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• Oracle OpenWorld Call for MDM Papers

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  As the MDM Track owner, I would like to invite everyone to respond to the Oracle OpenWorld (October 2-6, Moscone Center, San Francisco) Call for Papers (https://oracleus.wingateweb.com/portal/cfp/ ). The Call for Papers is open now through Sunday, March 27. This is an outstanding opportunity for organizations familiar with MDM to tell their story to a very large, knowledgeable and intensely interested community. Opportunities for feedback and networking abound.  I would love to see MDM papers on: business drivers; business benefits; quantified ROI stories; business process optimization; implementation styles; implementation lessons learned; using master data as a service; data governance best practices; end-to-end data quality experiences; support for SOA; Chart of Accounts issues fixed; how to leverage reference data; improving EPM and/or BI across the board; operationalizing a data warehouse; support for cloud computing; compliance success stories; architecture, scalability, and mixed workload RAC platform performance examples; industry specific value propositions (Financial Services; Retail, Telecom; Manufacturing, High Tech Manufacturing, Public Sector, Health Care, …); and line of business specific value propositions (CRM, ERP, PLM, SCM, …); etc. In fact, given that MDM positively impacts all areas of operations and analytics, there are no limits to the ideas you may have for an OpenWorld presentation. When you follow the submission process, be sure to use “Master Data Management” for either the Primary or Optional track. Add “Master Data Management” as an Optional track if you are adding MDM content to a presentation on one of the following tracks: Agile; Customer Relationship Management, Oracle E-Business Suite, Product Lifecycle Management, Siebel, Sourcing and Procurement, Supply Chain Management, or one of the 18 available industry tracks. If Cloud Computing is included, please add “Cloud Computing” as a Cross-Stream Track. And don’t forget to make “MDM” a Tag, along with Business Intelligence, Cloud, CRM, Data Integration, Data Migration, Data Warehousing, EPM, or Service-Oriented Architecture whenever your content includes these items. I will personally review each submission. I hope you all keep me very busy over the next few weeks.

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• 6 Ways to Modernize Your Customer Experience

  - by Mike Stiles

  If customers have changed, if the way they research and shop have changed, if their expectations have changed, if their ability to act on dissatisfaction has changed, but your customer experience has NOT changed, what was once “good enough” may now be crippling. Well, the customer has changed, and why wouldn’t they? You’ve probably changed too in your role as consumer. There’s more info available, it’s easier to get, there’s more choice, you’re more mobile, you’re more connected, it’s easier to buy, and yes, it’s easier to switch brands if experiences don’t meet your now higher expectations. Thanks to technological advances, we as marketers can increasingly work borderline miracles. But if we’re still not adamantly adopting customer centricity, and if we aren’t making the customer experience paramount amongst business goals, the tech is wasted. A far more modern customer experience is called for. Here are 6 ways to get there: 1. Modern Marketing: Marketing data is aggregated and targeted to the right customers, who are getting personal, relevant communications. In return, you’re getting insight that finally properly attributes revenue to your marketing efforts. 2. Modern Selling: Demand is being driven across all channels with modern selling tools. Productivity is up thanks to coordinated communication and selling, and performance is ever optimized using powerful analytics. 3. Modern CPQ: You’re cross-selling and upselling more effectively since reps and channel partners have been empowered with the ability to quickly, automatically generate 100% accurate, customer-friendly quotes complete with price controls and automated approvals. 4. Modern Commerce: You’re leveraging data and delivering personalized, targeted digital experiences to everyone. You’re attracting more visitors, and you’re able to scale and keep up with the market and control the experience. 5. Modern Service: You’re better serving your customers by making it easier for them to engage with your brand, plus you’re lowering your costs by increasing agent and tech support efficiencies. 6. Modern Social: You’re getting faster, deeper, more accurate insights from social and turning content around faster, which then goes out to the right people at the right time in the right place. You’ve also gotten proactive in your service, and customers love that. For far too many brands, the buying journey of Need, Research, Select, Buy, Use, Recommend across the multiple connect points of Social, Mobile, Store, Call Center, Site, Ecommerce is a disconnected mess. Oracle’s approach to CX is to connect every interaction your customer has with your brand, avoiding the revenue losses lousy customer experiences bring. How important is the experience to customers? 94% are willing to pay more of their hard-earned money to have better ones, while a meager 1% say they get the good, consistent experiences they expect. Brands, your words aren’t as loud anymore, so your actions as they relate to customer experience are going to have to do the talking. @mikestiles @oraclesocialPhoto: Julien Tromeur, freeimages.com

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• Survey results: Open source developer preferences

  We recently conducted a survey of open source developers to learn about their current preferences around hosting sites and source control systems.  The survey was primarily advertised via Twitter, and we tried to avoid pushing the survey among audiences that would be specifically oriented towards a particular site (for example we did not advertise the survey from the CodePlex twitter account). In total there were just under 500 responses, so a reasonable sample size although not necessarily enough to guarantee fully representative results.  One of the survey questions was what is your preferred operating system for development, and looking at the results they are particularly interesting when split by operating system preference because of how significant the difference is:   Table 1 - Preferences by what is preferred operating system for development   As you can see, the preferences among developers which prefer Windows is very different from Linux and Mac oriented developers.  Again, the question was on what operating system they prefer to use for development, and didn’t ask what type of applications they create, so presumably many create things like websites which are cross-platform from a user perspective regardless of the operating system they prefer developing with. For hosting site preference, CodePlex and GitHub are roughly tied for first place among Windows developers and combined are preferred by over 75%.  However with Linux and Mac developers, GitHub has a runaway lead over the other sites.  Perhaps not particularly surprising, CodePlex has negligible mindshare among Linux and Mac developers.  It is somewhat surprising how low SourceForge and Google Code are given historically they used to rank much higher. Looking at version control preferences is also interesting.  Among Windows developers TFS, Mercurial, Subversion, and Git all have a sizable following.  While for Linux and Mac developers it is almost all Git and Mercurial, with Git having a substantial lead.  Git is generally considered to run better on Linux and have more of a Unix feel, so not really surprising to see it more popular there compared to Windows developers.  It is surprising how low Subversion has dropped since it was the dominant preference not long ago for open source developers.  Around a quarter of Windows developers still prefer Subversion, but Linux and Mac developers have largely abandoned it.  The trend towards distributed version control systems (e.g. Mercurial and Git) is strong, with over 50% of Windows developers now prefer DVCS, and over 80% of Linux and Mac developers.

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• Who should control navigation in an MVVM application?

  - by SonOfPirate

  Example #1: I have a view displayed in my MVVM application (let's use Silverlight for the purposes of the discussion) and I click on a button that should take me to a new page. Example #2: That same view has another button that, when clicked, should open up a details view in a child window (dialog). We know that there will be Command objects exposed by our ViewModel bound to the buttons with methods that respond to the user's click. But, what then? How do we complete the action? Even if we use a so-called NavigationService, what are we telling it? To be more specific, in a traditional View-first model (like URL-based navigation schemes such as on the web or the SL built-in navigation framework) the Command objects would have to know what View to display next. That seems to cross the line when it comes to the separation of concerns promoted by the pattern. On the other hand, if the button wasn't wired to a Command object and behaved like a hyperlink, the navigation rules could be defined in the markup. But do we want the Views to control application flow and isn't navigation just another type of business logic? (I can say yes in some cases and no in others.) To me, the utopian implementation of the MVVM pattern (and I've heard others profess this) would be to have the ViewModel wired in such a way that the application can run headless (i.e. no Views). This provides the most surface area for code-based testing and makes the Views a true skin on the application. And my ViewModel shouldn't care if it displayed in the main window, a floating panel or a child window, should it? According to this apprach, it is up to some other mechanism at runtime to 'bind' what View should be displayed for each ViewModel. But what if we want to share a View with multiple ViewModels or vice versa? So given the need to manage the View-ViewModel relationship so we know what to display when along with the need to navigate between views, including displaying child windows / dialogs, how do we truly accomplish this in the MVVM pattern?

