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• DevConnections Spring 2010 Speaker Evals and Tips

  As a conference speaker, I always look forward to hearing from attendees whether they felt my sessions were valuable and worth their time.  Its always gratifying  get a high score, but of course its the (preferably constructive) criticism thats key to continued improvement.  Im by no means the best technical presenter around, and Im always looking for ways to improve. Ive recently spoken at a few events, including TechEd and an Ohio event called Stir Trek.  DevConnections was actually back in April, but theyre just getting their final evals out to speakers.  TechEd, of course, does online evals so immediately after your talks you can see what people think.  Ill try and post my TechEd evals in the next week or so. I gave 3 talks at DevConnections Spring 2010 / VS2010 Launch which I discussed in this previous blog post.  In this follow-up, Im just going to share some eval info and my thoughts on it, albeit a couple of months later. Pragmatic ASP.NET Tips, Tricks, and Tools Evals Turned In: 27 Overall Eval: 3.74 Average Score: 3.47 89% found the technical level Just Right.  7.4% thought it was too basic (3.6% did not respond).  Since nobody thought the content was Too complex, I could perhaps have added some more complex material, but having about 90% say its Just Right is pretty good. 92% said at least 50% of the material was new to them.  36% said 75% or more was new.  Thats also pretty good, I think. 77.8% can use the information immediately; 15% can use it within 2-6 months (7.2 % no response). Overall 78% rated the session Excellent, 18% Good, 4% Fair. All comments (9): Steve did a great job Excellent session! It was good. Im now super excited to attend Steves other sessions later today.  Very useful. One of the best speakers here.  Bring him back to future conferences please. Continue to have this session with new and old stuff.  I always find something I did not know about. Excellent!  This was the best session Ive seen all week. Did not increase font on all pages could not see. For Steve to have had more sessions. Note to self make the fonts bigger across the board.  Otherwise, this is all good for my ego. :)  This is always a very popular session and one I really enjoy giving.  Tips and Tricks talks are pretty easy because you dont have to go in depth with any particular thing, and theyre almost always with existing technology so youre not dealing with betas, lack of documentation, and other issues.  Its an easy session to do well, in my experience, and one which I think attendees definitely appreciate.   Whats New in ASP.NET MVC 2 Evals Turned In: 23 Overall Eval: 3.77 Average Score: 3.47 (wow, I cant believe I scored better on this talk than the tips and tricks talk, which Ive given many times and was more excited about) 96% found the technical level Just Right.  90% found 50% or more of the material to be new.  43% can use the info immediately, and another 43% can use it within 2-6 months I guess that speaks to adoption rates of MVC 2 among my attendees Overall 74% said the session was Excellent, 22% Good.  4% No Response. All Comments (6): Great job, thank you. Great speaker! Really good, a little lost in the code at some points, but great information. Speaker needs to repeat questions from audience for everyone to hear. Exceeded my expectations. Great speaker, very informative. I really do try to religiously repeat questions from the audience for everyone to hear, but obviously I didnt do it 100% of the time.  Note to self remember to repeat questions.  That and making fonts big are really basic speaker best practices, which just goes to prove that fundamentals are always something that can be perfected.   SOLIDify Your ASP.NET MVC 2 Application Evals Turned In: 8 (!) Overall Eval: 3.63 Average Score: 3.47 As I recall this was one of the last talks of the day / show, which might account for the low number of evals turned in.  I dont recall speaking to an empty room for this talk, although it certainly wasnt as crowded as the tips and tricks talk. 100% found the technical level Just Right.  100% found at least half the material new.  62.5% can use it at once and 37.5% within 2-6 months.  62.5% rated the session Excellent overall; 37.5% Good.  Im thinking there were 5 evals with all 4s checked and 3 with all 3s checked (4 = Excellent, 3 = Good) All Comments (3): This covered many topics Ive read about recently, and it helped reinforce them. It was a nice overview of the solid principle, but I thought there might be specifics for MVC2.  I am glad there is not. Move a little slower. Ok, so another fundamental dont go too fast.  Looks like I got one fundamental tip from the comments of each talk. My Take-Aways Remember the fundamentals.  Its worth going through a checklist prior to presenting to make sure these things are fresh in your mind.  Increase all font sizes.  Repeat all questions from audience members without microphones (this is also a great way to stall for time, btw).  Resist the urge to move too quickly especially if youre nervous or short of time.  Writing this up in a blog post also further reinforces these fundamentals for me, which is one of the main reasons why I do it I retain things better when I write them, and even moreso when I write them for public consumption since I have to really think about what Im saying.  And maybe a few of you find this interesting or helpful, which is a bonus. 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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• Corsair Hackers Reboot

  It wasn't easy for me to attend but it was absolutely worth to go. The Linux User Group of Mauritius (LUGM) organised another get-together for any open source enthusiast here on the island. Strangely named "Corsair Hackers Reboot" but it stands for a positive cause: "Corsair Hackers Reboot Event A collaborative activity involving LUGM, UoM Computer Club, Fortune Way Shopping Mall and several geeks from around the island, striving to put FOSS into homes & offices. The public is invited to discover and explore Free Software & Open Source." And it was a good opportunity for me and the kids to visit the east coast of Mauritius, too. Perfect timing It couldn't have been better... Why? Well, for two important reasons (in terms of IT): End of support for Microsoft Windows XP - 08.04.2014 Release of Ubuntu 14.04 Long Term Support - 17.04.2014 Quite funnily, those two IT dates weren't the initial reasons and only during the weeks of preparations we put those together. And therefore it was even more positive to promote the use of Linux and open source software in general to a broader audience. Getting there ... Thanks to the new motor way M3 and all the additional road work which has been completed recently it was very simple to get across the island in a very quick and relaxed manner. Compared to my trips in the early days of living in Mauritius (and riding on a scooter) it was very smooth and within less than an hour we hit Centrale de Flacq. Well, being in the city doesn't necessarily mean that one has arrived at the destination. But thanks to modern technology I had a quick look on Google Maps, and we finally managed to get a parking behind the huge bus terminal in Flacq. From there it was just a short walk to Fortune Way. The children were trying to count the number of buses... Well, lots and lots of buses - really impressive actually. What was presented? There were different areas set up. Right at the entrance one's attention was directly drawn towards the elevated hacker's stage. Similar to rock stars performing their gig there was bunch of computers, laptops and networking equipment in order to cater the right working conditions for coding/programming challenge(s) on the one hand and for the pen-testing or system hacking competition on the other hand. Personally, I was very impresses that actually Nitin took care of the pen-testing competition. He hardly started one year back with Linux in general, and Kali Linux specifically. Seeing his personal development from absolute newbie to a decent Linux system administrator within such a short period of time, is really impressive. His passion to open source software made him a living. Next, clock-wise seen, was the Kid's Corner with face-painting as the main attraction. Additionally, there were numerous paper print outs to colour. Plus a decent workstation with the educational suite GCompris. Of course, my little ones were into that. They already know GCompris since a while as they are allowed to use it on an IGEL thin client terminal here at home. To simplify my life, I set up GCompris as full-screen guest session on the server, and they can pass the login screen without any further obstacles. And because it's a thin client hooked up to a XDMCP remote session I don't have to worry about the hardware on their desk, too. The next section was the main attraction of the event: BYOD - Bring Your Own Device Well, compared to the usual context of BYOD the corsairs had a completely different intention. Here, you could bring your own laptop and a team of knowledgeable experts - read: geeks and so on - offered to fully convert your system on any Linux distribution of your choice. And even though I came later, I was told that the USB pen drives had been in permanent use. From being prepared via dd command over launching LiveCD session to finally installing a fresh Linux system on bare metal. Most interestingly, I did a similar job already a couple of months ago, while upgrading an existing Windows XP system to Xubuntu 13.10. So far, the female owner is very happy and enjoys her system almost every evening to go shopping online, checking mails, and reading latest news from the Anime world. Back to the Hackers event, Ish told me that they managed approximately 20 conversion during the day. Furthermore, Ajay and others gladly assisted some visitors with some tricky issues and by the end of the day you can call is a success. While I was around, there was a elderly male visitor that got a full-fledged system conversion to a Linux system running completely in French language. A little bit more to the centre it was Yasir's turn to demonstrate his Arduino hardware that he hooked up with an experimental electrical circuit board connected to an LCD matrix display. That's the real spirit of hacking, and he showed some minor adjustments on the fly while demo'ing the system. Also, very interesting there was a thermal sensor around. Personally, I think that platforms like the Arduino as well as the Raspberry Pi have a great potential at a very affordable price in order to bring a better understanding of electronics as well as computer programming to a broader audience. It would be great to see more of those experiments during future activities. And last but not least there were a small number of vendors. Amongst them was Emtel - once again as sponsor of the general internet connectivity - and another hardware supplier from Riche Terre shopping mall. They had a good collection of Android related gimmicks, like a autonomous web cam that can convert any TV with HDMI connector into an online video chat system given WiFi. It's actually kind of awesome to have a Skype or Google hangout video session on the big screen rather than on the laptop. Some pictures of the event LUGM: Great conversations on Linux, open source and free software during the Corsair Hackers Reboot LUGM: Educational workstation running GCompris suite attracted the youngest attendees of the day. Of course, face painting had to be done prior to hacking... LUGM: Nadim demoing some Linux specifics to interested visitors. Everyone was pretty busy during the whole day LUGM: The hacking competition, here pen-testing a wireless connection and access point between multiple machines LUGM: Well prepared workstations to be able to 'upgrade' visitors' machines to any Linux operating system Final thoughts Gratefully, during the preparations of the event I was invited to leave some comments or suggestions, and the team of the LUGM did a great job. The outdoor banner was a eye-catcher, the various flyers and posters for the event were clearly written and as far as I understood from the quick chats I had with Ish, Nadim, Nitin, Ajay, and of course others all were very happy about the event execution. Great job, LUGM! And I'm already looking forward to the next Corsair Hackers Reboot event ... Crossing fingers: Very soon and hopefully this year again :) Update: In the media The event had been announced in local media, too. L'Express: Salon informatique: Hacking Challenge à Flacq

