Search Results

Search found 1119 results on 45 pages for 'robert birch'.

Page 5/45 | < Previous Page | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12  | Next Page >

  • Important Considerations When Implementing Oracle E-Business Tax in Release 12

    - by Robert Story
    Upcoming WebcastTitle: Important Considerations When Implementing Oracle E-Business Tax in Release 12Date: April 15, 2010 Time: 12:00 pm EDT Product Family: Receivables CommunitySummary This one-hour session is recommended for functional users who wish to understand the important considerations when they are implementing Oracle E-Business Tax in Release 12. Topics will include: Features of E-Business TaxUpgrade versus fresh implementationPartner Integrations Localizations A short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included. Click here to register for this session....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

    Read the article

  • ISO booting with grub2 in Ubuntu on an Apple

    - by Robert Vila
    I have Ubuntu with grub2 installed in an Apple Macbook pro with dual boot (using rEFIt), and I would like to use grub2 to boot the LiveCD ISO image of a system based in Debian too (CrunchBang). The ISO image is saved in the same hard disk, same partition as Ubuntu. I can easily boot many other LiveCD ISO images, but I cannot boot this one, and I cannot boot the MacOS system, from the grub menu, either. The installation of Ubuntu left a couple of menu entries to boot MacOS, but they never worked. SO I don't know if it is possible to boot them, and how. I have tried many options, but the menuentry I am trying now to boot crunchBang is this one: menuentry "crunchbang-10-20120207-i386.iso" { set isofile="/home/user/Desktop/ISO/crunchbang-10-20120207-i386.iso" loopback loop (hd0,3)$isofile linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz1 iso-scan/filename=$isofile toram=filesystem.squashfs findiso=$isofile boot=live config -- initrd (loop)/live/initrd1.img } And I copied it from here: http://linux4netbook.blogspot.com.es/2012/08/due-crunchbang-e-un-pennino.html

    Read the article

  • EBS Diagnostics & Trailing Spaces

    - by Robert Story
    Upcoming WebcastsTitle: EBS Diagnostics & Trailing SpacesDate: April 20, 2010 Time: 2:00 pm Japan, 10:30 am India, 07:00 am CET, 03:00 pm Australia Click here to register for this sessionDate: April 21, 2010 Time: 10:30 am EDT, 8:30 am MDT, 8:00 pm India, 04:30 pm CET, 03:30 pm UK Click here to register for this sessionProduct Family: EBS Diagnostics Summary This 1.5 hour session is recommended for technical and functional users who are interested to get a generic overview about the EBS Diagnostics and the specific Diagnostic about "Leading Trailing spaces" to identify the root cause of FRM-40654 errors in any functional Form. Topics will include: Introduction to Diagnostics Catalog Host Note Diagnostics - Trailing and Leading Spaces Demonstration A short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

    Read the article

  • Making the Grade

    - by [email protected]
    Education Organizations Learn the Advantages of Oracle Today, K-12 school districts and state agencies nationwide have billions of reasons to come to Oracle OpenWorld 2010. Ever since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 set aside US$100 billion for education, schools have been eager to develop and implement statewide data systems to enhance workflow. And across the country, they've been turning to Oracle for help. According to a recent news release, Oracle already makes the grade. The Los Angeles Unified School District--the nation's second largest district--chose Oracle Business Intelligence Suite, Enterprise Edition Plus to help teachers keep track of student performance. Other educational organizations, including Fairfax County Public Schools and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, are also working with Oracle to improve their systemwide procedures. If you're an educator or administrator who is planning to optimize your school or agency data systems, this may be the best time to learn what Oracle can do help ensure success. Register for Oracle OpenWorld 2010 between now and July 16 and you'll save US$500 off registration.

    Read the article

  • Drop and Give Me 20 Questions

    - by [email protected]
    IOUG Sponsors Boot Camp at Collaborate 10 Feeling flabby and out of shape on topics such as virtualization, SQL development, and security? Want to beef up your skills on Oracle Database 11g Release 2, Oracle on Linux for IBM System z, and Oracle's maximum availability architecture on Linux for IBM System z? If so, it's time for boot camp. The Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) is sponsoring its first-ever boot camp for Oracle technology and database professionals at Collaborate 10, April 19 to 21. And yes, as with many boot camps, the IOUG programs will be in a harsh, desert environment--at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The one- and two-day programs will cover Oracle technology and a variety of database topics, and they'll be taught by drill instructors, including industry experts as well as Oracle users and staff. You'll get in-depth training. But don't worry. You won't have to suffer through a bad haircut and 20-mile hikes. Are you ready? Was that a "yes, sir"? I can't hear you.

    Read the article

  • Visual web page designer for Django?

    - by Robert Oschler
    I'm just starting my Django learning so pardon me if any part of this question is off-base. I have done a lot of web searching for information on the equivalent of a visual web page designer for Django and I don't seem to be getting very far. I have experience with Delphi (Object Pascal), C, C++, Python, PHP, Java, and Javascript and have created and maintained several web sites that included MySQL database dependent content. For the longest time I've been using one of the standard WYSIWIG designers to design the actual web pages, with any needed back end programming done via Forms or AJAX calls that call server side PHP scripts. I have grown tired of the quirks, bugs, and other annoyances associated with the program. Also, I find myself hungry for the functionality and reliability a good MVC based framework would provide me so I could really express myself with custom code easily. So I am turning to Django/Python. However, I'm still a junkie for a good WYSIWIG designer for the layout of web pages. I know there are some out there that thrive on opening up a text editor, possibly with some code editor tools to assist, and pounding out pages. But I do adore a drag and drop editor for simple page layout, especially for things like embedded images, tables, buttons, etc. I found a few open source projects on GitHub but they seem to be focused on HTML web forms, not a generic web page editor. So can I get what I want here? The supreme goal would be to find not only a web page editor that creates Django compatible web pages, but if I dare say it, have a design editor that could add Python code stubs to various page elements in the style of the Delph/VCL or VB design editors. Note, I also have the Wing IDE Professional IDE, version 2.0. As a side note, if you know of any really cool, fun, or time-saving Python libraries that are designed for easy integration into Django please tell me about them. -- roschler

