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• Monitoring C++ applications

  - by Scott A

  We're implementing a new centralized monitoring solution (Zenoss). Incorporating servers, networking, and Java programs is straightforward with SNMP and JMX. The question, however, is what are the best practices for monitoring and managing custom C++ applications in large, heterogenous (Solaris x86, RHEL Linux, Windows) environments? Possibilities I see are: Net SNMP Advantages single, central daemon on each server well-known standard easy integration into monitoring solutions we run Net SNMP daemons on our servers already Disadvantages: complex implementation (MIBs, Net SNMP library) new technology to introduce for the C++ developers rsyslog Advantages single, central daemon on each server well-known standard unknown integration into monitoring solutions (I know they can do alerts based on text, but how well would it work for sending telemetry like memory usage, queue depths, thread capacity, etc) simple implementation Disadvantages: possible integration issues somewhat new technology for C++ developers possible porting issues if we switch monitoring vendors probably involves coming up with an ad-hoc communication protocol (or using RFC5424 structured data; I don't know if Zenoss supports that without custom Zenpack coding) Embedded JMX (embed a JVM and use JNI) Advantages consistent management interface for both Java and C++ well-known standard easy integration into monitoring solutions somewhat simple implementation (we already do this today for other purposes) Disadvantages: complexity (JNI, thunking layer between native C++ and Java, basically writing the management code twice) possible stability problems requires a JVM in each process, using considerably more memory JMX is new technology for C++ developers each process has it's own JMX port (we run a lot of processes on each machine) Local JMX daemon, processes connect to it Advantages single, central daemon on each server consistent management interface for both Java and C++ well-known standard easy integration into monitoring solutions Disadvantages: complexity (basically writing the management code twice) need to find or write such a daemon need a protocol between the JMX daemon and the C++ process JMX is new technology for C++ developers CodeMesh JunC++ion Advantages consistent management interface for both Java and C++ well-known standard easy integration into monitoring solutions single, central daemon on each server when run in shared JVM mode somewhat simple implementation (requires code generation) Disadvantages: complexity (code generation, requires a GUI and several rounds of tweaking to produce the proxied code) possible JNI stability problems requires a JVM in each process, using considerably more memory (in embedded mode) Does not support Solaris x86 (deal breaker) Even if it did support Solaris x86, there are possible compiler compatibility issues (we use an odd combination of STLPort and Forte on Solaris each process has it's own JMX port when run in embedded mode (we run a lot of processes on each machine) possibly precludes a shared JMX server for non-C++ processes (?) Is there some reasonably standardized, simple solution I'm missing? Given no other reasonable solutions, which of these solutions is typically used for custom C++ programs? My gut feel is that Net SNMP is how people do this, but I'd like other's input and experience before I make a decision.

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• Rebuild Apple RAID set

  - by Clinton Blackmore

  We have a Mac Pro tower with an Apple RAID card in it using third party drives. When one drive failed, we replaced it and the RAID 5 set was nearly done rebuilding when the computer was rebooted. It did not come back up. We are now booting up off of a different internal volume, and have three (third-party) drives of identical spec (including revision and firmware) in the box. One of the drives is a global spare; the other two are recognized as belong to a RAID set but are in "Roaming" mode. The intention is to recreate the three-drive RAID set using the data on the two drives that are good. When we tell the system to create a RAID 5 using the three drives, it tells us that it'll create a RAID set but everything will be lost. There are no obvious options to rebuild a RAID using the two good drives and incorporating the third drive in Apple's RAID Utility, and we've looked through the options for the raidutil command. Fortunately, all important data is backed up, and we can rebuild from scratch, but, is there any way to make the RAIDset work again?

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• Save and restore multiple layers within a Photoshop action that flattens

  - by SuitCase

  I'm editing comic pages with layers - "background", "foreground", "lineart" and "over lineart". I have a Photoshop action that includes a Mode-Bitmap command, which requires the image to be flattened. I need this part of the action because I use the Halftone Screen method of reducing the greyscale image to bitmap on the "background" layer, creating a certain effect. I am pretty sure there is no filter or anything else that gives the same effect. After the mode is changed to bitmap, my action changes things back to greyscale for further changes. This poses a problem. I only want to do the bitmap mode change on the background layer, and after I do the change I want to restore the layer structure as it was - with the foreground, lineart and over lineart layers back above the now-halftoned background. My current method of saving these layers and restoring them is clumsy. My action is able to automatically save the "foreground" layer by selecting it, cutting it, then pasting it back in after the mode changing is over. But, for the "ink" and "over ink" layers, I have to manually cut these layers, paste them into a new document, and later re-cut and re-paste after running my action. This is so clunky! What I would like to know is if it's possible to set aside my layers in an automated way, and then bring them back in, also in an automated way. An ugly (but functional) solution would be to replicate my actions of creating new documents and pasting them temporarily there, but I don't think Photoshop allows you to do things outside of your current document with an action. It seems to me that the only way to do what I want is to use the "hack" of incorporating the clipboard into the action as a clever hack, but that leaves me stuck as I have two more layers that can't fit onto that same clipboard. Help or suggestions would be appreciated. I can keep on doing it manually, but to have a comprehensive action would save me a ton of time.

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• Push, parse & import "selected" data, text, info blobs from Webpages/ Emails as Event/ Appointment to standard Calendar directly or as .ics file?

