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• Indie Software Developers - How do I handle taxes?

  - by Connor

  I apologize if this is the wrong site to post on, perhaps someone could point me to the proper place if it is not. Hello, I am 17 years old and currently develop applications/games for Android and iPhone as well as develop internet websites and code a variety of my own projects. I have been very fortunate and have made a large amount of money and continue to make money online to the point where I do not need a stable job, though I'd like to get one after college. I've never held a job anywhere, and have never had to pay taxes. I'm coming into a lot of issues and I am quite confused. I get money from MANY sources- 15 different advertisement networks(!), 4 different payment processors, 5 different affiliate networks and a variety of other sources. All of them pay to different places and at different times (checking account, PayPal, reloadable debit card, ect.) I essentially have a list in a Notepad with names and login information for each source. I have also created a PHP script that uses cURL to grab all the revenue from each service, add it all up, then text me every few hours so I can keep track. It's a mess, but it's working OK, and I can create custom reports (for IRS?). But enough of that, my questions are about taxes in the US, and how indie developers handle it all. I'm at slightly over $250k so far this year, with negligible earnings last year. I have it all stockpiled in a bank account and haven't touched it, I'm a bit scared to. What do I file as? A sole proprietor, a business, just a regular person? How can I handle all of the different revenue sources? (AdSense, CJ, LinkShare) So far none of them have sent me any paperwork on taxes and I've read that I'm supposed to pay taxes quarterly? Do I need paperwork from EACH source to file? Or can I just say I got $x total and that'd be it? What percentage do you pay of total earnings? Average? Should I create an LLC? A corporation? Or stay as a developer? What would be the cheapest options? Could I go to jail? I haven't touched the money except a few dollars to help my parents pay the mortgage once. Any insight would be great. My parents have no idea what I should do, both have no forms of higher education and both have no high school diploma's. They just live day by day with simple jobs. I appreciate any help or experience with this.

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• Amazon.com Cutting Off Colorado Affiliates

  - by Joe Mayo

  I received an email from Amazon.com today, essentially cutting off my affiliate status because I'm in Colorado. Colorado recently passed legislation that requires retailers to either collect sales tax for on-line transactions or engage in an onerous process that makes you wish you had collected sales tax.  After I Tweeted this, Mike Jones tweeted a link to the legislation.  Here's an excerpt from Amazon.com's email: "Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate: We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to "voluntarily" collect Colorado sales tax -- a course we won't take. We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states. There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates. You may express your views of Colorado's new law to members of the General Assembly and to Governor Ritter, who signed the bill. Your Associates account has been closed as of March 8, 2010, and we will no longer pay advertising fees for customers you refer to Amazon.com after that date. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to March 8, 2010, will be processed and paid in accordance with our regular payment schedule. Based on your account closure date of March 8, any final payments will be paid by May 31, 2010. We have enjoyed working with you and other Colorado-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.   Best Regards,   The Amazon Associates Team"

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• Second Edition of Regular Expressions Cookbook Has Been Published

  - by Jan Goyvaerts

  %COOKBOOKFRAME% The first edition of Regular Expressions Cookbook was published in May of 2009. It quickly became a bestseller, briefly holding the #1 spot in computer books on Amazon.com. It also had staying power. The ebook version was O’Reilly’s top seller during the whole year of 2010. So it’s no surprise that our editor at O’Reilly soon contacted us for a second edition. With Steven and I always being very busy, those plans were delayed until finally both of us found the time to update the book. Work started in January. Today you can buy your own copy of the second edition of Regular Expressions Cookbook. O’Reilly’s online shop sells the eBook in DRM-free ePub, Mobi, and PDF formats for $39.99 and the print version for $49.99. These are the list prices for the eBook and the print book. If you’re looking for a discount and free shipping of the print book, you can pre-order on one of the various Amazon sites. Deliveries should start soon. The discount rates differ and are subject to change. Amazon will also pay me an affiliate commission if you use one of these links, which pretty much doubles the income I get from the book. Amazon.com. Free shipping to the USA. Amazon.co.uk. Free shipping to the UK and Ireland. Amazon.fr. Free shipping to France, Monaco, Luxembourg, and Belgium. Amazon.de. Free shipping to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Belgium, and The Netherlands. If you don’t want to wait for the print book to arrive, the Kindle edition is already available for instant delivery. The Kindle edition works on Amazon’s Kindle hardware, and on PCs via Amazon’s Kindle software (free download). Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk Amazon.fr Amazon.de I’ll blog more about the book in the coming days and weeks with details about what’s new in the second edition.