    Read the article

  • Wacom Bamboo CTH460L issues

    - by Robert Smith
    I recently bought a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch CTH460L. I installed doctormo's PPA, however, the pen functionality didn't work and the touch was very glitchy (when I touched it, it immediately double clicked and began to drag elements in the screen). I tried to configure it using the wacom-utility package in the Synaptic Package Manager (version 1.21-1) but that didn't work either. Then I followed this post (#621, written by aaaalex), and after some problems trying to restart Ubuntu (graphics related problems), the pen works fine (it could be better, though) but the touch functionality doesn't work anymore. Currently I have installed xserver-xorg-input-wacom (1:0.10.11-0ubuntu7), wacom-dkms (0.8.10.2-1ubuntu1) and wacom-utility. The Wacom Utility only displays an "options" field under "Wacom BambooPT 2FG 4X5" but no other option to configure it. What is the correct way to get this tablet working on Ubuntu 10.04?. By the way, currently I can't start Ubuntu properly when the tablet is connected (in that case, Ubuntu start in low graphics mode). I need to connect it later. UPDATE: I uninstalled xserver -xorg-input-wacom, and wacom-utility because one of them prevented Ubuntu to start normally. I only re-installed wacom-dkms 0.8.10.2-1ubuntu1. The pen is working but no touch functionality. The side buttons don't work either. Thanks in advance.

    Read the article

  • Performing a clean database creation using msbuild

    - by Robert May
    So I’m taking a break from writing about other Agile stuff for a post. :)  I’m still going to get back to the other subjects, but this is fun too. Something I’ve done quite a bit of is MSBuild and CI work.  I’m experimenting with ways to improve what I’ve done in the past, particularly around database CI. Today, I developed a mechanism for starting from scratch with your database.  By scratch, I mean blowing away the existing database and creating it again from a single command line call.  I’m a firm believer that developers should be able to get to a known clean state at the database level with a single command and that they should be operating off of their own isolated database to improve productivity.  These scripts will help that. Here’s how I did it.  First, we have to disconnect users.  I did so using the help of a script from sql server central.  Note that I’m using sqlcmd variable replacement. -- kills all the users in a particular database -- dlhatheway/3M, 11-Jun-2000 declare @arg_dbname sysname declare @a_spid smallint declare @msg varchar(255) declare @a_dbid int set @arg_dbname = '$(DatabaseName)' select @a_dbid = sdb.dbid from master..sysdatabases sdb where sdb.name = @arg_dbname declare db_users insensitive cursor for select sp.spid from master..sysprocesses sp where sp.dbid = @a_dbid open db_users fetch next from db_users into @a_spid while @@fetch_status = 0 begin select @msg = 'kill '+convert(char(5),@a_spid) print @msg execute (@msg) fetch next from db_users into @a_spid end close db_users deallocate db_users GO Once all users are booted from the database, we can commence with recreating the database.  I generated the script that is used to create a database from SQL Server management studio, so I’m only going to show the bits that weren’t generated that are important.  There are a bunch of Alter Database statements that aren’t shown. First, I had to find the default location of the database files in the install, since they can be in many different locations.  I used Method 1 from a technet blog and then modified it a bit to do what I needed to do.  I ended up using dynamic SQL because for the life of me, I couldn’t get the “Filename” property to not return an error when I used anything besides a string.  I’m dropping the database first, if it exists.  Here’s the code:   IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM [master].[sys].[databases] WHERE [name] = N'$(DatabaseName)') BEGIN drop database $(DatabaseName) END; go IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM [master].[sys].[databases] WHERE [name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath') BEGIN DROP DATABASE zzTempDBForDefaultPath END; -- Create temp database. Because no options are given, the default data and --- log path locations are used CREATE DATABASE zzTempDBForDefaultPath; DECLARE @Default_Data_Path VARCHAR(512), @Default_Log_Path VARCHAR(512); --Get the default data path SELECT @Default_Data_Path = ( SELECT LEFT(physical_name,LEN(physical_name)-CHARINDEX('\',REVERSE(physical_name))+1) FROM sys.master_files mf INNER JOIN sys.[databases] d ON mf.[database_id] = d.[database_id] WHERE d.[name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath' AND type = 0); --Get the default Log path SELECT @Default_Log_Path = ( SELECT LEFT(physical_name,LEN(physical_name)-CHARINDEX('\',REVERSE(physical_name))+1) FROM sys.master_files mf INNER JOIN sys.[databases] d ON mf.[database_id] = d.[database_id] WHERE d.[name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath' AND type = 1); --Clean up. IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM [master].[sys].[databases] WHERE [name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath') BEGIN DROP DATABASE zzTempDBForDefaultPath END; DECLARE @SQL nvarchar(max) SET @SQL= 'CREATE DATABASE $(DatabaseName) ON PRIMARY ( NAME = N''$(DatabaseName)'', FILENAME = N''' + @Default_Data_Path + N'$(DatabaseName)' + '.mdf' + ''', SIZE = 2048KB , FILEGROWTH = 1024KB ) LOG ON ( NAME = N''$(DatabaseName)Log'', FILENAME = N''' + @Default_Log_Path + N'$(DatabaseName)' + '.ldf' + ''', SIZE = 1024KB , FILEGROWTH = 10%) ' exec (@SQL) GO And with that, your database is created.  You can run these scripts on any server and on any database name.  To do that, I created an MSBuild script that looks like this: <Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="4.0"> <PropertyGroup> <DatabaseName>MyDatabase</DatabaseName> <Server>localhost</Server> <SqlCmd>sqlcmd -v DatabaseName=$(DatabaseName) -S $(Server) -i </SqlCmd> <ScriptDirectory>.\Scripts</ScriptDirectory> </PropertyGroup> <Target Name ="Rebuild"> <ItemGroup> <ScriptFiles Include="$(ScriptDirectory)\*.sql"/> </ItemGroup> <Exec Command="$(SqlCmd) &quot;%(ScriptFiles.Identity)&quot;" ContinueOnError="false"/> </Target> </Project> Note that the Scripts directory is underneath the directory where I’m running the msbuild command and is relative to that directory.  Note also that the target is using batching to run each script in the scripts subdirectory, one after the other.  Each script is passed to the sqlcmd command line execution using the .Identity property on the itemgroup that is created.  This target file is saved in the file “Database.target”. To make this work, you’ll need msbuild in your path, and then run the following command: msbuild database.target /target:Rebuild Once you’ve got your virgin database setup, you’d then need to use a tool like dbdeploy.net to determine that it was a virgin database, build a change script based on the change scripts, and then you’d want another sqlcmd call to update the database with the appropriate scripts.  I’m doing that next, so I’ll post a blog update when I’ve got it working. Technorati Tags: MSBuild,Agile,CI,Database