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• Goodbye my beloved Nexus One, hello Windows Phone 7

  - by George Clingerman

  Last night my wife’s Nexus One finally bit the dust. You may not know but I’ve been nursing her Nexus One one along for quite a while after her screen shattered. I was able to replace it on my own (go me!) but little quirks have been popping up and the phone was quickly deteriorating. Lately it’s been the power button. Wifey would often have to press the power button several times to get her phone to turn on and last night it just wouldn’t wake up again. I took it apart and tried my best to see if I could somehow make it live once again but no luck this time. It was finally ready to retire. We looked at first for a replacement phone for her but she wasn’t really seeing anything she liked. So I decided to make the ultimate sacrifice and offer up my much loved Nexus One and I would then get a new Windows Phone 7 device. I love T-Mobile for my service so my choices were immediately limited to basically just a single phone. The HTC HD7. I read reviews and they were all over the board from people loving to people hating the phone but I decided, hey, why not, let’s take this plunge. And I did. I’ve only had the phone for about two days now so below is my list of first reaction pros/cons. These are basically things I’ve missed or things I’ve noticed that I really like about my new Windows Phone. Cons: * No Google Talk – I used this a LOT on my Nexus. I’ve found an application called “Flory” but it’s just an ok substitute, not the same as the full featured GTalk I had on my Nexus. * Seesmic is limited– I loved the way Seesmic worked on my Nexus. It was my mobile twitter client of choice. Everything about it worked really well. On Windows Phone 7 it’s just ok. I don’t get notification of new tweets, it’s several clicks to even see a new tweet. It’s definitely got some more development before it has the same features as it did on my Nexus. * Buttons don’t give great feedback – I’d read this on the reviews about the HTC HD7 and I’m finding it true myself. Pressing the buttons on the side of the phone and the power button on the top is finicky and I have to be looking at my phone to make sure I actually got them to press. * Web browsing is slow – I’m not sure what’s up with this, I’m connected to my wireless network at my house but it’s noticeably slower on my WP7 device than my Nexus. I even switched back to verify and it’s definitely true. Retrieving tweets, hitting up the XNA forums and just general web activities are all much slower on my WP7. I can’t think of any reason this would be true but it almost seems like it’s not using my wireless for everything.   Pros: * It’s pretty – the phone is really gorgeous. I loved the form of my Nexus One by the HTC HD7 is just as pretty, maybe even prettier! It’s got a nice large, bright screen. It feels good in my hand. And it even has a little kickstand to set the phone up for movie watching. Definitely a gorgeous phone. * LIVE integration – I lost a lot of nice integration with Google services but I gained a lot of integration with LIVE services that I also use. Now I can see when I get new GMail messages AND Hotmail messages. And having the Xbox LIVE integration is admittedly cool as well. * Tile notification rock – The Windows Phone 7 commercials are TRYING to get this message out but they’re doing a really poor job of this. Tile notifications really do save you from your phone. I have a whole little mini-informational dashboard at a glance. I unlock my phone and at a glace I can see new IMs, new mail messages, software updates etc. All just letting me know in the tiles I have arranged. That’s pretty cool. * The interface works really well – I feel super hip and cool swiping and sliding things around on my Windows Phone 7. Everything works that way and it’s great and fast and really good looking. I’m all about me feeling cool. * I’m gaming more – I had gotten a few games on my Nexus One but there really weren’t a lot of good developers flocking to the service. Just browsing through the Windows Phone 7 marketplace I’m already seeing a ton of games I want to try and buy. And I sat down and bet Pixel Man 0 just yesterday on my phone. I’m already gaming more than I did on my Nexus One. * Netflix integration is fantastic - It works just like it does on my Xbox 360 and I love having this feature on my phone. * It’s basically a Zune – I’ve been taking my Zune to work and listening to music off of that while I code. I no longer need to take it with me, now I just sync songs onto my phone and it’s my new Zune. I freaking love that. One less device to carry around.   All in all my cons have really little to do with the phone (just the buttons and the web browsing) and more to do with the applications needing to catch up a bit to what I’m used to. And the Pros are things that ARE phone specific so I’m seeing that as a good sign that I’m going to be very happy with my Windows Phone 7. So Wifey is happy having her Nexus One again, I’m happy with my new Windows Phone 7. Life is good. Now I just need to make a game to pay for it….

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• Kubuntu 12.04 - Touchpad and keyboard stopped working at random

  - by StepTNT

  As in the title, I've got this problem with my Kubuntu 12.04. At first I've thought that the whole system was hung, but it happened again 5 minutes ago and, while the keyboard and the touchpad stopped working, the music was still playing, so I guess that's just an "input" problem, because the system was still working! Any solution? Is there some data that you need to know about my setup? EDIT: Added my lshw outout description: Notebook product: N53SV () vendor: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. version: 1.0 serial: B2N0AS17695408A width: 64 bits capabilities: smbios-2.6 dmi-2.6 vsyscall32 configuration: boot=normal chassis=notebook family=N uuid=8083F2DA-A43E-E081-3F3F-BCAEC55F8AA1 *-core description: Motherboard product: N53SV vendor: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. physical id: 0 version: 1.0 serial: BSN12345678901234567 slot: MIDDLE *-firmware description: BIOS vendor: American Megatrends Inc. physical id: 0 version: N53SV.214 date: 08/10/2011 size: 64KiB capacity: 2496KiB capabilities: pci upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect edd int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer acpi usb smartbattery biosbootspecification *-cpu description: CPU product: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz vendor: Intel Corp. physical id: 4 bus info: cpu@0 version: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz serial: To Be Filled By O.E.M. slot: CPU 1 size: 800MHz capacity: 4GHz width: 64 bits clock: 100MHz capabilities: x86-64 fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer xsave avx lahf_lm ida arat epb xsaveopt pln pts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid cpufreq configuration: cores=4 enabledcores=1 threads=2 *-cache description: L1 cache physical id: 5 slot: L1-Cache size: 32KiB capacity: 32KiB capabilities: internal write-back instruction *-memory description: System Memory physical id: 40 slot: System board or motherboard size: 10GiB *-bank:0 description: SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0,8 ns) product: 99U5428-040.A00LF vendor: Kingston physical id: 0 serial: 103C28C3 slot: ChannelA-DIMM0 size: 4GiB width: 64 bits clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns) *-bank:1 description: SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0,8 ns) product: HMT325S6BFR8C-H9 vendor: Hynix/Hyundai physical id: 1 serial: 58383D1F slot: ChannelA-DIMM1 size: 2GiB width: 64 bits clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns) *-bank:2 description: SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0,8 ns) product: HMT325S6BFR8C-H9 vendor: Hynix/Hyundai physical id: 2 serial: 58183D19 slot: ChannelB-DIMM0 size: 2GiB width: 64 bits clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns) *-bank:3 description: SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0,8 ns) product: HMT325S6BFR8C-H9 vendor: Hynix/Hyundai physical id: 3 serial: 58183C8F slot: ChannelB-DIMM1 size: 2GiB width: 64 bits clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns) *-pci description: Host bridge product: 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 100 bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0 version: 09 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz configuration: driver=agpgart-intel resources: irq:0 *-pci:0 description: PCI bridge product: Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1 bus info: pci@0000:00:01.0 version: 09 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pci pm msi pciexpress normal_decode bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=pcieport resources: irq:40 ioport:d000(size=4096) memory:db000000-dc0fffff ioport:c0000000(size=301989888) *-generic UNCLAIMED description: Unassigned class product: Illegal Vendor ID vendor: Illegal Vendor ID physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0 version: ff width: 32 bits clock: 66MHz capabilities: bus_master vga_palette cap_list configuration: latency=255 maxlatency=255 mingnt=255 resources: memory:db000000-dbffffff memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:d0000000-d1ffffff ioport:d000(size=128) memory:dc000000-dc07ffff *-display description: VGA compatible controller product: 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 2 bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0 version: 09 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom configuration: driver=i915 latency=0 resources: irq:47 memory:dc400000-dc7fffff memory:b0000000-bfffffff ioport:e000(size=64) *-communication description: Communication controller product: 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 16 bus info: pci@0000:00:16.0 version: 04 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=mei latency=0 resources: irq:48 memory:df00b000-df00b00f *-usb:0 description: USB controller product: 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1a bus info: pci@0000:00:1a.0 version: 05 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm debug ehci bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=ehci_hcd latency=0 resources: irq:16 memory:df008000-df0083ff *-multimedia description: Audio device product: 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1b bus info: pci@0000:00:1b.0 version: 05 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0 resources: irq:49 memory:df000000-df003fff *-pci:1 description: PCI bridge product: 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1c bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.0 version: b5 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=pcieport resources: irq:41 ioport:c000(size=4096) memory:de600000-deffffff ioport:d4200000(size=10485760) *-pci:2 description: PCI bridge product: 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1c.1 bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.1 version: b5 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=pcieport resources: irq:42 ioport:b000(size=4096) memory:ddc00000-de5fffff ioport:d3700000(size=10485760) *-network description: Wireless interface product: AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) vendor: Atheros Communications Inc. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0 logical name: wlan0 version: 01 serial: 48:5d:60:f2:2c:fd width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.2.0-24-generic firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.6 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn resources: irq:17 memory:ddc00000-ddc0ffff *-pci:3 description: PCI bridge product: 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1c.3 bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.3 version: b5 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=pcieport resources: irq:43 ioport:a000(size=4096) memory:dd200000-ddbfffff ioport:d2c00000(size=10485760) *-usb description: USB controller product: FL1000G USB 3.0 Host Controller vendor: Fresco Logic physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0 version: 04 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress xhci bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=xhci_hcd latency=0 resources: irq:19 memory:dd200000-dd20ffff *-pci:4 description: PCI bridge product: 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 6 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1c.5 bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.5 version: b5 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=pcieport resources: irq:44 ioport:9000(size=4096) memory:dc800000-dd1fffff ioport:d2100000(size=10485760) *-network description: Ethernet interface product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: 06 serial: bc:ae:c5:5f:8a:a1 size: 10Mbit/s capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=rtl_nic/rtl8168e-2.fw latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s resources: irq:46 ioport:9000(size=256) memory:d2104000-d2104fff memory:d2100000-d2103fff *-usb:1 description: USB controller product: 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1d bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.0 version: 05 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm debug ehci bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=ehci_hcd latency=0 resources: irq:23 memory:df007000-df0073ff *-isa description: ISA bridge product: HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1f bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.0 version: 05 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: isa bus_master cap_list configuration: latency=0 *-storage description: SATA controller product: 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1f.2 bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.2 logical name: scsi0 logical name: scsi2 version: 05 width: 32 bits clock: 66MHz capabilities: storage msi pm ahci_1.0 bus_master cap_list emulated configuration: driver=ahci latency=0 resources: irq:45 ioport:e0b0(size=8) ioport:e0a0(size=4) ioport:e090(size=8) ioport:e080(size=4) ioport:e060(size=32) memory:df006000-df0067ff *-disk description: ATA Disk product: ST9750420AS vendor: Seagate physical id: 0 bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0 logical name: /dev/sda version: 0002 serial: 5WS0A7QR size: 698GiB (750GB) capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos configuration: ansiversion=5 signature=e0c5913d *-volume:0 description: Windows FAT volume vendor: MSDOS5.0 physical id: 1 bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0,1 logical name: /dev/sda1 version: FAT32 serial: 4ce5-3acb size: 3004MiB capacity: 3004MiB capabilities: primary fat initialized configuration: FATs=2 filesystem=fat *-volume:1 description: EXT4 volume vendor: Linux physical id: 2 bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0,2 logical name: /dev/sda2 logical name: / version: 1.0 serial: c198cc2a-d86a-4460-a4d5-3fc0b21e439c size: 28GiB capacity: 28GiB capabilities: primary journaled extended_attributes large_files huge_files dir_nlink recover extents ext4 ext2 initialized configuration: created=2012-03-15 16:53:54 filesystem=ext4 lastmountpoint=/ modified=2012-05-02 18:52:04 mount.fstype=ext4 mount.options=rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,user_xattr,acl,barrier=1,data=ordered mounted=2012-05-09 19:06:01 state=mounted *-volume:2 description: Windows NTFS volume physical id: 3 bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0,3 logical name: /dev/sda3 version: 3.1 serial: 4c1cdebc-ec09-2947-a3b5-c1f9f1cddc1c size: 152GiB capacity: 152GiB capabilities: primary bootable ntfs initialized configuration: clustersize=4096 created=2011-02-22 16:02:47 filesystem=ntfs label=OS state=clean *-volume:3 description: Extended partition physical id: 4 bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0,4 logical name: /dev/sda4 size: 514GiB capacity: 514GiB capabilities: primary extended partitioned partitioned:extended *-logicalvolume:0 description: Linux swap / Solaris partition physical id: 5 logical name: /dev/sda5 capacity: 10GiB capabilities: nofs *-logicalvolume:1 description: HPFS/NTFS partition physical id: 6 logical name: /dev/sda6 capacity: 504GiB *-cdrom description: DVD-RAM writer product: BD-MLT UJ240AS vendor: MATSHITA physical id: 1 bus info: scsi@2:0.0.0 logical name: /dev/cdrom logical name: /dev/cdrw logical name: /dev/dvd logical name: /dev/dvdrw logical name: /dev/sr0 version: 1.00 capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r dvd-ram configuration: ansiversion=5 status=nodisc *-serial UNCLAIMED description: SMBus product: 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1f.3 bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.3 version: 05 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz configuration: latency=0 resources: memory:df005000-df0050ff ioport:e040(size=32)

