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• AMR's 2010 Supply Chain Top 25 Report: Early Predictions

  - by [email protected]

  On April 6th, AMR's Debra Hoffman and Kevin O'Marah presented their annual 'Top 25 Supply Chain' predictions.  For supply chain professionals, it was a 'must-hear' event especially with the new focus on both operational excellence as well as innovation excellence.  Most people think of R&D as the primary driver for innovation, but in today's 'new-normal' firms need to constantly review, evaluate and update their workflow procedures and business processes to maintian a sharp-blade on the leading edge.  Having the right tools in place to be able to monitor supply chain effectiveness becomes paramount to firms as they compete in the global marketplace. Organizations need  user-friendly and role based dashboards with early alerts to contextualize activities and post the best-options for managers to make better and more informed decisions. 2009 Winners were 1.Apple 2.Dell 3.P&G 4.IBM 5.Cisco 6.Nokia 7. Walmart 8.Samsung 9.PepsiCo 10.Toyota 11.Schulmberger 12. J&J 13.Coke 14. Nike 15.Tesco 16.Disney 17.HP 18.TI 19.LockheedMartin 20.Colgate 21.BestBuy 22.Unilever 23.Publix 24.SonyEricsson 25.Intel    

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• Oracle OpenWorld Preview: Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  Originally posted by Jake Kuramoto on The Apps Lab blog. Noel (@noelportugal) and I have been working on something new for OpenWorld (@oracleopenworld) for quite some time, and today, I got the final approvals to go ahead with the Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge. The skinny. The Challenge is a modified hackathon, designed to run during OpenWorld and JavaOne (@javaoneconf), and attendees of both conferences are welcome to join and compete for the single prize of $500 in Amazon gift cards. There’s only one prize, so bring your A-game. The Challenge begins Sunday, September 30 at 7 PM and ends Wednesday, October 3 at 4 PM. You can and should register now, but we won’t begin approving  registrations until Sunday at 7 PM. For legal reasons, you’ll need to register with a corporate email address, not a free webmail one, e.g. Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, ISP-provided mail, etc. If you work for a competitor of Oracle, sorry but you’re not eligible. Everything you need is in the cloud, including support, but if you need help or have questions, visit office hours in the OTN Lounge in the Howard Street tent Monday, October 1 and Tuesday, October 2 4-8 PM to get help from the product team. The judging begins Wednesday, October 3 at 4 PM. To be considered for the prize, you’ll need to attend to demo your working code to the judges. Attendees with badges from either OpenWorld or JavaOne are welcome in the OTN Lounge, so you’ll need one of those too. Did I mention, register now? Be sure to check out Jake's original post for the long-winded explanations.

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• 2012 Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards for Oracle Exalogic

  - by Sanjeev Sharma

  Companies from around the world were honored for their innovative solutions using Oracle Fusion Middleware. This year’s 27 award winners, representing 11 countries and a wide span of industries, wowed the judges with a range of projects across eight product categories. 4 awards were given out to customers who demonstrated innovative application of Oracle Exalogic for their mission-critical applications.Below is an overview of the 4 businesses that won the Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Award for Oracle Exalogic this year. Company: Netshoes About: Leading online retailer of sporting goods in Latin America.Challenges: Rapid business growth resulted in frequent outages and poor response-time of online store-front Conventional ad-hoc approach to horizontal scaling resulted in high CAPEX and OPEX Poor performance and unavailability of online store-front resulted in revenue loss from purchase abandonment Solution: Consolidated ATG Commerce and Oracle WebLogic running on Oracle Exalogic.Business Impact:Reduced abandonment rates resulting in a two-digit increase in online conversion rates translating directly into revenue up-liftCompany: ClaroAbout: Leading communications services provider in Latin America.Challenges: Support business growth over the next 3  - 5 years while maximizing re-use of existing middleware and application investments with minimal effort and risk Solution: Consolidated Oracle Fusion Middleware components (Oracle WebLogic, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Tuxedo) and JAVA applications onto Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata. Business Impact:Improved partner SLA’s 7x while improving throughput 5X and response-time 35x for  JAVA applicationsCompany: ULAbout: Leading safety testing and certification organization in the world.Challenges: Transition from being a non-profit to a profit oriented enterprise and grow from a $1B to $5B in annual revenues in the next 5 years Undertake a massive business transformation by aligning change strategy with execution Solution: Consolidated Oracle Applications (E-Business Suite, Siebel, BI, Hyperion) and Oracle Fusion Middleware (AIA, SOA Suite) on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle ExadataBusiness Impact:Reduced financial and operating risk in re-architecting IT services to support new business capabilities supporting 87,000 manufacturersCompany: Ingersoll RandAbout: Leading manufacturer of industrial, climate, residential and security solutions.Challenges: Business continuity risks due to complexity in enforcing consistent operational and financial controls; Re-active business decisions reduced ability to offer differentiation and compete Solution: Consolidated Oracle E-business Suite on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle ExadataBusiness Impact:Service differentiation with faster order provisioning and a shorter lead-to-cash cycle translating into higher customer satisfaction and quicker cash-conversionCheck out the winners of the Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation awards in other categories here.