  - by Alex S

  Any tool, plugin, extension, script/ code to push "selected" data, text, information blobs from Web pages, Emails etc, then parsed and imported to structured Event, Appointment (e.g. .ics) on a standard Calendar like Outlook, Google, iCal? If not, what and how could I use some scripting, coding or existing tools, extensions to add on top and do this. I come across a lot of unstructured information on Webpages, Emails, FB events etc. where I just want to add that information to my Calendar. Instead of entering all the information by hand all the time, there should be an easy enough way to have the information get parsed, organized and imported to a Calendar... Either directly to a calendar from source or Translated to a standard format such as .ICS that can be imported & saved easily. Would love to see some suggestions for this incorporating one or more of the following: on Windows with Chrome & Outlook on iPhone/ iPad to its Calendar PS: I'll come back and see if I can add more information to this question and to answer it as well. I have not found a solution yet.

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• Save and restore multiple layers within a Photoshop action that flattens

  - by SuitCase

  I'm editing comic pages with layers - "background", "foreground", "lineart" and "over lineart". I have a Photoshop action that includes a Mode-Bitmap command, which requires the image to be flattened. I need this part of the action because I use the Halftone Screen method of reducing the greyscale image to bitmap on the "background" layer, creating a certain effect. I am pretty sure there is no filter or anything else that gives the same effect. After the mode is changed to bitmap, my action changes things back to greyscale for further changes. This poses a problem. I only want to do the bitmap mode change on the background layer, and after I do the change I want to restore the layer structure as it was - with the foreground, lineart and over lineart layers back above the now-halftoned background. My current method of saving these layers and restoring them is clumsy. My action is able to automatically save the "foreground" layer by selecting it, cutting it, then pasting it back in after the mode changing is over. But, for the "ink" and "over ink" layers, I have to manually cut these layers, paste them into a new document, and later re-cut and re-paste after running my action. This is so clunky! What I would like to know is if it's possible to set aside my layers in an automated way, and then bring them back in, also in an automated way. An ugly (but functional) solution would be to replicate my actions of creating new documents and pasting them temporarily there, but I don't think Photoshop allows you to do things outside of your current document with an action. It seems to me that the only way to do what I want is to use the "hack" of incorporating the clipboard into the action as a clever hack, but that leaves me stuck as I have two more layers that can't fit onto that same clipboard. Help or suggestions would be appreciated. I can keep on doing it manually, but to have a comprehensive action would save me a ton of time.

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• Is Agile the new micromanagement?

  - by Smith James

  Hi, This question has been cooking in my head for a while so I wanted to ask those who are following agile/scrum practices in their development environments. My company has finally ventured into incorporating agile practices and has started out with a team of 4 developers in an agile group on a trial basis. It has been 4 months with 3 iterations and they continue to do it without going fully agile for the rest of us. This is due to the fact that management's trust to meet business requirements with a quite a bit of ad hoc type request from high above. Recently, I talked to the developers who are part of this initiative; they tell me that it's not fun. They are not allowed to talk to other developers by their Scrum master and are not allowed to take any phone calls in the work area (which maybe fine to an extent). For example, if I want to talk to my friend for kicks who is in the agile team, I am not allowed without the approval of the Scrum master; who is sitting right next to the agile team. The idea of all this or the agile is to provide a complete vacuum for agile developers from any interruptions and to have them put in good 6+ productive hours. Well, guys, I am no agile guru but what I have read Yahoo agile rollout document and similar for other organizations, it gives me a feeling that agile is not cheap. It require resources and budget to instill agile into the teams and correct issue as they arrive to put them back on track. For starters, it requires training for developers and coaching for managers and etc, etc... The current Scrum master was a manager who took a couple days agile training class paid by the management is now leading this agile team. I have also heard in the meeting that agile manifesto doesn't dictate that agile is not set in stones and is customized differently for each company. Well, it all sounds good and reason. In conclusion, I always thought the agile was supposed to bring harmony in the development teams which results in happy developers. However, I am getting a very opposite feeling when talking to the developers in the agile team. They are unhappy that they cannot talk anything but work, sitting quietly all day just working, and they feel it's just another way for management to make them work more. Tell me please, if this is one of the examples of good practices used for the purpose of selfish advantage for more dollars? Or maybe, it's just us the developers like me and this agile team feels that they don't like to work in an environment where they only breathe work because they are at work. Thanks. Edit: It's a company in healthcare domain that has offices across US, but we're in Texas. It definitely feels like a cowboy style agile which makes me really not wanting to go for agile at all, esp at my current company. All of it has to do with the management being completely cheap. Cutting out expensive coffee for cheaper version, emphasis on savings and being productive while staying as lean as possible. My feeling is that someone in the management behind the door threw out this idea, that agile makes you produce more so we can show our bosses we're producing more with the same headcount. Or, maybe, it will allow us to reduce headcount if that's the case. EDITED: They are having their 5 min daily meeting. But not allowed to chat or talk with someone outside of their team. All focus is on work.

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• Is Agile the new micromanagement?