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• An Actionable Common Approach to Federal Enterprise Architecture

  - by TedMcLaughlan

  The recent “Common Approach to Federal Enterprise Architecture” (US Executive Office of the President, May 2 2012) is extremely timely and well-organized guidance for the Federal IT investment and deployment community, as useful for Federal Departments and Agencies as it is for their stakeholders and integration partners. The guidance not only helps IT Program Planners and Managers, but also informs and prepares constituents who may be the beneficiaries or otherwise impacted by the investment. The FEA Common Approach extends from and builds on the rapidly-maturing Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) and its associated artifacts and standards, already included to a large degree in the annual Federal Portfolio and Investment Management processes – for example the OMB’s Exhibit 300 (i.e. Business Case justification for IT investments).A very interesting element of this Approach includes the very necessary guidance for actually using an Enterprise Architecture (EA) and/or its collateral – good guidance for any organization charged with maintaining a broad portfolio of IT investments. The associated FEA Reference Models (i.e. the BRM, DRM, TRM, etc.) are very helpful frameworks for organizing, understanding, communicating and standardizing across agencies with respect to vocabularies, architecture patterns and technology standards. Determining when, how and to what level of detail to include these reference models in the typically long-running Federal IT acquisition cycles wasn’t always clear, however, particularly during the first interactions of a Program’s technical and functional leadership with the Mission owners and investment planners. This typically occurs as an agency begins the process of describing its strategy and business case for allocation of new Federal funding, reacting to things like new legislation or policy, real or anticipated mission challenges, or straightforward ROI opportunities (for example the introduction of new technologies that deliver significant cost-savings).The early artifacts (i.e. Resource Allocation Plans, Acquisition Plans, Exhibit 300’s or other Business Case materials, etc.) of the intersection between Mission owners, IT and Program Managers are far easier to understand and discuss, when the overlay of an evolved, actionable Enterprise Architecture (such as the FEA) is applied.  “Actionable” is the key word – too many Public Service entity EA’s (including the FEA) have for too long been used simply as a very highly-abstracted standards reference, duly maintained and nominally-enforced by an Enterprise or System Architect’s office. Refreshing elements of this recent FEA Common Approach include one of the first Federally-documented acknowledgements of the “Solution Architect” (the “Problem-Solving” role). This role collaborates with the Enterprise, System and Business Architecture communities primarily on completing actual “EA Roadmap” documents. These are roadmaps grounded in real cost, technical and functional details that are fully aligned with both contextual expectations (for example the new “Digital Government Strategy” and its required roadmap deliverables - and the rapidly increasing complexities of today’s more portable and transparent IT solutions.  We also expect some very critical synergies to develop in early IT investment cycles between this new breed of “Federal Enterprise Solution Architect” and the first waves of the newly-formal “Federal IT Program Manager” roles operating under more standardized “critical competency” expectations (including EA), likely already to be seriously influencing the quality annual CPIC (Capital Planning and Investment Control) processes.  Our Oracle Enterprise Strategy Team (EST) and associated Oracle Enterprise Architecture (OEA) practices are already engaged in promoting and leveraging the visibility of Enterprise Architecture as a key contributor to early IT investment validation, and we look forward in particular to seeing the real, citizen-centric benefits of this FEA Common Approach in particular surface across the entire Public Service CPIC domain - Federal, State, Local, Tribal and otherwise. Read more Enterprise Architecture blog posts for additional EA insight!

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• What to do when opensource project starts to tear apart? (or a manager tries to write code and than shouts at the team)

  - by Kabumbus

  Imagine there is an open source cross-platform project on Google code. It has lots of revisions (1000). It concentrates in itself lots technological stuff - rare stuff - it mixes top tech. It contains server, and more than one client. The project was created by a well-connected team of developers (friends) and a manager that was sponsoring project at its start up during its first few months (project now is more than a year old-sponsoring oss project is a big good deal- also gave the idea of project to developers). The project was growing in complexity and effort reqiered to continue development. Once upon a time a manager - team leader started trying to write code (he was a programmer in some other projects - not the best, but he felt like he was one). He started because one of the developers suggested an idea at the team meeting and he felt he just needed to do it on his own. He failed, and he told the dev team about it. The dev team did what he failed to do in a few days. After that, the manager feels that team codes with out him perfectly and gets the job done in short time. He felt sorry and lost and he started to crash like an old bad PC. Firstly, he started to scream (in forms of messages not in voice) he tried to tell developers that what they were doing was a bad, not-needed thing - developers kindly told him that his "beginnings" were not compilable while dev team product worked as needed. He told the developers that all work they do should be firstly discussed with him. Here is the part where we need to mention that all team members are "project owners" and logically have equal rights. The team leader suggested to the developers these options: change their dev process to go through him, or be moved from project owners to contributers. So what are our options as developers? What arguments we can provide to the team leader/manager for him to calm down? Is it possible to save the project or is it better to fork out now? An important issue is that lately we had no active ticket system, and I personally think that this was the reason the mess appeared. So... any ideas?

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• Reporting on common code smells : A POC

  - by Dave Ballantyne

  Over the past few blog entries, I’ve been looking at parsing TSQL scripts in a variety of ways for a variety of tasks.  In my last entry ‘How to prevent ‘Select *’ : The elegant way’, I looked at parsing SQL to report upon uses of SELECT *.  The obvious question leading on from this is, “Great, what about other code smells ?”  Well, using the language service parser to do that was turning out to be a bit of a hard job,  sure I was getting tokens but no real context.  I wasn't even being told when an end of statement had been reached. One of the other parsing options available from Microsoft is exposed in the assembly ‘Microsoft.SqlServer.TransactSql.ScriptDom’,  this is ,I believe, installed with the client development tools with SQLServer.  It is much more feature rich than the original parser I had used and breaks a TSQL script into intuitive classes for analysis. So, what sort of smells can I now find using it ?  Well, for an opening gambit quite a nice little list. Use of NOLOCK Set of READ UNCOMMITTED Use of SELECT * Insert without column references Explicit datatype conversion on Sargs Cross server selects Non use of two-part naming convention Table and Query hint usage Changes in set options Use of single line comments Use of ordinal column positions in ORDER BY clause Now, lets not argue the point that “It depends” as smells on some of these, but as an academic exercise it is quite interesting.  The code is available from this link :https://www.dropbox.com/s/rfk32sou4fzl2cw/TSQLDomTest.zip  All the usual disclaimers apply to this code, I cannot be held responsible for anything ranging from mild annoyance through to universe destruction due to the use of this code or examples. The zip file contains a powershell script and my test cases.  The assembly used requires .Net 4 to run, which means that you will need powershell 3 ( though im running through PowerGUI and all works ok ) .  The code searches for all .sql files in the folder hierarchy for the workingpath,  you can override this if you want by simply changing the $Folder variable, and processes each in turn for the smells.  Feedback is not great at the moment, all it does is output to an xml file (Smells.xml) the offset position and a description of the smell found. Right now, I am interested in your feedback.  What do you think ?  Is this (or should it be) more than an academic exercise ?  Can tooling such as this be used as some form of code quality measure ?  Does it Work ? Do you have a case listed above which is not being reported ? Do you have a case that you would love to be reported ? Let me know , please mailto: [email protected]. Thanks

