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  • American Modern Insurance Group recognized at 2010 INN VIP Best Practices Awards

    - by [email protected]
    Below: Helen Pitts (right), Oracle Insurance, congratulates Bruce Weisgerber, Munich Re, as he accepts a VIP Best Practices Award on behalf of American Modern Insurance Group.     Oracle Insurance Senior Product Marketing Manager Helen Pitts is attending the 2010 ACORD LOMA Insurance Forum this week at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, and will be providing updates from the show floor. This is one of my favorite seasons of the year--insurance trade show season. It is a time to reconnect with peers, visit with partners, make new industry connections, and celebrate our customers' achievements. It's especially meaningful when we can share the experience of having one of our Oracle Insurance customers recognized for being an innovator in its business and in the industry. Congratulations to American Modern Insurance Group, part of the Munich Re Group. American Modern earned an Insurance Networking News (INN) 2010 VIP Best Practice Award yesterday evening during the 2010 ACORD LOMA Insurance Forum. The award recognizes an insurer's best practice for use of a specific technology and the role, if feasible, that ACORD data standards played as a part of their business and technology. American Modern received an Honorable Mention for leveraging the Oracle Documaker enterprise document automation solution to: Improve the quality of communications with customers in high value, high-touch lines of business Convert thousands of page elements or "forms" from their previous system, with near pixel-perfect accuracy Increase efficiency and reusability by storing all document elements (fonts, logos, approved wording, etc.) in one place Issue on-demand documents, such as address changes or policy transactions to multiple recipients at once Consolidate all customer communications onto a single platform Gain the ability to send documents to multiple recipients at once, further improving efficiency Empower agents to produce documents in real time via the Web, such as quotes, applications and policy documents, improving carrier-agent relationships Munich Re's Bruce Weisgerber accepted the award on behalf of American Modern from Lloyd Chumbly, vice president of standards at ACORD. In a press release issued after the ceremony Chumbly noted, "This award embodies a philosophy of efficiency--working smarter with standards, these insurers represent the 'best of the best' as chosen by a body of seasoned insurance industry professionals." We couldn't agree with you more, Lloyd. Congratulations again to American Modern on your continued innovation and success. You're definitely a VIP in our book! To learn more about how American Modern is putting its enterprise document automation strategy into practice, click here to read a case study. Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance.

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  • Transform Your Application Integration with Best Practices from Oracle Customers

    - by Lionel Dubreuil
    You want to transform your application integration into an environment based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA). You also want to utilize business process management (BPM) to improve efficiency, deliver business agility, lower total cost of ownership, and increase business visibility. And you want to hear directly from like-minded professionals who have made those types of transformations. Easy enough. Attend this Webcast series to learn from customers who have successfully integrated with Oracle SOA and BPM solutions.Join us for this series and discover how to: Use a single unified platform for all types of processes Increase real-time process visibility Improve efficiency of existing IT investments Lower up-front costs and achieve faster time to market Gain greater benefit from SOA with the addition of BPM Here's the list of upcoming webcasts: “Migrating to SOA at Choice Hotels” on Thurs., June 21, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Hear how Choice Hotels successfully made the transition from a complex legacy environment into a SOA-based shared services infrastructure that accelerated time to market as the company implemented its event-driven Google API project. “San Joaquin County—Optimizing Justice and Public Safety with Oracle BPM and Oracle SOA” on Thurs., July 26, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how San Joaquin County moved to a service-oriented architecture foundation and business process management platform to gain efficiency and greater visibility into mission-critical information for public safety. “Streamlining Order to Cash with SOA at Eaton” on Thurs., August 23, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Discover how Eaton transitioned from a legacy TIBCO infrastructure. Learn about the company’s reference architecture for a SOA-based Oracle Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO). “Fast BPM Implementation with Fusion: Production in Five Months” on Thurs., September 13, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how Nets Denmark A/S implemented Oracle Unified Business Process Management Suite in just five months. The Webcast will cover the implementation from start to production, including integration with legacy systems. “SOA Implementation at Farmers Insurance” on Thurs., October 18, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how Farmers Insurance Group lowered application infrastructure costs, reduced time to market, and introduced flexibility by transforming to a SOA-based infrastructure with SOA governance. Register today!

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  • Transform Your Application Integration with Best Practices from Oracle Customers

    - by Lionel Dubreuil
    You want to transform your application integration into an environment based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA). You also want to utilize business process management (BPM) to improve efficiency, deliver business agility, lower total cost of ownership, and increase business visibility. And you want to hear directly from like-minded professionals who have made those types of transformations. Easy enough. Attend this Webcast series to learn from customers who have successfully integrated with Oracle SOA and BPM solutions.Join us for this series and discover how to: Use a single unified platform for all types of processes Increase real-time process visibility Improve efficiency of existing IT investments Lower up-front costs and achieve faster time to market Gain greater benefit from SOA with the addition of BPM Here's the list of upcoming webcasts: “Migrating to SOA at Choice Hotels” on Thurs., June 21, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Hear how Choice Hotels successfully made the transition from a complex legacy environment into a SOA-based shared services infrastructure that accelerated time to market as the company implemented its event-driven Google API project. “San Joaquin County—Optimizing Justice and Public Safety with Oracle BPM and Oracle SOA” on Thurs., July 26, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how San Joaquin County moved to a service-oriented architecture foundation and business process management platform to gain efficiency and greater visibility into mission-critical information for public safety. “Streamlining Order to Cash with SOA at Eaton” on Thurs., August 23, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Discover how Eaton transitioned from a legacy TIBCO infrastructure. Learn about the company’s reference architecture for a SOA-based Oracle Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO). “Fast BPM Implementation with Fusion: Production in Five Months” on Thurs., September 13, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how Nets Denmark A/S implemented Oracle Unified Business Process Management Suite in just five months. The Webcast will cover the implementation from start to production, including integration with legacy systems. “SOA Implementation at Farmers Insurance” on Thurs., October 18, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how Farmers Insurance Group lowered application infrastructure costs, reduced time to market, and introduced flexibility by transforming to a SOA-based infrastructure with SOA governance. Register today!