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• Oracle SOA Suite, the Most Capable Tool for Every Possible Integration Challenge

  - by Demed L'Her

  session ID: CON8601 - when: Monday, Oct. 1, 10:45am-11:45am - where: Moscone South 102 "Oracle SOA Suite, the Most Capable Tool for Every Possible Integration Challenge" is the name of the session I will be delivering at Oracle OpenWorld this year. I'm usually going for more subdued titles but decided to remove the gloves this year, at the risk of sounding arrogant! While we have a number of worthy competitors in various areas of integration no one can really compete with the breadth and reliability of Oracle SOA Suite. This session is primarily intended for people who are not yet familiar with Oracle SOA Suite (i.e. if you are an existing customer your time might be better spent at some of the other sessions we have on the topic). I will provide an overview of Oracle SOA Suite, the customers using it and the types of challenges they are solving with it: from integrating Oracle Applications (E-Business Suite, Siebel, PeopleSoft, RightNow, Taleo etc.) to third-party applications (did you know that over a third of our customers actually use us to integrate SAP?), mainframes and a variety of technologies. We will talk about some emerging trends and problems that our users are solving with the product: cloud integration, B2B consolidation and mobile-enablement. I will also briefly touch upon the exciting projects we are doing with Oracle Event Processing, in the domain of "Fast Data" and "Big Data". Last but not least, I will be joined on stage by Venktesh Maudgalya, Director at Electronic Arts. Venktesh will bring his customer perspective and explain how EA leveraged Oracle SOA Suite to implement iHub, the massive integration hub that interconnects all their applications (E-BusinessSuite, Hyperion, Demantra, Peoplesoft, Salesforce.com, Kronos, Teradata, GXS etc.) and carries 3/4 of their revenue flows. I just picked up my badge and will be kicking off the festivities tomorrow talking to partners in a pre-OOW briefing at the Oracle Headquarters - see you next week! PS: if you're going to tweet about Oracle SOA Suite next week please make sure to use the #oraclesoa and #oow hashtags so that we can track and amplify your tweets!

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• Pricing: Meet or Beat?

  - by charles.knapp

  My home dishwasher started making some really interesting noises. I heard radio advertisements from two retailers who promised to meet any competitor's price. Then, I heard another retailer promising that their everyday prices beat their competitors. That got me to thinking about the power of pricing and promotions in the marketing mix (product, price, placement, promotions, and people). What is more powerful to say in a competitive market: your company will meet a similar offer, or your company will beat the others? Will you sell more if you meet or if you beat? I found that the retailer who promised to beat the others really had the best everyday pricing. Even better for me, another retailer had an exclusive promotional sale for long-term customers. Their loyalty promotion beat the best everyday discounter. So, I got the quality and performance I wanted at a tremendous price. So, I have two challenges for marketers. First, where you really have to compete on price as a dominant factor, give people strong reasons to do business with you. If you try to meet other's prices, make the leap to actually beat and not merely meet. Second, upgrade your firm's capabilities where needed. Oracle offers a complete range of great CRM software for loyalty management, marketing promotions, and pricing management that will help you to grow your business.