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• How do I prevent ISPs from killing downloads of files in mid-transfer?

  - by Gorchestopher H

  I run a small website with a few users, low traffic, mostly to share personal mp3 files with a small community. Depending on their ISP, my users can't always download or stream larger files. By larger I mean larger than 1MB. Essentially the host either stops sending, or the client stops receiving. One of the links along the connection chain simply ends its connection before the transfer completes Trace-route shows no connection issues. There are no connection issues with short transfers that don't take more than a few seconds. It's these 10 second transfers that just end up ending. Just doing a straight download with a direct link can yield this error if you have the wrong ISP. Strangely enough, this is most common with users with ISPs who are essentially independent providers that buy service via a fiber link. Unfortunately these providers aren't very knowledgeable, are unable to do any testing, and insist it's a problem with the host. I have gotten my host to transfer my site to different servers of their, to the same effect. Nearly identical sites (affiliate sites actually) experience no such issue. What can I be doing to further troubleshoot this matter? How can I prove that someone is dropping the ball, and identify who that party is? Can I do a 5Mb traceroute? EDIT Maybe I can clear up some misconceptions with my question: The files are not very large. They are simply over 2Mb. The users do not have "slow" connections, they are at least 5mbps. This "time out" happens very quickly, in the realm of 5 seconds, so I don't know if it's a timeout or not. The user often gets 1 or 2Mb in this chunk of time. I have tried streaming with a flash player. I have tried saving the target. Forcing the download. I have tried allowing the browser to stream the file. I have tried different browsers (FF, IE, Chrome). Users are able to download identical files when on different hosts.

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• Staying anonymous while hosting your site?

  - by jamesCroft

  I don't mean anonymous surfing. I mean hosting and having your own domain and such. The reason is that my blog is about religious/political topics which may cause me trouble in the future. This is the domain I am working on: www.james-croft.com I know that using Whois search my name can come up: http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/james-croft.com The solution to that, as far as I understood, is to buy a privacy package from the domain registrar. in my case it is lucky register: http://i.stack.imgur.com/uvOdc.png Also hosting is a concern. I use the same hosting service for multiple websites. My question is this: Can my hosting be tracked and be used to identify me? Also: Are there other methods of finding out my identity from either Google Adsense or Amazon affiliate programs? I couldn't find any relevant articles online. If there is anything else that is relevant, please let me know. I appreciate any response.

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• How can I tell my dd-wrt router to use someone's Amazon Affiliates link when I point my browser to amazon.com?

  - by Michael Paul

  Here's what I'd like to do. Instead of a one-time donation to one of my favorite free tools (junecloud.com) I'd like to do what they suggest here and use their Amazon Affiliates link to do all my Amazon shopping. I shop at amazon once or twice a week, so this is a great way to let them earn lots of long-term cash without me dropping a dime. My thought was to go into my dd-wrt enabled router and tell it, "any time I go to amazon.com on any computer in the house, please go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?link_code=ur2&tag=junecloud-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&location=%2F instead. (That URL simply redirects me to amazon.com but every purchase I make during that session is credited to JuneCloud.) Once logged into dd-wrt, I went to Services Services DNSMasq but I'm not really sure how to get it to work from there, or if it's even possible. I know I can redirect IP addresses, but I'm looking to redirect someone on my network from amazon.com to the special amazon affiliate code link. Hope that's clear. Thanks for any replies!

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• How to Watch NCAA March Madness Online