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• Partner Blog Series: PwC Perspectives Part 2 - Jumpstarting your IAM program with R2

  - by Tanu Sood

  Identity and access management (IAM) isn’t a new concept. Over the past decade, companies have begun to address identity management through a variety of solutions that have primarily focused on provisioning. . The new age workforce is converging at a rapid pace with ever increasing demand to use diverse portfolio of applications and systems to interact and interface with their peers in the industry and customers alike. Oracle has taken a significant leap with their release of Identity and Access Management 11gR2 towards enabling this global workforce to conduct their business in a secure, efficient and effective manner. As companies deal with IAM business drivers, it becomes immediately apparent that holistic, rather than piecemeal, approaches better address their needs. When planning an enterprise-wide IAM solution, the first step is to create a common framework that serves as the foundation on which to build the cost, compliance and business process efficiencies. As a leading industry practice, IAM should be established on a foundation of accurate data for identity management, making this data available in a uniform manner to downstream applications and processes. Mature organizations are looking beyond IAM’s basic benefits to harness more advanced capabilities in user lifecycle management. For any organization looking to embark on an IAM initiative, consider the following use cases in managing and administering user access. Expanding the Enterprise Provisioning Footprint Almost all organizations have some helpdesk resources tied up in handling access requests from users, a distraction from their core job of handling problem tickets. This dependency has mushroomed from the traditional acceptance of provisioning solutions integrating and addressing only a portion of applications in the heterogeneous landscape Oracle Identity Manager (OIM) 11gR2 solves this problem by offering integration with third party ticketing systems as “disconnected applications”. It allows for the existing business processes to be seamlessly integrated into the system and tracked throughout its lifecycle. With minimal effort and analysis, an organization can begin integrating OIM with groups or applications that are involved with manually intensive access provisioning and de-provisioning activities. This aspect of OIM allows organizations to on-board applications and associated business processes quickly using out of box templates and frameworks. This is especially important for organizations looking to fold in users and resources from mergers and acquisitions. Simplifying Access Requests Organizations looking to implement access request solutions often find it challenging to get their users to accept and adopt the new processes.. So, how do we improve the user experience, make it intuitive and personalized and yet simplify the user access process? With R2, OIM helps organizations alleviate the challenge by placing the most used functionality front and centre in the new user request interface. Roles, application accounts, and entitlements can all be found in the same interface as catalog items, giving business users a single location to go to whenever they need to initiate, approve or track a request. Furthermore, if a particular item is not relevant to a user’s job function or area inside the organization, it can be hidden so as to not overwhelm or confuse the user with superfluous options. The ability to customize the user interface to suit your needs helps in exercising the business rules effectively and avoiding access proliferation within the organization. Saving Time with Templates A typical use case that is most beneficial to business users is flexibility to place, edit, and withdraw requests based on changing circumstances and business needs. With OIM R2, multiple catalog items can now be added and removed from the shopping cart, an ecommerce paradigm that many users are already familiar with. This feature can be especially useful when setting up a large number of new employees or granting existing department or group access to a newly integrated application. Additionally, users can create their own shopping cart templates in order to complete subsequent requests more quickly. This feature saves the user from having to search for and select items all over again if a request is similar to a previous one. Advanced Delegated Administration A key feature of any provisioning solution should be to empower each business unit in managing their own access requests. By bringing administration closer to the user, you improve user productivity, enable efficiency and alleviate the administration overhead. To do so requires a federated services model so that the business units capable of shouldering the onus of user life cycle management of their business users can be enabled to do so. OIM 11gR2 offers advanced administrative options for creating, managing and controlling business logic and workflows through easy to use administrative interface and tools that can be exposed to delegated business administrators. For example, these business administrators can establish or modify how certain requests and operations should be handled within their business unit based on a number of attributes ranging from the type of request or the risk level of the individual items requested. Closed-Loop Remediation Security continues to be a major concern for most organizations. Identity management solutions bolster security by ensuring only the right users have the right access to the right resources. To prevent unauthorized access and where it already exists, the ability to detect and remediate it, are key requirements of an enterprise-grade proven solution. But the challenge with most solutions today is that some of this information still exists in silos. And when changes are made to systems directly, not all information is captured. With R2, oracle is offering a comprehensive Identity Governance solution that our customer organizations are leveraging for closed loop remediation that allows for an automated way for administrators to revoke unauthorized access. The change is automatically captured and the action noted for continued management. Conclusion While implementing provisioning solutions, it is important to keep the near term and the long term goals in mind. The provisioning solution should always be a part of a larger security and identity management program but with the ability to seamlessly integrate not only with the company’s infrastructure but also have the ability to leverage the information, business models compiled and used by the other identity management solutions. This allows organizations to reduce the cost of ownership, close security gaps and leverage the existing infrastructure. And having done so a multiple clients’ sites, this is the approach we recommend. In our next post, we will take a journey through our experiences of advising clients looking to upgrade to R2 from a previous version or migrating from a different solution. Meet the Writers:   Praveen Krishna is a Manager in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  Over the last decade Praveen has helped clients plan, architect and implement Oracle identity solutions across diverse industries.  His experience includes delivering security across diverse topics like network, infrastructure, application and data where he brings a holistic point of view to problem solving. Dharma Padala is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has been implementing medium to large scale Identity Management solutions across multiple industries including utility, health care, entertainment, retail and financial sectors.   Dharma has 14 years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which he has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past 8 years. Scott MacDonald is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has consulted for several clients across multiple industries including financial services, health care, automotive and retail.   Scott has 10 years of experience in delivering Identity Management solutions. John Misczak is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has experience implementing multiple Identity and Access Management solutions, specializing in Oracle Identity Manager and Business Process Engineering Language (BPEL). Jenny (Xiao) Zhang is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  She has consulted across multiple industries including financial services, entertainment and retail. Jenny has three years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which she has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past one and a half years.