    Read the article

  • Who Makes a Good Product Owner

    - by Robert May
    In general, the best product owners are those that care passionately about the customer of the product.  Note that I didn’t say about the product itself.  Actually, people that only care about the product, generally do not make good product owners.  Products only matter in relationship to their customers.  If a product doesn’t provide value to the customer, then the product has no value, no matter what a person might think of the product, and no matter what cool technologies exist inside of the product. A good product owner is also a good negotiator.  They recognize that many different priorities exist inside of a corporation, but that there can be only one list that developers work from.  A good product owner recognizes that its their job to help others around them prioritize (perhaps with a Product Council), but also understand that they alone have the final say about priorities and are willing to make the tough decisions required.  Deciding the priority between two perfectly valid stories is very difficult, especially when the stories are from two different departments! A good product owner is deeply interested in helping the team be successful.  They don’t seek to control the team, but instead seek to understand what the team can do and then work with the team to get the best product possible for the Customer.  A good product owner is never denigrating to team members, ever.  They recognize that such behavior would damage the trust that needs to be present between team members and product owners and will avoid it at all costs. In general, technical people (i.e. former or current developers) make poor product owners.  In their minds, they can’t separate implementation details from user functionality, so their stories end up sounding like implementation details.  For example, “The user enters their username on the password screen” is something that a technical product owner would write.  The proper wording for that story is “A user supplies the system with their credentials.”  Because technical people think different from the rest of the population, they are generally not a good fit. A good product owner is also a good writer.  Writing good stories demands good writing.  The art of persuasion, descriptiveness and just general good grammar are all required.  A good Product Owner must also be well spoken, since most of what will be conveyed will be conveyed with the spoken word, not just written word. A good product owner is a “People Person.”  They like talking to people and are very patient.  They don’t mind having questions repeated or fielding many questions, because they want to make sure that the ideas they’re conveying are properly understood so the customer gets the best product possible.  They are happy to answer any questions a team member may have and invite feedback and criticism of designs and stories, since they want a good product.  They really have little ego that gets in the way of building a great product. All of these qualities can be hard to find, but if you look close enough, you’ll find the right person in your organization.  Product owners can be found anywhere, not just in upper management.  Some of the best product owners are those that are very close to the customer.  In fact, check your customer support staff.  I’d bet that several great product owners are lurking there. Final note about what makes a good product owner.  You’re probably NOT going to find a good product owner in a manager, especially if they consider themselves a “Manager.”  Product owners don’t manage anything but the backlog, so be especially careful if the person you’re selecting for Product Owner is a manager. Up Next, “Messing with the Team.” Technorati Tags: Scrum,Product Owner

    Read the article

  • E-Business Tax Release 12 Setup - US Location Based Taxes Part 1, Prerequisities & Regimes

    - by Robert Story
    Upcoming WebcastTitle: E-Business Tax Release 12 Setup - US Location Based Taxes Part 1, Prerequisities & RegimesDate: April 28, 2010 Time: 12:00 pm EDT Product Family: Receivables Community Summary This one-hour session is part one of two on setting up a fresh implementation of US Location Based Taxes in Oracle E-Business Tax.  It is recommended for functional users who wish to understand the steps involved in setting up E-Business Tax in Release 12. Topics will include: Overview of E-Business TaxLocation setupRegime to Rate FlowTax RegimesTaxesTax StatusesTax JurisdictionsTax Recovery RatesTax RatesSubscribing the Operation Unit to a Regime to Rate FlowBrief Demonstration A short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included. Click here to register for this session....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

