get that, but if you’re looking for a solution to a problem your organization has, you may need to mix Software, Infrastructure, and perhaps even Platforms (such as Windows Azure Computing) to solve the issue. It’s all about starting from the problem-end first. We’ve become so accustomed to looking for a box of software that will solve the problem, that we often start with the solution and try to fit it to the problem, rather than the other way around.  When I talk with my fellow architects at other companies, one of the hardest things to get them to do is to ignore the technology for a moment and describe what the issues are. It’s interesting to monitor the conversation and watch how many times we deviate from the problem into the solution. So, in your work today, try a little experiment: watch how many times you go after a problem by starting with the solution. Tomorrow, make a conscious effort to reverse that. You might be surprised at the results.

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• Wired and Wireless Network Issues with PPPoE

  - by user9054

  down vote favorite Hi Friends, I have got this issue with Ubuntu 10.10. I have been with ubuntu 8.04 and then decided to try out ubuntu 10.10 . I booted with a LiveCD and was able to configure the wireless network painlessly using the livecd. So happily i installed ubuntu 10.10. As soon as ubuntu came up it detected the wireless network and i was able to assign a static IP to eth1 (i dont use DHCP option on my ADSL router) and enter a wap key and use pppoeconf to configure the dialer. The net was on and i was able to surf the net. All hunky dory so far. However on the next boot the fun started. It did not detect the wireless network. I could not see the network manager icon in the systray. I used ifconfig and saw that the entry for eth1 was missing. I used ifup eth1 and it said that eth1 was already up . Then i installed wifi-radar. Wifi-Radar detected the wireless network. I configured wifi-radar for the detected wireless network , set the wap driver as wext and used the manual IP settings. However on clicking connect wifi-radar started looking for a DHCP IP , needless to say it failed. For the love of god i cannot understand why wifi-radar is using DHCP when i have specified manual settings . Next i decided to use the wired network to surf the net looking for a solution . So i plugged in the network cable from my modem , it detected the plugged in connection , i configured eth0 , used pppoeconf and connected to the net. Then i foolishly decided to reboot my PC. And wonders of wonders , the same problem appeared. I cannot see eth0 in my ifconfig anymore. I used pon to start the dsl-provider connection and it said something about network error or something . Now my ifconfig shows only lo , both eth0 and eth1 have disappeared. Can anybody help me on this ? Is it a problem with ipv6 , if so how do you disable ipv6 on ubuntu 10.10 ? OR is this is a known issue with ubuntu 10.10 ? PS : 1) i tried linux mint 10 and had the same issue. On rebooting wireless network was not getting detected . 2) i have made myself the administrator so that there is no issue of rights or anything. Any help is appreciated.

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• How is programming affected by spatial aptitude?

  - by natli

  The longer I work on a project, the less clear it becomes. It's like I cannot seperate various classes/objects anymore in my head. Everything starts mixing up, and it's extremely hard to take it all apart again. I start putting functions in classes where they really don't belong, and make silly mistakes such as writing code that I later find was 100% obsolete; things are no longer clearly mappable in my head. It isn't until I take a step back for several hours (or days somtimes!) that I can actually see what's going on again, and be productive. I usually try to fight through this, I am so passionate about coding that I wouldn't for the life of me know what else I could be doing. This is when stuff can get really weird, I get so up in my head that I sort of lose touch with reality (to some extent) in that various actions, such as pouring a glass of water, no longer happen on a concious level. It happens on auto pilot, during which pretty much all of my concious concentration (is that even a thing?) is devoted to borderline pointless problem solving (trying to seperate elements of code). It feels like a losing battle. So I took an IQ test a while ago (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale I believe it was) and it turned out my Spatial Aptitude was quite low. I still got a decent score, just above average, so I won't have to poke things with a stick for a living, but I am a little worried that this is such a handicap when writing/engineering computer programs that I won't ever be able to do it seriously or professionally. I am very much interested in what other people think of this.. could a low spatial aptitude be the cause of the above described problems? Maybe I should be looking more along the lines of ADD or something similar, because I did get diagnosed with ADD at the age of 17 (5 years ago) but the medicine I received didn't seem to affect me that much so I never took it all that serious. Sorry if I got a little off topic there, I know this is not a mental help board, the question should be clear; How is programming affected by spatial aptitude? As far as I know people are born with low/med/high spatial aptitude, so I think it's interesting to find out if the more fortunate are better programmers by birth right.