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• Pricing: Meet or Beat?

  - by charles.knapp

  My home dishwasher started making some really interesting noises. It was time to shop. I heard radio advertisements from two retailers who promised to meet any competitor's price. Then, another retailer promised that their everyday prices beat their competitors. That got me to thinking about the power of pricing and promotions in the marketing mix (product, price, placement, promotions, and people). What is more powerful to say in a competitive market: your company will meet a similar offer, or your company will beat the others? Will you sell more if you meet or if you beat? I found that the retailer who promised to beat the others really had the best everyday pricing. I was close to making a purchase. Then, another retailer had an exclusive promotional sale for long-term customers. Their loyalty promotion beat the best everyday discounter. So, I got the quality and performance I wanted at a tremendous price. So, I have two challenges for marketers. First, where you really have to compete on price as a dominant factor, give people strong reasons to do business with you. If you try to meet other's prices, make the leap to actually beat and not merely meet competitor prices. Second, upgrade your firm's capabilities where needed. Oracle offers a complete range of great CRM capabilities for loyalty management, marketing promotions, and pricing management that will help you to grow your business.

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• DB2 on SPARC T3 Tuning Tips

  - by cherry.shu(at)oracle.com

  With the new self tuning feature in DB2 V9.x, a lot of database parameters are set to automatic in DB2 v9.7 by default so that DB2 can adjust the values as needed. Most should work fine without manual tweaks. But for transaction workload on SPARC T3 systems, two parameters need to be adjust manually to achieve optimal performance. DATABASE_MEMORY: When this parameter is set to AUTOMATIC and SELF_TUNING_MEM is set to ON, DB2 will allocate small page size (64KB) for all memory allocation, and expands and shrinks the memory as needed. In order to take advantage of the large page size (up to 256MB) supported by the SPARC T3, we need to manually set the size of the DATABASE_MEMORY so that DB2 can use 256MB page size for its buffer pools which are implemented as ISM segments. I know this sounds strange as it seems that you turn a switch and it ends up controlling another function. pmap(1M) output can verify the page sizes used by DB2 db2sysc process. NUM_IOCLEANERS: This parameter defines the number of page cleaners. The default value of this parameter is AUTOMATIC, which is calculated based on the number of available CPUs and the number of logical partitions. On a SPARC T3 system where there are over a hundred of virtual CPUs and single DB2 partition, DB2 would set it to #CPUs - 1. This would lead to too many page cleaners to compete flushing to disks and cause aio mutex lock contentions. So we need to decrease the value for it. The good practice is to set the value to the number of physical devices that are used by the database table space containers.

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• Policy Administration is the Top 2011 IT Priority for Insurers

  - by helen.pitts(at)oracle.com

  The current issue of Insurance Networking News includes an interesting column by Novarica's Matt Josefowicz.  Recent research by the firm revealed that policy administration replacement or extension is the most common strategic IT project for insurers this year.  The article goes on to note that insurers are keenly focused on the business capabilities that can be delivered once the system is in production as well as the ability to leverage agile development methodologies and true business/IT collaboration during implementation. The results are not too surprising given that policy administration is a mission-critical system for life and annuity insurers.  As Josefowicz notes, "Core systems are called core for a reason--they are at the heart of the insurer's ability to function.  Replacing them is not to be done lightly, but failing to replace them can mean diminishing the ability to compete or function effectively as a company." Insurers can no longer rely on inflexible policy administration systems that impede their ability to rapidly configure and bring to innovative new products, add riders, support changing business processes and take advantage of market opportunities.  The ability to leverage the policy administration systems to better service customers and distribution channels by providing real-time access to policy information throughout the policy lifecycle is also critical to sustain loyalty and further fuel growth.Insurers can benefit from a modern, adaptive policy administration system, like Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity.  You can learn more about the industry's most highly advanced, rules-based system, which is unmatched for its highly flexible, rules-based configurability, performance and extensibility, as well as global market industry trends by viewing a complimentary, on-demand Webcast, Adapt, Transform and Grow:  Accelerate Speed to Market with Adaptive Insurance Policy Administration.Data conversions can be a daunting process for many insurers when deciding to modernize, in particular when consolidating from multiple, disparate legacy policy administration systems to a single new platform.  Migrating from a legacy system requires a well-thought out approach that builds on the industry's best thinking from previous modernization efforts and takes data migration off the critical path by leveraging proven methodology and tools to capitalize on the new system's capabilities.  We'll discuss more about this approach in a future Oracle Insurance blog.Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance's life and annuities solutions.