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• Calculated Fields - Idiosyncracies

  - by PointsToShare

  © 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved Calculated Fields and some of their Idiosyncrasies Did you try to write a calculate field formula directly into the screen? Good Luck – You’ll need it! Calculated Fields are a sophisticated OOB feature of SharePoint, so you could think that they are best left to the end users – at least to the power users. But they reach their limits before the “Professionals “do, and the tough ones come back to us anyway. Back to business; the simpler the formula, the easier it is. Still, use your favorite editor to write it, then cut it and paste it to the ridiculously small window. What about complex formulae? Write them in steps! Here is a case in point and an idiosyncrasy or two. Our welders need to be certified and recertified every two years. Some of them are certifiable…., but I digress. To be certified you need to pass an eye exam, and two more tests – test A and test B. for each of those you have an expiry date. When renewed, each expiry date is advanced by two years from the date of renewal. My users wanted a visual clue so that when the supervisor looks at the list, she’ll have a KPI symbol telling her if anything expired (Red), is going to expire within the next 90 days (Yellow) or is not to be worried about (green). Not all the dates are filled and any blank date implies a complete lack of certification in the particular requirement. Obviously, I needed to figure the minimal of these 3 dates – a simple enough formula: =MIN([Date_EyeExam], {Date_TestA], [Date_TestB]). Aha! Here is idiosyncrasy #1. When one of the dates is a null, MIN(Date1, Date2) returns the non null date. Null is construed as “Far, far away”. The funny thing is that when you compare it to Today, the null is the lesser one. So a null it is less than today, but not when MIN is calculated. Now, to me the fact that the welder does not have an exam date, is synonymous with his exam being prehistoric, or at least past due. So here is what I did: Solution: Let’s set a blank date to 1/1/1800. How will we do that? Use the IF. IF([Field] rel relValue, TrueValue, FalseValue). rel is any relationship operator <, >, <=, >=, =, <>. If the field is related to the relValue as prescribed, the “IF” returns the TrueValue, otherwise it returns the FalseValue. Thus: =IF([SomeDate]="",1/1/1800,[SomeDate]) will return 1/1/1800 if the date is blank and the date itself if not. So, using this formula, if the welder missed an exam, the returned exam date will be far in the past. It would be nice if we could take such a formula and make it into a reusable function. Alas, here is a calculated field serious shortcoming: You cannot write subs and functions!! Aha, but we can use interim calculated fields! So let’s create 3 calculated fields as follows: 1: c_DateTestA as a calculated field of the date type, with the formula:  IF([Date_TestA]="",1/1/1800,[Date_TestA]) 2: c_DateTestB as a calculated field of the date type, with the formula:  IF([Date_TestB]="",1/1/1800,[Date_TestB]) 3: c_DateEyeExam as a calculated field of the date type, with the formula:  IF([Date_EyeExam]="",1/1/1800,[Date_EyeExam]) And now use these to get c_MinDate. This is again a calculated field of type date with the formula: MIN(c_DateTestA, cDateTestB, c_DateEyeExam) Note that I missed the square parentheses. In “properly named fields – where there are no embedded spaces, we don’t need the square parentheses. I actually strongly recommend using underscores in place of spaces in all the field names in your lists. Among other things, it makes using CAML much simpler. Now, we still need to apply the KPI to this minimal date. I am going to use the available KPI graphics that come with SharePoint and are always available in your 12 hive. "/_layouts/images/kpidefault-2.gif" is the Red KPI "/_layouts/images/kpidefault-1.gif" is the Yellow KPI "/_layouts/images/kpidefault-0.gif" is the Green KPI And here is the nested IF formula that will do the trick: =IF(c_MinDate<=Today,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-2.gif", IF(cMinDate<Today+90,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-1.gif","/_layouts/images/kpidefault-0.gif")) Nice! BUT when I tested, it did not work! This is Idiosyncrasy #2: A calculated field based on a calculated field based on a calculated field does not work. You have to stop at two levels! Back to the drawing board: We have to reduce by one level. How? We’ll eliminate the c_DateX items in the formula and replace them with the proper IF formulae. Notice that this needs to be done with precision. You are much better off in doing it in your favorite line editor, than inside the cramped space that SharePoint gives you. So here is the result: MIN(IF([Date_TestA]="",1/1/1800,[ Date_TestA]), IF([Date_TestB]="",1/1/1800,[ Date_TestB]), 1/1/1800), IF([Date_EyeExam]="",1/1/1800,[Date_EyeExam])) Note that I bolded the parentheses and painted them red. They have to match for this formula to work. Now we can leave the KPI formula as is and test again. This time with SUCCESS! Conclusion: build the inner functions first, and then embed them inside the outer formulae. Do this as long as necessary. Use your favorite line editor. Limit yourself to 2 levels. That’s all folks! Almost! As soon as I finished doing all of the above, my users added yet another level of complexity. They added another test, a test that must be passed, but never expires and asked for yet another KPI, this time in Black to denote that any test is not just past due, but altogether missing. I just finished this. Let’s hope it ends here! And OH, the formula  =IF(c_MinDate<=Today,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-2.gif",IF(cMinDate<Today+90,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-1.gif","/_layouts/images/kpidefault-0.gif")) Deals with “Today” and this is a subject deserving a discussion of its own!  That’s all folks?! (and this time I mean it)

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• Delight and Excite

  - by Applications User Experience

  Mick McGee, CEO & President, EchoUser Editor’s Note: EchoUser is a User Experience design firm in San Francisco and a member of the Oracle Usability Advisory Board. Mick and his staff regularly consult on Oracle Applications UX projects. Being part of a user experience design firm, we have the luxury of working with a lot of great people across many great companies. We get to help people solve their problems.  At least we used to. The basic design challenge is still the same; however, the goal is not necessarily to solve “problems” anymore; it is, “I want our products to delight and excite!” The question for us as UX professionals is how to design to those goals, and then how to assess them from a usability perspective. I’m not sure where I first heard “delight and excite” (A book? blog post? Facebook  status? Steve Jobs quote?), but now I hear these listed as user experience goals all the time. In particular, somewhat paradoxically, I routinely hear them in enterprise software conversations. And when asking these same enterprise companies what will make the project successful, we very often hear, “Make it like Apple.” In past days, it was “make it like Yahoo (or Amazon or Google“) but now Apple is the common benchmark. Steve Jobs and Apple were not secrets, but with Jobs’ passing and Apple becoming the world’s most valuable company in the last year, the impact of great design and experience is suddenly very widespread. In particular, users’ expectations have gone way up. Being an enterprise company is no shield to the general expectations that users now have, for all products. Designing a “Minimum Viable Product” The user experience challenge has historically been, to echo the words of Eric Ries (author of Lean Startup) , to create a “minimum viable product”: the proverbial, “make it good enough”. But, in our profession, the “minimum viable” part of that phrase has oftentimes, unfortunately, referred to the design and user experience. Technology typically dominated the focus of the biggest, most successful companies. Few have had the laser focus of Apple to also create and sell design and user experience alongside great technology. But now that Apple is the most valuable company in the world, copying their success is a common undertaking. Great design is now a premium offering that everyone wants, from the one-person startup to the largest companies, consumer and enterprise. This emerging business paradigm will have significant impact across the user experience design process and profession. One area that particularly interests me is, how are we going to evaluate these new emerging “delight and excite” experiences, which are further customized to each particular domain? How to Measure “Delight and Excite” Traditional usability measures of task completion rate, assists, time, and errors are still extremely useful in many situations; however, they are too blunt to offer much insight into emerging experiences “Satisfaction” is usually assessed in user testing, in roughly equivalent importance to the above objective metrics. Various surveys and scales have provided ways to measure satisfying UX, with whatever questions they include. However, to meet the demands of new business goals and keep users at the center of design and development processes, we have to explore new methods to better capture custom-experience goals and emotion-driven user responses. We have had success assessing custom experiences, including “delight and excite”, by employing a variety of user testing methods that tend to combine formative and summative techniques (formative being focused more on identifying usability issues and ways to improve design, and summative focused more on metrics). Our most successful tool has been one we’ve been using for a long time, Magnitude Estimation Technique (MET). But it’s not necessarily about MET as a measure, rather how it is created. Caption: For one client, EchoUser did two rounds of testing.  Each test was a mix of performing representative tasks and gathering qualitative impressions. Each user participated in an in-person moderated 1-on-1 session for 1 hour, using a testing set-up where they held the phone. The primary goal was to identify usability issues and recommend design improvements. MET is based on a definition of the desired experience, which users will then use to rate items of interest (usually tasks in a usability test). In other words, a custom experience definition needs to be created. This can then be used to measure satisfaction in accomplishing tasks; “delight and excite”; or anything else from strategic goals, user demands, or elsewhere. For reference, our standard MET definition in usability testing is: “User experience is your perception of how easy to use, well designed and productive an interface is to complete tasks.” Articulating the User Experience We’ve helped construct experience definitions for several clients to better match their business goals. One example is a modification of the above that was needed for a company that makes medical-related products: “User experience is your perception of how easy to use, well-designed, productive and safe an interface is for conducting tasks. ‘Safe’ is how free an environment (including devices, software, facilities, people, etc.) is from danger, risk, and injury.” Another example is from a company that is pushing hard to incorporate “delight” into their enterprise business line: “User experience is your perception of a product’s ease of use and learning, satisfaction and delight in design, and ability to accomplish objectives.” I find the last one particularly compelling in that there is little that identifies the experience as being for a highly technical enterprise application. That definition could easily be applied to any number of consumer products. We have gone further than the above, including “sexy” and “cool” where decision-makers insisted they were part of the desired experience. We also applied it to completely different experiences where the “interface” was, for example, riding public transit, the “tasks” were train rides, and we followed the participants through the train-riding journey and rated various aspects accordingly: “A good public transportation experience is a cost-effective way of reliably, conveniently, and safely getting me to my intended destination on time.” To construct these definitions, we’ve employed both bottom-up and top-down approaches, depending on circumstances. For bottom-up, user inputs help dictate the terms that best fit the desired experience (usually by way of cluster and factor analysis). Top-down depends on strategic, visionary goals expressed by upper management that we then attempt to integrate into product development (e.g., “delight and excite”). We like a combination of both approaches to push the innovation envelope, but still be mindful of current user concerns. Hopefully the idea of crafting your own custom experience, and a way to measure it, can provide you with some ideas how you can adapt your user experience needs to whatever company you are in. Whether product-development or service-oriented, nearly every company is ultimately providing a user experience. The Bottom Line Creating great experiences may have been popularized by Steve Jobs and Apple, but I’ll be honest, it’s a good feeling to be moving from “good enough” to “delight and excite,” despite the challenge that entails. In fact, it’s because of that challenge that we will expand what we do as UX professionals to help deliver and assess those experiences. I’m excited to see how we, Oracle, and the rest of the industry will live up to that challenge.