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  • Transform Your Application Integration with Best Practices from Oracle Customers

    - by Lionel Dubreuil
    You want to transform your application integration into an environment based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA). You also want to utilize business process management (BPM) to improve efficiency, deliver business agility, lower total cost of ownership, and increase business visibility. And you want to hear directly from like-minded professionals who have made those types of transformations. Easy enough. Attend this Webcast series to learn from customers who have successfully integrated with Oracle SOA and BPM solutions.Join us for this series and discover how to: Use a single unified platform for all types of processes Increase real-time process visibility Improve efficiency of existing IT investments Lower up-front costs and achieve faster time to market Gain greater benefit from SOA with the addition of BPM Here's the list of upcoming webcasts: “Migrating to SOA at Choice Hotels” on Thurs., June 21, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Hear how Choice Hotels successfully made the transition from a complex legacy environment into a SOA-based shared services infrastructure that accelerated time to market as the company implemented its event-driven Google API project. “San Joaquin County—Optimizing Justice and Public Safety with Oracle BPM and Oracle SOA” on Thurs., July 26, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how San Joaquin County moved to a service-oriented architecture foundation and business process management platform to gain efficiency and greater visibility into mission-critical information for public safety. “Streamlining Order to Cash with SOA at Eaton” on Thurs., August 23, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Discover how Eaton transitioned from a legacy TIBCO infrastructure. Learn about the company’s reference architecture for a SOA-based Oracle Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO). “Fast BPM Implementation with Fusion: Production in Five Months” on Thurs., September 13, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how Nets Denmark A/S implemented Oracle Unified Business Process Management Suite in just five months. The Webcast will cover the implementation from start to production, including integration with legacy systems. “SOA Implementation at Farmers Insurance” on Thurs., October 18, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how Farmers Insurance Group lowered application infrastructure costs, reduced time to market, and introduced flexibility by transforming to a SOA-based infrastructure with SOA governance. Register today!

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  • Transform Your Application Integration with Best Practices from Oracle Customers

    - by Lionel Dubreuil
    You want to transform your application integration into an environment based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA). You also want to utilize business process management (BPM) to improve efficiency, deliver business agility, lower total cost of ownership, and increase business visibility. And you want to hear directly from like-minded professionals who have made those types of transformations. Easy enough. Attend this Webcast series to learn from customers who have successfully integrated with Oracle SOA and BPM solutions.Join us for this series and discover how to: Use a single unified platform for all types of processes Increase real-time process visibility Improve efficiency of existing IT investments Lower up-front costs and achieve faster time to market Gain greater benefit from SOA with the addition of BPM Here's the list of upcoming webcasts: “Migrating to SOA at Choice Hotels” on Thurs., June 21, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Hear how Choice Hotels successfully made the transition from a complex legacy environment into a SOA-based shared services infrastructure that accelerated time to market as the company implemented its event-driven Google API project. “San Joaquin County—Optimizing Justice and Public Safety with Oracle BPM and Oracle SOA” on Thurs., July 26, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how San Joaquin County moved to a service-oriented architecture foundation and business process management platform to gain efficiency and greater visibility into mission-critical information for public safety. “Streamlining Order to Cash with SOA at Eaton” on Thurs., August 23, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Discover how Eaton transitioned from a legacy TIBCO infrastructure. Learn about the company’s reference architecture for a SOA-based Oracle Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO). “Fast BPM Implementation with Fusion: Production in Five Months” on Thurs., September 13, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how Nets Denmark A/S implemented Oracle Unified Business Process Management Suite in just five months. The Webcast will cover the implementation from start to production, including integration with legacy systems. “SOA Implementation at Farmers Insurance” on Thurs., October 18, 2012 — 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Learn how Farmers Insurance Group lowered application infrastructure costs, reduced time to market, and introduced flexibility by transforming to a SOA-based infrastructure with SOA governance. Register today!

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  • Russian Hydrodynamic Modeling, Prediction, and Visualization in Java

    - by Geertjan
    JSC "SamaraNIPIoil", located in Samara, Russia, provides the following applications for internal use. SimTools. Used to create & manage reservoir history schedule files for hydrodynamic models. The main features are that it lets you create/manage schedule files for models and create/manage well trajectory files to use with schedule files. DpSolver. Used to estimate permeability cubes using pore cube and results of well testing. Additionally, the user visualizes maps of vapor deposition polymerization or permeability, which can be visualized layer by layer. The base opportunities of the application are that it enables calculation of reservoir vertical heterogeneity and vertical sweep efficiency; automatic history matching of sweep efficiency; and calculations using Quantile-Quantile transformation and vizualization of permeability cube and other reservoir data. Clearly, the two applications above are NetBeans Platform applications.

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  • NDepend Evaluation: Part 3

    - by Anthony Trudeau
    NDepend is a Visual Studio add-in designed for intense code analysis with the goal of high code quality. NDepend uses a number of metrics and aggregates the data in pleasing static and active visual reports. My evaluation of NDepend will be broken up into several different parts. In the first part of the evaluation I looked at installing the add-in.  And in the last part I went over my first impressions including an overview of the features.  In this installment I provide a little more detail on a few of the features that I really like. Dependency Matrix The dependency matrix is one of the rich visual components provided with NDepend.  At a glance it lets you know where you have coupling problems including cycles.  It does this with number indicating the weight of the dependency and a color-coding that indicates the nature of the dependency. Green and blue cells are direct dependencies (with the difference being whether the relationship is from row-to-column or column-to-row).  Black cells are the ones that you really want to know about.  These indicate that you have a cycle.  That is, type A refers to type B and type B also refers to Type A. But, that’s not the end of the story.  A handy pop-up appears when you hover over the cell in question.  It explains the color, the dependency, and provides several interesting links that will teach you more than you want to know about the dependency. You can double-click the problem cells to explode the dependency.  That will show the dependencies on a method-by-method basis allowing you to more easily target and fix the problem.  When you’re done you can click the back button on the toolbar. Dependency Graph The dependency graph is another component provided.  It’s complementary to the dependency matrix, but it isn’t as easy to identify dependency issues using the window. On a positive note, it does provide more information than the matrix. My biggest issue with the dependency graph is determining what is shown.  This was not readily obvious.  I ended up using the navigation buttons to get an acceptable view.  I would have liked to choose what I see. Once you see the types you want you can get a decent idea of coupling strength based on the width of the dependency lines.  Double-arrowed lines are problematic and are shown in red.  The size of the boxes will be related to the metric being displayed.  This is controlled using the Box Size drop-down in the toolbar.  Personally, I don’t find the size of the box to be helpful, so I change it to Constant Font. One nice thing about the display is that you can see the entire path of dependencies when you hover over a type.  This is done by color-coding the dependencies and dependants.  It would be nice if selecting the box for the type would lock the highlighting in place. I did find a perhaps unintended work-around to the color-coding.  You can lock the color-coding in by hovering over the type, right-clicking, and then clicking on the canvas area to clear the pop-up menu.  You can then do whatever with it including saving it to an image file with the color-coding. CQL NDepend uses a code query language (CQL) to work with your code just like it was a database.  CQL cannot be confused with the robustness of T-SQL or even LINQ, but it represents an impressive attempt at providing an expressive way to enumerate and interrogate your code. There are two main windows you’ll use when working with CQL.  The CQL Query Explorer allows you to define what queries (rules) are run as part of a report – I immediately unselected rules that I don’t want in my results.  The CQL Query Edit window is where you can view or author your own rules.  The explorer window is pretty self-explanatory, so I won’t mention it further other than to say that any queries you author will appear in the custom group. Authoring your own queries is really hard to screw-up.  The Intellisense-like pop-ups tell you what you can do while making composition easy.  I was able to create a query within two minutes of playing with the editor.  My query warns if any types that are interfaces don’t start with an “I”. WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT TYPES WHERE IsInterface AND !NameLike “I” The results from the CQL Query Edit window are immediate. That fact makes it useful for ad hoc querying.  It’s worth mentioning two things that could make the experience smoother.  First, out of habit from using Visual Studio I expect to be able to scroll and press Tab to select an item in the list (like Intellisense).  You have to press Enter when you scroll to the item you want.  Second, the commands are case-sensitive.  I don’t see a really good reason to enforce that. CQL has a lot of potential not just in enforcing code quality, but also enforcing architectural constraints that your enterprise has defined. Up Next My next update will be the final part of the evaluation.  I will summarize my experience and provide my conclusions on the NDepend add-in. ** View Part 1 of the Evaluation ** ** View Part 2 of the Evaluation ** Disclaimer: Patrick Smacchia contacted me about reviewing NDepend. I received a free license in return for sharing my experiences and talking about the capabilities of the add-in on this site. There is no expectation of a positive review elicited from the author of NDepend.