    Read the article

  • Knowledge Management Feedback

    - by Robert Schweighardt
    Did you know that you can provide feedback on Knowledge Management (KM) articles? It's nice to read a technical article that is well-written, the grammar and spelling are correct, the information is up to date, concise, to the point, easy to understand and it flows from one paragraph to another.  And though we always strive for a well-written article, it doesn't always come out that way. Knowledge Management articles are written by Oracle Support Engineers and we welcome your feedback.  Providing feedback helps to improve Oracle's Knowledge Base.  If you're reading a KM article and you have a comment, please let us know about it.  Maybe it's just to fix a spelling or grammatical error.  Maybe there's a broken link that needs to be fixed.  Maybe it's a suggestion to provide additional information.  Maybe the article contains incorrect information.  Maybe some information in the article is outdated.  Maybe something is not clear in the article.  Whatever it is, we want to hear about it.  We value your input! When you provide feedback it goes directly to the owner of the article.  The owner carefully reviews the comment and decides whether or not to implement it.  Most comments are implemented and we strive to implement them within a week!  For those comments that are not implemented, there is normally a good reason.  It may not be feasible to implement the suggestion or the suggestion may not be correct.  We don't take the decision lightly! So how do you provide feedback? Providing feedback on a KM article depends on whether you're a customer or an Oracle Employee. Customer 1. In the upper right hand corner of the article, click on the little +/- Rate this document icon: Note: The grayed out Comments (0) link will only show a number when there are open comments that are still being evaluated. 2. In the Article Rating window, complete as many of the following optional fields as you like and then click the Send Rating button: Rate the article as Excellent, Good or Poor Specify whether the article helped you or not Specify the ease of finding the article Provide whatever comments you have Employee The interface for Oracle Employees is a little bit different, there are more options. 1. The +/- Rate this document icon is also available to employees and is identical to what the customers have.  Please see Customer section above. 2. The Show document comments link shows all comments that have ever been submitted for the article 3. Employees have an additional way to submit a comment.  Click on the little + Add Comment icon: 4. Fill out the Add Comment fields and click the Add Comment button: We look forward to your feedback!

    Read the article

  • SSAO Distortion

    - by Robert Xu
    I'm currently (attempting) to add SSAO to my engine, except it's...not really work, to say the least. I use a deferred renderer to render my scene. I have four render targets: Albedo, Light, Normal, and Depth. Here are the parameters for all of them (Surface Format, Depth Format): Albedo: 32-bit ARGB, Depth24Stencil8 Light: 32-bit ARGB, None Normal: 32-bit ARGB, None Depth: 8-bit R (Single), Depth24Stencil8 To generate my random noise map for the SSAO, I do the following for each pixel in the noise map: Vector3 v3 = Vector3.Zero; double z = rand.NextDouble() * 2.0 - 1.0; double r = Math.Sqrt(1.0 - z * z); double angle = rand.NextDouble() * MathHelper.TwoPi; v3.X = (float)(r * Math.Cos(angle)); v3.Y = (float)(r * Math.Sin(angle)); v3.Z = (float)z; v3 += offset; v3 *= 0.5f; result[i] = new Color(v3); This is my GBuffer rendering effect: PixelInput RenderGBufferColorVertexShader(VertexInput input) { PixelInput pi = ( PixelInput ) 0; pi.Position = mul(input.Position, WorldViewProjection); pi.Normal = mul(input.Normal, WorldInverseTranspose); pi.Color = input.Color; pi.TPosition = pi.Position; pi.WPosition = input.Position; return pi; } GBufferTarget RenderGBufferColorPixelShader(PixelInput input) { GBufferTarget output = ( GBufferTarget ) 0; float3 position = input.TPosition.xyz / input.TPosition.w; output.Albedo = lerp(float4(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f), input.Color, ColorFactor); output.Normal = EncodeNormal(input.Normal); output.Depth = position.z; return output; } And here is the SSAO effect: float4 EncodeNormal(float3 normal) { return float4((normal.xyz * 0.5f) + 0.5f, 0.0f); } float3 DecodeNormal(float4 encoded) { return encoded * 2.0 - 1.0f; } float Intensity; float Size; float2 NoiseOffset; float4x4 ViewProjection; float4x4 ViewProjectionInverse; texture DepthMap; texture NormalMap; texture RandomMap; const float3 samples[16] = { float3(0.01537562, 0.01389096, 0.02276565), float3(-0.0332658, -0.2151698, -0.0660736), float3(-0.06420016, -0.1919067, 0.5329634), float3(-0.05896204, -0.04509097, -0.03611697), float3(-0.1302175, 0.01034653, 0.01543675), float3(0.3168565, -0.182557, -0.01421785), float3(-0.02134448, -0.1056605, 0.00576055), float3(-0.3502164, 0.281433, -0.2245609), float3(-0.00123525, 0.00151868, 0.02614773), float3(0.1814744, 0.05798516, -0.02362876), float3(0.07945167, -0.08302628, 0.4423518), float3(0.321987, -0.05670302, -0.05418307), float3(-0.00165138, -0.00410309, 0.00537362), float3(0.01687791, 0.03189049, -0.04060405), float3(-0.04335613, -0.00530749, 0.06443053), float3(0.8474263, -0.3590308, -0.02318038), }; sampler DepthSampler = sampler_state { Texture = DepthMap; MipFilter = Point; MinFilter = Point; MagFilter = Point; AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp; }; sampler NormalSampler = sampler_state { Texture = NormalMap; MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear; AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp; }; sampler RandomSampler = sampler_state { Texture = RandomMap; MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear; }; struct VertexInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TextureCoordinates : TEXCOORD0; }; struct PixelInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TextureCoordinates : TEXCOORD0; }; PixelInput SSAOVertexShader(VertexInput input) { PixelInput pi = ( PixelInput ) 0; pi.Position = input.Position; pi.TextureCoordinates = input.TextureCoordinates; return pi; } float3 GetXYZ(float2 uv) { float depth = tex2D(DepthSampler, uv); float2 xy = uv * 2.0f - 1.0f; xy.y *= -1; float4 p = float4(xy, depth, 1); float4 q = mul(p, ViewProjectionInverse); return q.xyz / q.w; } float3 GetNormal(float2 uv) { return DecodeNormal(tex2D(NormalSampler, uv)); } float4 SSAOPixelShader(PixelInput input) : COLOR0 { float depth = tex2D(DepthSampler, input.TextureCoordinates); float3 position = GetXYZ(input.TextureCoordinates); float3 normal = GetNormal(input.TextureCoordinates); float occlusion = 1.0f; float3 reflectionRay = DecodeNormal(tex2D(RandomSampler, input.TextureCoordinates + NoiseOffset)); for (int i = 0; i < 16; i++) { float3 sampleXYZ = position + reflect(samples[i], reflectionRay) * Size; float4 screenXYZW = mul(float4(sampleXYZ, 1.0f), ViewProjection); float3 screenXYZ = screenXYZW.xyz / screenXYZW.w; float2 sampleUV = float2(screenXYZ.x * 0.5f + 0.5f, 1.0f - (screenXYZ.y * 0.5f + 0.5f)); float frontMostDepthAtSample = tex2D(DepthSampler, sampleUV); if (frontMostDepthAtSample < screenXYZ.z) { occlusion -= 1.0f / 16.0f; } } return float4(occlusion * Intensity * float3(1.0, 1.0, 1.0), 1.0); } technique SSAO { pass Pass0 { VertexShader = compile vs_3_0 SSAOVertexShader(); PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 SSAOPixelShader(); } } However, when I use the effect, I get some pretty bad distortion: Here's the light map that goes with it -- is the static-like effect supposed to be like that? I've noticed that even if I'm looking at nothing, I still get the static-like effect. (you can see it in the screenshot; the top half doesn't have any geometry yet it still has the static-like effect) Also, does anyone have any advice on how to effectively debug shaders?