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• Android: Adding extended GLSurfaceView to a Layout don't show 3d stuff

  - by Santiago

  I make a game extending the class GLSurfaceView, if I apply SetContentView directly to that class, the 3d stuff and input works great. Now I want to show some items over 3d stuff, so I create a XML with a layout and some objects, and I try to add my class manually to the layout. I'm not getting errors but the 3d stuff is not shown but I can view the objects from XML layout. source: @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); LayoutInflater inflater = (LayoutInflater) getSystemService(LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE); layout = (RelativeLayout) inflater.inflate(R.layout.testlayout, null); //Create an Instance with this Activity my3dstuff = new myGLSurfaceViewClass(this); layout.addView(my3dstuff,4); setContentView(R.layout.testlayout); } And testlayout have: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:id="@+id/Pantalla"> <ImageView android:id="@+id/zoom_less" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:src="@drawable/zoom_less"></ImageView> <ImageView android:id="@+id/zoom_more" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:src="@drawable/zoom_more" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_alignParentRight="true"></ImageView> <ImageView android:id="@+id/zoom_normal" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:src="@drawable/zoom_normal" android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"></ImageView> <ImageView android:id="@+id/stop" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:src="@drawable/stop" android:layout_centerInParent="true" android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"></ImageView> </RelativeLayout> I also tried to add my class to XML but the Activity hangs up. <com.mygame.myGLSurfaceViewClass android:id="@+id/my3dstuff" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent"></com.mygame.myGLSurfaceViewClass> and this don't works: <View class="com.mygame.myGLSurfaceViewClass" android:id="@+id/my3dstuff" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent"></View> Any Idea? Thanks

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• Calling C# object method from IronPython

  - by Jason

  I'm trying to embed a scripting engine in my game. Since I'm writing it in C#, I figured IronPython would be a great fit, but the examples I've been able to find all focus on calling IronPython methods in C# instead of C# methods in IronPython scripts. To complicate things, I'm using Visual Studio 2010 RC1 on Windows 7 64 bit. IronRuby works like I expect it would, but I'm not very familiar with Ruby or Python syntax. What I'm doing: ScriptEngine engine = Python.CreateEngine(); ScriptScope scope = engine.CreateScope(); //Test class with a method that prints to the screen. scope.SetVariable("test", this); ScriptSource source = engine.CreateScriptSourceFromString("test.SayHello()", Microsoft.Scripting.SourceCodeKind.Statements); source.Execute(scope); This generates an error, "'TestClass' object has no attribute 'SayHello'" This exact set up works fine with IronRuby though using "self.test.SayHello()" I'm wary using IronRuby though because it doesn't appear as mature as IronPython. If it's close enough, I might go with that though. Any ideas? I know this has to be something simple.

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• How to draw an Arc in OpenGL

  - by rpgFANATIC

  While making a little Pong game in C++ OpenGL, I decided it'd be fun to create arcs (semi-circles) when stuff bounces. I decided to skip Bezier curves for the moment and just go with straight algebra, but I didn't get far. My algebra follows a simple quadratic function (y = +- sqrt(mx+c)). This little excerpt is just an example I've yet to fully parameterize, I just wanted to see how it would look. When I draw this, however, it gives me a straight vertical line where the line's tangent line approaches -1.0 / 1.0. Is this a limitation of the GL_LINE_STRIP style or is there an easier way to draw semi-circles / arcs? Or did I just completely miss something obvious? void Ball::drawBounce() { float piecesToDraw = 100.0f; float arcWidth = 10.0f; float arcAngle = 4.0f; glBegin(GL_LINE_STRIP); for (float i = 0.0f; i < piecesToDraw; i += 1.0f) // Positive Half { float currentX = (i / piecesToDraw) * arcWidth; glVertex2f(currentX, sqrtf((-currentX * arcAngle)+ arcWidth)); } for (float j = piecesToDraw; j > 0.0f; j -= 1.0f) // Negative half (go backwards in X direction now) { float currentX = (j / piecesToDraw) * arcWidth; glVertex2f(currentX, -sqrtf((-currentX * arcAngle) + arcWidth)); } glEnd(); } Thanks in advance.

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• Adding View extending from SurfaceView to layout gives me a blank screen

  - by JonF

  I'm very new to Android programming, so this is probably something pretty basic. I just have an xml layout with a few buttons. I'm trying to follow the model given by the JetBoy demo, so I'm adding a view to the layout which extends SurfaceView. When this new view is put in my xml layout, I just get a blank screen. Here's the XML layout if it helps. The gameview element is what causes the screen to be blank <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:alwaysDrawnWithCache="true"> <game.test.gameEngine android:id="@+id/gameView" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent"/> <Button android:text="Easy" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:id="@+id/EasyButton"></Button> <Button android:text="Medium" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:id="@+id/MedButton"></Button> <Button android:text="Hard" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:id="@+id/HardButton"></Button> <DatePicker android:id="@+id/DatePicker01" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"></DatePicker><Button android:id="@+id/Button04" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="Exit"></Button> </LinearLayout>

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• XNA Xbox 360 Content Manager Thread freezing Draw Thread

  - by Alikar

  I currently have a game that takes in large images, easily bigger than 1MB, to serve as backgrounds. I know exactly when this transition is supposed to take place, so I made a loader class to handle loading these large images in the background, but when I load the images it still freezes the main thread where the drawing takes place. Since this code runs on the 360 I move the thread to the 4th hardware thread, but that doesn't seem to help. Below is the class I am using. Any thoughts as to why my new content manager which should be in its own thread is interrupting the draw in my main thread would be appreciated. namespace FileSystem { /// <summary> /// This is used to reference how many objects reference this texture. /// Everytime someone references a texture we increase the iNumberOfReferences. /// When a class calls remove on a specific texture we check to see if anything /// else is referencing the class, if it is we don't remove it. If there isn't /// anything referencing the texture its safe to dispose of. /// </summary> class TextureContainer { public uint uiNumberOfReferences = 0; public Texture2D texture; } /// <summary> /// This class loads all the files from the Content. /// </summary> static class FileManager { static Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager Content; static EventWaitHandle wh = new AutoResetEvent(false); static Dictionary<string, TextureContainer> Texture2DResourceDictionary; static List<Texture2D> TexturesToDispose; static List<String> TexturesToLoad; static int iProcessor = 4; private static object threadMutex = new object(); private static object Texture2DMutex = new object(); private static object loadingMutex = new object(); private static bool bLoadingTextures = false; /// <summary> /// Returns if we are loading textures or not. /// </summary> public static bool LoadingTexture { get { lock (loadingMutex) { return bLoadingTextures; } } } /// <summary> /// Since this is an static class. This is the constructor for the file loadeder. This is the version /// for the Xbox 360. /// </summary> /// <param name="_Content"></param> public static void Initalize(IServiceProvider serviceProvider, string rootDirectory, int _iProcessor ) { Content = new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager(serviceProvider, rootDirectory); Texture2DResourceDictionary = new Dictionary<string, TextureContainer>(); TexturesToDispose = new List<Texture2D>(); iProcessor = _iProcessor; CreateThread(); } /// <summary> /// Since this is an static class. This is the constructor for the file loadeder. /// </summary> /// <param name="_Content"></param> public static void Initalize(IServiceProvider serviceProvider, string rootDirectory) { Content = new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager(serviceProvider, rootDirectory); Texture2DResourceDictionary = new Dictionary<string, TextureContainer>(); TexturesToDispose = new List<Texture2D>(); CreateThread(); } /// <summary> /// Creates the thread incase we wanted to set up some parameters /// Outside of the constructor. /// </summary> static public void CreateThread() { Thread t = new Thread(new ThreadStart(StartThread)); t.Start(); } // This is the function that we thread. static public void StartThread() { //BBSThreadClass BBSTC = (BBSThreadClass)_oData; FileManager.Execute(); } /// <summary> /// This thread shouldn't be called by the outside world. /// It allows the File Manager to loop. /// </summary> static private void Execute() { // Make sure our thread is on the correct processor on the XBox 360. #if WINDOWS #else Thread.CurrentThread.SetProcessorAffinity(new int[] { iProcessor }); Thread.CurrentThread.IsBackground = true; #endif // This loop will load textures into ram for us away from the main thread. while (true) { wh.WaitOne(); // Locking down our data while we process it. lock (threadMutex) { lock (loadingMutex) { bLoadingTextures = true; } bool bContainsKey = false; for (int con = 0; con < TexturesToLoad.Count; con++) { // If we have already loaded the texture into memory reference // the one in the dictionary. lock (Texture2DMutex) { bContainsKey = Texture2DResourceDictionary.ContainsKey(TexturesToLoad[con]); } if (bContainsKey) { // Do nothing } // Otherwise load it into the dictionary and then reference the // copy in the dictionary else { TextureContainer TC = new TextureContainer(); TC.uiNumberOfReferences = 1; // We start out with 1 referece. // Loading the texture into memory. try { TC.texture = Content.Load<Texture2D>(TexturesToLoad[con]); // This is passed into the dictionary, thus there is only one copy of // the texture in memory. // There is an issue with Sprite Batch and disposing textures. // This will have to wait until its figured out. lock (Texture2DMutex) { bContainsKey = Texture2DResourceDictionary.ContainsKey(TexturesToLoad[con]); Texture2DResourceDictionary.Add(TexturesToLoad[con], TC); } // We don't have the find the reference to the container since we // already have it. } // Occasionally our texture will already by loaded by another thread while // this thread is operating. This mainly happens on the first level. catch (Exception e) { // If this happens we don't worry about it since this thread only loads // texture data and if its already there we don't need to load it. } } Thread.Sleep(100); } } lock (loadingMutex) { bLoadingTextures = false; } } } static public void LoadTextureList(List<string> _textureList) { // Ensuring that we can't creating threading problems. lock (threadMutex) { TexturesToLoad = _textureList; } wh.Set(); } /// <summary> /// This loads a 2D texture which represents a 2D grid of Texels. /// </summary> /// <param name="_textureName">The name of the picture you wish to load.</param> /// <returns>Holds the image data.</returns> public static Texture2D LoadTexture2D( string _textureName ) { TextureContainer temp; lock (Texture2DMutex) { bool bContainsKey = false; // If we have already loaded the texture into memory reference // the one in the dictionary. lock (Texture2DMutex) { bContainsKey = Texture2DResourceDictionary.ContainsKey(_textureName); if (bContainsKey) { temp = Texture2DResourceDictionary[_textureName]; temp.uiNumberOfReferences++; // Incrementing the number of references } // Otherwise load it into the dictionary and then reference the // copy in the dictionary else { TextureContainer TC = new TextureContainer(); TC.uiNumberOfReferences = 1; // We start out with 1 referece. // Loading the texture into memory. try { TC.texture = Content.Load<Texture2D>(_textureName); // This is passed into the dictionary, thus there is only one copy of // the texture in memory. } // Occasionally our texture will already by loaded by another thread while // this thread is operating. This mainly happens on the first level. catch(Exception e) { temp = Texture2DResourceDictionary[_textureName]; temp.uiNumberOfReferences++; // Incrementing the number of references } // There is an issue with Sprite Batch and disposing textures. // This will have to wait until its figured out. Texture2DResourceDictionary.Add(_textureName, TC); // We don't have the find the reference to the container since we // already have it. temp = TC; } } } // Return a reference to the texture return temp.texture; } /// <summary> /// Go through our dictionary and remove any references to the /// texture passed in. /// </summary> /// <param name="texture">Texture to remove from texture dictionary.</param> public static void RemoveTexture2D(Texture2D texture) { foreach (KeyValuePair<string, TextureContainer> pair in Texture2DResourceDictionary) { // Do our references match? if (pair.Value.texture == texture) { // Only one object or less holds a reference to the // texture. Logically it should be safe to remove. if (pair.Value.uiNumberOfReferences <= 1) { // Grabing referenc to texture TexturesToDispose.Add(pair.Value.texture); // We are about to release the memory of the texture, // thus we make sure no one else can call this member // in the dictionary. Texture2DResourceDictionary.Remove(pair.Key); // Once we have removed the texture we don't want to create an exception. // So we will stop looking in the list since it has changed. break; } // More than one Object has a reference to this texture. // So we will not be removing it from memory and instead // simply marking down the number of references by 1. else { pair.Value.uiNumberOfReferences--; } } } } /*public static void DisposeTextures() { int Count = TexturesToDispose.Count; // If there are any textures to dispose of. if (Count > 0) { for (int con = 0; con < TexturesToDispose.Count; con++) { // =!THIS REMOVES THE TEXTURE FROM MEMORY!= // This is not like a normal dispose. This will actually // remove the object from memory. Texture2D is inherited // from GraphicsResource which removes it self from // memory on dispose. Very nice for game efficency, // but "dangerous" in managed land. Texture2D Temp = TexturesToDispose[con]; Temp.Dispose(); } // Remove textures we've already disposed of. TexturesToDispose.Clear(); } }*/ /// <summary> /// This loads a 2D texture which represnets a font. /// </summary> /// <param name="_textureName">The name of the font you wish to load.</param> /// <returns>Holds the font data.</returns> public static SpriteFont LoadFont( string _fontName ) { SpriteFont temp = Content.Load<SpriteFont>( _fontName ); return temp; } /// <summary> /// This loads an XML document. /// </summary> /// <param name="_textureName">The name of the XML document you wish to load.</param> /// <returns>Holds the XML data.</returns> public static XmlDocument LoadXML( string _fileName ) { XmlDocument temp = Content.Load<XmlDocument>( _fileName ); return temp; } /// <summary> /// This loads a sound file. /// </summary> /// <param name="_fileName"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static SoundEffect LoadSound( string _fileName ) { SoundEffect temp = Content.Load<SoundEffect>(_fileName); return temp; } } }