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• How to improve Algorithmic Programming Solving skill? [closed]

  - by gaurav

  Possible Duplicate: How can I improve my problem-solving ability? How do you improve your problem solving skills? Should I learn design patterns or algorithms to improve my logical thinking skills? What to do when you're faced with a problem that you can't solve quickly? Are there non-programming related activities akin to solving programming problems? I am a computer engineering graduate. I have studied programming since three years. I am good in coding and programming. I have been trying to compete in algorithmic competitions on sites such as topcoder,spoj since one and a half year, but I am still unable to solve problems other than too easy problems. I have learned from people that it takes practice to solve such problems. I try to solve those problems but sometimes I am unable to understand and even if I do understand I am unable to think of a good algorithm for solving it. Even if I solve I get Wrong answer and I am unable to figure out what is the problem with my code as it works on samples given on the sites but fails on test cases which they do not provide. I really want to solve those problems and become good in algorithms. I have read books for learning algorithms like Introduction to algorithms by CLRS,practicing programming questions. I have gone through some questions but they don't answer this question. I have seen the questions which are said duplicates but those questions focus on overall programming, but I am asking for algorithm related programming, basically for competing in programming which involve solving a problem statement then online judge will automatically evaluate it, such type of programming is quite different from the type of programming these questions discuss.

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• Why do some bad websites rank well?

  - by BradB

  Consider the following scenario: you are pitching SEO/Website Optimisation to a prospective client and you explain to them the importance of great copy and content, how acquiring links (ethically) can increase page rank, why the quality of the HTML build matters (H1, H2 tags, w3c validation etc), why keyword research is beneficial, you may drop in a few Google Webmaster Guideline or Matt Cutts references to back up your claims and rubbish the "back hat" approach as being no longer effective for good measure. Your advice is ethical and in the eyes of best practices, spot on. Then, the client points out to you some of their long established competitors on Google and you see these competitor websites ranking in the top spots (1 to 3) for medium to highly competitive search phrases that your client wants to compete for. These websites totally contradict your ethical approach and pretty much violate every best practice previously noted. They even out perform other "white hat" competitors who are in accordance with the above guidelines. I experienced this today. One of these well ranking websites had: About six microsites with more or less the same copy and a slightly varied layout Little or not textual content I would almost say duplicate content across the sites, but there was so little of it it could barely qualify for being duplicate All the content in Flash (with a music track that kicked in on each page load, not so much of an SEO issue - but it helps paint the picture) Keyword stuffing behind the Flash file with a bunch of black text on black background in the style of keyword 1 keyword 2,keyword1,keyword 2,keyword 2 keyword 3 and so on... The exact keyword stuffed combination present on every page of the website A bunch of clearly self made links from poor quality forums and directories with little or no Page Rank Links exchanged across the microsites How do you explain your way out of this when this hard evidence is sat in front of you undermining your great pitch?