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  • Designing interfaces: predict methods needed, discipline yourself and deal with code that comes to m

    - by fireeyedboy
    Was: Design by contract: predict methods needed, discipline yourself and deal with code that comes to mind I like the idea of designing by contract a lot (at least, as far as I understand the principal). I believe it means you define intefaces first before you start implementing actual code, right? However, from my limited experience (3 OOP years now) I usually can't resist the urge to start coding pretty early, for several reasons: because my limited experience has shown me I am unable to predict what methods I will be needing in the interface, so I might as well start coding right away. or because I am simply too impatient to write out the whole interfaces first. or when I do try it, I still wind up implementing bits of code already, because I fear I might forget this or that imporant bit of code, that springs to mind when I am designing the interfaces. As you see, especially with the last two points, this leads to a very disorderly way of doing things. Tasks get mixed up. I should draw a clear line between designing interfaces and actual coding. If you, unlike me, are a good/disciplined planner, as intended above, how do you: ...know the majority of methods you will be needing up front so well? Especially if it's components that implement stuff you are not familiar with yet. ...resist the urge to start coding right away? ...deal with code that comes to mind when you are designing the interfaces? UPDATE: Thank you for the answers so far. Valuable insights! And... I stand corrected; it seems I misinterpreted the idea of Design By Contract. For clarity, what I actually meant was: "coming up with interface methods before implementing the actual components". An additional thing that came up in my mind is related to point 1): b) How do you know the majority of components you will be needing. How do you flesh out these things before you start actually coding? For arguments sake, let's say I'm a novice with the MVC pattern, and I wanted to implement such a component/architecture. A naive approach would be to think of: a front controller some abstract action controller some abstract view ... and be done with it, so to speak. But, being more familiar with the MVC pattern, I know now that it makes sense to also have: a request object a router a dispatcher a response object view helpers etc.. etc.. If you map this idea to some completely new component you want to develop, with which you have no experience yet; how do you come up with these sort of additional components without actually coding the thing, and stuble upon the ideas that way? How would you know up front how fine grained some components should be? Is this a matter of disciplining yourself to think it out thoroughly? Or is it a matter of being good at thinking in abstractions?

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  • Time management and self improvement

    - by Filip
    I hope I can open a discussion on this topic as this is not a specific problem. It's a topic I hope to get some ideas on how people in similar situation as mine manage their time. OK, I'm a single developer on a software project for the last 6-8 months. The project I'm working on uses several technologies, mainly .net stuff: WPF, WF, NHibernate, WCF, MySql and other third party SDKs relevant for the project nature. My experience and knowledge vary, for example I have a lot of experience in WPF but much less in WCF. I work full time on the project and im curios on how other programmers which need to multi task in many areas manage their time. I'm a very applied type of person and prefer to code instead of doing research. I feel that doing research "might" slow down the progress of the project while I recognize that research and learning more in areas which I'm not so strong will ultimately make me more productive. How would you split up your daily time in productive coding time and time to and experiment, read blogs, go through tutorials etc. I would say that Im coding about 90%+ of my day and devoting some but very little time in research and acquiring new knowledge. Thanks for your replies. I think I will adopt a gradual transition to Dominics block parts. I kinda knew that coding was taking up way to much of my time but it feels good having a first version of the project completed and ready. With a few months of focused hard work behind me I hope to get more time to experiment and expand my knowlegde. Now I only hope my boss will cut me some slack and stop pressuring me for features...

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  • Sucking Less Every Year?

    - by AdityaGameProgrammer
    Sucking Less Every Year -Jeff Atwood I had come across this insightful article.Quoting directly from the post I've often thought that sucking less every year is how humble programmers improve. You should be unhappy with code you wrote a year ago. If you aren't, that means either A) you haven't learned anything in a year, B) your code can't be improved, or C) you never revisit old code. All of these are the kiss of death for software developers. How often does this happen or not happen to you? How long before you see an actual improvement in your coding ? month, year? Do you ever revisit Your old code? How often does your old code plague you? or how often do you have to deal with your technical debt. It is definitely very painful to fix old bugs n dirty code that we may have done to quickly meet a deadline and those quick fixes ,some cases we may have to rewrite most of the application/code. No arguments about that. Some of the developers i had come across argued that they were already at the evolved stage where their coding doesn't need improvement or cant get improved anymore. Does this happen? If so how many years into coding on a particular language does one expect this to happen? Related: Ever look back at some of your old code and grimace in pain? Star Wars Moment in Code "Luke! I am your code!" "No! Impossible! It can't be!"

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  • Agile project management, agile development: early integration

    - by Matías Fidemraizer
    I believe that agile works if everything is agile. In software development area, in my opinion, if team members' code is integrated early, code will be more in sync and this has a lot of pros: Early integration helps team members to avoid painful merges. Encourages better coding habits, because everyone makes sure that they don't break co-workers' code everyday. Both developers and architects (code reviewers) may detect bad design decisions or just wrong development directions in real-time, preventing useless work. Actually I'm talking about getting the latest version of code base and checking-in your own code to the source control in a daily basis. When you start your coding day (i.e. you arrive to your work), your first action is updating your code base with the latest version from the source control. In the other hand, when you're about an hour to leave from your work and go home, your last action is checking-in your code to the source control and be sure that your day work doesn't break the project's build process. Rather than updating and checking-in your code once you finished an entire task, I believe the best approach is fixing small and flexible personal milestones and checking-in the code once you finish one of these. I really believe that this coding approach fits better in the agile project management concept. Do you know some document, blog post, wiki, article or whatever that you can suggest me that could be in sync with my opinion?. And, do you find any problem working with this approach?. Thank you in advance.