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• Lock mouse in center of screen, and still use to move camera Unity

  - by Flotolk

  I am making a program from 1st person point of view. I would like the camera to be moved using the mouse, preferably using simple code, like from XNA var center = this.Window.ClientBounds; MouseState newState = Mouse.GetState(); if (Keyboard.GetState().IsKeyUp(Keys.Escape)) { Mouse.SetPosition((int)center.X, (int)center.Y); camera.Rotation -= (newState.X - center.X) * 0.005f; camera.UpDown += (newState.Y - center.Y) * 0.005f; } Is there any code that lets me do this in Unity, since Unity does not support XNA, I need a new library to use, and a new way to collect this input. this is also a little tougher, since I want one object to go up and down based on if you move it the mouse up and down, and another object to be the one turning left and right. I am also very concerned about clamping the mouse to the center of the screen, since you will be selecting items, and it is easiest to have a simple cross-hairs in the center of the screen for this purpose. Here is the code I am using to move right now: using UnityEngine; using System.Collections; [AddComponentMenu("Camera-Control/Mouse Look")] public class MouseLook : MonoBehaviour { public enum RotationAxes { MouseXAndY = 0, MouseX = 1, MouseY = 2 } public RotationAxes axes = RotationAxes.MouseXAndY; public float sensitivityX = 15F; public float sensitivityY = 15F; public float minimumX = -360F; public float maximumX = 360F; public float minimumY = -60F; public float maximumY = 60F; float rotationY = 0F; void Update () { if (axes == RotationAxes.MouseXAndY) { float rotationX = transform.localEulerAngles.y + Input.GetAxis("Mouse X") * sensitivityX; rotationY += Input.GetAxis("Mouse Y") * sensitivityY; rotationY = Mathf.Clamp (rotationY, minimumY, maximumY); transform.localEulerAngles = new Vector3(-rotationY, rotationX, 0); } else if (axes == RotationAxes.MouseX) { transform.Rotate(0, Input.GetAxis("Mouse X") * sensitivityX, 0); } else { rotationY += Input.GetAxis("Mouse Y") * sensitivityY; rotationY = Mathf.Clamp (rotationY, minimumY, maximumY); transform.localEulerAngles = new Vector3(-rotationY, transform.localEulerAngles.y, 0); } while (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space) == true) { Screen.lockCursor = true; } } void Start () { // Make the rigid body not change rotation if (GetComponent<Rigidbody>()) GetComponent<Rigidbody>().freezeRotation = true; } } This code does everything except lock the mouse to the center of the screen. Screen.lockCursor = true; does not work though, since then the camera no longer moves, and the cursor does not allow you to click anything else either.

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• I'm a C Programmer, but I can't find a comfortable environment to work in

  - by Jesse Brands

  Hello everyone, Last time I asked a question, I was having issues dealing with Java which I had to do for a course work. I generally use C for my development work - especially personal projects - and I've grown up in what is pretty much a Linux/UNIX world. In this world, it was easy to use C, you had your C compiler (GCC is excellent in that regard) and a wealth of tools such as the command line and vi/emacs/whatever-you-got. However, that was all that I really liked about Linux/UNIX. It really fitted well with the C language; nowadays, I'm somewhat forced into Windows/Mac OS X for most of my work. C seems poorly supported on a mac for starters, there's no GUI API to use and pretty much you get forced into Obj-C. This is not a problem, I like Objective-C, but it's another language I have to learn. Now coming to Windows. Why does everything about Windows Development try to scare me away? It's basically come down to: USE C# AND .NET OR DIE. I don't like C#, I like C, they are fundamentally different. Yet when I make a Windows Forms application in MSVC++ (I know that's not C), I get a main function riddled with weird things I've never heard of before, along with a poor, barely-compliant C/C++ compiler. What am I to do when I just want to program in C, make applications that look and feel like native Windows applications (I am a sucker for aesthetics, and I'm not looking to make something cross-platform. I just want it to work on Windows, and look as native as possible.). C++ is a fine alternative, but it really looks like the only way to make a decent, native feeling Windows application, is to use C#. Am I missing something here? I'd rather not use CYGWIN. Like I said, I want people to install the program, and it should just work out of the box on Windows 7. Program in question involves a Media Player, if anyone is curious what I'm targetting at. Anyone who had the same experiences who can help me out? How can I code something in ANSI C and still have a native feel?

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• Now Shipping! NetAdvantage for .NET 2010 Volume 3!

  The new NetAdvantage Ultimate includes all four Line of Business user interface control sets for ASP .NET, Windows Forms, WPF and Silverlight plus two advanced Data Visualization UI control sets for WPF and Silverlight. With six NetAdvantage products in one robust package, Infragistics® gives you hundreds of controls and infinite development possibilities. Unified XAML Product Strategy-Share Code, Get More Controls In the 10.3 release, Infragistics continues to deliver code parity between the XAML platforms, WPF and Silverlight. In the line of business toolsets, Infragistics introduces the new xamSchedule™, full-featured, Outlook® 2010-style schedule controls, and the new xamDataTree™, a data bound tree view that comfortably handles tens of thousands of tree nodes. Mimicking our Silverlight Drag and Drop Framework, the WPF Drag and Drop Framework CTP empowers you to add your own rich touches to your applications. Track Users' Behaviors New to all NetAdvantage Silverlight controls is the Infragistics Analytics Framework (IGAF), which empowers you to track user behavior in RIAs running on Silverlight 4. Building on the Microsoft® Silverlight Analytics Framework, with IGAF you can analyze the user's behaviors to ensure the experience you want to deliver. NetAdvantage for Windows Forms--New Office® 2010 Ribbon and Application Menu 2010 Create new experiences with Windows Forms. Now with Office 2010 styling, NetAdvantage for Windows Forms has new features such as Microsoft® Office 2010 ribbon and enhanced Infragistics.Excel to export the contents of the high performance WinGrid™ into Microsoft Excel® 2010. The new Windows Message Support enables Infragistics standalone editor controls to process numerous Windows® OS messages, allowing them to respond just like native controls to changes in the Windows environment. Create Faster Web 2.0 Experiences with NetAdvantage for ASP .NET Infragistics continues to push the envelope to deliver the fastest ASP .NET WebForms controls available on the market. Our lightning fast ASP .NET grids are now enhanced with XPS/PDF Exporting and Summary Rows. This release also includes support for jQuery Templating (as a CTP) within our WebDataGrid™ and WebDataTree™ controls allowing you to quickly cut down overall page size. Deliver Business Intelligence with Power, Flexibility and the Office 2010 Experience NetAdvantage for WPF Data Visualization and NetAdvantage for Silverlight Data Visualization help you deliver flexible, powerful and usable end user experiences in Business Intelligence applications. Both suites include the Pivot Grid that delivers the full power of online analytical processing (OLAP) to present multi-dimensional data, sliced and diced in cross-tabulated form for end users to drill down into, interact with and easily extract meaning from the data. Mapping Made Easy 10.3 marks the official release of the WPF Data Visualization xamMap™ control to map anything and everything from geographic to geo-spacial mapping data. Map layers allow you to add successive levels of detail, navigational panes for panning in all directions, color swatch panes that facilitate value scales like Choropleth shading, and scale panes allowing users to zoom-in and out. Both toolsets introduce the first of many relationship maps! With the xamOrgChart™ CTP you can map out organizational charts of up to 50K employees, competitive brackets (think World Cup) and any other relational, organizational map your application needs. http://www.infragistics.com span.fullpost {display:none;}