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• NRF Big Show 2011 -- Part 1

  - by David Dorf

  When Apple decided to open retail stores, they came to 360Commerce (now part of Oracle Retail) to help with the secret project. Similarly, when Disney Stores decided to reinvent itself, they also came to us for their POS system. In both cases visiting a store is an experience where sales take a backseat to entertainment, exploration, and engagement This quote from a recent Stores Magazine article says it all: "We compete based on an experience, emotion and immersion like Disney," says Neal Lassila, vice president of global information technology for Disney. "That's opposed to [competing] on price and hawking a doll for $19.99. There is no sales pressure technique." Instead, it's about delivering "a great time." While you're attending the NRF conference in New York next week, you'll definitely want to stop by the new 20,000 square-foot Disney store in Times Square. If you're not attending, you can always check out the videos to get a feel for the stores' vibe. This year we've invited Disney Stores to open a pop-up store within the Oracle Retail booth. There will be lots of items on sale that fit in your suitcase, and there's no better way to demonstrate our POS, including the mobile POS running on an iPod Touch. You should also plan to attend Tuesday morning's super-session The Magic of the Disney Store: An Immersive Retail Experience with Steve Finney. In the case of Apple and Disney, less POS is actually a good thing. In both cases it was important to make the checkout process fast and easy so as not to detract from the overall experience. There will be ample opportunities to see this play out in New York next week, so I hope you take advantage.

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• Oracle Java Olympics Between Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan

  - by Tori Wieldt

  Last month, 151 universities in 11 locations (Saint-Petersburg, Moscow, Donetsk, Tomsk, Odessa, Rostov-on-Don, Ekaterinburg, Khabarovsk, Almaty, Kiev, and Samara) competed in the second round of the Oracle Java Olympics. For two weeks in February, the best university students from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan were invited to compete with each other and prove just how good they are in Java programming.  A team of engineers from Oracle Development center in Saint-Petersburg prepared the set of problems to solve during the competition. To win, participants needed to show deep knowledge of Java technologies from Classloader and NIO to Reflection and JavaDB. Students in each location had a PC with Oracle JDK 1.7u2 and Netbeans 7.1.  As a testing system, the organizers used the open source software Ejudge (with several tweaks specifically for the competition).  Participants submitted their solutions to the remote server where they were tested by prepared test harnesses. All results were posted in real-time. "I followed the competition coming in from the many sites, and it was a really exciting experience, like a horse race or football game!" exclaimed Java Evangelist Alexander Belokrylov. Congratulations to everyone who competed! The Olympic finals will on April 4th. 

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• O'Reilly deals to April 5, 2012 14:00 PT on books on "where"

  - by TATWORTH

  At http://shop.oreilly.com/category/deals/where-conference.do, O'Reilly are offering a series of books on geo-location at 50% off until April 5, 2012 14:00 PT. HTML5 Geolocation Truly revolutionary: now you can write geolocation applications directly in the browser, rather than develop native apps for particular devices. This concise book demonstrates the W3C Geolocation API in action, with code and examples to help you build HTML5 apps using the "write once, deploy everywhere" model. Along the way, you get a crash course in geolocation, browser support, and ways to integrate the API with common geo tools like Google Maps. HTML5 Cookbook With scores of practical recipes you can use in your projects right away, this cookbook helps you gain hands-on experience with HTML5’s versatile collection of elements. You get clear solutions for handling issues with everything from markup semantics, web forms, and audio and video elements to related technologies such as geolocation and rich JavaScript APIs. Each informative recipe includes sample code and a detailed discussion on why and how the solution works. Perfect for intermediate to advanced web and mobile web developers, this handy book lets you choose the HTML5 features that work for you—and helps you experiment with the rest. HTML5 Applications HTML5 is not just a replacement for plugins. It also makes the Web a first-class development environment by giving JavaScript programmers a solid foundation for building industrial-strength applications. This practical guide takes you beyond simple site creation and shows you how to build self-contained HTML5 applications that can run on mobile devices and compete with desktop apps. You’ll learn powerful JavaScript tools for exploiting HTML5 elements, and discover new methods for working with data, such as offline storage and multi-threaded processing. Complete with code samples, this book is ideal for experienced JavaScript and mobile developers alike. There are also other books being offered at a discount at http://shop.oreilly.com/category/deals/where-conference.do

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• Are there plans for handwriting recognition?