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• Auto-run script when iPad plugged in

  - by oldmankit

  The way that Ubuntu handles documents on the iPad is awesome (without any configuration required). It beats windows, even after you install iTunes. I want to have the documents in certain iPad apps automatically synced into my Dropbox directory whenever the iPad is connected by USB. The syncing is easy; getting the script to run is not. I have already read the information in various (very out-of-date) tutorials. The best I could find was here: http://askubuntu.com/a/25091/16157 I used lsusb, with the following results: Bus 002 Device 012: ID 05ac:12a2 Apple, Inc. (Please note that when an iPad is connected, Ubuntu seems to mount it to two different mount points: one for "Documents" and one for the whole iPad filesystem. They are both mounted in ~/.gvfs) I have created the following file /etc/udev/rules.d/96-ipad_sync.rules ACTION=="add", ATTRS{idVendor}=="05ac", ATTRS{idProduct}=="12a2", RUN+="/home/kit/bin/jobdone2" I want it to run a test script (which sleeps for five seconds then plays an mp3 file. The test script works, and I have typed the location correctly). So far, when I plug the iPad in, nothing happens. Yes, I waited five seconds. This is the output I get from typing udevadm monitor –env KERNEL[29348.114010] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4 (usb) KERNEL[29348.114844] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0 (usb) KERNEL[29348.129118] remove /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0 (usb) KERNEL[29348.130699] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:4.0 (usb) KERNEL[29348.130845] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:4.1 (usb) KERNEL[29348.130909] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:4.2 (usb) UDEV [29348.163861] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4 (usb) UDEV [29348.170390] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0 (usb) UDEV [29348.171521] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:4.1 (usb) UDEV [29348.172230] remove /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0 (usb) UDEV [29348.172890] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:4.2 (usb) UDEV [29348.175645] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:4.0 (usb)

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• Would someone please explain Octree Collisions to me?

  - by A-Type

  I've been reading everything I can find on the subject and I feel like the pieces are just about to fall into place, but I just can't quite get it. I'm making a space game, where collisions will occur between planets, ships, asteroids, and the sun. Each of these objects can be subdivided into 'chunks', which I have implemented to speed up rendering (the vertices can and will change often at runtime, so I've separated the buffers). These subdivisions also have bounding primitives to test for collision. All of these objects are made of blocks (yeah, it's that kind of game). Blocks can also be tested for rough collisions, though they do not have individual bounding primitives for memory reasons. I think the rough testing seems to be sufficient, though. So, collision needs to be fairly precise; at block resolution. Some functions rely on two blocks colliding. And, of course, attacking specific blocks is important. Now what I am struggling with is filtering my collision pairs. As I said, I've read a lot about Octrees, but I'm having trouble applying it to my situation as many tutorials are vague with very little code. My main issues are: Are Octrees recalculated each frame, or are they stored in memory and objects are shuffled into different divisions as they move? Despite all my reading I still am not clear on this... the vagueness of it all has been frustrating. How far do Octrees subdivide? Planets in my game are quite large, while asteroids are smaller. Do I subdivide to the size of the planet, or asteroid (where planet is in multiple divisions)? Or is the limit something else entirely, like number of elements in the division? Should I load objects into the octrees as 'chunks' or in the whole, then break into chunks later? This could be specific to my implementation, I suppose. I was going to ask about how big my root needed to be, but I did manage to find this question, and the second answer seems sufficient for me. I'm afraid I don't really get what he means by adding new nodes and doing subdivisions upon adding new objects, probably because I'm confused about whether the tree is maintained in memory or recalculated per-frame.

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• How to discriminate from two nodes with identical frequencies in a Huffman's tree?