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• Wrapping REST based Web Service

  - by PaulPerry

  I am designing a system that will be running online under Microsoft Windows Azure. One component is a REST based web service which will really be a wrapper (using proxy pattern) which calls the REST web services of a business partner, which has to do with BLOB storage (note: we are not using azure storage). The majority of the functionality will be taking a request, calling our partner web service, receiving the request and then passing that back to the client. There are a number of reasons for doing this, but one of the big ones is that we are going to support three clients: our desktop application (win and mac), mobile apps (iOS), and a web front end. Having a single API which we then send to our partner protects us if that partner ever changes. I want our service to support both JSON and XML for the data transfer format, JSON for web and probably XML for the desktop and mobile (we already have an XML parser in those products). Our partner also supports both of these formats. I was planning on using ASP.NET MVC 4 with the Web API. As I design this, the thing that concerns me is the static type checking of C#. What if the partner adds or removes elements from the data? We can probably defensively code for that, but I still feel some concern. Also, we have to do a fair amount of tedious coding, to setup our API and then to turn around and call our partner’s API. There probably is not much choice on it though. But, in the back of my mind I wonder if maybe a more dynamic language would be a better choice. I want to reach out and see if anybody has had to do this before, what technology solutions they have used to (I am not attached to this one, these days Azure can host other technologies), and if anybody who has done something like this can point out any issues that came up. Thanks! Researching the issue seems to only find solutions which focus on connecting a SOAP web service over a proxy server, and not what I am referring to here. Note: Cross posted (by suggestion) from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11906802/wrapping-rest-based-web-service Thank you!

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• Retrofit Certification

  - by Bill Evjen

  Impact of Regulations on Cabin Systems Installation John Courtright, Structural Integrity Engineering There are “heightened” FAA attention to technical issues related to IFE and Wi-Fi Systems Installations The Aging Aircraft Safety Rule – EWIS & Damage Tolerance Analysis The Challenge: Maximize Flight Safety While Minimizing Costs Issue Papers & Testing, Testing, Testing The role of Airworthiness Directives (ADs) on the design of many IFE systems and all antenna systems. Goal is safety AND cost-effective maintenance intervals and inspection techniques The STC Process Briefly Stated Type Certifications (TC) Supplemental Type Certifications (STC) The STC Process Project Specific Certification Plan (PSCP) Managed by FAA Aircraft Certification Office (ACO) Type of Project (Electrical/Mechanical Systems or Structural) Specific Type of Aircraft Being Modified Schedule Design & Installation Location What does the STC Plan (PSCP) Cover? System Description – What does the system do? System qualification – Are the components qualified? Certification requirements – What FARs are applicable? Installation detail – what is being modified? Prototype installation – What is new? Functional hazard Assessment (FHA) – is it safe? EZAP-EWIS Requirements – Any aging aircraft issues? Certification Data – How is compliance achieved? Delegation and FAA involvement – Who is doing the work? Proposed certification schedule – When is the installation? Certification documentation – What the FAA Expects to see Cabin Systems Certification Concerns In addition to meeting the requirements for DO-160, Cabin System Certification needs to address issues related to: Power management: Generally, IFE and Wi-Fi Systems are classified as “Non-Essential Equipment” from a certification viewpoint. Connected to “non-essential” power buses Must be able to shed IFE & Wi-Fi Systems in a smoke/fire event or Other electrical emergency (FAA Policy 00-111-160) FAA is more relaxed with testing wi-fi. It used to be that you had to have 150 seats with laptops running wi-fi, but now it is down to around 50. Aging aircraft concerns – electrical and structural Issue papers addressing technical concerns involving: “Structural Certification Criteria for Large Antenna Installations” Antenna “Vibration/Buffeting Compliance Criteria” DO-160 : Environmental Test Procedures DO 160 – “Environmental Conditions and Test Procedures for Airborne Equipment”, Issued by RTCA Provides guidance to equipment manufacturers as to testing requirements Temperature: –40C to +55C Vibration and Shock Contaminant susceptibility – fluids and dust Electro-magnetic Interference Cabin systems are generally classified as “non-essential” Swissair 111 crashed (in part) due to non-standard wiring practices. EWIS Design Implications Installation design must take EWIS Requirements into account. This generally means: Aircraft surveys are needed to identify proper wire routing Ensure existing wiring diagrams are correct Identify primary/Secondary/Tertiary bus locations Verify proper separation of wire bundles exist Required separation from fuel quantity indicator system (FQIS) to prevent fuel tang ignition Enhanced Zonal Analysis Procedure (EZAP) Performed EZAP was developed by the Aging Transport Systems Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ATSRAC) EZAP is the method for analyzing airplane zones with an emphasis on evaluating wiring systems and the existence of combustibles  in the cabin. Certification Considerations for Wi-Fi Systems Electrical – All existing DO 160 testing required Issue papers required Onboard EMI testing – any interference with aircraft systems when multiple wi-fi users are logged on? Vibration/Buffeting compliance criteria – what is the effect of the antenna on aircraft flight characteristics? Structural certification criteria – what are the stress loads on the aircraft at the antenna location and what is the impact on maintenance inspection criteria for the airline? Damage tolerance analysis required Goal – minimize maintenance inspection intervals

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• Making a Camera look at a target Vector

  - by Peteyslatts

  I have a camera that works as long as its stationary. Now I'm trying to create a child class of that camera class that will look at its target. The new addition to the class is a method called SetTarget(). The method takes in a Vector3 target. The camera wont move but I need it to rotate to look at the target. If I just set the target, and then call CreateLookAt() (which takes in position, target, and up), when the object gets far enough away and underneath the camera, it suddenly flips right side up. So I need to transform the up vector, which currently always stays at Vector3.Up. I feel like this has something to do with taking the angle between the old direction vector and the new one (which I know can be expressed by target - position). I feel like this is all really vague, so here's the code for my base camera class: public class BasicCamera : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GameComponent { public Matrix view { get; protected set; } public Matrix projection { get; protected set; } public Vector3 position { get; protected set; } public Vector3 direction { get; protected set; } public Vector3 up { get; protected set; } public Vector3 side { get { return Vector3.Cross(up, direction); } protected set { } } public BasicCamera(Game game, Vector3 position, Vector3 target, Vector3 up) : base(game) { this.position = position; this.direction = target - position; this.up = up; CreateLookAt(); projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView( MathHelper.PiOver4, (float)Game.Window.ClientBounds.Width / (float)Game.Window.ClientBounds.Height, 1, 500); } public override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { // TODO: Add your update code here CreateLookAt(); base.Update(gameTime); } } And this is the code for the class that extends the above class to look at its target. class TargetedCamera : BasicCamera { public Vector3 target { get; protected set; } public TargetedCamera(Game game, Vector3 position, Vector3 target, Vector3 up) : base(game, position, target, up) { this.target = target; } public void SetTarget(Vector3 target) { direction = target - position; } protected override void CreateLookAt() { view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(position, target, up); } }

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• OpenWorld: Our (Road) Maps are Looking Good!