  - by Patrick

  This is a big feature when it comes to putting Ubuntu onto tablets. Currently, Netbook edition works great for that purpose and the pen digitiser is perfect, but the handwriting would be a real dealmaker (especially for my business - we could actually move to Linux) to compete with the Windows one. CellWriter exists, but that only handles character and keyboard input (but I don't know about multitouch on the keyboard). It also needs to handle print and cursive, because character mode can be slow and uncomfortable (unless you're writing passwords). Lastly, CellWriter needs to have some default letter shapes rather than having to be trained from the start. There is a software package called MyScript (by Vision Objects) that handles all four modes (keyboard, character, print, cursive) plus calculator and fullscreen, but it's only free as a trial. Still, it would be nice to see it in the For Purchase section and the trial in the free section of the Software Centre. The only other ones are for Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters. What would really make a difference for us is the integration of some formal API with the OS that can automatically activate when running on a tablet to pass ink data to whatever recognition system is installed, and have something available (however rudimentary) to use it.

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• Oracle Exalogic Customer Momentum @ OOW'12

  - by Sanjeev Sharma

  [Adapted from here]  At Oracle Open World 2012, i sat down with some of the Oracle Exalogic early adopters  to discuss the business benefits these businesses were realizing by embracing the engineered systems approach to data-center modernization and application consolidation. Below is an overview of the 4 businesses that won the Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Award for Oracle Exalogic this year. Company: Netshoes About: Leading online retailer of sporting goods in Latin America.Challenges: Rapid business growth resulted in frequent outages and poor response-time of online store-front Conventional ad-hoc approach to horizontal scaling resulted in high CAPEX and OPEX Poor performance and unavailability of online store-front resulted in revenue loss from purchase abandonment Solution: Consolidated ATG Commerce and Oracle WebLogic running on Oracle Exalogic.Business Impact:Reduced abandonment rates resulting in a two-digit increase in online conversion rates translating directly into revenue up-liftCompany: ClaroAbout: Leading communications services provider in Latin America.Challenges: Support business growth over the next 3  - 5 years while maximizing re-use of existing middleware and application investments with minimal effort and risk Solution: Consolidated Oracle Fusion Middleware components (Oracle WebLogic, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Tuxedo) and JAVA applications onto Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata. Business Impact:Improved partner SLA’s 7x while improving throughput 5X and response-time 35x for  JAVA applicationsCompany: ULAbout: Leading safety testing and certification organization in the world.Challenges: Transition from being a non-profit to a profit oriented enterprise and grow from a $1B to $5B in annual revenues in the next 5 years Undertake a massive business transformation by aligning change strategy with execution Solution: Consolidated Oracle Applications (E-Business Suite, Siebel, BI, Hyperion) and Oracle Fusion Middleware (AIA, SOA Suite) on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle ExadataBusiness Impact:Reduced financial and operating risk in re-architecting IT services to support new business capabilities supporting 87,000 manufacturersCompany: Ingersoll RandAbout: Leading manufacturer of industrial, climate, residential and security solutions.Challenges: Business continuity risks due to complexity in enforcing consistent operational and financial controls; Re-active business decisions reduced ability to offer differentiation and compete Solution: Consolidated Oracle E-business Suite on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle ExadataBusiness Impact:Service differentiation with faster order provisioning and a shorter lead-to-cash cycle translating into higher customer satisfaction and quicker cash-conversionCheck out the winners of the Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation awards in other categories here.

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• How do I use an API?