    Read the article

  • Supporting HR Transformation with HelpDesk for Human Resources

    - by Robert Story
    Upcoming WebcastTitle: Supporting HR Transformation with HelpDesk for Human ResourcesDate: May 13, 2010 Time: 9:00 am PDT, 10 am MDT, 17:00 GMT Product Family: PeopleSoft HCM & EBS HRMS Summary HR transformation is a strategic initiative at many companies where world-class employee HR service delivery and a reduction of HR operating costs are top priorities. Having a centralized service delivery model and providing employees with tools to better help themselves can be very key to this initiative. This session shares how Oracle's PeopleSoft HelpDesk for Human Resources provides the technology foundation and best practices for this transformation. HelpDesk for Human Resources now integrates with both PeopleSoft HCM and E-Business Suite HRMS. This one-hour session is recommended for technical and functional users who want to understand what is new in PeopleSoft Help Desk for Human Resources 9.1 and how it benefits both PeopleSoft HCM and E-Business Suite HRMS customers. Topics will include: Understand the latest features and functionality Gain insight into future product direction Plan for implementation or upgrade of this module in your current system A short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included. Click here to register for this session....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

    Read the article

  • Best Practices of Performance Management Plan (PMP)

    - by Robert Story
    Upcoming WebcastTitle: Best Practices of Performance Management Plan (PMP)Date: April 22, 2010Time: 11 AM EST / 8 AM PST / 8.30 PM IST  Product Family: EBS HRMS SummaryThis webcast will cover the best practices of Performance Management Plan(PMP) in very common scenarios. The best practices will address major issues around plan dates, new hire, manager transfer and related events. The session will also cover HRMS Patching Strategy, Key References and various customer communication channels.A short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included.Click here to register for this session....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

    Read the article

  • Easy Scaling in XAML (WPF)

    - by Robert May
    Ran into a problem that needed solving that was kind of fun.  I’m not a XAML guru, and I’m sure there are better solutions, but I thought I’d share mine. The problem was this:  Our designer had, appropriately, designed the system for a 1920 x 1080 screen resolution.  This is for a full screen, touch screen device (think Kiosk), which has that resolution, but we also wanted to demo the device on a tablet (currently using the AWESOME Samsung tablet given out at Microsoft Build).  When you’d run it on that tablet, things were ugly because it was at a lower resolution than the target device. Enter scaling.  I did some research and found out that I probably just need to monkey with the LayoutTransform of some grid somewhere.  This project is using MVVM and has a navigation container that we built that lives on a single root view.  User controls are then loaded into that view as navigation occurs. In the parent grid of the root view, I added the following XAML: <Grid.LayoutTransform> <ScaleTransform ScaleX="{Binding ScaleWidth}" ScaleY="{Binding ScaleHeight}" /> </Grid.LayoutTransform> And then in the root View Model, I added the following code: /// <summary> /// The required design width /// </summary> private const double RequiredWidth = 1920; /// <summary> /// The required design height /// </summary> private const double RequiredHeight = 1080; /// <summary>Gets the ActualHeight</summary> public double ActualHeight { get { return this.View.ActualHeight; } } /// <summary>Gets the ActualWidth</summary> public double ActualWidth { get { return this.View.ActualWidth; } } /// <summary> /// Gets the scale for the height. /// </summary> public double ScaleHeight { get { return this.ActualHeight / RequiredHeight; } } /// <summary> /// Gets the scale for the width. /// </summary> public double ScaleWidth { get { return this.ActualWidth / RequiredWidth; } } Note that View.ActualWidth and View.ActualHeight are just pointing directly at FrameworkElement.ActualWidth and FrameworkElement.ActualHeight. That’s it.  Just calculate the ratio and bind the scale transform to it. Hopefully you’ll find this useful. Technorati Tags: WPF,XAML