  - by Omega

  Still on my quest to compress/decompress files with a Java implementation of Huffman's coding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_coding) for a school assignment. From the Wikipedia page, I quote: Create a leaf node for each symbol and add it to the priority queue. While there is more than one node in the queue: Remove the two nodes of highest priority (lowest probability) from the queue Create a new internal node with these two nodes as children and with probability equal to the sum of the two nodes' probabilities. Add the new node to the queue. The remaining node is the root node and the tree is complete. Now, emphasis: Remove the two nodes of highest priority (lowest probability) from the queue Create a new internal node with these two nodes as children and with probability equal to the sum of the two nodes' probabilities. So I have to take two nodes with the lowest frequency. What if there are multiple nodes with the same low frequency? How do I discriminate which one to use? The reason I ask this is because Wikipedia has this image: And I wanted to see if my Huffman's tree was the same. I created a file with the following content: aaaaeeee nnttmmiihhssfffouxprl And this was the result: Doesn't look so bad. But there clearly are some differences when multiple nodes have the same frequency. My questions are the following: What is Wikipedia's image doing to discriminate the nodes with the same frequency? Is my tree wrong? (Is Wikipedia's image method the one and only answer?) I guess there is one specific and strict way to do this, because for our school assignment, files that have been compressed by my program should be able to be decompressed by other classmate's programs - so there must be a "standard" or "unique" way to do it. But I'm a bit lost with that. My code is rather straightforward. It literally just follows Wikipedia's listed steps. The way my code extracts the two nodes with the lowest frequency from the queue is to iterate all nodes and if the current node has a lower frequency than any of the two "smallest" known nodes so far, then it replaces the highest one. Just like that.

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• Blender to 3ds max to cal3d format

  - by Kaliber64

  There are quite a few questions on cal3d but they are old and don't apply anymore. In Blender(must be 2.49a for python script to work!!!): I have a scene with 7 meshes, 1 armature, 10 bones. I tried going to one mesh to simplify it but doesn't change anything. I found a small blend file that was used for cal3d and it exported just fine. So I tried to copy it's setup with no success. EDIT*8/13/2012 In the last week here is what I have found so far. I made the mesh in the newest blender(2.62?) and exported it to import it in the old one(2.49a). Did an animation in the old one because importing new blend files to old blenders, its just said it would lose keyframe data and all was good. And then you get the last problem of it not exporting meshes. BUT I found that meshes made in the old one export regardless. I can't find any that won't export. So if I used the old blender to remake my model I could get it to export :) At this point I found a modified release of cal3d (because the most core model variable would not initiate as I made a really small test subject in old blender instead of remaking my big one which took 4 hours.) which fixes the morph objects and adds what cal3d left off with. Under their license they have to release the modification but it has no documentation so I have to figure it out on my own. Its mostly the same. But with this lib it came with a 3ds max exporter. My question now is how do I transfer armature and mesh information from blender to 3ds max in order to export into cal3d format. Every time I try the models are see through and small and there are no bones. The formats I have tried to import are .3ds .obj(mesh only) and COLLADA. In all of them the mesh is invisible and no bones. It says the default texture is on so I should be able to see it. All the vertices are present I found a vertex highlighter so I can see those. If any of this is confusing let me know so I can clear it up. Its late .<=sleep.

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• SEO to ensure visibility for a narrow, non-competitive, non-commercial site

  - by hen3ry

  I'm webmaster of a non-commercial site in English. A non-native-English speaker asked me why our site doesn't produce hits in Google searches she conducts for relevant keywords in her native language. I asked her for a list of keywords in her native language, and I naively tried inserting those into the META info in the page headers and waited a couple of weeks. No help. A little searching informed me that Google doesn't use the META info, and has not done so for a very long time. D'oh! To be entirely concrete, suppose the StackExchange folks want Russian speakers to find this site, Pro Webmasters. The direct translation in Russian of "webmaster" --thanks, Google Translator-- is: "?????????". (Not sure this will render properly, but that's not essential to my question.) Assuming Pro Webmasters has a common template for all pages it generates, inserting "?????????" into the Keywords META for that template won't help, it seems. What could StackExchange do to make this site visible to users searching with the Russian keyword "?????????" ? Pretty much all the advice I've seen boils down to this, if I understand correctly: use the desired search term often (but not too often) among site content, and the problem will be solved. That's great, but I don't think sprinkling "?????????" visibly all over Pro Webmasters is going to fly. Just for completeness, crawlers must be long immune to the invisible-to-visitors scheme, e.g, format "?????????" in a tiny text size in a color the same as an existing background, e.g. white-over-white. Or, put that text inside a div styled: ' style="visibility: hidden" '. Probably some other equivalents. I can only think of one slightly effective method, along these lines: place an unobtrusive link on the common template to a page titled "for international users" , and on that page list desired synonyms for "webmaster" in various languages on that page. A test case --admittedly, just one-- using my site implies that a Google search for "international users" ????????? will produce a hit for this page, and thus make the site minimally visible, despite the fact that the page will almost never be visited. At the moment, anyway. Note: All the SEO discussions I have found so far are about competitive and --almost certainly-- commercial sites. To repeat: my site is non-commercial, and it is about an obscure, narrow topic that is of interest to only a small number of people worldwide. This isn't about clawing our way to the top of competitive rankings, just making this content minimally visible to interested non-native-English speakers. Ideas? TIA