  - by GRardB

  Background I have no idea how to use an API. I know that all APIs are different, but I've been doing research and I don't fully understand the documentation that comes along with them. There's a programming competition at my university in a month and a half that I want to compete in (revolved around APIs) but nobody on my team has ever used one. We're computer science majors, so we have experience programming, but we've just never been exposed to an API. I tried looking at Twitter's documentation, but I'm lost. Would anyone be able to give me some tips on how to get started? Maybe a very easy API with examples, or explaining essential things about common elements of different APIs? I don't need a full-blown tutorial on Stack Overflow; I just need to be pointed in the right direction. Update The programming languages that I'm most fluent in are C (simple text editor usually) and Java (Eclipse). In an attempt to be more specific with my question: I understand that APIs (and yes, external libraries are what I was referring to) are simply sets of functions. Question I guess what I'm trying to ask is how I would go about accessing those functions. Do I need to download specific files and include them in my programs, or do they need to be accessed remotely, etc.?

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• How do I use an API?

  - by GRardB

  Background I have no idea how to use an API. I know that all APIs are different, but I've been doing research and I don't fully understand the documentation that comes along with them. There's a programming competition at my university in a month and a half that I want to compete in (revolved around APIs) but nobody on my team has ever used one. We're computer science majors, so we have experience programming, but we've just never been exposed to an API. I tried looking at Twitter's documentation, but I'm lost. Would anyone be able to give me some tips on how to get started? Maybe a very easy API with examples, or explaining essential things about common elements of different APIs? I don't need a full-blown tutorial on Stack Overflow; I just need to be pointed in the right direction. Update The programming languages that I'm most fluent in are C (simple text editor usually) and Java (Eclipse). In an attempt to be more specific with my question: I understand that APIs (and yes, external libraries are what I was referring to) are simply sets of functions. Question I guess what I'm trying to ask is how I would go about accessing those functions. Do I need to download specific files and include them in my programs, or do they need to be accessed remotely, etc.?

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• SEO questions about PR, Page Structure, and Other

  - by jasondavis

  A couple of basic questions related to SEO. 1) If I have a site that has several different niches that I am trying to promote from. Example Web Developer broke down into section of Web Design, Graphic Design, Programming, Software for SEO purposes, would it be better to use subdomains for these main sections or use the main domain with a folder like structure? 2) Is PR different for each page of a domain or ever page has a PR of the same on that domain? Also do sub-domains have a different PR? 3) When entering a hugely over saturated niche such as web-design, is it even possible to compete with the big sites that have been ranked on google #1 page for years? 4) Lastly, I have read about how important titles, link anchors, and headings are for SEO and how content is the most important. So left's say we are building a standard header, body, sidebar, footer page. In the the actual markup, would it be better to make sure the main content comes before the sidebar on the page or does this probably not make a difference? 5) I seen mentioned in another answer here that microformats can help with SEO, is there any fact behind this? Thank you for any info on this

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• Can I eventually consider myself a professional developer if I don't have a CS degree? [on hold]

  - by heltonbiker

  Question first, context later: If I am a dedicated, self-taught programmer, always seeking top-quality books AND READING THEM, while successfully applying all that new knowledge into my current work, could I call myself (and offer my work as) a PROFESSIONAL developer? How limiting (or how common) that is nowadays? I am afraid that, no matter how hard I study and practice, it could be too difficult to compete with "actual", college graduated developers, and potential employers might have doubts investing in an "undergraduated" person. Now, context: My former profession is from healthcare sector, then I studied mechanical engineering (quit in the middle), then I studied product design (master degree), and I ended up working (very happily) at an engineering company that manufactures medical devices. For more than two years now my main activity in this company is software development. The devices contain software, and we gave up hiring software development (domain knowledge needed, too much communication cost). My current company sees a lot of value in what I do, but I cannot afford the risk of depending on this single company for the rest of my life, you get it. But a lot of job offers require some minimal formal education, usually a CS degree. Fact is that I am sure this is my target profession, I don't plan to go to another area, it is a pleasure to dive into books that normal people would consider unreadable, but I'm 36 years old and can't see going back to college as a viable alternative.