    Read the article

  • A Technical Perspective On Rapid Planning

    - by Robert Story
    Upcoming WebcastTitle: A Technical Perspective On Rapid PlanningDate: April 14, 2010 Time: 11:00 am EDT, 9:00 am MDT, 8:00 am PDT, 16:00 GMT Product Family: Value Chain PlanningSummary Oracle's Strategic Network Optimization (SNO) product is a powerful supply chain design and tactical planning tool.  This one-hour session is recommended for functional users who want to gain a better understanding of how Oracle's SNO solution can help you solve complex supply chain issues, including supply chain design, risk management, logistics planning, sustainability planning, and a whole lot in between! Find out how SNO can be used to solve many different types of real-world business issues. Topics will include: Risk/Disaster Management Carbon Emissions Management Global Sourcing Labor/Workforce Planning Product Mix Optimization A short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included. Click here to register for this session....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

    Read the article

  • BizTalk Envelopes explained

    - by Robert Kokuti
    Recently I've been trying to get some order into an ESB-BizTalk pub/sub scenario, and decided to wrap the payload into standardized envelopes. I have used envelopes before in a 'light weight' fashion, and I found that they can be quite useful and powerful if used systematically. Here is what I learned. The Theory In my experience, Envelopes are often underutilised in a BizTalk solution, and quite often their full potential is not well understood. Here I try to simplify the theory behind the Envelopes within BizTalk.   Envelopes can be used to attach additional data to the ‘real’ data (payload). This additional data can contain all routing and processing information, and allows treating the business data as a ‘black box’, possibly compressed and/or encrypted etc. The point here is that the infrastructure does not need to know anything about the business data content, just as a post man does not need to know the letter within the envelope. BizTalk has built-in support for envelopes through the XMLDisassembler and XMLAssembler pipeline components (these are part of the XMLReceive and XMLSend default pipelines). These components, among other things, perform the following: XMLDisassembler Extracts the payload from the envelope into the Message Body Copies data from the envelope into the message context, as specified by the property schema(s) associated by the envelope schema. Typically, once the envelope is through the XMLDisassembler, the payload is submitted into the Messagebox, and the rest of the envelope data are copied into the context of the submitted message. The XMLDisassembler uses the Property Schemas, referenced by the Envelope Schema, to determine the name of the promoted Message Context element.   XMLAssembler Wraps the Message Body inside the specified envelope schema Populates the envelope values from the message context, as specified by the property schema(s) associated by the envelope schema. Notice that there are no requirements to use the receiving envelope schema when sending. The sent message can be wrapped within any suitable envelope, regardless whether the message was originally received within an envelope or not. However, by sharing Property Schemas between Envelopes, it is possible to pass values from the incoming envelope to the outgoing envelope via the Message Context. The Practice Creating the Envelope Add a new Schema to the BizTalk project:   Envelopes are defined as schemas, with the <Schema> Envelope property set to Yes, and the root node’s Body XPath property pointing to the node which contains the payload. Typically, you’d create an envelope structure similar to this: Click on the <Schema> node and set the Envelope property to Yes. Then, click on the Envelope node, and set the Body XPath property pointing to the ‘Body’ node:   The ‘Body’ node is a Child Element, and its Data Structure Type is set to xs:anyType.  This allows the Body node to carry any payload data. The XMLReceive pipeline will submit the data found in the Body node, while the XMLSend pipeline will copy the message into the Body node, before sending to the destination. Promoting Properties Once you defined the envelope, you may want to promote the envelope data (anything other than the Body) as Property Fields, in order to preserve their value in the message context. Anything not promoted will be lost when the XMLDisassembler extracts the payload from the Body. Typically, this means you promote everything in the Header node. Property promotion uses associated Property Schemas. These are special BizTalk schemas which have a flat field structure. Property Schemas define the name of the promoted values in the Message Context, by combining the Property Schema’s Namespace and the individual Field names. It is worth being systematic when it comes to naming your schemas, their namespace and type name. A coherent method will make your life easier when it comes to referencing the schemas during development, and managing subscriptions (filters) in BizTalk Administration. I developed a fairly coherent naming convention which I’ll probably share in another article. Because the property schema must be flat, I recommend creating one for each level in the envelope header hierarchy. Property schemas are very useful in passing data between incoming as outgoing envelopes. As I mentioned earlier, in/out envelopes do not have to be the same, but you can use the same property schema when you promote the outgoing envelope fields as you used for the incoming schema.  As you can reference many property schemas for field promotion, you can pick data from a variety of sources when you define your outgoing envelope. For example, the outgoing envelope can carry some of the incoming envelope’s promoted values, plus some values from the standard BizTalk message context, like the AdapterReceiveCompleteTime property from the BizTalk message-tracking properties. The values you promote for the outgoing envelope will be automatically populated from the Message Context by the XMLAssembler pipeline component. Using the Envelope Receiving Enveloped messages are automatically recognized by the XMLReceive pipeline, or any other custom pipeline which includes the XMLDisassembler component. The Body Path node will become the Message Body, while the rest of the envelope values will be added to the Message context, as defined by the Property Shemas referenced by the Envelope Schema. Sending The Send Port’s filter expression can use the promoted properties from the incoming envelope. If you want to enclose the sent message within an envelope, the Send Port XMLAssembler component must be configured with the fully qualified envelope name:   One way of obtaining the fully qualified envelope name is copy it off from the envelope schema property page: The full envelope schema name is constructed as <Name>, <Assembly> The outgoing envelope is populated by the XMLAssembler pipeline component. The Message Body is copied to the specified envelope’s Body Path node, while the rest of the envelope fields are populated from the Message Context, according to the Property Schemas associated with the Envelope Schema. That’s all for now, happy enveloping!