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  • Sucking Less Every Year ?

    - by AdityaGameProgrammer
    Sucking Less Every Year A trail of thought that had been on my mind for a while Quoting directly from the post I've often thought that sucking less every year is how humble programmers improve. You should be unhappy with code you wrote a year ago. If you aren't, that means either A) you haven't learned anything in a year, B) your code can't be improved, or C) you never revisit old code. All of these are the kiss of death for software developers. How often does this happen or not happen to you? How long before you see an actual improvement in your coding ? month, year? Do you ever revisit Your old code? How often does your old code plague you? or how often do you have to deal with your technical debt. It is definitely very painful to fix old bugs n dirty code that we may have done to quickly meet a deadline and those quick fixes ,some cases we may have to rewrite most of the application/code. No arguments about that. Some of the developers i had come across argued that they were already at the evolved stage where their coding doesn't need improvement or cant get improved anymore. Does this happen? If so how many years into coding on a particular language does one expect this to happen?

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  • Assuming "clean code/architecture" is there a difference in "effort" between PHP or Java/J2EE web application development?

    - by PhD
    A client asked us to estimate effort when selecting PHP as the implementation language for his next web-based application. We spent about a week exploring PHP, prototyping, testing etc., We are quite new to this language - may have hacked around it in the past but, let's go with PHP-noobs but application development experts (for the lack of a better, less flattering word :) It seems, that if we write, clean maintainable code, follow separation of concerns, enterprise architecture patters (DAOs etc.) the 'effort' in creating an object-oriented PHP based web-application seems to be the same for a Java based one. Here's our equation for estimating the effort (development/delivery time): ConstructionEffort = f(analysis, design, coding, testing, review, deployment) We were specifically comparing effort estimates in creating an enterprise application with the following: PHP + CakePHP/CodeIgniter (should we have considered others?) Java + Spring + Restlet It's an end-to-end application: Client: Javascript/jQuery + HTML/CSS Middle tier/Business Logic - (Still evaluating PHP/Java) Database: MySQL The effort estimates of the 1st and 3rd tier are constant and relatively independent of the middle tier's technology. At a high level with an initial breakdown into user stories of the requested features as well as a high-level SWAG on the sheer number of classes/SLOC that would be required for PHP doesn't seem to differ by much from what is required of the same in Java. Is this correct? We are basing our initial estimates on the initial prototyping/coding we've done with PHP - we are currently disregarding fluency with the language as a factor, since that'll be an initial hurdle and not a long term impediment IMHO (we also have sufficient time to become quite fluent with PHP). I'm interested in knowing the programmers' perspective with respect to effort when creating similar applications with either of the languages to justify choosing one over the other. Are we missing something here? It seems we are going against popular belief of PHP being quicker to market (or we being very fluent with Java have our vision clouded). It doesn't seem to have any coding/programming effort saving from what we/ve played around with.

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  • AppKata - Enter the next level of programming exercises

    - by Ralf Westphal
    Doing CodeKatas is all the rage lately. That´s great since widely accepted exercises are important to further the art. They provide a means of communication across platforms and allow to compare results which is part of any deliberate practice. But CodeKatas suffer from their size. They are intentionally small, so they can be done again and again. Repetition helps to build habit and to dig deeper. Over time ever new nuances of the problem or one´s approach become visible. On the other hand, though, their small size limits the methods, techniques, technologies that can be applied. To improve your TDD skills doing CodeKatas might be enough. But what about other skills? Developing on a software in a team, designing larger pieces of software, iteratively releasing software… all this and more is kinda hard to train using the tiny CodeKata problems. That´s why I´d like to present here another kind of kata I call Application Kata (or just AppKata). AppKatas are larger programming problems. They require the development of “whole” applications, i.e. not just one class or method, but bunches of classes accessible through a user interface. Also AppKata problems always are split into iterations. To get the most out of them, just look at the requirements of one iteration at a time. This way you´re closer to reality where requirements evolve in unexpected ways. So if you´re looking for more of a challenge for your software development skills, check out these AppKatas – or invent your own. AppKatas are platform independent like CodeKatas. Use whatever programming language and IDE you like. Also use whatever approach to software development you like. Just be sensitive to how easy it is to evolve your code across iterations. Reflect on what went well and what not. Compare your solutions with others. Or – for even more challenge – go for the “Coding Carousel” (see below). CSV Viewer An application to view CSV files. Sounds easy, but watch out! Requirements sometimes drastically change if the customer is happy with what you delivered. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5 (to come) Questionnaire If you like GUI programming, this AppKata might be for you. It´s about an app to let people fill out questionnaires. Also this problem might be interestin for you, if you´re into DDD. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Tic Tac Toe For developers who like game programming. Although Tic Tac Toe is a trivial game, this AppKata poses some interesting infrastructure challenges. The GUI, however, stays simple; leave any 3D ambitions at home ;-) Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Iteration 5 (to come) Coding Carousel There are many ways you can do AppKatas. Work on them alone or in a team, pitch several devs against each other in an AppKata contest – or go around in a Coding Carousel. For the Coding Carousel you need at least 3 dev teams (regardless of size). All teams work on the same iteration at the same time. But here´s the trick: After each iteration the teams swap their code. Whatever they did for iteration n will be the basis for changes another team has to apply in iteration n+1. The code is going around the teams like in a carousel. I promise you, that´s gonna be fun! :-)

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  • Emacs Lisp: how to set encoding for call-process

    - by RamyenHead
    I thought I knew how to set coding-system (or encoding): use process-coding-system-alist. Apparently, it's not working. ;; -*- coding: utf-8 -*- (require 'cl) (let ((process-coding-system-alist '("cygwin/bin/bash" . (utf-8-dos . utf-8-unix)))) (setq my-words (list "Lilo" "?_?" "_?" "?_" "?" "Stitch") my-cygwin-bash "C:/cygwin/bin/bash.exe" my-outbuf (get-buffer-create "*my cygwin bash echo test*") ) (with-current-buffer my-outbuf (goto-char (point-max)) (loop for word in my-words do (insert (concat "echo " word "\n")) (call-process my-cygwin-bash nil my-outbuf nil "-c" (concat "echo " word))) ) (display-buffer my-outbuf) ) Running the above code, the output is this: echo Lilo Lilo echo ?_? /usr/bin/bash: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `"' /usr/bin/bash: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file echo _? /usr/bin/bash: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `"' /usr/bin/bash: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file echo ?_ /usr/bin/bash: $'echo \346\267\205?': command not found echo ? /usr/bin/bash: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `"' /usr/bin/bash: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file echo Stitch Stitch Anything sent to cygwin in unicode is failing (MS Windows, Korean).