  - by Smith James

  This question has been cooking in my head for a while so I wanted to ask those who are following agile/scrum practices in their development environments. My company has finally ventured into incorporating agile practices and has started out with a team of 4 developers in an agile group on a trial basis. It has been 4 months with 3 iterations and they continue to do it without going fully agile for the rest of us. This is due to the fact that management's trust to meet business requirements with a quite a bit of ad hoc type request from high above. Recently, I talked to the developers who are part of this initiative; they tell me that it's not fun. They are not allowed to talk to other developers by their Scrum master and are not allowed to take any phone calls in the work area (which maybe fine to an extent). For example, if I want to talk to my friend for kicks who is in the agile team, I am not allowed without the approval of the Scrum master; who is sitting right next to the agile team. The idea of all this or the agile is to provide a complete vacuum for agile developers from any interruptions and to have them put in good 6+ productive hours. Well, guys, I am no agile guru but what I have read Yahoo agile rollout document and similar for other organizations, it gives me a feeling that agile is not cheap. It require resources and budget to instill agile into the teams and correct issue as they arrive to put them back on track. For starters, it requires training for developers and coaching for managers and etc, etc... The current Scrum master was a manager who took a couple days agile training class paid by the management is now leading this agile team. I have also heard in the meeting that agile manifesto doesn't dictate that agile is not set in stones and is customized differently for each company. Well, it all sounds good and reason. In conclusion, I always thought the agile was supposed to bring harmony in the development teams which results in happy developers. However, I am getting a very opposite feeling when talking to the developers in the agile team. They are unhappy that they cannot talk anything but work, sitting quietly all day just working, and they feel it's just another way for management to make them work more. Tell me please, if this is one of the examples of good practices used for the purpose of selfish advantage for more dollars? Or maybe, it's just us the developers like me and this agile team feels that they don't like to work in an environment where they only breathe work because they are at work. Thanks. Edit: It's a company in healthcare domain that has offices across US. It definitely feels like a cowboy style agile which makes me really not wanting to go for agile at all, esp at my current company. All of it has to do with the management being completely cheap. Cutting out expensive coffee for cheaper version, emphasis on savings and being productive while staying as lean as possible. My feeling is that someone in the management behind the door threw out this idea, that agile makes you produce more so we can show our bosses we're producing more with the same headcount. Or, maybe, it will allow us to reduce headcount if that's the case. EDITED: They are having their 5 min daily meeting. But not allowed to chat or talk with someone outside of their team. All focus is on work.

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• How Can I Improve This Card-Game AI?

  - by James Burgess

  Let me get this out there before anything else: this is a learning exercise for me. I am not a game developer by trade or hobby (at least, not seriously) and am purely delving into some AI- and 3D-related topics to broaden my horizons a bit. As part of the learning experience, I thought I'd have a go at developing a basic card game AI. I selected Pit as the card game I was going to attempt to emulate (specifically, the 'bull and bear' variation of the game as mentioned in the link above). Unfortunately, the rule-set that I'm used to playing with (an older version of the game) isn't described. The basics of it are: The number of commodities played with is equal to the number of players. The bull and bear cards are included. All but two players receive 8 cards, two receive 9 cards. A player can win the round with 7 + bull, 8, or 8 + bull (receiving double points). The bear is a penalty card. You can trade up to a maximum of 4 cards at a time. They must all be of the same type, but can optionally include the bull or bear (so, you could trade A, A, A, Bull - but not A, B, A, Bull). For those who have played the card game, it will probably have been as obvious to you as it was to me that given the nature of the game, gameplay would seem to resemble a greedy algorithm. With this in mind, I thought it might simplify my AI experience somewhat. So, here's what I've come up with for a basic AI player to play Pit... and I'd really just like any form of suggestion (from improvements to reading materials) relating to it. Here it is in something vaguely pseudo-code-ish ;) While AI does not hold 7 similar + bull, 8 similar, or 8 similar + bull, do: 1. Establish 'target' hand, by seeing which card AI holds the most of. 2. Prepare to trade next-most-numerous card type in a trade (max. held, or 4, whichever is fewer) 3. If holding the bear, add to (if trading <=3 cards) or replace in (if trading 4 cards) hand. 4. Offer cards for trade. 5. If cards are accepted for trade within X turns, continue (clearing 'failed card types'). Otherwise: a. If only one card remains in the trade, go to #6. Otherwise: i. Remove one non-penalty card from the trade. ii. Return to #5. 6. Add card type to temporary list of failed card types. 7. Repeat from #2 (excluding 'failed card types'). I'm aware this is likely to be a sub-optimal way of solving the problem, but that's why I'm posting this question. Are there any AI- or algorithm-related concepts that I've missed and should be incorporating to make a better AI? Additionally, what are the flaws with my AI at present (I'm well aware it's probably far from complete)? Thanks in advance!

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• Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginner's Guide

  Build enterprise-ready business applications with Silverlight An introduction to building enterprise-ready business applications with Silverlight quickly. Get hold of the basic tools and skills needed to get started in Silverlight application development. Integrate different media types, taking the RIA experience further with Silverlight, and much more! Rapidly manage business focused controls, data, and business logic connectivity. A suite of business applications will be built over the course of the book and all examples will be geared around real-world useful application developments, enabling .NET developers to focus on getting started in business application development using Silverlight. In Detail Microsoft Silverlight is a programmable web browser plug-in that enables features including animation, vector graphics, and audio-video playback--features that characterize Rich Internet Applications. Silverlight makes possible the development of RIA applications in familiar .NET languages such as C# and VB.NET. Silverlight is a great (and growing) Line of Business platform and is increasingly being used to build business applications. Silverlight 3 made a big step in LOB; Silverlight 4 builds upon this further. This book will enable .NET developers to feel the pulse of business application development with Silverlight quickly. This book is not a general Silverlight 3/4 overview book. It is uniquely aimed at developers who require an introduction to building business applications with Silverlight. This book will focus on building a suite of real-world, useful business applications in a practical hands-on approach. This book is for .Net developers, providing the answers to many questions that are encountered when creating business applications in Silverlight, ultimately enabling rapid development with ease! This book teaches you how to build business applications with Silverlight 3 and 4. Building a suite of applications, it begins by introducing you to the basic tools and skills needed to get started in Silverlight development. It then dives deeply into the world of business application development, covering all the required concepts needed to build sophisticated business applications and provide a rich user experience. Chapters include: building a public website, adding rich media to the website, incorporating RIA into your website, and among others. By following the practical steps in this book, you will learn what's needed to create rich business applications--from the creation of a Silverlight application, to enhancing your application with rich media and connecting your Silverlight application to various Data Sources. What you will learn from this book Learn the basic tools and skills needed to get started in Silverlight 4 business application development. Discover how to enhance your Silverlight business applications with rich data such as sound and video. Know when and how to customize your data in Silverlight using important data controls. Understand how your Silverlight business applications can connect to various Data Sources. Deliver your Silverlight business application in a variety of forms.   Interesting? Read the chapter 1 Getting Started for free!! Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• MVC Portable Areas &ndash; Deploying Static Files