    Read the article

  • A Technical Perspective On Rapid Planning

    - by Robert Story
    Upcoming WebcastTitle: Strategic Network Optimization - One Solution for Many Problems!Date: April 14, 2010 Time: 11:00 am EDT, 9:00 am MDT, 8:00 am PDT, 16:00 GMT Product Family: Value Chain PlanningSummary This one-hour session is recommended for System Administrators, Database Administrators, and Technical Users seeking a general overview of Rapid Planning, installation issues, and debug information. This webcast is intended to provide users with insight into known issues, and an overview of the debugging possibilities for Rapid Planning. Topics will include: Benefits of using simulation planning Installing Oracle Rapid planning, points to be aware of Relevant tables Rapid planning log files Information needed by supportA short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included. Click here to register for this session....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

    Read the article

  • Development platform for 2D web and mobile games

    - by Robert Vella
    Is there a game development platform -- similar to Torque, or Unity -- which can be used to deploy 2D games on the following platforms: Web iOs Android Xbox Live Arcade (Preferred but not required) And which has an integrated or mature physics engine? Perhaps, even a built in editor? I've looked at the following possibilities but I've found something missing in each one. Of course in each case I may be guilty of misconception. Corona SDK (No web deployment, no windows support) Torque 2D (No web deployment) Flash + Flash Punk or Flixel (No native android deployment, and I'm not sure if it is stable on mobile platforms) Unity + SpriteManager2 (Not really optimised for 2D games, and I haven't seen enough advanced 2D examples -- like say platformers -- to really have any confidence in using it for something like this) Has anyone had any luck with this?

    Read the article

  • Juju bootstrap, install

    - by Robert G.
    I would like to test MAAS + JUJU + OpenStack (I followed the documentation on maas.ubuntu.org) I already made a test environment: 1 MAAS server wich will also run JuJu 10 KVM servers for Openstack The KVM servers are already in "ready" state in MAAS. I would like to set up JuJu but i could not which is drives me crazy. My environments.yaml: environments: maassrv: type: maas maas-server: 'http://${192.168.1.116}/MAAS/' maas-oauth: 'my-key-from-maas' authorized-keys-path: /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub admin-secret: 1234 default-series: trusty When I run "juju status -e maassrv` : ERROR Unable to connect to environment "maassrv". Please check your credentials or use 'juju bootstrap' to create a new environment. Error details: environment "maassrv" not found OK, it's right, so i should run juju bootstrap -e maassrv: ERROR environment "maassrv" not found When i run the command without the -e switch: error: no environment specified So, I am stuck here, I already added the required ssh keys to maas too. I ran out of ideas why it isn't working.

    Read the article

  • MIA

    - by Robert May
    So, I’ve been missing in action on this blog for quite some time.  I need to rectify that. Part of the reason I’ve been absent is because I haven’t be able to talk about what I’m working on.  A former client watches my blog rather closely, and although we accomplished many good things together, their culture is such that they really don’t like people to freely express their thoughts (you’ll note my blog posts stopped rather abruptly).  I learned some really important lessons about Agile in the last 3 years, and I think its worthwhile to talk about them.  Sometimes things worked really well, sometimes, they failed failed.  Sometimes that failure was me, sometimes it wasn’t. I understand Agile better now, and hopefully, what I have to say will guide others through this process and help others understand Agile better. One thing that I’ve learned is that MANY companies that say they are doing Agile are NOT really doing Agile.  To often, they pick the things they like and don’t follow the process long enough to know what rules they can break, and which ones they shouldn’t.  This is probably the primary reason why Agile fails. So, expect more posts, especially as I’m flying coast to coast. :)

    Read the article

  • Improving the speed of writing code in C#

    - by Robert Harvey
    Laugh if you want, but I used to develop substantial line-of-business applications in VB6, long before the .NET framework came along. Why, when I was your age, we used to walk two miles in the snow, uphill. Both ways... Love it or hate it, VB6 had a REPL-like feel, and a very rapid development cycle. I would like to know how to come closer to that process in C#. In VB6, I could write a function, execute it, debug it and have it fully functional in a few minutes. I am told this is how the Lisp crowd works. It's a very rapid-fire style of programming. In C# I write a function, then I write a unit test for that function (which is OK, I understand the value of that), then I right-click, run test, wait for the project to compile (takes about 10 seconds right now, which would be an eternity for a REPL loop), and get an exception. Honestly, this feels more like my junior college days, when I used to feed punch cards into a hopper and wait for a printout (exaggerating only slightly for effect). Additionally, my tendency nowadays is to make everything public while I'm testing it. Unit testing with private accessors works fine, but you can't trace through the code (unless, of course, I'm doing something wrong) while you're using them. So what I'd like to know is, what adjustments have you made to your development process in C# to streamline it, and make it possible to write and verify your code very rapidly?

    Read the article

  • Landed Cost Management Integration with OPM Financials

    - by Robert Story
    Upcoming WebcastTitle: Landed Cost Management Integration with OPM FinancialsDate: April 21, 2010 Time: 11:00 am EDT, 9:00 am PDT, 8:00 am MDT Product Family: EBS: Process Manufacturing Summary This one-hour session will present setup overview and detailed steps for a test case, and is recommended for functional users who are using OPM Financials module with an actual costing method. Topics will include: Overview on Landed Cost Management functionality Setup steps and a test case Some technical considerations Documentation and other reference materials available A short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included. Click here to register for this session....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