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  • Design by contract: predict methods needed, discipline yourself and deal with code that comes to min

    - by fireeyedboy
    I like the idea of designing by contract a lot (at least, as far as I understand the principal). I believe it means you define intefaces first before you start implementing actual code, right? However, from my limited experience (3 OOP years now) I usually can't resist the urge to start coding pretty early, for several reasons: because my limited experience has shown me I am unable to predict what methods I will be needing in the interface, so I might as well start coding right away. or because I am simply too impatient to write out the whole interfaces first. or when I do try it, I still wind up implementing bits of code already, because I fear I might forget this or that imporant bit of code, that springs to mind when I am designing the interfaces. As you see, especially with the last two points, this leads to a very disorderly way of doing thing. Tasks get mixed up. I should draw a clear line between designing interfaces and actual coding. If you, unlike me, are a good/disciplined planner, as intended above, how do you: ...know the majority of methods you will be needing up front so well? Especially if it's components that implement stuff you are not familiar with yet. ...keep yourself from resisting the urge to start coding right away? ...deal with code that comes to mind when you are designing the intefaces?

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  • jQuery selector for option tag value attribute returns null

    - by Ben
    Hello, I am trying to change the selected option in a select dropdown box with jQuery. I have it set so that it finds the hash tag at the end of the URL and based on that hash tag it changes the selected option in the select box. Most of my code is functional, it successfully finds the hash tag and executes the if statement that corresponds with it. However, when it goes to execute the "then" section of the statement when it goes to the selector for the option (which uses an attribute selector based on the value attribute of the option tag) it returns null. If figured this out with firebug, in the console it says that the selector is null. Here is my code: $(document).ready(function() { var $hash = window.location.hash if($hash == "#htmlcss") { $('option[value="HTML/CSS Coding"]').attr("selected","selected") } if($hash == "#php") { $('option[value="PHP Coding"]').attr("selected","selected") } if($hash == "#jscript") { $('option[value="Javascript and jQuery Coding"]').attr("selected","selected") } if($hash == "#improv") { $('option[value="General Website Improvements"]').attr("selected","selected") } if($hash == "#towp") { $('option[value="Website Conversion to Wordpress"]').attr("selected","selected") } if($hash == "#wptheme") { $('option[value="Wordpress Theme Design"]').attr("selected","selected") } if($hash == "#complete") { $('option[value="Complete Website Creation"]').attr("selected","selected") } if($hash == "#server") { $('option[value="Web Server Configuration"]').attr("selected","selected") } }); So to clarify, when I enter in a url that ends in the #php hash tag, for example, the desired action does not occur which would change the "PHP Coding" option to the selected one by using the "selected" html attribute however the selector for the particular option tag returns null. Is there a problem with my syntax or is my code not functioning in the way that I think it should? Thanks very much.

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  • ASP.NET MVC 3: Implicit and Explicit code nuggets with Razor

    - by ScottGu
    This is another in a series of posts I’m doing that cover some of the new ASP.NET MVC 3 features: New @model keyword in Razor (Oct 19th) Layouts with Razor (Oct 22nd) Server-Side Comments with Razor (Nov 12th) Razor’s @: and <text> syntax (Dec 15th) Implicit and Explicit code nuggets with Razor (today) In today’s post I’m going to discuss how Razor enables you to both implicitly and explicitly define code nuggets within your view templates, and walkthrough some code examples of each of them.  Fluid Coding with Razor ASP.NET MVC 3 ships with a new view-engine option called “Razor” (in addition to the existing .aspx view engine).  You can learn more about Razor, why we are introducing it, and the syntax it supports from my Introducing Razor blog post. Razor minimizes the number of characters and keystrokes required when writing a view template, and enables a fast, fluid coding workflow. Unlike most template syntaxes, you do not need to interrupt your coding to explicitly denote the start and end of server blocks within your HTML. The Razor parser is smart enough to infer this from your code. This enables a compact and expressive syntax which is clean, fast and fun to type. For example, the Razor snippet below can be used to iterate a collection of products and output a <ul> list of product names that link to their corresponding product pages: When run, the above code generates output like below: Notice above how we were able to embed two code nuggets within the content of the foreach loop.  One of them outputs the name of the Product, and the other embeds the ProductID within a hyperlink.  Notice that we didn’t have to explicitly wrap these code-nuggets - Razor was instead smart enough to implicitly identify where the code began and ended in both of these situations.  How Razor Enables Implicit Code Nuggets Razor does not define its own language.  Instead, the code you write within Razor code nuggets is standard C# or VB.  This allows you to re-use your existing language skills, and avoid having to learn a customized language grammar. The Razor parser has smarts built into it so that whenever possible you do not need to explicitly mark the end of C#/VB code nuggets you write.  This makes coding more fluid and productive, and enables a nice, clean, concise template syntax.  Below are a few scenarios that Razor supports where you can avoid having to explicitly mark the beginning/end of a code nugget, and instead have Razor implicitly identify the code nugget scope for you: Property Access Razor allows you to output a variable value, or a sub-property on a variable that is referenced via “dot” notation: You can also use “dot” notation to access sub-properties multiple levels deep: Array/Collection Indexing: Razor allows you to index into collections or arrays: Calling Methods: Razor also allows you to invoke methods: Notice how for all of the scenarios above how we did not have to explicitly end the code nugget.  Razor was able to implicitly identify the end of the code block for us. Razor’s Parsing Algorithm for Code Nuggets The below algorithm captures the core parsing logic we use to support “@” expressions within Razor, and to enable the implicit code nugget scenarios above: Parse an identifier - As soon as we see a character that isn't valid in a C# or VB identifier, we stop and move to step 2 Check for brackets - If we see "(" or "[", go to step 2.1., otherwise, go to step 3  Parse until the matching ")" or "]" (we track nested "()" and "[]" pairs and ignore "()[]" we see in strings or comments) Go back to step 2 Check for a "." - If we see one, go to step 3.1, otherwise, DO NOT ACCEPT THE "." as code, and go to step 4 If the character AFTER the "." is a valid identifier, accept the "." and go back to step 1, otherwise, go to step 4 Done! Differentiating between code and content Step 3.1 is a particularly interesting part of the above algorithm, and enables Razor to differentiate between scenarios where an identifier is being used as part of the code statement, and when it should instead be treated as static content: Notice how in the snippet above we have ? and ! characters at the end of our code nuggets.  These are both legal C# identifiers – but Razor is able to implicitly identify that they should be treated as static string content as opposed to being part of the code expression because there is whitespace after them.  This is pretty cool and saves us keystrokes. Explicit Code Nuggets in Razor Razor is smart enough to implicitly identify a lot of code nugget scenarios.  But there are still times when you want/need to be more explicit in how you scope the code nugget expression.  The @(expression) syntax allows you to do this: You can write any C#/VB code statement you want within the @() syntax.  Razor will treat the wrapping () characters as the explicit scope of the code nugget statement.  Below are a few scenarios where we could use the explicit code nugget feature: Perform Arithmetic Calculation/Modification: You can perform arithmetic calculations within an explicit code nugget: Appending Text to a Code Expression Result: You can use the explicit expression syntax to append static text at the end of a code nugget without having to worry about it being incorrectly parsed as code: Above we have embedded a code nugget within an <img> element’s src attribute.  It allows us to link to images with URLs like “/Images/Beverages.jpg”.  Without the explicit parenthesis, Razor would have looked for a “.jpg” property on the CategoryName (and raised an error).  By being explicit we can clearly denote where the code ends and the text begins. Using Generics and Lambdas Explicit expressions also allow us to use generic types and generic methods within code expressions – and enable us to avoid the <> characters in generics from being ambiguous with tag elements. One More Thing….Intellisense within Attributes We have used code nuggets within HTML attributes in several of the examples above.  One nice feature supported by the Razor code editor within Visual Studio is the ability to still get VB/C# intellisense when doing this. Below is an example of C# code intellisense when using an implicit code nugget within an <a> href=”” attribute: Below is an example of C# code intellisense when using an explicit code nugget embedded in the middle of a <img> src=”” attribute: Notice how we are getting full code intellisense for both scenarios – despite the fact that the code expression is embedded within an HTML attribute (something the existing .aspx code editor doesn’t support).  This makes writing code even easier, and ensures that you can take advantage of intellisense everywhere. Summary Razor enables a clean and concise templating syntax that enables a very fluid coding workflow.  Razor’s ability to implicitly scope code nuggets reduces the amount of typing you need to perform, and leaves you with really clean code. When necessary, you can also explicitly scope code expressions using a @(expression) syntax to provide greater clarity around your intent, as well as to disambiguate code statements from static markup. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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  • SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #032