  - by DigitalGeekery

  You’ve filled out your brackets and now you are ready for one of America’s most popular sporting events. But what if you are you stuck at work or away from your TV?  Or your local affiliate is showing a different game? Today we show how to catch all the March Madness online. March Madness on Demand You’ll need a broadband connection, 512 MB RAM or higher, with cookies and Javascript enabled in your browser. March Madness on Demand offers two viewing options, a Standard Player and a High Quality player. The High Quality player is not, unfortunately, high definition. Standard Player Requirements Windows XP/Vista/7 or Mac OS X IE 6+ (We also successfully tested it in Firefox, Chrome, & Opera) Adobe Flash Player 9 or higher High Quality Player Requirements 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 or Intel-based Macintosh Mac OS 10.4.8+ (Intel-based) Windows: XP SP2, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008, Windows 7 Firefox 1.5+ or IE 6/7/8 Silverlight 3 browser plug-in Watching March Madness on Demand Go to the March Madness on Demand website. (Link below) Check the “Watch in High Quality” section to see if your browser is ready and compatible for the High Quality viewer. If not, you’ll see a message indicating either your browser and system are incompatible… Or that you need to install Silverlight. To install Silverlight, click on the “Get HQ” button and follow the prompts to download and install Silverlight. To launch the player, click the large red “Launch Player” button. At the top of the screen, you’ll see the current and upcoming games. Click on “Watch Now” below to begin watching. At the bottom left, is where you click to watch with the High Quality player. If to many people are watching the High Quality player, you’ll see the following message and have to go back to the Standard Player. At the lower right are volume controls, a “Full Screen” button, and a “Share” button which allows you to share the game you are watching on various social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Perhaps most importantly for those who want to steal a bit of viewing time while at work is the “Boss Button” at the top right. Clicking on the “Boss Button” will open a fake Office document so it may appear at first glance like you’re actually doing legitimate work. To return to the game, click anywhere on the screen with your mouse. You’ll be able to catch every single game of the tournament from the first round all the way through the championship with March Madness on Demand. If your computer and Internet connection can handle it, you can even watch multiple games at the same time by opening March Madness on Demand in multiple browser windows. Watch March Madness online Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Weekend Fun: Watch Television on Your PC with AnyTVWatch NFL Sunday Night Football On Your PCWatch TV On Your PC with FreeZ Online TVGeek Fun: Download Favorite NBC Programs for FreeDitch the RealPlayer Bloat with Real Alternative TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional How to Browse Privately in Firefox Kill Processes Quickly with Process Assassin Need to Come Up with a Good Name? Try Wordoid StockFox puts a Lightweight Stock Ticker in your Statusbar Explore Google Public Data Visually The Ultimate Excel Cheatsheet

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• Get to Know a Candidate (3 of 25): Virgil Goode&ndash;Constitution Party

  - by Brian Lanham

  DISCLAIMER: This is not a post about “Romney” or “Obama”. This is not a post for whom I am voting. Information sourced for Wikipedia. Meet Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party Goode was served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1997 to 2009. He represented the 5th congressional district of Virginia. Goode was born in Richmond, Virginia, the son of Alice Clara (née Besecker) and Virgil Hamlin Goode. He has spent most of his life in Rocky Mount. Goode graduated with a B.A. from the University of Richmond (Phi Beta Kappa) and with a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He also is a member of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity and served in the Army National Guard from 1969 to 1975. Goode grew up as a Democrat. He entered politics soon after graduating from law school. At the age of 27, he won a special election to the state Senate from a Southside district as an independent after the death of the Democratic incumbent. One of his major campaign focuses at the time was advocacy for the Equal Rights Amendment. Soon after being elected, he joined the Democrats. Goode wore his party ties very loosely. He became famous for his support of the tobacco industry, expressing his fear that "his elderly mother would be denied 'the one last pleasure' of smoking a cigarette on her hospital deathbed." He was an ardent defender of gun rights while being an enthusiastic supporter of L. Douglas Wilder, who later became the first elected black governor in the history of the United States. At the Democratic Party's state political convention in 1985, Goode nominated Wilder for lieutenant governor. However, while governor, Wilder cracked down on the sale of guns in the state. After the 1995 elections resulted in a 20–20 split between Democrats and Republicans in the State Senate, Goode seriously considered voting with the Republicans on organizing the chamber. Had he done so, the State Senate would have been under Republican control for the first time since Reconstruction (the Republicans ultimately won control outright in 1999). Goode's actions at the time "forced his party to share power with Republican lawmakers in the state legislature," which further upset the Democratic Party. Goode is on the ballot in CA, FL, ID, IO, LA, MI, MN, MS, MI, NJ, NM, NY, NV, ND, OH, SC, SD, TN, UT, VA, WA, WI, WY.  He is a write-in candidate in CA, CT, DC, GA, IL, IN, ME, MD, MA, MO, NC, TX, VT, WV Constitution Party This party was founded as the “U.S. Taxpayers’ Party” and considers itself conservative. The party's platform is predicated on the principles of the nation's founding documents. The party puts a large focus on immigration, calling for stricter penalties towards illegal immigrants and a moratorium on legal immigration until all federal subsidies to immigrants are discontinued.The party absorbed the American Independent Party, originally founded for George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign. The American Independent Party of California has been an affiliate of the Constitution Party since its founding; however, current party leadership is disputed and the issue is in court to resolve this conflict. The Constitution Party has some substantial support from the Christian Right and in 2010 achieved major party status in Colorado. Learn more about Virgil Goode and Constitution Party on Wikipedia.

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• CFOs: Do You Have a Playbook for Growth?

  - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies

  by Jim Lein, Oracle Midsize Programs In most global markets, CFOs are optimistic about their company's growth opportunities. Deloitte's CFO Signals Report, "Time to Accelerate" found that: In the U.K. business optimism is at its highest level in three-and-a-half years Optimism in North America rose from a strong +42% last quarter (Q2 to Q3 2013) to an even stronger +54%. The inaugural Southeast Asia survey, 44% of CFOs reported a positive outlook despite worries over the Chinese economy and political uncertainty. Sustainable and profitable business growth doesn't usually happen by accident. Company's need a playbook for growth that's owned by the CFO. And today, that playbook must leverage the six enabling technologies--Social, Big Data, Mobile, Cloud, Analytics, and The Internet of Things (or, as Oracle president Mark Hurd explains, "The Internet of the People"). On Monday June 9 at  2:00 pm Eastern, CFO.com is hosting a webcast, "The CFO Playbook on Growth: How CFOs Can Boost Efficiency and Performance with Automation". Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} “Investing in technology begins with a business metric driven business case with clear tangible business results expected," says John Lieblang, Affiliate Partner with Waterstone Management Group. "The progressive CFO has learned how to forge a partnership with the CIO to align everyone in the 'result value chain' to be accountable for the business results not just for functional technology.” Click HERE to register  Looking for more news and information about Oracle Solutions for Midsize Companies? Read the latest Oracle for Midsize Companies Newsletter Sign-up to receive the latest communications from Oracle’s industry leaders and experts Jim Lein I evangelize Oracle's enterprise solutions for growing midsize companies. I recently celebrated 15 years with Oracle, having joined JD Edwards in 1999. I'm based in Evergreen, Colorado and love relating stories about creativity and innovation whether they be about software, live music, or the mountains. The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of Oracle.

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• Diff between <head id="Head1" runat="server"> and <asp:ContentPlaceHolder runat="server" ID="HeadCon

  - by justSteve

  Looking for an better understanding of how an mvc project should define javascript and css includes. I'm working with sample code where includes are defined like: <head id="Head1" runat="server"> <title><asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="TitleContent" runat="server" />Affiliate Checkout</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> <meta http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache"> <script type="text/javascript" src="/Scripts/jquery.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/Scripts/jquery-ui-1.7.2.custom.min.js"></script> . . . <asp:ContentPlaceHolder runat="server" ID="HeadContent"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </head> I'm reading that to be that _all pages looking at this MasterPage will get jquery and jqueryUI and, additionally, each page will have the opportunity to add head elements thankx to the content placeholder HeadContent tag. The specific problem i'm troubleshooting is an instance where my rendered page is not including the 'prama no-cache' tag - as you see, it's defined in the upper level header section. Other .js and .css elements are making it into the rendered page so it very confusing to see that the no-cache tag isn't. When execute a 'View Generated Source' - the 'charset' is present the 'no-cache' is not.

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• Text mining on large database (data mining)

  - by yox

  Hello, I have a large database of resumes (CV), and a certain table skills grouping all users skills. inside that table there's a field skill_text that describes the skill in full text. I'm looking for an algorithm/software/method to extract significant terms/phrases from that table in order to build a new table with standarized skills.. Here are some examples skills extracted from the DB : Sectoral and competitive analysis Business Development (incl. in international settings) Specific structure and road design software - Microstation, Macao, AutoCAD (basic knowledge) Creative work (Photoshop, In-Design, Illustrator) checking and reporting back on campaign progress organising and attending events and exhibitions Development : Aptana Studio, PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, AJAX Discipline: One to one marketing, E-marketing (SEO & SEA, display, emailing, affiliate program) Mix marketing, Viral Marketing, Social network marketing. The output shoud be something like : Sectoral and competitive analysis Business Development Specific structure and road design software - Macao AutoCAD Photoshop In-Design Illustrator organising events Development Aptana Studio PHP HTML CSS JavaScript SQL AJAX Mix marketing Viral Marketing Social network marketing emailing SEO One to one marketing As you see only skills remains no other representation text. I know this is possible using text mining technics but how to do it ? the database is realy large.. it's a good thing because we can calculate text frequency and decide if it's a real skill or just meaningless text... The big problem is .. how to determin that "blablabla" is a skill ? thanks