  - by Steve Michelotti

  This is the second post in a series related to build and deployment considerations as I’ve been exploring MVC Portable Areas: #1 – Using Web Application Project to build portable areas #2 – Conventions for deploying portable area static files #3 – Portable area static files as embedded resources As I’ve been digging more into portable areas, one of the things I’ve liked best is the deployment story which enables my *.aspx, *.ascx pages to be compiled into the assembly as embedded resources rather than having to maintain all those files separately. In traditional web forms, that was always the thing to prevented developers from utilizing *.ascx user controls across projects (see this post for using portable areas in web forms).  However, though the aspx pages are embedded, the supporting static files (e.g., images, css, javascript) are *not*. Most of the demos available online today tend to brush over this issue and focus solely on the aspx side of things. But to create truly robust portable areas, it’s important to have a good story for these supporting files as well.  I’ve been working with two different approaches so far (of course I’d really like to hear if other people are using alternatives). Scenario For the approaches below, the scenario really isn’t that important. It could be something as trivial as this partial view: 1: <%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %> 2: <img src="<%: Url.Content("~/images/arrow.gif") %>" /> Hello World! The point is that there needs to be careful consideration for *any* scenario that links to an external file such as an image, *.css, *.js, etc. In the example shown above, it uses the Url.Content() method to convert to a relative path. But this method won’t necessary work depending on how you deploy your portable area. One approach to address this issue is to build your portable area project with MSDeploy/WebDeploy so that it is packaged properly before incorporating into the host application. All of the *.cs files are removed and the project is ready for xcopy deployment – however, I do *not* need the “Views” folder since all of the mark up has been compiled into the assembly as embedded resources. Now in the host application we create a folder called “Modules” and deploy any portable areas as sub-folders under that: At this point we can add a simple assembly reference to the Widget1.dll sitting in the Modules\Widget1\bin folder. I can now render the portable image in my view like any other portable area. However, the problem with that is that the view results in this:   It couldn’t find arrow.gif because it looked for /images/arrow.gif and it was *actually* located at /images/Modules/Widget1/images/arrow.gif. One solution is to make the physical location of the portable configurable from the perspective of the host like this: 1: <appSettings> 2: <add key="Widget1" value="Modules\Widget1"/> 3: </appSettings> Using the <appSettings> section is a little cheesy but it could be better formalized into its own section. In fact, if were you willing to rely on conventions (e.g., “Modules\{areaName}”) then then config could be eliminated completely. With this config in place, we could create our own Html helper method called Url.AreaContent() that “wraps” the OOTB Url.Content() method while simply pre-pending the area location path: 1: public static string AreaContent(this UrlHelper urlHelper, string contentPath) 2: { 3: var areaName = (string)urlHelper.RequestContext.RouteData.DataTokens["area"]; 4: var areaPath = (string)ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[areaName]; 5:   6: return urlHelper.Content("~/" + areaPath + "/" + contentPath); With these two items in place, we just change our Url.Content() call to Url.AreaContent() like this: 1: <img src="<%: Url.AreaContent("/images/arrow.gif") %>" /> Hello World! and the arrow.gif now renders correctly:     Since we’re just using our own Url.AreaContent() rather than the built-in Url.Content(), this solution works for images, *.css, *.js, or any externally referenced files.  Additionally, any images referenced inside a css file will work provided it’s a relative reference and not an absolute reference. An alternative to this approach is to build the static file into the assembly as embedded resources themselves. I’ll explore this in another post (linked at the top).

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• Analytics in an Omni-Channel World

  - by David Dorf

  Retail has been around ever since mankind started bartering.  The earliest transactions were very specific to the individuals buying and selling, then someone had the bright idea to open a store.  Those transactions were a little more generic, but the store owner still knew his customers and what they wanted.  As the chains rolled out, customer intimacy was sacrificed for scale, and retailers began to rely on segments and clusters.  But thanks to the widespread availability of data and the technology to convert said data into information, retailers are getting back to details. The retail industry is following a maturity model for analytics that is has progressed through five stages, each delivering more value than the previous. Store Analytics Brick-and-mortar retailers (and pure-play catalogers as well) that collect anonymous basket-level data are able to get some sense of demand to help with allocation decisions.  Promotions and foot-traffic can be measured to understand marketing effectiveness and perhaps focus groups can help test ideas.  But decisions are influenced by the majority, using faceless customer segments and aggregated industry data points.  Loyalty programs help a little, but in many cases the cost outweighs the benefits. Web Analytics The Web made it much easier to collect data on specific, yet still anonymous consumers using cookies to track visits. Clickstreams and product searches are analyzed to understand the purchase journey, gauge demand, and better understand up-selling opportunities.  Personalization begins to allow retailers target market consumers with recommendations. Cross-Channel Analytics This phase is a minor one, but where most retailers probably sit today.  They are able to use information from one channel to bolster activities in another. However, there are technical challenges combining data silos so its not an easy task.  But for those retailers that are able to perform analytics on both sources of data, the pay-off is pretty nice.  Revenue per customer begins to go up as customers have a better brand experience. Mobile & Social Analytics Big data technologies are enabling a 360-degree view of the customer by incorporating psychographic data from social sites alongside traditional demographic data.  Retailers can track individual preferences, opinions, hobbies, etc. in order to understand a consumer's motivations.  Using mobile devices, consumers can interact with brands anywhere, anytime, accessing deep product information and reviews.  Mobile, combined with a loyalty program, presents an opportunity to put shopping into geographic context, understanding paths to the store, patterns within the store, and be an always-on advertising conduit. Omni-Channel Analytics All this data along with the proper technology represents a new paradigm in which the clock is turned back and retail becomes very personal once again.  Rich, individualized data better illuminates demand, allows for highly localized assortments, and helps tailor up-selling.  Interactions with all channels help build an accurate profile of each consumer, and allows retailers to tailor the retail experience to meet the heightened expectations of today's sophisticated shopper.  And of course this culminates in greater customer satisfaction and business profitability.