    - by Pinal Dave
    Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Complete Series of Database Coding Standards and Guidelines SQL SERVER Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Introduction SQL SERVER – Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Part 1 SQL SERVER – Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Part 2 SQL SERVER Database Coding Standards and Guidelines Complete List Download Explanation and Example – SELF JOIN When all of the data you require is contained within a single table, but data needed to extract is related to each other in the table itself. Examples of this type of data relate to Employee information, where the table may have both an Employee’s ID number for each record and also a field that displays the ID number of an Employee’s supervisor or manager. To retrieve the data tables are required to relate/join to itself. Insert Multiple Records Using One Insert Statement – Use of UNION ALL This is very interesting question I have received from new developer. How can I insert multiple values in table using only one insert? Now this is interesting question. When there are multiple records are to be inserted in the table following is the common way using T-SQL. Function to Display Current Week Date and Day – Weekly Calendar Straight blog post with script to find current week date and day based on the parameters passed in the function.  2008 In my beginning years, I have almost same confusion as many of the developer had in their earlier years. Here are two of the interesting question which I have attempted to answer in my early year. Even if you are experienced developer may be you will still like to read following two questions: Order Of Column In Index Order of Conditions in WHERE Clauses Example of DISTINCT in Aggregate Functions Have you ever used DISTINCT with the Aggregation Function? Here is a simple example about how users can do it. Create a Comma Delimited List Using SELECT Clause From Table Column Straight to script example where I explained how to do something easy and quickly. Compound Assignment Operators SQL SERVER 2008 has introduced new concept of Compound Assignment Operators. Compound Assignment Operators are available in many other programming languages for quite some time. Compound Assignment Operators is operator where variables are operated upon and assigned on the same line. PIVOT and UNPIVOT Table Examples Here is a very interesting question – the answer to the question can be YES or NO both. “If we PIVOT any table and UNPIVOT that table do we get our original table?” Read the blog post to get the explanation of the question above. 2009 What is Interim Table – Simple Definition of Interim Table The interim table is a table that is generated by joining two tables and not the final result table. In other words, when two tables are joined they create an interim table as resultset but the resultset is not final yet. It may be possible that more tables are about to join on the interim table, and more operations are still to be applied on that table (e.g. Order By, Having etc). Besides, it may be possible that there is no interim table; sometimes final table is what is generated when the query is run. 2010 Stored Procedure and Transactions If Stored Procedure is transactional then, it should roll back complete transactions when it encounters any errors. Well, that does not happen in this case, which proves that Stored Procedure does not only provide just the transactional feature to a batch of T-SQL. Generate Database Script for SQL Azure When talking about SQL Azure the most common complaint I hear is that the script generated from stand-along SQL Server database is not compatible with SQL Azure. This was true for some time for sure but not any more. If you have SQL Server 2008 R2 installed you can follow the guideline below to generate a script which is compatible with SQL Azure. Convert IN to EXISTS – Performance Talk It is NOT necessary that every time when IN is replaced by EXISTS it gives better performance. However, in our case listed above it does for sure give better performance. You can read about this subject in the associated blog post. Subquery or Join – Various Options – SQL Server Engine Knows the Best Every single time whenever there is a performance tuning exercise, I hear the conversation from developer where some prefer subquery and some prefer join. In this two part blog post, I explain the same in the detail with examples. Part 1 | Part 2 Merge Operations – Insert, Update, Delete in Single Execution MERGE is a new feature that provides an efficient way to do multiple DML operations. In earlier versions of SQL Server, we had to write separate statements to INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE data based on certain conditions; however, at present, by using the MERGE statement, we can include the logic of such data changes in one statement that even checks when the data is matched and then just update it, and similarly, when the data is unmatched, it is inserted. 2011 Puzzle – Statistics are not updated but are Created Once Here is the quick scenario about my setup. Create Table Insert 1000 Records Check the Statistics Now insert 10 times more 10,000 indexes Check the Statistics – it will be NOT updated – WHY? Question to You – When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure Personally, I believe that they are both different things - they cannot be compared. I can say, it will be like comparing apples and oranges. Each has its own unique use. However, they can be used interchangeably at many times and in real life (i.e., production environment). I have personally seen both of these being used interchangeably many times. This is the precise reason for asking this question. 2012 In year 2012 I had two interesting series ran on the blog. If there is no fun in learning, the learning becomes a burden. For the same reason, I had decided to build a three part quiz around SEQUENCE. The quiz was to identify the next value of the sequence. I encourage all of you to take part in this fun quiz. Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 1 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 2 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 3 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 4 Simple Example to Configure Resource Governor – Introduction to Resource Governor Resource Governor is a feature which can manage SQL Server Workload and System Resource Consumption. We can limit the amount of CPU and memory consumption by limiting /governing /throttling on the SQL Server. If there are different workloads running on SQL Server and each of the workload needs different resources or when workloads are competing for resources with each other and affecting the performance of the whole server resource governor is a very important task. Tricks to Replace SELECT * with Column Names – SQL in Sixty Seconds #017 – Video  Retrieves unnecessary columns and increases network traffic When a new columns are added views needs to be refreshed manually Leads to usage of sub-optimal execution plan Uses clustered index in most of the cases instead of using optimal index It is difficult to debug SQL SERVER – Load Generator – Free Tool From CodePlex The best part of this SQL Server Load Generator is that users can run multiple simultaneous queries again SQL Server using different login account and different application name. The interface of the tool is extremely easy to use and very intuitive as well. A Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement Let us assume there is a single column in the table called Gender. The challenge is to write a single update statement which will flip or swap the value in the column. For example if the value in the gender column is ‘male’ swap it with ‘female’ and if the value is ‘female’ swap it with ‘male’. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • Is there a low carbon future for the retail industry?