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• #include file vs iframe or is there a better way

  - by Laurence Burke

  ok simple question about including large mostly static html and asp.net code I am using as of right now #include and I was wondering if iframes would be a better way of handling what I wish to do or is there a better way to do it. here is the current way i'm handling the includes default.aspx <head id="YafHead" runat="server"> <meta id="YafMetaDescription" runat="server" name="description" content="Yet Another Forum.NET -- A bulletin board system written in ASP.NET" /> <meta id="YafMetaKeywords" runat="server" name="keywords" content="Yet Another Forum.net, Forum, ASP.NET, BB, Bulletin Board, opensource" /> <title>Forums</title> <style type="text/css"> .sbutton { background-color:#361800; border:medium none; border-collapse:collapse; color:#FFFFFF; font-family:Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica; font-size:10px; font-weight:bold; vertical-align:middle; } </style> <link href="images/favicon.ico" type="image/ico" rel="shortcut icon" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="navTopStyle.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> </head> <body style="margin: 0"> <form id="form1" runat="server" enctype="multipart/form-data"> <table align="center" style="background-color: #ffffff" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="790px"> <tr> <td> <!--#include file="CComHeader.html"--> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <YAF:Forum runat="server" ID="forum"></YAF:Forum> </td> </tr> </table> </form> </body> </html> CComHeader.html <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="790px"> <tr> <td align="left"> <img src="images/smokechair.jpg" alt="Cigar.com" /><img src="images/cigarcomTitle.gif" alt="Cigar.com" /> </td> <td align="right"> <table width="310px" height="73px" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="padding-right: 6px"> <tr> <td width="109px" class="welcome" align="left"> Welcome to Cigar.com </td> <td width="195px" class="welcome" align="left"> <div runat="server" id="divUser"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="right"> <tr> <td width="126px" align="left"> <asp:Label ID="lblUserName" CssClass="welcome" runat="server"></asp:Label></td> <td width="65px" align="left"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/cs/languages/en-US/docs/faq.aspx">Help</a></td> </tr> </table> </div> <div runat="server" id="divGuest"> <a href="OutsideLogin.aspx">Sign In</a> | <a href="OutsideLogin.aspx">Join</a> | <a href="http://www.cigar.com/cs/languages/en-US/docs/faq.aspx">Help</a> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" > <tr> <td width="234px" align="right"> <asp:DropDownList ID="ddlCriteria" runat="server"> <asp:ListItem>Posts</asp:ListItem> <asp:ListItem>Posted By</asp:ListItem> </asp:DropDownList> <asp:TextBox Width="120px" ID="txtSearch" runat="server"></asp:TextBox> </td> <td width="70px" align="center"> <asp:Button ID="btnSearch" runat="server" Text="Search" CssClass="sbutton" OnClick="btnSearch_Click" /> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <!--#include file="commonTabBar.html" --> </td> </tr> </table> commonTabBar.html <%-- CommonTabBar firebugged from Cigar.com--%> <div class="CommonTabBar"> <script language="javascript"> function tabOver(e) { if (e.className != 'CommonSimpleTabStripSelectedTab') e.className = 'CommonSimpleTabStripTabHover'; } function tabOut(e) { if (e.className != 'CommonSimpleTabStripSelectedTab') e.className = 'CommonSimpleTabStripTab'; } function tabOverSub(e) { if (e.className != 'CommonSimpleTabStripSelectedTabSub') e.className = 'CommonSimpleTabStripTabHoverSub'; } function tabOutSub(e) { if (e.className != 'CommonSimpleTabStripSelectedTabSub') e.className = 'CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub'; } </script> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr valign="middle"> <td class="CommonSimpleTabStripTab" style="padding: 0px"> &nbsp; </td> <td class="CommonSimpleTabStripTab" onmouseover="tabOver(this);" onmouseout="tabOut(this);" onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/index.asp'"> <a style="float: right; display: block; height: 30px; line-height: 30px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 12px; vertical-align: middle;" href="http://www.cigar.com/index.asp"> Home</a> </td> <td class="CommonSimpleTabStripTab" onmouseover="tabOver(this); document.getElementById('ComDropDown2').style.display = 'inline';" onmouseout="tabOut(this); document.getElementById('ComDropDown2').style.display = 'none';"> <a style="float: right; display: block; height: 30px; line-height: 30px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 12px; vertical-align: middle;" href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/index.asp"> Cigars</a> <div id="ComDropDown2" style="border: 1px solid rgb(71, 42, 24); margin: 28px 0px 0px; display: none; background-color: rgb(235, 230, 208); color: rgb(71, 42, 24); position: absolute; float: left; z-index: 200;" onmouseover="document.getElementById('ComDropDown2').style.display = 'inline';" onmouseout="document.getElementById('ComDropDown2').style.display = 'none';"> <ul style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 100px;"> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/cigars/index.asp'"><a href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/index.asp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="BrandsLink">Brands </a> </li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/cigars/privatelabel.asp?brand=419'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/privatelabel.asp?brand=419" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="SamplersLink">Aging Room </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/cigars/samplers.asp'"><a href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/samplers.asp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="SamplersLink">Samplers </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/cigars/suggestions.asp'"><a href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/suggestions.asp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="SuggestionsLink">Suggestions </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/DailyDeal/ccCigarDeals.asp'"><a href="http://www.cigar.com/DailyDeal/ccCigarDeals.asp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="SuggestionsLink">Suggestions </a></li> </ul> </div> </td> <td class="CommonSimpleTabStripTab" onmouseover="tabOver(this); document.getElementById('ComDropDown3').style.display = 'inline';" onmouseout="tabOut(this); document.getElementById('ComDropDown3').style.display = 'none';"> <a style="float: right; display: block; height: 30px; line-height: 30px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 12px; vertical-align: middle;" href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/samplers.asp"> Samplers</a> <div id="ComDropDown3" style="border: 1px solid rgb(71, 42, 24); margin: 28px 0px 0px; display: none; background-color: rgb(235, 230, 208); color: rgb(71, 42, 24); position: absolute; float: left; z-index: 200;" onmouseover="document.getElementById('ComDropDown3').style.display = 'inline';" onmouseout="document.getElementById('ComDropDown3').style.display = 'none';"> <ul style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 100px;"> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/cigars/viewsamplers.asp?subcatid=samp_var'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/viewsamplers.asp?subcatid=samp_var" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="Variety SamplersLink">Variety Samplers </a> </li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/cigars/viewsamplers.asp?subcatid=gift_samp'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/viewsamplers.asp?subcatid=gift_samp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="Gift SamplersLink">Gift Samplers </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/cigars/createSampler.asp'"><a href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/createSampler.asp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="Custom SamplerLink">Custom Sampler </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/cigars/viewsamplers.asp?subcatid=Feat%20Samp'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/viewsamplers.asp?subcatid=Feat%20Samp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="Featured SamplersLink">Featured Samplers </a> </li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/cigars/YouPickOffer.asp'"><a href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/YouPickOffer.asp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="Brand SamplersLink">U Pick 2 Offer </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/cigars/exclusiveCustomSampler.asp'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/exclusiveCustomSampler.asp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="Brand SamplersLink">Gurkha Sampler </a></li> </ul> </div> </td> <td class="CommonSimpleTabStripTab" onmouseover="tabOver(this); document.getElementById('ComDropDown4').style.display = 'inline';" onmouseout="tabOut(this); document.getElementById('ComDropDown4').style.display = 'none';"> <a style="float: right; display: block; height: 30px; line-height: 30px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 12px; vertical-align: middle;" href="http://www.cigar.com/gifts/index.asp"> Gifts</a> <div id="ComDropDown4" style="border: 1px solid rgb(71, 42, 24); margin: 28px 0px 0px; display: none; background-color: rgb(235, 230, 208); color: rgb(71, 42, 24); position: absolute; float: left; z-index: 200;" onmouseover="document.getElementById('ComDropDown4').style.display = 'inline';" onmouseout="document.getElementById('ComDropDown4').style.display = 'none';"> <ul style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 100px;"> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/gifts/viewgifts.asp?subcatid=gift_sets'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/gifts/viewgifts.asp?subcatid=gift_sets" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="Gift SetsLink">Best Sellers </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/cigars/viewsamplers.asp?subcatid=gift_samp'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/cigars/viewsamplers.asp?subcatid=gift_samp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="Gift SamplersLink">Gift Samplers </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/accessories/index.asp'"><a href="http://www.cigar.com/accessories/index.asp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="AccesoriesLink">Accesories </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/club/index.asp'"><a href="http://www.cigar.com/club/index.asp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="Cigar of the MonthLink">Cigar of the Month </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/gifts/certificates.asp'"><a href="http://www.cigar.com/gifts/certificates.asp" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="Cigar of the MonthLink">Gift Certificates </a></li> </ul> </div> </td> <td class="CommonSimpleTabStripTab" onmouseover="tabOver(this); document.getElementById('ComDropDown5').style.display = 'inline';" onmouseout="tabOut(this); document.getElementById('ComDropDown5').style.display = 'none';"> <a style="float: right; display: block; height: 30px; line-height: 30px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 12px; vertical-align: middle;" href="http://www.cigar.com/accessories/index.asp"> Accessories</a> <div id="ComDropDown5" style="border: 1px solid rgb(71, 42, 24); margin: 28px 0px 0px; display: none; background-color: rgb(235, 230, 208); color: rgb(71, 42, 24); position: absolute; float: left; z-index: 200;" onmouseover="document.getElementById('ComDropDown5').style.display = 'inline';" onmouseout="document.getElementById('ComDropDown5').style.display = 'none';"> <ul style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 100px;"> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_hum'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_hum" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="HumidorsLink">Humidors </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_cutt'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_cutt" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="CuttersLink">Cutters </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_lite'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_lite" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="LightersLink">Lighters </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_case'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_case" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="CasesLink">Cases </a> </li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_humf'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_humf" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="HumidificationLink">Humidification </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_book'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_book" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="BooksLink">Books </a> </li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_ash'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_ash" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="AshtraysLink">Ashtrays </a></li> <li class="CommonSimpleTabStripTabSub" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px; text-align: left; list-style: none outside none;" onmouseover="tabOverSub(this); " onmouseout="tabOutSub(this); " onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_misc'"> <a href="http://www.cigar.com/accessories/viewaccessories.asp?subcatid=acc_misc" style="line-height: 25px; color: rgb(71, 42, 24);" id="OtherLink">Other </a> </li> </ul> </div> </td> <td class="CommonSimpleTabStripTab" onmouseover="tabOver(this);" onmouseout="tabOut(this);" onclick="window.location = 'http://www.cigar.com/sales/index.asp'"> <a style="float: right; display: block; height: 30px; line-height: 30px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 12px; vertical-align: middle;" href="http://www.cigar.com/sales/index.asp"> Sales</a> </td> <td class="CommonSimpleTabStripTab" onmouseover="tabOver(this); document.getElementById('ComDropDown8').style.display = 'inline';" onmouseout="tabOut(this); document.getElementById('ComDropDown8').style.display = 'none';"> <a style="float: right; display: block; height: 30px; line-height: 30px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 12px; vertical-align: middle;" href="http://www.cigar.com/cs/">Community</a> <div id="ComDropDown8" style="border: 1px solid rgb(71, 42, 24); margin: 28px 0px 0px; display: none; background-color: rgb(235, 230, 208); color: rgb(71, 42, 24); 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• How to correctly calculate FPS in XNA?