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• Slow select when inserting large amounts of data (MYSQL)

  - by siannopollo

  I have a process that imports a lot of data (950k rows) using inserts that insert 500 rows at a time. The process generally takes about 12 hours, which isn't too bad. Normally doing a query on the table is pretty quick (under 1 second) as I've put (what I think to be) the proper indexes in place. The problem I'm having is trying to run a query when the import process is running. It is making the query take almost 2 minutes! What can I do to make these two things not compete for resources (or whatever)? I've looked into "insert delayed" but not sure I want to change the table to MyISAM. Thanks for any help!

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• SSAS/SSRS remove parameter from cube report destroys report

  - by Jon

  Group, We built a data cube using SSAS and are now building SSRS reports off of that cube. Not sure if anyone has come across this, but when you build the report using the wizard and include parameters all looks fine. However if you are in the report after the wizard is compete, and you decide you want to remove one of the parameters you created it debunks the report and the only way to get it back is to re-create the whole report. Any way you can remove or add parameters after the initial build without destroying your report? Thanks in advance for the help! I love this forumn!

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• The advantages and disadvantages of using ORM

  - by JHarley1

  Good Morning, I would like to discuss today the advantages and disadvantages of using ORM (such as ADO.NET). Advantages: Speeds-up Development - eliminates the need for repetitive SQL code. Reduces Development Time. Reduces Development Costs. Overcomes vendor specific SQL differences - the ORM knows how to write vendor specific SQL so you don't have to. Disadvantages: Loss in developer productivity whilst they learn to program with ORM. Developers loose understanding of what the code is actually doing - the developer is more in control using SQL. ORM has a tendency to be slow. ORM fail to compete against SQL queries for complex queries. In summary, I believe that the disadvantages of using an ORM (mainly the reduced time taken to perform repetitive tasks) is far outweighed by the disadvantages of ORM e.g. its difficulty to get to grips with. Can people point out were I am going wrong and suggest any further advantages/disadvantages. Many Thanks, J

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• What is needed to get Delphi back on top?

  - by Jim McKeeth

  Delphi 2009 is due in the next couple months, which is its 12th release since Turbo Pascal became Delphi in 1995. Despite continued innovation it has not returned to its level of popularity before the Inprise fiasco. Many developers with Delphi backgrounds are moving to C# and many Delphi legacy applications are being rewritten in C#, despite the fact Delphi supports .NET and in many cases the existing application could be ported without rewriting. Is it just a losing battle to compete against Microsoft's tools on their platform? Is there something Code Gear / Delphi can do now that they are under new management to regain market share? What can enthusiasts do to help? Why do you do Delphi programming? or Why are you not doing Delphi programming?

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• VSTS Test Edition or HP's LoadRunner?

  - by Edward Leno

  I have had this debate with some peers off and on for a while. I am certified in the HP tools, but have been spending more and more time with VSTS Test Edition 2008. I am looking for opinions on what people think of the future of both products and how they compete. LoadRunner's strengths include its vast array of protocols supported. Unfortunately since HP took over from Mercury, they are beginning to lag behind, especially in the new internet spaces. VSTS Test, once very limited, is now quite impressive, especially in 2010. I don't know if it makes business sense, but I would love for VSTS Test to take on some additional protocols. Many of my clients would like to move away from HP and their licensing costs. Finally, I am looking for good resources for VSTS Test. I have been playing with it, but would like to see some dedicated courses/material, instead of just a part of the larger VSTS. Thanks!

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• Getting PDT code completion to recognise runtime return types from base class?

  - by Keith Humm

  Hi guys, I've got an abstract base class: abstract class BaseClass { /** * @return CLASSNAME */ public function fluent() { // do stuff return $this; } } Generally, i would put BaseClass where CLASSNAME is and all would be fine, PDT would pick up the phpdoc return type and happily autocomplete. Until, that is, I subclass BaseClass and add additional methods, and code compete on an instance of the derived class. PDT will only recognise the methods from BaseClass and not those from the derived class. What I need is something like @return self or @return this. Does PDT have such functionality? Or is there an alternate trick without having to declare these methods in every derived class?

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