    - by user801960
    Recently Oracle published a report in conjunction with The Future Laboratory and a global panel of experts to highlight the issue of energy use in modern industry and the serious need to reduce carbon emissions radically by 2050.  Emissions must be cut by 80-95% below the levels in 1990 – but what can the retail industry do to keep up with this? There are three key aspects to the retail industry where carbon emissions can be cut:  manufacturing, transport and IT.  Manufacturing Naturally, manufacturing is going to be a big area where businesses across all industries will be forced to make considerable savings in carbon emissions as well as other forms of pollution.  Many retailers of all sizes will use third party factories and will have little control over specific environmental impacts from the factory, but retailers can reduce environmental impact at the factories by managing orders more efficiently – better planning for stock requirements means economies of scale both in terms of finance and the environment. The John Lewis Partnership has made detailed commitments to reducing manufacturing and packaging waste on both its own-brand products and products it sources from third party suppliers. It aims to divert 95 percent of its operational waste from landfill by 2013, which is a huge logistics challenge.  The John Lewis Partnership’s website provides a large amount of information on its responsibilities towards the environment. Transport Similarly to manufacturing, tightening up on logistical planning for stock distribution will make savings on carbon emissions from haulage.  More accurate supply and demand analysis will mean less stock re-allocation after initial distribution, and better warehouse management will mean more efficient stock distribution.  UK grocery retailer Morrisons has introduced double-decked trailers to its haulage fleet and adjusted distribution logistics accordingly to reduce the number of kilometers travelled by the fleet.  Morrisons measures route planning efficiency in terms of cases moved per kilometre and has, over the last two years, increased the number of cases per kilometre by 12.7%.  See Morrisons Corporate Responsibility report for more information. IT IT infrastructure is often initially overlooked by businesses when considering environmental efficiency.  Datacentres and web servers often need to run 24/7 to handle both consumer orders and internal logistics, and this both requires a lot of energy and puts out a lot of heat.  Many businesses are lowering environmental impact by reducing IT system fragmentation in their offices, while an increasing number of businesses are outsourcing their datacenters to cloud-based services.  Using centralised datacenters reduces the power usage at smaller offices, while using cloud based services means the datacenters can be based in a more environmentally friendly location.  For example, Facebook is opening a massive datacentre in Sweden – close to the Arctic Circle – to reduce the need for artificial cooling methods.  In addition, moving to a cloud-based solution makes IT services more easily scaleable, reducing redundant IT systems that would still use energy.  In store, the UK’s Carbon Trust reports that on average, lighting accounts for 25% of a retailer’s electricity costs, and for grocery retailers, up to 50% of their electricity bill comes from refrigeration units.  On a smaller scale, retailers can invest in greener technologies in store and in their offices.  The report concludes that widely shared objectives of energy security, reduced emissions and continued economic growth are dependent on the development of a smart grid capable of delivering energy efficiency and demand response, as well as integrating renewable and variable sources of energy. The report is available to download from http://emeapressoffice.oracle.com/imagelibrary/detail.aspx?MediaDetailsID=1766I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the report.   

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  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Texas Industries, Inc.

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryTexas Industries, Inc. (TXI) is a leading supplier of cement, aggregate, and consumer product building materials for residential, commercial, and public works projects. TXI is based in Dallas and employs around 2,000 employees. The customer had the challenge of decentralized and manual processes for entering 180,000 vendor invoices annually.  Invoice entry was a time- and resource-intensive process that entailed significant personnel requirements. TXI implemented a centralized solution leveraging Oracle WebCenter Imaging, a smart routing solution that enables users to capture invoices electronically with Oracle WebCenter Capture and Oracle WebCenter Forms Recognition to send  the invoices through to Oracle Financials for approvals and processing.  TXI significantly lowered resource needs for payable processing,  increase productivity by 80% and reduce invoice processing cycle times by 84%—from 20 to 30 days to just 3 to 5 days, on average. Company OverviewTexas Industries, Inc. (TXI) is a leading supplier of cement, aggregate, and consumer product building materials for residential, commercial, and public works projects. With operating subsidiaries in six states, TXI is the largest producer of cement in Texas and a major producer in California. TXI is a major supplier of stone, sand, gravel, and expanded shale and clay products, and one of the largest producers of bagged cement and concrete  products in the Southwest. Business ChallengesTXI had the challenge of decentralized and manual processes for entering 180,000 vendor invoices annually.  Invoice entry was a time- and resource-intensive process that entailed significant personnel requirements. Their business objectives were: Increase the efficiency of core business processes, such as invoice processing, to support the organization’s desire to maintain its role as the Southwest’s leader in delivering high-quality, low-cost products to the construction industry Meet the audit and regulatory requirements for achieving Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance Streamline entry of 180,000 invoices annually to accelerate processing, reduce errors, cut invoice storage and routing costs, and increase visibility into payables liabilities Solution DeployedTXI replaced a resource-intensive, paper-based, decentralized process for invoice entry with a centralized solution leveraging Oracle WebCenter Imaging 11g. They worked with the Oracle Partner Keste LLC to develop a smart routing solution that enables users to capture invoices electronically with Oracle WebCenter Capture and then uses Oracle WebCenter Forms Recognition and the Oracle WebCenter Imaging workflow to send the invoices through to Oracle Financials for approvals and processing. Business Results Significantly lowered resource needs for payable processing through centralization and improved efficiency  Enabled the company to process invoices faster and pay bills earlier, allowing it to take advantage of additional vendor discounts Tracked to increase productivity by 80% and reduce invoice processing cycle times by 84%—from 20 to 30 days to just 3 to 5 days, on average Achieved a 25% reduction in paper invoice storage costs now that invoices are captured digitally, and enabled a 50% reduction in shipping costs, as the company no longer has to send paper invoices between headquarters and production facilities for approvals “Entering and manually processing more than 180,000 vendor invoices annually was time and labor intensive. With Oracle Imaging and Process Management, we have automated and centralized invoice entry and processing at our corporate office, improving productivity by 80% and reducing invoice processing cycle times by 84%—a very important efficiency gain.” Terry Marshall, Vice President of Information Services, Texas Industries, Inc. Additional Information TXI Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content Oracle WebCenter Capture Oracle WebCenter Forms Recognition