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• Comparing Isis, Google, and Paypal

  - by David Dorf

  Back in 2010 I was sure NFC would make great strides, but here we are two years later and NFC doesn't seem to be sticking. The obvious reason being the chicken-and-egg problem.  Retailers don't want to install the terminals until the phones support NFC, and vice-versa. So consumers continue to sit on the sidelines waiting for either side to blink and make the necessary investment.  In the meantime, EMV is looking for a way to sneak into the US with the help of the card brands. There are currently three major solutions that are battling in the marketplace.  All three know that replacing mag-stripe alone is not sufficient to move consumers.  Long-term it's the offers and loyalty programs combined with tendering that make NFC attractive. NFC solutions cross lots of barriers, so a strong partner system is required.  The solutions need to include the carriers, card brands, banks, handset manufacturers, POS terminals, and most of all lots of merchants.  Lots of coordination is necessary to make the solution seamless to the consumer. Google Wallet Google's problem has always been that only the Nexus phone has an NFC chip that supports their wallet.  There are a couple of additional phones out there now, but adoption is still slow.  They acquired Zavers a while back to incorporate digital coupons, but the the bulk of their users continue to be non-NFC.  They have taken an open approach by not specifying particular payment brands.  Google is piloting in San Francisco and New York, supporting both MasterCard PayPass and stored value. I suppose the other card brands may eventually follow.  There's no cost for consumers or merchants -- Google will make money via targeted ads. Isis Not long after Google announced its wallet, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile announced a joint venture called Isis.  They are in the unique position of owning the SIM in the phones they issue.  At first it seemed Isis was a vehicle for the carriers to compete with the existing card brands, but Isis later switched to a generic wallet that supports the major card brands.  Isis reportedly charges issuers a $5 fee per customer per year.  Isis will pilot this summer in Salt Lake City and Austin. PayPal PayPal, the clear winner in the online payment space beyond traditional credit cards, is trying to move into physical stores.  After negotiations with Google to provide a wallet broke off, PayPal decided to avoid NFC altogether, at least for now, and focus on payments without any physical card or phone.  By avoiding NFC, consumers don't need an NFC-enabled phone and merchants don't need a new reader.  Consumers must enter their phone number and PIN in the merchant's existing device, or they can enter their PIN in the PayPal inStore app running on their phone, then show the merchant a unique barcode which authorizes payment. Paypal is free for consumers and charges a fee for merchants.  Its not clear, at least to me, how PayPal handles fraudulent transactions and whether the consumer is protected. The wildcard is, of course, Apple.  Their mobile technologies set the standard, so incorporating NFC chips would certainly accelerate adoption of many payment solutions.  Their announcement today of the iOS Passbook is a step in the right direction, but stops short of handling payments. For those retailers that have invested in modern terminals, it seems the best strategy is to support all the emerging solutions and let the consumers choose the winner.

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• Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management (SCM) Designs May Improve End User Productivity

  - by Applications User Experience

  By Applications User Experience on March 10, 2011 Michele Molnar, Senior Usability Engineer, Applications User Experience The Challenge: The SCM User Experience team, in close collaboration with product management and strategy, completely redesigned the user experience for Oracle Fusion applications. One of the goals of this redesign was to increase end user productivity by applying design patterns and guidelines and incorporating findings from extensive usability research. But a question remained: How do we know that the Oracle Fusion designs will actually increase end user productivity? The Test: To answer this question, the SCM Usability Engineers compared Oracle Fusion designs to their corresponding existing Oracle applications using the workflow time analysis method. The workflow time analysis method breaks tasks into a sequence of operators. By applying standard time estimates for all of the operators in the task, an estimate of the overall task time can be calculated. The workflow time analysis method has been recently adopted by the Applications User Experience group for use in predicting end user productivity. Using this method, a design can be tested and refined as needed to improve productivity even before the design is coded. For the study, we selected some of our recent designs for Oracle Fusion Product Information Management (PIM). The designs encompassed tasks performed by Product Managers to create, manage, and define products for their organization. (See Figure 1 for an example.) In applying this method, the SCM Usability Engineers collaborated with Product Management to compare the new Oracle Fusion Applications designs against Oracle’s existing applications. Together, we performed the following activities: Identified the five most frequently performed tasks Created detailed task scenarios that provided the context for each task Conducted task walkthroughs Analyzed and documented the steps and flow required to complete each task Applied standard time estimates to the operators in each task to estimate the overall task completion time Figure 1. The interactions on each Oracle Fusion Product Information Management screen were documented, as indicated by the red highlighting. The task scenario and script provided the context for each task.  The Results: The workflow time analysis method predicted that the Oracle Fusion Applications designs would result in productivity gains in each task, ranging from 8% to 62%, with an overall productivity gain of 43%. All other factors being equal, the new designs should enable these tasks to be completed in about half the time it takes with existing Oracle Applications. Further analysis revealed that these performance gains would be achieved by reducing the number of clicks and screens needed to complete the tasks. Conclusions: Using the workflow time analysis method, we can expect the Oracle Fusion Applications redesign to succeed in improving end user productivity. The workflow time analysis method appears to be an effective and efficient tool for testing, refining, and retesting designs to optimize productivity. The workflow time analysis method does not replace usability testing with end users, but it can be used as an early predictor of design productivity even before designs are coded. We are planning to conduct usability tests later in the development cycle to compare actual end user data with the workflow time analysis results. Such results can potentially be used to validate the productivity improvement predictions. Used together, the workflow time analysis method and usability testing will enable us to continue creating, evaluating, and delivering Oracle Fusion designs that exceed the expectations of our end users, both in the quality of the user experience and in productivity. (For more information about studying productivity, refer to the Measuring User Productivity blog.)