  - by Tomek Tarczynski

  I wrote a component to display current FPS. The most important part of it is: public override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { elapseTime += (float)gameTime.ElapsedRealTime.TotalSeconds; frameCounter++; if (elapseTime > 1) { FPS = frameCounter; frameCounter = 0; elapseTime = 0; } base.Update(gameTime); } In most cases it works ok, but recently I had a problem. When I put following code into Update method of game strange thing starts to happen. if (threadPath == null || threadPath.ThreadState != ThreadState.Running) { ThreadStart ts = new ThreadStart(current.PathFinder.FindPaths); threadPath = new Thread(ts); threadPath.Priority = ThreadPriority.Highest; threadPath.Start(); } Main idea of this code is to run pathFinding algorithm in different thread all the time. By strange things I mean that sometimes FPS drasticly decreases, this is obvious, but displayed FPS changes more often than once a second. If I understand this code FPS can't change more often than once a second. Can someone explain me what's going on?

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• Code Golf: 1x1 black pixel

  - by Joey Adams

  Recently, I used my favorite image editor to make a 1x1 black pixel (which can come in handy when you want to draw solid boxes in HTML cheaply). Even though I made it a monochrome PNG, it came out to be 120 bytes! I mean, that's kind of steep. 120 bytes. For one pixel. I then converted it to a GIF, which dropped the size down to 43 bytes. Much better, but still... Challenge The shortest image file or program that is or generates a 1x1 black pixel. A submission may be: An image file that represents a 1x1 black pixel. The format chosen must be able to represent larger images than 1x1, and cannot be ad-hoc (that is, it can't be an image format you just made up for code golf). Image files will be ranked by byte count. A program that generates such an image file. Programs will be ranked by character count, as usual in code golf. As long as an answer falls into one of these two categories, anything is fair game.

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• How can I find the song position of a song being played with XACT?

  - by DJ SymBiotiX

  So I'm making a game in XNA and I need to use XACT for my songs (rather than media player). I need to use XACT because each song will have multiple layers that combine when played at the same time (bass, lead, drums) etc. I cant use the media player because the media player can only play one song at a time. Anyways, so lets say I have a song playing with XACT in my project with the following code public SongController() { audioEngine = new AudioEngine(@"Content\Song1\Song1.xgs"); waveBank = new WaveBank(audioEngine, @"Content\Song1\Layers.xwb"); soundBank = new SoundBank(audioEngine, @"Content\Song1\SongLayers.xsb"); songTime = new PlayTime(); Vox = soundBank.GetCue("Vox"); BG = soundBank.GetCue("BG"); Bass = soundBank.GetCue("Bass"); Lead = soundBank.GetCue("Lead"); Other = soundBank.GetCue("Other"); Vox.SetVariable("CueVolume", 100.0f); BG.SetVariable("CueVolume", 100.0f); Bass.SetVariable("CueVolume", 100.0f); Lead.SetVariable("CueVolume", 100.0f); Other.SetVariable("CueVolume", 100.0f); _bassVol = 100.0f; _voxVol = 100.0f; _leadVol = 100.0f; _otherVol = 100.0f; Vox.Play(); BG.Play(); Bass.Play(); Lead.Play(); Other.Play(); } So when I look at the variables in Vox, or BG (they are Cue's btw) I cant seem to find any play position in them. So I guess the question is: Is there a variable I can query to find that data, or do I need to make my own class that starts counting up from the time I start the song? Thanks

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• Newbie, deciding Python or Erlang

  - by Joe

  Hi Guys, I'm a Administrator (unix, Linux and some windows apps such as Exchange) by experience and have never worked on any programming language besides C# and scripting on Bash and lately on powershell. I'm starting out as a service provider and using multiple network/server monitoring tools based on open source (nagios, opennms etc) in order to monitor them. At this moment, being inspired by a design that I came up with, to do more than what is available with the open source at this time, I would like to start programming and test some of these ideas. The requirement is that a server software that captures a stream of data and store them in a database(CouchDB or MongoDB preferably) and the client side (agent installed on a server) would be sending this stream of data on a schedule of every 10 minutes or so. For these two core ideas, I have been reading about Python and Erlang besides ruby. I do plan to use either Amazon or Rackspace where the server platform would run. This gives me the scalability needed when we have more customers with many servers. For that reason alone, I thought Erlang was a better fit(I could be totally wrong, new to this game) and I understand that Erlang has limited support in some ways compared to Ruby or Python. But also I'm totally new to the programming realm of things and any advise would be appreciated grately. Jo