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  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Hyundai Motor Company

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryHyundai Motor Company is one of the world’s fastest-growing car manufacturers, ranked as the fifth-largest in 2011. The company also operates the world’s largest integrated automobile manufacturing facility in Ulsan, Republic of Korea, which can produce 1.6 million units per year. They  undertook a project to improve business efficiency and reinforce data security by centralizing the company’s sales, financial, and car manufacturing documents into a single repository. Hyundai Motor Company chose Oracle Exalogic, Oracle Exadata, Oracle WebLogic Sever, and Oracle WebCenter Content 11g, as they provided better performance, stability, storage, and scalability than their competitors.  Hyundai Motor Company cut the overall time spent each day on document-related work by around 85%, saved more than US$1 million in paper and printing costs, laid the foundation for a smart work environment, and supported their future growth in the competitive car industry. Company OverviewHyundai Motor Company is one of the world’s fastest-growing car manufacturers, ranked as the fifth-largest in 2011. The company also operates the world’s largest integrated automobile manufacturing facility in Ulsan, Republic of Korea, which can produce 1.6 million units per year. The company strives to enhance its brand image and market recognition by continuously improving the quality and design of its cars. Business Challenges To maximize the company’s growth potential, Hyundai Motor Company undertook a project to improve business efficiency and reinforce data security by centralizing the company’s sales, financial, and car manufacturing documents into a single repository. Specifically, they wanted to: Introduce a smart work environment to improve staff productivity and efficiency, and take advantage of rapid company growth due to new, enhanced car designs Replace a legacy document system managed by individual staff to improve collaboration, the visibility of corporate documents, and sharing of work-related files between employees Improve the security and storage of documents containing corporate intellectual property, and prevent intellectual property loss when staff leaves the company Eliminate delays when downloading files from the central server to a PC Build a large, single document repository to more efficiently manage and share data between 30,000 staff at the company’s headquarters Establish a scalable system that can be extended to Hyundai offices around the world Solution DeployedAfter conducting a large-scale benchmark test, Hyundai Motor Company chose Oracle Exalogic, Oracle Exadata, Oracle WebLogic Sever, and Oracle WebCenter Content 11g, as they provided better performance, stability, storage, and scalability than their competitors. Business Results Lowered the overall time spent each day on all document-related work by approximately 85%—from 4.5 hours to around 42 minutes on an average day Saved more than US$1 million per year in printer, paper, and toner costs, and laid the foundation for a completely paperless environment Reduced staff’s time spent requesting and receiving documents about car sales or designs from supervisors by 50%, by storing and managing all documents across the corporation in a single repository Cut the time required to draft new-car manufacturing, sales, and design documents by 20%, by allowing employees to reference high-quality data, such as marketing strategy and product planning documents already in the system Enhanced staff productivity at company headquarters by 9% by reducing the document-related tasks of 30,000 administrative and research and development staff Ensured the system could scale to hold 3 petabytes of car sales, manufacturing, and design data by 2013 and be deployed at branches worldwide We chose Oracle Exalogic, Oracle Exadata, and Oracle WebCenter Content to support our new document-centralization system over their competitors as Oracle offers stable storage for petabytes of data and high processing speeds. We have cut the overall time spent each day on document-related work by around 85%, saved more than US$1 million in paper and printing costs, laid the foundation for a smart work environment, and supported our future growth in the competitive car industry. Kang Tae-jin, Manager, General Affairs Team, Hyundai Motor Company Additional Information Hyundai Motor Company Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content

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  • Proving What You are Worth

    - by Ted Henson
    Here is a challenge for everyone. Just about everyone has been asked to provide or calculate the Return on Investment (ROI), so I will assume everyone has a method they use. The problem with stopping once you have an ROI is that those in the C-Suite probably do not care about the ROI as much as Return on Equity (ROE). Shareholders are mostly concerned with their return on the money the invested. Warren Buffett looks at ROE when deciding whether to make a deal or not. This article will outline how you can add more meaning to your ROI and show how you can potentially enhance the ROE of the company.   First I want to start with a base definition I am using for ROI and ROE. Return on investment (ROI) and return on equity (ROE) are ways to measure management effectiveness, parts of a system of measures that also includes profit margins for profitability, price-to-earnings ratio for valuation, and various debt-to-equity ratios for financial strength. Without a set of evaluation metrics, a company's financial performance cannot be fully examined by investors. ROI and ROE calculate the rate of return on a specific investment and the equity capital respectively, assessing how efficient financial resources have been used. Typically, the best way to improve financial efficiency is to reduce production cost, so that will be the focus. Now that the challenge has been made and items have been defined, let’s go deeper. Most research about implementation stops short at system start-up and seldom addresses post-implementation issues. However, we know implementation is a continuous improvement effort, and continued efforts after system start-up will influence the ultimate success of a system.   Most UPK ROI’s I have seen only include the cost savings in developing the training material. Some will also include savings based on reduced Help Desk calls. Using just those values you get a good ROI. To get an ROE you need to go a little deeper. Typically, the best way to improve financial efficiency is to reduce production cost, which is the purpose of implementing/upgrading an enterprise application. Let’s assume the new system is up and running and all users have been properly trained and are comfortable using the system. You provide senior management with your ROI that justifies the original cost. What you want to do now is develop a good base value to a measure the current efficiency. Using usage tracking you can look for various patterns. For example, you may find that users that are accessing UPK assistance are processing a procedure, such as entering an order, 5 minutes faster than those that don’t.  You do some research and discover each minute saved in processing a claim saves the company one dollar. That translates to the company saving five dollars on every transaction. Assuming 100,000 transactions are performed a year, and all users improve their performance, the company will be saving $500,000 a year. That $500,000 can be re-invested, used to reduce debt or paid to the shareholders.   With continued refinement during the life cycle, you should be able to find ways to reduce cost. These are the type of numbers and productivity gains that senior management and shareholders want to see. Being able to quantify savings and increase productivity may also help when seeking a raise or promotion.

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