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• SQL: empty string vs NULL value

  - by Jacek Prucia

  I know this subject is a bit controversial and there are a lot of various articles/opinions floating around the internet. Unfortunatelly, most of them assume the person doesn't know what the difference between NULL and empty string is. So they tell stories about surprising results with joins/aggregates and generally do a bit more advanced SQL lessons. By doing this, they absolutely miss the whole point and are therefore useless for me. So hopefully this question and all answers will move subject a bit forward. Let's suppose I have a table with personal information (name, birth, etc) where one of the columns is an email address with varchar type. We assume that for some reason some people might not want to provide an email address. When inserting such data (without email) into the table, there are two available choices: set cell to NULL or set it to empty string (''). Let's assume that I'm aware of all the technical implications of choosing one solution over another and I can create correct SQL queries for either scenario. The problem is even when both values differ on the technical level, they are exactly the same on logical level. After looking at NULL and '' I came to a single conclusion: I don't know email address of the guy. Also no matter how hard i tried, I was not able to sent an e-mail using either NULL or empty string, so apparently most SMTP servers out there agree with my logic. So i tend to use NULL where i don't know the value and consider empty string a bad thing. After some intense discussions with colleagues i came with two questions: am I right in assuming that using empty string for an unknown value is causing a database to "lie" about the facts? To be more precise: using SQL's idea of what is value and what is not, I might come to conclusion: we have e-mail address, just by finding out it is not null. But then later on, when trying to send e-mail I'll come to contradictory conclusion: no, we don't have e-mail address, that @!#$ Database must have been lying! Is there any logical scenario in which an empty string '' could be such a good carrier of important information (besides value and no value), which would be troublesome/inefficient to store by any other way (like additional column). I've seen many posts claiming that sometimes it's good to use empty string along with real values and NULLs, but so far haven't seen a scenario that would be logical (in terms of SQL/DB design). P.S. Some people will be tempted to answer, that it is just a matter of personal taste. I don't agree. To me it is a design decision with important consequences. So i'd like to see answers where opion about this is backed by some logical and/or technical reasons.

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• Grub rescue - error: unknown filesystem

  - by user53817

  I have a multiboot system set up. The system has three drives. Multiboot is configured with Windows XP, Windows 7, and Ubuntu - all on the first drive. I had a lot of unpartitioned space left on the drive and was reserving it for adding other OSes and for storing files there in the future. One day I went ahead and downloaded Partition Wizard and created a logical NTFS partition from within Windows 7, still some unpartitioned space left over. Everything worked fine, until I rebooted the computer a few days later. Now I'm getting: error: unknown filesystem. grub rescue First of all I was surprised not to find any kind of help command, by trying: help, ?, man, --help, -h, bash, cmd, etc. Now I'm stuck with non-bootable system. I have started researching the issue and finding that people usually recommend to boot to a Live CD and fix the issue from there. Is there a way to fix this issue from within grub rescue without the need for Live CD? UPDATE By following the steps from persist commands typed to grub rescue, I was able to boot to initramfs prompt. But not anywhere further than that. So far from reading the manual on grub rescue, I was able to see my drives and partitions using ls command. For the first hard drive I see the following: (hd0) (hd0,msdos6) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1) I now know that (hd0,msdos6) contains Linux on it, since ls (hd0,msdos6)/ lists directories. Others will give "error: unknown filesystem." UPDATE 2 After the following commands I am now getting to the boot menu and can boot into Windows 7 and Ubuntu, but upon reboot I have to repeat these steps. ls ls (hd0,msdos6)/ set root=(hd0,msdos6) ls / set prefix=(hd0,msdos6)/boot/grub insmod /boot/grub/linux.mod normal UPDATE 3 Thanks Shashank Singh, with your instructions I have simplified my steps to the following. I have learned from you that I can replace msdos6 with just a 6 and that I can just do insmod normal instead of insmod /boot/grub/linux.mod. Now I just need to figure out how to save this settings from within grub itself, without booting into any OS. set root=(hd0,6) set prefix=(hd0,6)/boot/grub insmod normal normal UPDATE 4 Well, it seems like it is a requirement to boot into Linux. After booting into Ubuntu I have performed the following steps described in the manual: sudo update-grub udo grub-install /dev/sda This did not resolve the issue. I still get the grub rescue prompt. What do I need to do to permanently fix it? I have also learned that drive numbers as in hd0 need to be translated to drive letters as in /dev/sda for some commands. hd1 would be sdb, hd2 would be sdc, and so on. Partitions listed in grub as (hd0,msdos6) would be translated to /dev/sda6.