  - by Tony Berk

  Wow, only one (or two) days down at Oracle OpenWorld! Are you on overload yet? I'm still trying to figure out how to be in 3 sessions at the same time... I guess everyone needs to prioritize! There was a lot to see in Monday's sessions, especially some great forward-looking roadmap sessions. In case you aren't here or you decided to go to other sessions, this is my quick summary of what I could capture from a couple of the roadmaps: In the Fusion CRM Strategy and Roadmap session, Anthony Lye provided an overview of the Fusion CRM strategy including the key design principles of 3 E's: Easy, Effective and Efficient. After an overview of how Oracle has deployed Fusion CRM internally to 25,000 users worldwide, Anthony discussed the features coming in the next release, the releases in the next 12 months and beyond. I can't detail too much since you haven't read Oracle's Safe Harbor statement, but check out Fusion Tap and look for new features and added functionality for sales prediction, marketing, social and integration with a number of the key Customer Experience products.  In the Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Vision and Roadmap session, Chris Hamilton presented the focus areas for the RightNow product. As a result of the large increase in development resources after the acquisition, the RightNow CX team is planning a lot of enhancements to the functionality, infrastructure and integrations. As a key piece of the Oracle Customer Experience (CX) strategy, RightNow will be integrated with Oracle Social Network, Oracle Commerce (ATG and Endeca), Oracle Knowledge, Oracle Policy Automation and, of course, further integration with Fusion Sales and Marketing. Look forward to seeing more on the Virtual Assistant, Smart Interaction Hub and Mobility. In addition to the roadmaps, I was looking forward to hearing from Oracle CRM customers. So, I sat in on two great Siebel customer panels: The Maximizing User Adoption Rates for Siebel Sales and Siebel Partner Relationship Management panel consisted of speakers from CSL Behring, McKesson and Intuit. It was great to get an overview of implementations for both B2B and B2C companies. It was great hearing that all of these companies have more than 1,000 sales users (Intuit has 4,000) and how the 360 degree view of the customer in Siebel is helping these customers improve their customers' experience (CX). They are all great examples of centralized implementations which have standardized processes across the globe and across business units.  Waste Management, Farmers Insurance and the US Citizenship & Immigration Services presented in the Driving Great Customer Experiences with Siebel Service Applications session. Talk about serving large customer bases! Is it possible that Farmers with only 10 million households is the smallest of these 3? All of them provided great examples of how they are improving the customer experience (CX) including 60-70% improvements in efficiency or reducing the number of applications the customer service reps (CSRs) need to use from 10 to 1 (Waste Management) and context aware call transfers to avoid the caller explaining their issue 3 times (USCIS). So that's my wrap up of only 4 sessions from Monday. In between sessions, I stopped by the Oracle DEMOgrounds and CRM Pavilion to visit with a group of great partners and see the products and partner integrations in action. Don't miss a recap of Mark Hurd's Keynote. I can't believe there were another 40+ sessions covering CRM, Fusion, Cloud, etc. that I missed today! Anyone else see any great sessions?

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• ATG Live Webcast Nov. 29th: Endeca "Evolutionizes" E-Business Suite

  - by Bill Sawyer

  If you have ever wanted any of the following within Oracle E-Business Suite: Complete Data View Advanced Searching Across Organizations and Flexfields Advanced Visualization including Charts, Metrics, and Cross Tabs Guided Navigation Then you might want to attend this webcast to learn more about Oracle Endeca's integration with Oracle E-Business Suite. Oracle Endeca includes an unstructured data correlation and analytics engine, together with catalog search and guided navigation capabilities. This webcasts focuses on the details behind Oracle Endeca's integration with Oracle E-Business Suite. It demonstrates how you can extend the use of Oracle Endeca into other areas of Oracle E-Business Suite. Date:             Thursday, November 29, 2012Time:             8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Pacific Standard TimePresenter:   Osama Elkady, Senior DirectorWebcast Registration Link (Preregistration is optional but encouraged) To hear the audio feed:   Domestic Participant Dial-In Number:           877-697-8128    International Participant Dial-In Number:      706-634-9568    Additional International Dial-In Numbers Link:    Dial-In Passcode:                                              103192To see the presentation:    The Direct Access Web Conference details are:    Website URL: https://ouweb.webex.com    Meeting Number:  595335921If you miss the webcast, or you have missed any webcast, don't worry -- we'll post links to the recording as soon as it's available from Oracle University.  You can monitor this blog for pointers to the replay. And, you can find our archive of our past webcasts and training here. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email Bill Sawyer (Senior Manager, Applications Technology Curriculum) at BilldotSawyer-AT-Oracle-DOT-com.

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• ssao implementation

  - by Irbis

  I try to implement a ssao based on this tutorial: link I use a deferred rendering and world coordinates for shading calculations. When saving gbuffer a vertex shader output looks like this: worldPosition = vec3(ModelMatrix * vec4(inPosition, 1.0)); normal = normalize(normalModelMatrix * inNormal); gl_Position = ProjectionMatrix * ViewMatrix * ModelMatrix * vec4(inPosition, 1.0); Next for a ssao calculations I render a scene as a full screen quad and I save an occlusion parameter in a texture. (Vertex positions in the world space: link Normals in the world space: link) SSAO implementation: subroutine (RenderPassType) void ssao() { vec2 texCoord = CalcTexCoord(); vec3 worldPos = texture(texture0, texCoord).xyz; vec3 normal = normalize(texture(texture1, texCoord).xyz); vec2 noiseScale = vec2(screenSize.x / 4, screenSize.y / 4); vec3 rvec = texture(texture2, texCoord * noiseScale).xyz; vec3 tangent = normalize(rvec - normal * dot(rvec, normal)); vec3 bitangent = cross(normal, tangent); mat3 tbn = mat3(tangent, bitangent, normal); float occlusion = 0.0; float radius = 4.0; for (int i = 0; i < kernelSize; ++i) { vec3 pix = tbn * kernel[i]; pix = pix * radius + worldPos; vec4 offset = vec4(pix, 1.0); offset = ProjectionMatrix * ViewMatrix * offset; offset.xy /= offset.w; offset.xy = offset.xy * 0.5 + 0.5; float sample_depth = texture(texture0, offset.xy).z; float range_check = abs(worldPos.z - sample_depth) < radius ? 1.0 : 0.0; occlusion += (sample_depth <= pix.z ? 1.0 : 0.0); } outputColor = vec4(occlusion, occlusion, occlusion, 1); } That code gives following results: camera looking towards -z world space: link camera looking towards +z world space: link I wonder if it is possible to use world coordinates in the above code ? When I move camera I get different results because world space positions don't change. Can I treat worldPos.z as a linear depth ? What should I change to get a correct results ? I except the white areas in place of occlusion, so the ground should has the white areas only near to the object.