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• Selection Highlight in NSCollectionView

  - by Hooligancat

  On some occasions my head just hurts from banging it against the Cocoa wall. Today is one of those days. I have a working NSCollectionView with one minor, but critical, exception. Getting and highlighting the selected item within the collection. I've had all this working prior to Snow Leopard, but something appears to have changed and I can't quite place my finger on it, so I took my NSCollectionView right back to a basic test and followed Apple's documentation for creating an NSCollectionView here: http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/DOCUMENTATION/Cocoa/Conceptual/CollectionViews/Introduction/Introduction.html The collection view works fine following the quick start guide. However, this guide doesn't discuss selection other than "There are such features as incorporating image views, setting objects as selectable or not selectable and changing colors if they are selected". Using this as an example I went to the next step of binding the Array Controller to the NSCollectionView with the controller key selectionIndexes, thinking that this would bind any selection I make between the NSCollectionView and the array controller and thus firing off a KVO notification. I also set the NSCollectionView to be selectable in IB. There appears to be no selection delegate for NSCollectionView and unlike most Cocoa UI views, there appears to be no default selected highlight. So my problem really comes down to a related issue, but two distinct questions. How do I capture a selection of an item? How do I show a highlight of an item? NSCollectionView's programming guides seem to be few and far between and most searches via Google appear to pull up pre-Snow Leopard implementations, or use the view in a separate XIB file. For the latter (separate XIB file for the view), I don't see why this should be a pre-requisite otherwise I would have suspected that Apple would not have included the view in the same bundle as the collection view item. I know this is going to be a "can't see the wood for the trees" issue - so I'm prepared for the "doh!" moment. As usual, any and all help much appreciated.

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• Windows Workflow Foundation - Application-Integrated Debugging

  - by user292103

  I've got a typical n-tier app that has a heavy workflow component to it, so I'm interested in using WWF. There's a server-side piece that runs as a Windows Service, and there's the client-side piece written in Silverlight. To have a really great, seamlessly integrated experience for my users, what I want is to incorporate both a workflow designer and a workflow debugger into the application. Not Visual Studio, but something tightly integrated right into the app itself. Using the Silverlight client, the user (probably more of a power user) can design workflows. But not only that, they can open a debugger from within the Silverlight client, set breakpoints (which are really remote breakpoints back to the Windows Service), catch in-process workflows, and step through them. Wouldn't that be great? I think I have some idea how I might go about incorporating an integrated designer (use a Silverlight diagramming component, save the diagram to .XAML, parse the .XAML to re-create the diagram, etc., etc.) but how on Earth would I do the debugger? I have no idea how I would do that part. Is there some kind of debugging support engineered into WWF?

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• Warning: Memcache::connect(0memcache.connect0): Can't connect to localhost:11211, Connection refuse

  - by Stick it to THE MAN

  I am using Symfony 1.3.2 with Propel ORM on Ubuntu 9.10. I am incorporating memcache to the website. I have modified the setup() method in apps/frontend/ProjectConfiguration.class.php like this: class ProjectConfiguration { public function setup() { // original SF generated code here .. require_one sfConfig::get('sf_lib_dir').'/MyCache.class.php'; myCache::init(); } } my cache singleton is implemented something like this: class MyCache { private static memcache = null; private static inited = false; public static init() { if (self::$inited) return; self::$memcache = new Memcache(); if (self::$memcache->connect('localhost', 11211) { // Do some stuff .. self::$inited = true; } } } Warning: Memcache::connect(0memcache.connect0): Can't connect to localhost:11211, Connection refused(111) in /path_to_class/MyCache.class.php This happens for both CLI (e.g. running SF tasks) or for web access through the browser. Does anyone know how to resolve this (I suspect its something to do with Linux user privileges). As an aside, I am aware that SF prvoides an sfAPCache wrapper class for cacheing. I am intentionally not using it for two reasons: I cannot find any comprehensive (and up to date) docs on this class I want to learn the memcache API directly, since I will be accesing it from other languages.

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• Find does not work in Expect Send command

  - by Sharjeel Sayed

  I run this bash command to display contents of somefile.cf in a Weblogic domain directory. find $(/usr/ucb/ps auwwx | grep weblogic | tr ' ' '\n' | grep security.policy | grep domain | awk -F'=' '{print $2}' | sed -e 's/weblogic.policy//' -e 's/security\///' -e 's/dep\///' | awk -F'/' '{print "/"$2"/"$3"/"$4"/somefile.cf"}' | sort | uniq) 2> /dev/null -exec ls {} \; -exec cat {} \; I tried incorporating this in an expect script and also escaped some special characters which would throw an error in expect but its still not working. send "echo ; echo 'Weblogic somefile.cf:' ; find \$(/usr/ucb/ps auwwx | grep weblogic | tr ' ' '\n' | grep security.policy | grep domain | awk -F'=' '{print \$2}' | sed -e 's/weblogic.policy//' -e 's/security\\///' -e 's/dep\\///' | awk -F'/' '{print "/"\$2"/"\$3"/"\$4"/somefile.cf"}' | sort | uniq) 2> /dev/null -exec ls {} \\; -exec cat {} \\; ; echo\r" I guess it needs some more escaping of special characters or probably I dint escape the existing ones correctly. Any help would be appreciated.