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• Microsoft BUILD 2013&ndash;Day 1 Summary

  - by Tim Murphy

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/microsoft-build-2013ndashday-1-summary.aspx I’m happy to be at BUILD this week, mainly because my flights finally got me here late on Tuesday.  My biggest complaints so far are the flights and the hotel.  It seems that almost every flight into San Francisco were delayed multiple hours.  The Sequester so lovingly forced on America by congress means that the airport was short controllers.   That, along with poor weather and airport construction meant most people were 2-3 hours late arriving.  Add on top of that the fact that the hotel that I picked durring registration is absolutely horrid.  It looks like something out of a ghost hunters show and smells like it too.  I think if Microsoft is going to select a hotel they need to make sure that it is adequate. Rant over! So what happened the first day?  Steve Balmer started off the keynote along with Julie Larson-Green and a cast of others.  We finally found out that there were around six thousand people attending BUILD and that the focus this year would be Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Azure.  For the rest of the keynote I am going to have a separate post. You can’t have a Microsoft conference without some fun.  This year they have a hunt for pins that represent different gestures in Windows 8.  I got all of mine.  Now they just need to pull my name. The sessions I attended were really good. They covered live tiles, what’s new in XAML and building Windows Phone UIs presented by Kraig Brockschmidt, Tim Heuer and Shawn Oster respectively.  These will also be covered in separate posts. The exhibit area was interesting, but somewhat disappointing.  TechEd 2012 I think was better organized and better staffed by the vendors.  It also seemed that the Microsoft teams’ booths were also in need of some organization and staffing. Overall it was a really fun day capped off by all six thousand attendees standing in like to get their Acer 8” tables and Surface Pros.  What a day!  Stay tuned for follow up posts. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013,Windows 8.1,Winodws Phone,XAML,Keynote

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

  - by BuckWoody

  Last Updated: 02/01/2011 It’s time for another certification, and we’ve just release the 70-583 exam on Windows Azure. I’ve blogged my “study plans” here before on other certifications, so I thought I would do the same for this one. I’ll also need to take exam 70-513 and 70-516; but I’ll post my notes on those separately. None of these are “brain dumps” or any questions from the actual tests - just the books, links and notes I have from my studies. I’ll update these references as I’m studying, so bookmark this site and watch my Twitter and Facebook posts for when I’ll update them, or just subscribe to the RSS feed. A “Green” color on the check-block means I’ve done that part so far, red means I haven’t. First, I need to refresh my memory on some basic coding, so along with the Azure-specific information I’m reading the following general programming books: Introducing Microsoft .NET (Pro-Developer): link   Head First C#, 2E: A Learner's Guide to Real-World Programming with Visual C# and .NET: link Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Step by Step: link  c The first place to start is at the official site for the certification. link c On that page you’ll find several resources, and the first you should follow is the “Save to my learning” so you have a place to track everything. Then click the “Related Learning Plans” link and follow the videos and read the documentation in each of those bullets. There are six areas on the learning plan that you should focus on - make sure you open the learning plan to drill into the specifics. c Designing Data Storage Architecture (18%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Optimizing Data Access and Messaging (17%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Designing the Application Architecture (19%) Books I’m Reading: Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform: link Links: My Notes: c Preparing for Application and Service Deployment (15%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Investigating and Analyzing Applications (16%) Books I’m Reading: Links: My Notes: c Designing Integrated Solutions (15%) Books I’m Reading: Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform (2nd mention) Links: My Notes:

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• Should I install ubuntu on USB instead of HDD dual-boot?