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• Android 2.2 and "Bad address family" on Socket Connect

  - by Josh

  I have a fairly simple game that works perfectly on every version now up through 2.1, but with the new 2.2 (Froyo) release I am unable to create a socket. I am using the mina package for nio, and get this exception: W/System.err( 263): java.net.SocketException: Bad address family W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.harmony.luni.platform.OSNetworkSystem.connectStreamWithTimeoutSocketImpl(Native Method) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.harmony.luni.platform.OSNetworkSystem.connect(OSNetworkSystem.java:115) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.harmony.nio.internal.SocketChannelImpl.connect(SocketChannelImpl.java:272) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.harmony.nio.internal.PipeImpl$SinkChannelImpl.finishConnect(PipeImpl.java:164) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.harmony.nio.internal.PipeImpl.(PipeImpl.java:48) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.harmony.nio.internal.SelectorProviderImpl.openPipe(SelectorProviderImpl.java:51) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.harmony.nio.internal.SelectorImpl.(SelectorImpl.java:141) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.harmony.nio.internal.SelectorProviderImpl.openSelector(SelectorProviderImpl.java:58) W/System.err( 263): at java.nio.channels.Selector.open(Selector.java:48) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.mina.transport.socket.nio.SocketConnector.startupWorker(SocketConnector.java:248) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.mina.transport.socket.nio.SocketConnector.connect(SocketConnector.java:210) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.mina.transport.socket.nio.SocketConnector.connect(SocketConnector.java:137) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.mina.common.support.BaseIoConnector.connect(BaseIoConnector.java:40) Later in the log, usually immediately following I get this: W/System.err( 263): java.lang.NullPointerException W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.harmony.nio.internal.SelectorImpl.wakeup(SelectorImpl.java:418) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.mina.transport.socket.nio.SocketConnector.connect(SocketConnector.java:222) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.mina.transport.socket.nio.SocketConnector.connect(SocketConnector.java:137) W/System.err( 263): at org.apache.mina.common.support.BaseIoConnector.connect(BaseIoConnector.java:40) I have done all the googling and looking around I can think of and found nothing. The closest I have come seems to be an old JDK bug with ipv6 support on XP and Vista machines (I'm running Vista). Recommendations included disabling ipv6 (that did not work) and disabling ipv4 and leaving ipv6 (will not work for me as my router and ISP don't support it and so could not test anyway). Any thoughts, suggestions, things I have not tried? Thanks, Josh

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• Java: How to have an ArrayList as instance variable of an object?

  - by JDelage

  All, I'm working on a class project to build a little Connect4 game in Java. My current thinking is to have a class of Columns that have as instance variable a few integers (index, max. length, isFull?) and one ArrayList to receive both the integers above and the plays of each players (e.g., 1's and 0's standing for X's and O's). This is probably going to be split between 2 classes but the question remains the same. My current attempt looks like this: import java.util.ArrayList; public class Conn4Col { public int hMax; public int index; public final int initialSize = 0; public final int fullCol = 0; public ArrayList<Integer>; (...)} Unfortunately, this doesn't compile. The compiler says an is missing where my ArrayList declaration stands. We're just starting objects and we haven't really looked into other instance variables than the basic types. Can someone tell me where my error is and how to correct it? Many thanks, JDelage

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• Looking for a good world map generation algorithm

  - by FalconNL

  I'm working on a Civilization-like game and I'm looking for a good algorithm for generating Earth-like world maps. I've experimented with a few alternatives, but haven't hit on a real winner yet. One option is to generate a heightmap using perlin noise and add water at a level so that about 30% of the world is land. While perlin noise (or similar fractal-based techniques) are frequently used for terrain and is reasonably realistic, it doesn't offer much in the way of control over the number, size and position of the resulting continents, which I'd like to have from a gameplay perspective. See http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2792/4462870263_ff26c40365_o.jpg for an example (sorry, can't post pictures yet). A second option is to start with a randomly positioned one-tile seed (I'm working on a grid of tiles), determine the desired size for the continent and each turn add a tile that is horizontally or vertically adjacent to the existing continent until you've reached the desired size. Repeat for the other continents. This technique is part of the algorithm used in Civilization 4. The problem is that after placing the first few continents, it's possible to pick a starting location that's surrounded by other continents, and thus won't fit the new one. Also, it has a tendency to spawn continents too close together, resulting in something that looks more like a river than continents. See http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/4462870383_46e86b155c_o.jpg for an example. Does anyone happen to know a good algorithm for generating realistic continents on a grid-based map while keeping control over their number and relative sizes?

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• C# Assembly not found at runtime

  - by Gustavo Cardoso

  A strange error begans to happen with my XNA project on a new pc. I have two projects on the solution and a library that is used by both of them. One of the projects, a XNA Game Project, runs perfectly. The other project is a mix of WindowsForm and XNA. The form launches a XNA class when a button is clicked. When I run the program, it works great till the moment I click the button which launch the XNA class. A FileNotFoundException is fired exactly at the moment that the constructor will be executed. System.IO.FileNotFoundException was unhandled Message="Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=6d5c3888ef60e27d' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the path specified." The reference is correct, there is no problem on compilation. We already tried to delete the reference and add it again but it didn't work. Everything worked correctly in others teammate's pc. Anyone has any idea what is the problem?

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• Resources related to data-mining and gaming on social networks

  - by darren

  Hi all I'm interested in the problem of patterning mining among players of social networking games. For example detecting cheaters of a game, given a company's user database. So far I have been following the usual recipe for a data mining project: construct a data warehouse that aggregates significant information select a classifier, and train it with a subsectio of records from the warehouse validate classifier with another test set lather, rinse, repeat Surprisingly, I've found very little in this area regarding literature, best practices, etc. I am hoping to crowdsource the information gathering problem here. Specifically what I'm looking for: What classifiers have worked will for this type of pattern mining (it seems highly temporal, users playing games, users receiving rewards, users transferring prizes etc). Are there any highly agreed upon attributes specific to social networking / gaming data? What is a practical amount of information that should be considered? One problem I've run into is data overload, where queries and data cleansing may take days to complete. Related to point above, what hardware resources are required to produce results? I've found it difficult to estimate the amount of computing power I will require for production use. It has become apparent that a white box in the corner does not have enough horse-power for such a project. Are companies generally resorting to cloud solutions? Are they buying clusters? Basically, any resources (theoretical, academic, or practical) about implementing a social networking / gaming pattern-mining program would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

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• Algorithm to get through a maze

  - by Sam

  Hello, We are currently programming a game (its a pretty unknown language: modula 2), And the problem we encountered is the following: we have a maze (not a perfect maze) in a 17 x 12 grid. The computer has to generate a way from the starting point (9, 12) to the end point (9, 1). I found some algorithms but they dont work when the robot has to go back: xxxxx x => x x xxx or: xxxxx x xxxxxx x x x x x xxxxxx x => x xxxxxxxxx I found a solution for the first example type but then the second type couldn't be solved and the solution I made up for the second type would cause the robot to get stuck in the first type of situation. It's a lot of code so i'll give the idea: WHILE (end destination not reached) DO { try to go right, if nothing blocks you: go right if you encounter a block, try up until you can go right, if you cant go up anymore try going down until you can go right, (starting from the place you first were blocked), if you cant go down anymore, try one step left and fill the spaces you tested with blocks. } This works for the first type of problem ... not for the second one. Now it could be that i started wrong so i am open for better algorithms or solutions specificaly to how i could improve my algorithm. Thanks a lot!!

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• why i add more insignificant code but cost less time

  - by user3714382

  i write a method and when i add some insignificant code it works faster, like these : array[1]=array[1]; array[0]=array[0]; array[3]=array[3]; array[2]=array[2]; i use double t=System.currentTimeMillis(); at first to record the time. then call the method and use System.out.println(System.currentTimeMillis()-t); in the end. when i delete the code (array[1]=array[1];...) the cost time is 1035.0 ms,but if i add these code, the cost time become 898.0ms. here is my method and my code. PS:this method is use for the game 2048, exp: {2,2,2,2} trans to {0,0,4,4} static void toRight2(int[] array){ if (array[2]==array[3] ) { array[3]=array[2]*2; if (array[0]==array[1]) { array[2]=array[1]*2; array[0]=0; array[1]=0; }else { array[2]=array[1]; array[1]=array[0]; array[0]=0; } } else{ if (array[0]==array[1]) { array[1]=array[1]*2; array[0]=0; array[3]=array[3]; array[2]=array[2]; }else { array[1]=array[1];//delete this cost more time array[0]=array[0];//delete this cost more time array[3]=array[3];//delete this cost more time array[2]=array[2];//delete this cost more time } } } public static void main(String[] args) { double t=System.currentTimeMillis(); int[] array={1,2,3,3}; for (int j = 2; j <400*1000000; j++) { toRight2(array); } System.out.println(System.currentTimeMillis()-t); }

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• Nunit Relative Path failing

  - by levi.siebens

  I'm having an issue with Nunit where I cannot find an image file when I run my tests and each time it looks for images it looks in the Nunit folder instead of looking inside the folder where the binary resides. Below is a detailed description of what's happening. I'm building a binary that is under test which contains the definition for some game elements and png files which will define the sprites I'm using (for sanity sake call it Binary1) Nunit runs tests from a seperate binary (Binary1Test) executing test methods against the first binary (Binary1). All tests pass, unless the test executes code in Binary1 which then requires Binary1 to use one of the image files (which are defined via a relative path). When the method is called, Nunit throws a file not found exception stating that it cannot find the file and states it's looking inside of the Program Files\Nunit.net 2.0 folder So I have no idea why the code is doing this, and to make matters more confusing when I pull up Enviornment.CurrentDirectory it gives me the correct path (the path to my debug folder) and not the path to nunit. Also if I use this instead of using the relative path, my tests will run without issue. So my question is, does anyone know why in the case of loading relative paths from within my binary that nunit decides to use it's directory instead of the directory where the binary is located and where the images are stored? Thanks.

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