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-10-12

  - by Bob Rhubart

  This is your brain on IT architecture. Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Los Angeles, Oct 25 This is your brain on IT architecture. Stuff your cranium with architecture by attending Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Los Angeles, October 25, 2012, at the Sofitel Los Angeles, 8555 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048. Technical sessions, panel Q&A, and peer roundtables--plus a free lunch. Register now. WebCenter Sites Gadget Development Concepts Quickstart | John Brunswick What are Gadgets? "At their most basic level they can be thought of as lightweight portlets that run largely on the client side of an architecture," says John Brunswick. "Gadgets provide a cross-platform container to run reusable UI modules that generally expose dynamic information to an end user, allowing for some level of end user customization." ORCLville: OOW 2012 - A Not So Brief Recap Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter, an Applications & Apps Technology specialists, shares his personal, frank, and and extensive recap or Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Fusion Applications Technical Tips | Naveen Nahata "Setting memory parameters for Admin and Managed servers of various domains in Fusion Applications can be, let us say, a little daunting," says Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team member Naveen Nahata. "While all this may look complicated and intimidating, it is actually relatively simple once you understand how it all works." Following the Thread in OSB | Antony Reynolds Antony Reynolds recently led an Oracle Service Bus POC in which his team needed to get high throughput from an OSB pipeline. "Imagine our surprise when, on stressing the system, we saw it lock up, with large numbers of blocked threads." He shares the details of the problem and the solution in this extensive technical post. ExaLogic Hackers Night - November 19th Nürnberg Germany | WebLogic Partner Community EMEA Want to get your hands on Oracle Exalogic? Make your way to Nürnberg, Germany for this Exalogic Hacker's Night on November 19, 2012. Experts will be on hand to help you test your ideas. (The blog post is in English, but the event registration page is in German.) Thought for the Day "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds…" — Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• The Social Enterprise: Gangnam Style

  - by Mike Stiles

  Are only small and medium businesses able to put social strategies in place, generate consistent, compelling content for customers, and be nimble enough to listen and respond to the social communities they build? Or are enterprise organizations eagerly and effectively adopting social as well? It depends on whom inside the organization you ask. A study from Attensity looked at who “gets” social inside enterprise organizations. The results were unsurprising. Mostly, Generation X and Y employees who came of age with social as part of their lives and as a key communications vehicle understand it. Imagine being a 25-year-old at a company that bans employees from accessing Facebook at work. You may as well tell them they can’t use phones and must do all calculations on an abacus. To them, such policy is absent of real-world logic and signals to them the organization is destined to be the victim of an up-and-comer. After that, it’s senior management that gets social. You don’t get to be in senior management without reading a few things and paying attention. Most senior managers are well aware of the impact social has had and will have, though they may be unsure of what to do about it. The better ones will utilize those on the inside who do inherently know how to communicate and build virtual relationships using social. The very best will get the past out of the way for these social innovators, so the new communications can be enacted minus counterproductive dictums, double-clutching, meeting-creep, and all the other fading internal practices that water down content and impede change. Organizationally, the Attensity study found 81% of enterprise companies believe failing to embrace social will result in their being left behind. Yet our old friend fear still has many captive in its clutches. 79% feel overwhelmed by the volume of social data available, something a social technology partner with goal-oriented analytics expertise could go a long way toward alleviating. Then there’s the fear of social having a negative impact. This comes from a lack of belief in the product, the customer service, or both. The public uses social not to go out and slay brands. They’re using it to be honest. If the fear is that honesty will reflect badly on the brand, the brand has much bigger, broader problems than what happens on Facebook. Sadly, most enterprise organizations still see social as a megaphone, a one-way channel with which to hit people with ads. They either don’t understand social relationships, or don’t want any. The truly unenlightened manager will always say, “We help them by selling them our stuff.” “Brand affinity” is a term, it’s just not one assigned much value in enterprise organizations. Which brings us to Psy, the Korean performer whose Internet video phenom “Gangnam Style,” as of this writing, has been viewed 438,550,238 times on YouTube. It’s bigger than anything a brand will probably ever publish. Most brands would never have seen the point of making or publishing it. But a funny thing happened on the way to Internet success. The video literally doubled the stock price of Psy’s father’s software firm. NH Investment and Securities said, "The positive sentiment has attracted investors just because of the fact the company is owned by Psy's father and uncle.” The company wasn’t mentioned or seen in the video in any way, yet reaped tangible rewards just for being tangentially associated with it. Imagine your brand being visibly and directly responsible for such a smash and tell me it’s worthless. When enterprise organizations embrace the value of igniting passions, making people happier, solving their problems, informing them, helping them have fun, etc., then they will have fully embraced social, and will reap the brand affinity rewards of heightened awareness, brand loyalty and yes, sales.

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• Segmentation and Targeting: Your Tools for Personalizing the Online Customer Experience

  - by Christie Flanagan

  In order to deliver the kind of personalized and engaging online experiences that customers expect today, look to segmentation and targeting.  Segmentation is the practice of dividing your site visitors into distinct groups based on shared characteristics or behavior – for example, a segment may consist of site visitors who have visited pages related to certain product type, or they may consist of visitors within the same age group or geographic area.  The idea is that those within a segment are more likely to have common needs, problems or interests that can be served by your business. Targeting is the process by which the most relevant content, whether an article promotion or other piece of content, is delivered to your visitors based on their segment membership. Segmentation and targeting are used to drive greater engagement on your web presence by delivering content to your site visitors that is tailored to their interests, behavior or other attributes.  You may have a number of different goals for your segmentation and targeting efforts: Up-sell or cross-sell to your customers Conduct A/B testing on your offers and creative Offer discounts, promotions or other incentives for the time and duration that you specify Make is easier to find relevant information about products and services Create premium content model There are two different approaches you can take toward segmentation and targeting for you online customer experience initiatives. The first is more of a manual process, in which marketers manage the process of determining which segments to create and which content to target to those segments. The benefit of this approach is that it gives marketers a high level of control over the whole process which works well when you have a thorough understanding of your segments and which content is most likely to serve their needs.  Tools for marketer managed segmentation and targeting are often built right in to your WEM platform, as they are with Oracle WebCenter Sites. The downside is that the more segments and content that you have, the more time consuming and complicated in can be to manage manually.The second approach relies on predictive intelligence to automate the segmentation and targeting process.  This allows optimization of the process to occur in real time. This approach helps reduce the burden of manual segmentation and targeting and can result in new insights into segments that you may never have thought of on your own.  It also provides you with the capability to quickly test new offers and promotions on your site.  Predictive segmentation and targeting can be achieved by using Oracle WebCenter Sites and Oracle Real-Time Decisions together. *****Get a taste for how Oracle WebCenter Sites and Oracle Real-Time Decisions combine to deliver powerful capabilities for predictive segmentation and targeting by watching this on demand webcast introducing Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g or by reading IDC’s take on the latest release of Oracle’s web experience management solution.  Be sure to return to the Oracle WebCenter blog on Thursday for a closer look at how to optimize the online customer experience using these two products together.