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• Is there a workaround for JDBC w/liquibase and MySQL session variables & client side SQL instructions

  - by David

  Slowly building a starter changeSet xml file for one of three of my employer's primary schema's. The only show stopper has been incorporating the sizable library of MySQL stored procedures to be managed by liquibase. One sproc has been somewhat of a pain to deal with: The first few statements go like use TargetSchema; select "-- explanatory inline comment thats actually useful --" into vDummy; set @@session.sql_mode='TRADITIONAL' ; drop procedure if exists adm_delete_stats ; delimiter $$ create procedure adm_delete_stats( ...rest of sproc I cut out the use statement as its counter-productive, but real issue is the set @@session.sql_mode statement which causes an exception like liquibase.exception.MigrationFailedException: Migration failed for change set ./foobarSchema/sprocs/adm_delete_stats.xml::1293560556-151::dward_autogen dward: Reason: liquibase.exception.DatabaseException: Error executing SQL ... And then the delimiter statement is another stumbling block. Doing do dilligence research I found this rejected MySQL bug report here and this MySQL forum thread that goes a little bit more in depth to the problem here. Is there anyway I can use the sproc scripts that currently exist with Liquibase or would I have to re-write several hundred stored procedures? I've tried createProcedure, sqlFile, and sql liquibase tags without much luck as I think the core issue is that set, delimiter, and similar SQL commands are meant to be interpreted and acted upon by the client side interpreter before being delivered to the server.

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• Excel 2003 VBA - Method to duplicate this code that select and colors rows

  - by Justin

  so this is a fragment of a procedure that exports a dataset from access to excel Dim rs As Recordset Dim intMaxCol As Integer Dim intMaxRow As Integer Dim objxls As Excel.Application Dim objWkb As Excel.Workbook Dim objSht As Excel.Worksheet Set rs = CurrentDb.OpenRecordset("qryOutput", dbOpenSnapshot) intMaxCol = rs.Fields.Count If rs.RecordCount > 0 Then rs.MoveLast: rs.MoveFirst intMaxRow = rs.RecordCount Set objxls = New Excel.Application objxls.Visible = True With objxls Set objWkb = .Workbooks.Add Set objSht = objWkb.Worksheets(1) With objSht On Error Resume Next .Range(.Cells(1, 1), .Cells(intMaxRow, intMaxCol)).CopyFromRecordset rs .Name = conSHT_NAME .Cells.WrapText = False .Cells.EntireColumn.AutoFit .Cells.RowHeight = 17 .Cells.Select With Selection.Font .Name = "Calibri" .Size = 10 End With .Rows("1:1").Select With Selection .Insert Shift:=xlDown End With .Rows("1:1").Interior.ColorIndex = 15 .Rows("1:1").RowHeight = 30 .Rows("2:2").Select With Selection.Interior .ColorIndex = 40 .Pattern = xlSolid End With .Rows("4:4").Select With Selection.Interior .ColorIndex = 40 .Pattern = xlSolid End With .Rows("6:6").Select With Selection.Interior .ColorIndex = 40 .Pattern = xlSolid End With .Rows("1:1").Select With Selection.Borders(xlEdgeBottom) .LineStyle = xlContinuous .Weight = xlMedium .ColorIndex = xlAutomatic End With End With End With End If Set objSht = Nothing Set objWkb = Nothing Set objxls = Nothing Set rs = Nothing Set DB = Nothing End Sub see where I am looking at coloring the rows. I wanted to select and fill (with any color) every other row, kinda like some of those access reports. I can do it manually coding each and every row, but two problems: 1) its a pain 2) i don't know what the record count is before hand. How can I make the code more efficient in this respect while incorporating the recordcount to know how many rows to "loop through" EDIT: Another question I have is with the selection methods I am using in the module, is there a better excel syntax instead of these with selections.... .Cells.Select With Selection.Font .Name = "Calibri" .Size = 10 End With is the only way i figure out how to accomplish this piece, but literally every other time I run this code, it fails. It says there is no object and points to the .font ....every other time? is this because the code is poor, or that I am not closing the xls app in the code? if so how do i do that? Thanks as always!

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• How to get a handle on all this middleware?

  - by jkohlhepp

  My organization has recently been wrestling the question of whether we should be incorporating different middleware products / concepts into our applications. Products we are looking at are things like Pegasystems, Oracle BPM / BPEL, BizTalk, Fair Isaac Blaze, etc., etc., etc. But I'm having a hard time getting a handle on all this. Before I go forward with evaluating the usefulness (positive or negative) of these different products I'm trying to get an understanding of all the different concepts in this space. I'm overwhelmed with an alphabet soup of BPM, ESB, SOA, CEP, WF, BRE, ERP, etc. Some products seem to cover one or more of those aspects, others focus on doing one. The terms all seem very ambiguous and conflated with each other. Is there a good resource out there to get a handle on all these different middleware concepts / patterns? A book? A website? An article that sums it up well? Bonus points if there is a resource that maps the various popular products into which pattern(s) they address. Thanks, ~ Justin

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• iPhone Landscape FAQ and Solutions

  - by Johannes Rudolph

  There has been a lot of confusion and a set of corresponding set of questions here on SO how iPhone applications with proper handling for Landscape/Portrait mode autorotation can be implemented. It is especially difficult to implement such an application when starting in landscape mode is desired. The most common observed effect are scrambled layouts and areas of the screen where touches are no longer recognized. A simple search for questions tagged iphone and landscape reveals these issues, which occur under certain scenarios: Landscape only iPhone app with multiple nibs: App started in Landscape mode, view from first nib is rendered fine, everything view loaded from a different nib is not displayed correctly. Iphone Landscape mode switching to Portraite mode on loading new controller: Self explanatory iPhone: In landscape-only, after first addSubview, UITableViewController doesn’t rotate properly: Same issue as above. iPhone Landscape-Only Utility-Template Application: Layout errors, controller does not seem to recognize the view should be rotated but displays a clipped portrait view in landscape mode, causing half of the screen to stay blank. presentModalViewController in landscape after portrait viewController: Modal views are not correctly rendered either. A set of different solutions have been presented, some of them including completely custom animation via CoreGraphics, while others build on the observation that the first view controller loaded from the main nib is always displayed correct. I have spent a significant amount of time investigating this issue and finally found a solution that is not only a partial solution but should work under all these circumstances. It is my intend with this CW post to provide sort of a FAQ for others having issues with UIViewControllers in Landscape mode. Please provide feedback and help improve the quality of this Post by incorporating any related observations. Feel free to edit and post other/better answers if you know of any.