  - by user2147243

  I had Ubuntu 12.04 installed as dual-boot OS on top of Vista on my laptop. Hacked the grub settings to default to Vista (instead of the default Ubuntu -- pain) on startup, and all was OK for occasional Ubuntu use for past 6 months. Then last week I got a strange message about 'lack of disk space' (~50MB free) when installing pxyplot, even though there was still about 6GB free disk space when I checked later. Then today the Ubuntu wouldn't load at all, and checking the HDD partitions in Vista it looked like the 15GB Ubuntu partition was now three smaller partitions! So, I got rid of those partitions and expanded the Vista partition to use the reclaimed space. Now can't restart ('grub rescue' appears and doesn't 'rescue' anything), so I'll have to do a boot recovery using a Vista installation CD. (Not a particularly user-friendly failure mode of the dual-boot installation!) I now have to decide to either a) try installing ubuntu on the HDD again, but don't want to stuff up my Vista ever again, as that is my most used OS, or b) install Ubuntu on a 16GB USB 3.0 stick. Apparently performance from USB won't be as good as from HDD, and running OS from USB stick does lots of r/w so the stick may fail after a few years! Perhaps installing Ubuntu on live USB and setup to then run in RAM would alleviate the performance/USB lifespan problems? If I create a live-USB for Ubuntu OS, will it boot off that when I restart the laptop with it plugged in? Or will I have to change the laptop setting for boot-order whenever I want to boot Ubuntu instead of Vista (that would be even more painful than the grub default boot order putting Ubuntu ahead of the existing Vista OS!) -- update: I recovered my Vista setup using Iolo SystemMechanic Disaster Recovery Tool, and created a bootable USB of Ubuntu 13.10 on an 8GB USB3.0 pendrive, with 4GB of 'persistence' to allow saving of settings, install some packages etc. It worked OK for a couple of test boots, but once I changed the time and desktop wallpaper, the next Ubuntu reboot crashed and I then couldn't get it to boot successfully. So I decided to install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS as a dual-boot again, but this time instead of partitioning the HDD and installing from an ISO DVD I used the wubi.exe tool to install Ubuntu as a dual-boot. Worked very well, although one oddity was that, despite asking how big the make the partition (20GB), the installed Ubuntu appears to be happily installed somewhere within the Vista NTFS file system (no partition shows up in Windows disk manager, and in Ubuntu disk management tool the entire 133 GB of HDD is showing, with ~40GB free space). A nice feature of installing the dual-boot using wubi is that the laptop now uses Windows boot manager on startup, with Vista as the default OS and Ubuntu happily listed as second on the list. So far so good.

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• Randomly generate directed graph on a grid

  - by Talon876

  I am trying to randomly generate a directed graph for the purpose of making a puzzle game similar to the ice sliding puzzles from Pokemon. This is essentially what I want to be able to randomly generate: http://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Crunching_the_numbers:_Graph_theory. I need to be able to limit the size of the graph in an x and y dimension. In the example given in the link, it would be restricted to an 8x4 grid. The problem I am running into is not randomly generating the graph, but randomly generating a graph, which I can properly map out in a 2d space, since I need something (like a rock) on the opposite side of a node, to make it visually make sense when you stop sliding. The problem with this is that sometimes the rock ends up in the path between two other nodes or possibly on another node itself, which causes the entire graph to become broken. After discussing the problem with a few people I know, we came to a couple of conclusions that may lead to a solution. Including the obstacles in the grid as part of the graph when constructing it. Start out with a fully filled grid and just draw a random path and delete out blocks that will make that path work. The problem then becomes figuring out which ones to delete to avoid introducing an additional, shorter path. We were also thinking a dynamic programming algorithm may be beneficial, though none of us are too skilled with creating dynamic programming algorithms from nothing. Any ideas or references about what this problem is officially called (if it's an official graph problem) would be most helpful. Here are some examples of what I have accomplished so far by just randomly placing blocks and generating the navigation graph from the chosen start/finish. The idea (as described in the previous link) is you start at the green S and want to get to the green F. You do this by moving up/down/left/right and you continue moving in the direction chosen until you hit a wall. In these pictures, grey is a wall, white is the floor, and the purple line is the minimum length from start to finish, and the black lines and grey dots represented possible paths. Here are some bad examples of randomly generated graphs: http://i.stack.imgur.com/9uaM6.png Here are some good examples of randomly generated (or hand tweaked) graphs: i.stack.imgur.com/uUGeL.png (can't post another link, sorry) I've also seemed to notice the more challenging ones when actually playing this as a puzzle are ones which have lots of high degree nodes along the minimum path.

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