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• WIF-less claim extraction from ACS: JWT

  - by Elton Stoneman

  ACS support for JWT still shows as "beta", but it meets the spec and it works nicely, so it's becoming the preferred option as SWT is losing favour. (Note that currently ACS doesn’t support JWT encryption, if you want encrypted tokens you need to go SAML). In my last post I covered pulling claims from an ACS token without WIF, using the SWT format. The JWT format is a little more complex, but you can still inspect claims just with string manipulation. The incoming token from ACS is still presented in the BinarySecurityToken element of the XML payload, with a TokenType of urn:ietf:params:oauth:token-type:jwt: <t:RequestSecurityTokenResponse xmlns:t="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/02/trust">   <t:Lifetime>     <wsu:Created xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd">2012-08-31T07:39:55.337Z</wsu:Created>     <wsu:Expires xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd">2012-08-31T09:19:55.337Z</wsu:Expires>   </t:Lifetime>   <wsp:AppliesTo xmlns:wsp="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/09/policy">     <EndpointReference xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing">       <Address>http://localhost/x.y.z</Address>     </EndpointReference>   </wsp:AppliesTo>   <t:RequestedSecurityToken>     <wsse:BinarySecurityToken wsu:Id="_1eeb5cf4-b40b-40f2-89e0-a3343f6bd985-6A15D1EED0CDB0D8FA48C7D566232154" ValueType="urn:ietf:params:oauth:token-type:jwt" EncodingType="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-soap-message-security-1.0#Base64Binary" xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd" xmlns:wsse="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd">[ base64string ] </wsse:BinarySecurityToken>   </t:RequestedSecurityToken>   <t:TokenType>urn:ietf:params:oauth:token-type:jwt</t:TokenType>   <t:RequestType>http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/02/trust/Issue</t:RequestType>   <t:KeyType>http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/NoProofKey</t:KeyType> </t:RequestSecurityTokenResponse> The token as a whole needs to be base-64 decoded. The decoded value contains a header, payload and signature, dot-separated; the parts are also base-64, but they need to be decoded using a no-padding algorithm (implementation and more details in this MSDN article on validating an Exchange 2013 identity token). The values are then in JSON; the header contains the token type and the hashing algorithm: "{"typ":"JWT","alg":"HS256"}" The payload contains the same data as in the SWT, but JSON rather than querystring format: {"aud":"http://localhost/x.y.z" "iss":"https://adfstest-bhw.accesscontrol.windows.net/" "nbf":1346398795 "exp":1346404795 "http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/authenticationinstant":"2012-08-31T07:39:53.652Z" "http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/authenticationmethod":"http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/authenticationmethod/windows" "http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/windowsaccountname":"xyz" "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress":"[email protected]" "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/upn":"[email protected]" "identityprovider":"http://fs.svc.x.y.z.com/adfs/services/trust"} The signature is in the third part of the token. Unlike SWT which is fixed to HMAC-SHA-256, JWT can support other protocols (the one in use is specified as the "alg" value in the header). How to: Validate an Exchange 2013 identity token contains an implementation of a JWT parser and validator; apart from the custom base-64 decoding part, it’s very similar to SWT extraction. I've wrapped the basic SWT and JWT in a ClaimInspector.aspx page on gitHub here: SWT and JWT claim inspector. You can drop it into any ASP.Net site and set the URL to be your redirect page in ACS. Swap ACS to issue SWT or JWT, and using the same page you can inspect the claims that come out.

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• Consolidation in a Database Cloud

  - by B R Clouse

  Consolidation of multiple databases onto a shared infrastructure is the next step after Standardization.  The potential consolidation density is a function of the extent to which the infrastructure is shared.  The three models provide increasing degrees of sharing: Server: each database is deployed in a dedicated VM. Hardware is shared, but most of the software infrastructure is not. Standardization is often applied incompletely since operating environments can be moved as-is onto the shared platform. The potential for VM sprawl is an additional downside. Database: multiple database instances are deployed on a shared software / hardware infrastructure. This model is very efficient and easily implemented with the features in the Oracle Database and supporting products. Many customers have moved to this model and achieved significant, measurable benefits. Schema: multiple schemas are deployed within a single database instance. The most efficient model, it places constraints on the environment. Usually this model will be implemented only by customers deploying their own applications.  (Note that a single deployment can combine Database and Schema consolidations.) Customer value: lower costs, better system utilization In this phase of the maturity model, under-utilized hardware can be used to host more workloads, or retired and those workloads migrated to consolidation platforms. Customers benefit from higher utilization of the hardware resources, resulting in reduced data center floor space, and lower power and cooling costs. And, the OpEx savings from Standardization are multiplied, since there are fewer physical components (both hardware and software) to manage. Customer value: higher productivity The OpEx benefits from Standardization are compounded since not only are there fewer types of things to manage, now there are fewer entities to manage. In this phase, customers discover that their IT staff has time to move away from "day-to-day" tasks and start investing in higher value activities. Database users benefit from consolidating onto shared infrastructures by relieving themselves of the requirement to maintain their own dedicated servers. Also, if the shared infrastructure offers capabilities such as High Availability / Disaster Recovery, which are often beyond the budget and skillset of a standalone database environment, then moving to the consolidation platform can provide access to those capabilities, resulting in less downtime. Capabilities / Characteristics In this phase, customers will typically deploy fixed-size clusters and consolidate on a cluster until that cluster is deemed "full," at which point a new cluster is built. Customers will define one or a few cluster architectures that are used wherever possible; occasionally there may be deployments which must be handled as exceptions. The "full" policy may be based on number of databases deployed on the cluster, or observed peak workload, etc. IT will own the provisioning of new databases on a cluster, making the decision of when and where to place new workloads. Resources may be managed dynamically, e.g., as a priority workload increases, it may be given more CPU and memory to handle the spike. Users will be charged at a fixed, relatively coarse level; or in some cases, no charging will be applied. Activities / Tasks Oracle offers several tools to plan a successful consolidation. Real Application Testing (RAT) has a feature to help plan and validate database consolidations. Enterprise Manager 12c's Cloud Management Pack for Database includes a planning module. Looking ahead, customers should start planning for the Services phase by defining the Service Catalog that will be made available for database services.

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• What is the recommended way to output values to FBO targets? (OpenGL 3.3 + GLSL 330)

  - by datSilencer

  I'll begin by apologizing for any dumb assumptions you might find in the code below since I'm still pretty much green when it comes to OpenGL programming. I'm currently trying to implement deferred shading by using FBO's and their associated targets (textures in my case). I have a simple (I think :P) geometry+fragment shader program and I'd like to write its Fragment Shader stage output to three different render targets (previously bound by a call to glDrawBuffers()), like so: #version 330 in vec3 WorldPos0; in vec2 TexCoord0; in vec3 Normal0; in vec3 Tangent0; layout(location = 0) out vec3 WorldPos; layout(location = 1) out vec3 Diffuse; layout(location = 2) out vec3 Normal; uniform sampler2D gColorMap; uniform sampler2D gNormalMap; vec3 CalcBumpedNormal() { vec3 Normal = normalize(Normal0); vec3 Tangent = normalize(Tangent0); Tangent = normalize(Tangent - dot(Tangent, Normal) * Normal); vec3 Bitangent = cross(Tangent, Normal); vec3 BumpMapNormal = texture(gNormalMap, TexCoord0).xyz; BumpMapNormal = 2 * BumpMapNormal - vec3(1.0, 1.0, -1.0); vec3 NewNormal; mat3 TBN = mat3(Tangent, Bitangent, Normal); NewNormal = TBN * BumpMapNormal; NewNormal = normalize(NewNormal); return NewNormal; } void main() { WorldPos = WorldPos0; Diffuse = texture(gColorMap, TexCoord0).xyz; Normal = CalcBumpedNormal(); } If my render target textures are configured as: RT1:(GL_RGB32F, GL_RGB, GL_FLOAT, GL_TEXTURE0, GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0) RT2:(GL_RGB32F, GL_RGB, GL_FLOAT, GL_TEXTURE1, GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT1) RT3:(GL_RGB32F, GL_RGB, GL_FLOAT, GL_TEXTURE2, GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT2) And assuming that each texture has an internal format capable of contaning the incoming data, will the fragment shader write the corresponding values to the expected texture targets? On a related note, do the textures need to be bound to the OpenGL context when they are Multiple Render Targets? From some Googling, I think there are two other ways to output to MRTs: 1: Output each component to gl_FragData[n]. Some forum posts say this method is deprecated. However, looking at the latest OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0 specifications at opengl.org, the core profiles still mention this approach. 2: Use a typed output array variable for the expected type. In this case, I think it would be something like this: out vec3 [3] output; void main() { output[0] = WorldPos0; output[1] = texture(gColorMap, TexCoord0).xyz; output[2] = CalcBumpedNormal(); } So which is then the recommended approach? Is there a recommended approach at all if I plan to code on top of OpenGL 3.3? Thanks for your time and help!