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• Header Setup in SOAP with ASP.NET 3.5 WCF

  - by Adam

  I'm pretty new to SOAP so go easy on me. I'm trying to setup a SOAP service that accepts the following header format: <soap:Header> <wsse:Security> <wsse:UsernameToken wsu:Id='SecurityToken-securityToken'> <wsse:Username>Username</wsse:Username> <wsse:Password>Password</wsse:Password> <wsu:Created>Timestamp</wsu:Created> </wsse:UsernameToken> </wsse:Security> </soap:Header> The application I'm incorporating this service into is an ASP.NET 3.5 web application and I've already setup a SOAP endpoint using WCF. I've setup a basic service to make sure the WCF works and it works fine (disregarding the header). I heard that the above format follows WS-Security so I added WSHttpBinding in the web.config: <service name="Nexternal.Service.XMLTools.VNService" behaviorConfiguration="VNServiceBehavior"> <!--The first endpoint would be picked up from the confirg this shows how the config can be overriden with the service host--> <endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="Nexternal.Service.XMLTools.IVNService"/> </service> I downloaded a test harness (soapUI) and pasted in a test message with the above header and it came back with a 400 Bad Request error. ...for what it's worth, I'm running Visual Studio 2008 using IIS7. I feel like I'm going in circles so any help would be awesome. Thanks in advance.

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• Python with Wiimote using pywiiuse module

  - by Anon

  After seeing the abilities and hackibility of wiimotes I really want to use it in my 'Intro to programming' final. Everyone must make a python program and present it to the class. I want to make a game with pygame incorporating a wiimote. I found pywiiuse which is a very basic wrapper for the wiiuse library using c types. I can NOT get anything beyond LEDs and vibrating to work. Buttons, IR, motion sensing, nothing. I've tried different versions of wiiuse, pywiiuse, even python. I can't even get the examples that came with it to run. Here's the code I made as a simple test. I copied some of the example C++ code. from pywiiuse import * from time import sleep #Init wiimotes = wiiuse_init() #Find and start the wiimote found = wiiuse_find(wiimotes,1,5) #Make the variable wiimote to the first wiimote init() found wiimote = wiimotes.contents #Set Leds wiiuse_set_leds(wiimote,WIIMOTE_LED_1) #Rumble for 1 second wiiuse_rumble(wiimote,1) sleep(1) wiiuse_rumble(wiimote,0) #Turn motion sensing on(supposedly) wiiuse_motion_sensing(wiimote,1) while 1: #Poll the wiimotes to get the status like pitch or roll if(wiiuse_poll(wiimote,1)): print 'EVENT' And here's the output when I run it. wiiuse version 0.9 wiiuse api version 8 [INFO] Found wiimote [assigned wiimote id 1]. EVENT EVENT Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Documents and Settings\Nick\Desktop\wiimotetext.py", line 26, in <mod ule> if(wiiuse_poll(wiimote,1)): WindowsError: exception: access violation reading 0x00000004 It seems each time I run it, it prints out EVENT 2-5 times until the trace back. I have no clue what to do at this point, I've been trying for the past two days to get it working. Thanks!

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• Web Automation Tool

  - by Aaron

  I've realized I need a full-fledged browser automation tool for testing user interactions with our JavaScript widget library. I was using qunit, starting with unit testing and then I unwisely started incorporating more and more functional tests. That was a bad idea: trying to simulate a lot of user actions with JavaScript. The timing issues have gotten out of control and have made the suite too brittle. Now I spend more time fixing the tests, then I do developing. Is it possible to find a browser automation tool that works in: Windows XP: IE6,7,8, FF3 OSX: Safari, FF3 ? I've looked into SeleniumIDE and RC, but there seems to be some IE8 problems. I've also seen some things about Google's WebDriver, which confusingly seems to work with Selenium. Our organziation has licenses for IBM's Rational Functional Tester, but I don' think that will work on the MAC. The idea is to try to run tests on all the browsers our organization supports. Doable? Are my requirements unrealistic? Any recommendations as far as software to try? Thanks!

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• Programmatically modifying a file on Windows Server 2008 (Web Ed.)

  - by Tom

  I have written a .NET 2008 application, incorporating Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel, that modifies an existing Excel 2007 spreadsheet. It works perfectly on my WinXP development computer. When I upload the app to a Microsoft Web Server 2008, it opens the file and reads from the file, but when the app tries to save the file, it throws this exception: "System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x800A03EC): 'july2009.xlsx' is read-only. To save a copy, click OK, then give the workbook a new name in the Save As dialog box." The file is NOT read-only, nor is it opened by any other user or app. The app and the Excel file both reside on the D: (data-only) drive. My first instinct was to look at file permissions. When nothing else worked, I literally created a temporary Group, added EVERY user and security entity to it and granted the group full control of the entire D: drive. No luck. Then I tried manually elevating the permission by running my app as administrator. No luck. Finally, I copied the file to my XP development computer and ran the app there. Of course it worked perfectly. Can anyone please tell me how to give my program permission to edit a file on Server 2008? Thanks!

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