    Read the article

  • Big Visible Charts

    - by Robert May
    An important part of Agile is the concept of transparency and visibility. In proper functioning teams, stakeholders can look at any team at any time in the iteration or release and see how that team is doing by simply looking at what we call Big Visible Charts. If you’ve done Scrum, you’ve seen these charts. However, interpreting these charts can often be an art form. There are several different charts that can be useful. In this newsletter, I’ll focus on the Iteration Burndown and Cumulative Flow charts. I’ve included a copy of the spreadsheet that I used to create the charts, and if you don’t have a tool that creates them for you, you can use this spreadsheet to do so. Our preferred tool for managing Scrum projects is Rally. Rally creates all of these charts for you, saving you quite a bit of time. The Iteration Burndown and Cumulative Flow Charts This is the main chart that teams use. Although less useful to stakeholders, this chart is critical to the team and provides quite a bit of information to the team about how their iteration is going. Most charts are a combination of the charts below, so you may need to combine aspects of each section to understand what is happening in your iterations. Ideal Ah, isn’t that a pretty picture? Unfortunately, it’s also very unrealistic. I’ve seen iterations that come close to ideal, but never that match perfectly. If your iteration matches perfectly, chances are, someone is playing with the numbers. Reality is just too difficult to have a burndown chart that matches this exactly. Late Planning Iteration started, but the team didn’t. You can tell this by the fact that the real number of estimated hours didn’t appear until day two. In the cumulative flow, you can also see that nothing was defined in Day one and two. You want to avoid situations like this. You’ll note that the team had to burn faster than is ideal to meet the iteration because of the late planning. This often results in long weeks and days. Testing Starved Determining whether or not testing is starved is difficult without the cumulative flow. The pattern in the burndown could be nothing more that developers not completing stories early enough or could be caused by stories being too big. With the cumulative flow, however, you see that only small bites are in progress and stories were completed early, but testing didn’t start testing until the end of the iteration, and didn’t complete testing all stories in the iteration. When this happens, question whether or not your testing resources are sufficient for your team and whether or not acceptance is adequately defined. No Testing With this one, both graphs show the same thing; the team needs testers and testing! Without testing, what was completed cannot be verified to make sure that it is acceptable to the business. If you find yourself in this situation, review your testing practices and acceptance testing process and make changes today. Late Development With this situation, both graphs tell a story. In the top graph, you can see that the hours failed to burn down as quickly as the team expected. This could be caused by the team not correctly estimating their hours or the team could have had illness or some other issue that affected them. Often, when teams are tackling something that is more unknown, they’ll run into technical barriers that cause the burn down to happen slower than expected. In the cumulative flow graph, you can see that not much was completed in the first few days. This could be because of illness or technical barriers or simply poor estimation. Testing was able to keep up with everything that was completed, however. No Tool Updating When you see graphs that look like this, you can be assured that it’s because the team is not updating the tool that generates the graphs. Review your policy for when they are to update. On the teams that I run, I require that each team member updates the tool at least once daily. You should also check to see how well the team is breaking down stories into tasks. If they’re creating few large tasks, graphs can look similar to this. As a general rule, I never allow tasks, other than Unit Testing and Uncertainty, to be greater than eight hours in duration. Scope Increase I always encourage team members to enter in however much time they think they have left on a task, even if that means increasing the total amount of time left to do. You get a much better and more realistic picture this way. Increasing time remaining could explain the burndown graph, but by looking at the cumulative flow graph, we can see that stories were added to the iteration and scope was increased. Since planning should consume all of the hours in the iteration, this is almost always a bad thing. If the scope change happened late in the iteration and the hours remaining were well below the ideal burn, then increasing scope is probably o.k., but estimation needs to get better. However, with the charts above, that’s clearly not what happened and the team was required to do extra work to make the iteration. If you find this happening, your product owner and ScrumMasters need training. The team also needs to learn to say no. Scope Decrease Scope decreases are just as bad as scope increases. Usually, graphs above show that the team did a poor job of estimating their stories and part way through had to reduce scope to change the iteration. This will happen once in a while, but if you find it’s a pattern on your team, you need to re-evaluate planning. Some teams are hopelessly optimistic. In those cases, I’ll introduce a task I call “Uncertainty.” With Uncertainty, the team estimates how many hours they might need if things don’t go well with the tasks they’ve defined. They try to estimate things that could go poorly and increase the time appropriately. Having an Uncertainty task allows them to have a low and high estimate. Uncertainty should not just be an arbitrary buffer. It must correlate to real uncertainty in the tasks that have been defined. Stories are too Big Often, we see graphs like the ones above. Note that the burndown looks fairly good, other than the chunky acceptance of stories. However, when you look at cumulative flow, you can see that at one point, everything is in progress. This is a bad thing. When you see graphs like this, you’re in one of two states. You may just have a very small team and can only handle one or two stories in your iteration. If you have more than one or two people, then the most likely problem is that your stories are far too big. To combat this, break large high hour stories into smaller pieces that can be completed independently and accepted independently. If you don’t, you’ll likely be requiring your testers to do heroic things to complete testing on the last day of the iteration and you’re much more likely to have the entire iteration fail, because of the limited amount of things that can be completed. Summary There are other charts that can be useful when doing scrum. If you don’t have any big visible charts, you really need to evaluate your process and change. These charts can provide the team a wealth of information and help you write better software. If you have any questions about charts that you’re seeing on your team, contact me with a screen capture of the charts and I’ll tell you what I’m seeing in those charts. I always want this information to be useful, so please let me know if you have other questions. Technorati Tags: Agile

    Read the article

  • Time Passes

    - by Robert May
    It’s been half a year since my last post.  My how time flies.  My new years resolution is to post more frequently.  After a short stint at a local company, which shall remain nameless, I’m back at Veracity.  Overall, Veracity Solutions is one of the best companies I’ve worked for, and I’m relieved to be back. So, this year, I’m going to do the following on my blog: Finish the Agile posts I started (IN MAY!!!). Blog about some code for a logging helper to make debug logging easier. Blog some resharper snippets to help with logging. Blog a Unity Container helper to allow you to specify dependency mappings with attributes on interfaces. If I can accomplish all of those, I’ll have done well this year, and since I’ve put this out to the public, I’m accountable for it, right? Technorati Tags: Agile,logging

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12  | Next Page >