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• College Ratings via the Federal Government

  - by user9147039

  A few weeks back you might remember news about a higher education rating system proposal from the Obama administration. As I've discussed previously, political and stakeholder pressures to improve outcomes and increase transparency are stronger than ever before. The executive branch proposal is intended to make progress in this area. Quoting from the proposal itself, "The ratings will be based upon such measures as: Access, such as percentage of students receiving Pell grants; Affordability, such as average tuition, scholarships, and loan debt; and Outcomes, such as graduation and transfer rates, graduate earnings, and advanced degrees of college graduates.” This is going to be quite complex, to say the least. Most notably, higher ed is not monolithic. From community and other 2-year colleges, to small private 4-year, to professional schools, to large public research institutions…the many walks of higher ed life are, well, many. Designing a ratings system that doesn't wind up with lots of unintended consequences and collateral damage will be difficult. At best you would end up potentially tarnishing the reputation of certain institutions that were actually performing well against the metrics and outcome measures that make sense in their "context" of education. At worst you could spend a lot of time and resources designing a system that would lose credibility with its "customers". A lot of institutions I work with already have in place systems like the one described above. They are tracking completion rates, completion timeframes, transfers to other institutions, job placement, and salary information. As I talk to these institutions there are several constants worth noting: • Deciding on which metrics to measure is complicated. While employment and salary data are relatively easy to track, qualitative measures are more difficult. How do you quantify the benefit to someone who studies in one field that may not compensate him or her as well as another field but that provides huge personal fulfillment and reward is a difficult measure to quantify? • The data is available but the systems to transform the data into actual information that can be used in meaningful ways are not. Too often in higher ed information is siloed. As such, much of the data that need to be a part of a comprehensive system sit in multiple organizations, oftentimes outside the reach of core IT. • Politics and culture are big barriers. One of the areas that my team and I spend a lot of time talking about with higher ed institutions all over the world is the imperative to optimize for student success. This, like the tracking of the students’ achievement after graduation, requires a level or organizational capacity that does not currently exist. The primary barrier is the culture of "data islands" in higher ed, and the need for leadership to drive out the divisions between departments, schools, colleges, etc. and institute academy-wide analytics and data stewardship initiatives that will enable student success. • Data quality is a very big issue. So many disparate systems exist (some on premise, some "in the cloud") that keep data about "persons" using different means to identify them. Establishing a single source of truth about an individual and his or her data is difficult without some type of data quality policy and tools. Good tools actually exist but are seldom leveraged. Don't misunderstand - I think it's a great idea to drive additional transparency and accountability into the system of higher education. And not just at home, but globally. Students and parents need access to key data to make informed, responsible choices. The tools exist to not only enable this kind of information to be shared but to capture the very metrics stakeholders care most about and in a way that makes sense in the context of a given institution's "place" in the overall higher ed panoply.

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• "Expecting A Different Result?" (2 of 3 in 'No Customer Left Behind' Series)

  - by Kathryn Perry

  A guest post by David Vap, Group Vice President, Oracle Applications Product Development Many companies already have some type of customer experience initiative in process or one that could be framed as such. The challenge is that the initiatives too often are started in a department silo, don't have the right level of executive sponsorship, or have been initiated without the necessary insight and strategic business alignment. You can't keep doing the same things, give it a customer experience name, and expect a different result. You can't continue to just compete on price or features - that is not sustainable in commoditized markets. And ultimately, investing in technology alone doesn't solve customer experience problems; it just adds to the complexity of them. You need a customer experience strategy and approach on how to execute a customer-centric worldview within your business. To develop this, you must take an outside in journey on how your customers are interacting with your business to establish a benchmark of your customers' experiences. Then you must get cross-functional alignment on what you are trying to achieve, near, mid, and long term. Your execution of that strategy should be based on a customer experience approach: Understand your customer: You need to capture the insights across interactions, channels (including social), and personas to better understand whom to serve, how to serve them, and when to serve them. Not all experiences or customers are equal, so leverage this insight to understand the strategic business objectives you need to address. Then determine which experiences can be improved immediately and which over time to get the result you need. Empower your ecosystem: You need to align your front-line employees with your strategy and give them the power, insight, and tools that allow them to cultivate a culture around strengthening the relationships with your customers. You also need to provide the transparency, access, and collaboration that enable your customers and partners to self serve and self solve and to share with ease. Adapt your business: You need to enable the discipline of agility within your organization and infrastructure so that you can innovate, tailor, and personalize experiences. This needs to be done both reactively from insight and proactively in real time so you can stay ahead of shifting market trends and evolving consumer behaviors. No longer will the old approaches provide the same returns. To compete, differentiate, and win in a world where the customer has the power, you must execute a strategy that is sure to deliver a better brand experience for your customers. Note: This is Part 2 in a three-part series. Part 1 is here. Stop back for Part 3 on November 28.

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• Best practice for organizing/storing character/monster data in an RPG?

  - by eclecto

  Synopsis: Attempting to build a cross-platform RPG app in Adobe Flash Builder and am trying to figure out the best class hierarchy and the best way to store the static data used to build each of the individual "hero" and "monster" types. My programming experience, particularly in AS3, is embarrassingly small. My ultra-alpha method is to include a "_class" object in the constructor for each instance. The _class, in turn, is a static Object pulled from a class created specifically for that purpose, so things look something like this: // Character.as package { public class Character extends Sprite { public var _strength:int; // etc. public function Character(_class:Object) { _strength = _class._strength; // etc. } } } // MonsterClasses.as package { public final class MonsterClasses extends Object { public static const Monster1:Object={ _strength:50, // etc. } // etc. } } // Some other class in which characters/monsters are created. // Create a new instance of Character var myMonster = new Character(MonsterClasses.Monster1); Another option I've toyed with is the idea of making each character class/monster type its own subclass of Character, but I'm not sure if it would be efficient or even make sense considering that these classes would only be used to store variables and would add no new methods. On the other hand, it would make creating instances as simple as var myMonster = new Monster1; and potentially cut down on the overhead of having to read a class containing the data for, at a conservative preliminary estimate, over 150 monsters just to fish out the one monster I want (assuming, and I really have no idea, that such a thing might cause any kind of slowdown in execution). But long story short, I want a system that's both efficient at compile time and easy to work with during coding. Should I stick with what I've got or try a different method? As a subquestion, I'm also assuming here that the best way to store data that will be bundled with the final game and not read externally is simply to declare everything in AS3. Seems to me that if I used, say, XML or JSON I'd have to use the associated AS3 classes and methods to pull in the data, parse it, and convert it to AS3 object(s) anyway, so it would be inefficient. Right?

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