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• not a valid AllXsd value

  - by jun

  I got this from a Soap client request: Exception: SoapFault exception: [soap:Client] Server was unable to read request. --- There is an error in XML document (2, 273). --- The string '2010-5-24' is not a valid AllXsd value. in /path/filinet.php:21 Stack trace: #0 [internal function]: SoapClient-__call('SubIdDetailsByO...', Array) #1 /path/filinet.php(21): SoapClient-SubIdDetailsByOfferId(Array) #2 {main} Seems like I am sending an incorrect value, how do I format my value in an AllXsd in php? Here is my code: <?php $start = isset($_GET['start']) ? $_GET['start'] : date("Y-m-d"); $end = isset($_GET['end']) ? $_GET['end'] : date("Y-m-d"); //define parameter array $param = array('userName'=>'user', 'password'=>'pass', 'startDate' => $start, 'endDate' => $end, 'promotionId' => ''); //Get wsdl path $serverPath = "https://webservices.filinet.com/affiliate/reports.asmx?WSDL"; //Declare Soap client $client = new SoapClient($serverPath); try { //make the call $result = $client->SubIdDetailsByOfferId($param); //If error found display error if(isset($fault)) { echo "Error: ". $fault; } //If no error display response else { //Used to display raw XML in the Web Browser header("Content-Type: text/xml;"); //SubIdDetailsResult = XML results echo $result->SubIdDetailsByOfferIdResult; } } catch(SoapFault $ex) { echo "<b>Exception:</b> ". $ex; } unset($client); ?>

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• Building an *efficient* if/then interface for non-technical users to build flow-control in PHP

  - by Brendan

  I am currently building an internal tool to be used by our management to control the flow of traffic. I have built an if/then interface allowing the user to set conditions for certain outcomes, however it is inefficient to use the switch statement to control the flow. How can I improve the efficiency of my code? Example of code: if($previous['route_id'] == $condition['route_id'] && $failed == 0) //if we have not moved on to a new set of rules and we haven't failed yet { switch($condition['type']) { case 0 : $type = $user['hour']; break; case 1 : $type = $user['location']['region_abv']; break; case 2 : $type = $user['referrer_domain']; break; case 3 : $type = $user['affiliate']; break; case 4 : $type = $user['location']['country_code']; break; case 5 : $type = $user['location']['city']; break; } $type = strtolower($type); $condition['value'] = strtolower($condition['value']); switch($condition['operator']) { case 0 : if($type == $condition['value']); else $failed = '1'; break; case 1 : if($type != $condition['value']); else $failed = '1'; break; case 2 : if($type > $condition['value']); else $failed = '1'; break; case 3 : if($type >= $condition['value']); else $failed = '1'; break; case 4 : if($type < $condition['value']); else $failed = '1'; break; case 5 : if($type <= $condition['value']); else $failed = '1'; break; } }

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• CSS Menus having cross browser problems

  - by George

  I am trying to solve a problem with a CSS menu where the menu does not display properly in IE 6 I see that the HTML has some conditional code to make it work with different browsers but I do not understand it well enough. Can someone suggest a fix so the selected tab in order displayed without the grey breaK? Thanks! #pad { height: 140px; } .dropline { position: relative; padding-bottom: 0px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; padding-left: 0px; width: 860px; padding-right: 0px; background: url(../images/menus/ulback.gif) repeat-x; height: 40px; top: 0px; list-style-image: none; padding-top: 0px; left: 5px; } .dropline TABLE { margin: -3px -10px; width: 25px; border-collapse: collapse; height: 17px; } .dropline LI { margin-bottom: 0px; float: left; } .dropline LI A { padding-bottom: 0px; line-height: 40px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 19px; display: block; font-family: tahoma, sans-serif; float: left; height: 40px; color: #fff; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; padding-top: 0px; } .dropline A { text-align: right; padding-bottom: 0px; line-height: 40px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 19px; font-family: tahoma, sans-serif; float: right; height: 40px; color: #fff; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; padding-top: 0px; } .dropline A:hover { color: yellow; } .welcomeuser { text-align: right; padding-bottom: 0px; line-height: 40px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 0px; font-family: tahoma, sans-serif; float: right; height: 40px; color: #fff; clear: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; padding-top: 0px; } .dropline LI A B { padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: left; height: 40px; cursor: pointer; padding-top: 0px; } .dropline UL { z-index: 10; border-bottom: #fff 1px solid; position: absolute; padding-bottom: 0px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; width: 860px; padding-right: 0px; background: #f8f8f8; height: 25px; border-top: #ff9933 3px solid; top: 40px; list-style-image: none; padding-top: 0px; left: -9999px; } .dropline UL LI { line-height: 25px; height: 25px; } .dropline UL.right LI { float: right; } .dropline UL LI A { padding-bottom: 0px; line-height: 25px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; height: 25px; color: #000; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; border-right: #e60 1px solid; padding-top: 0px; } .dropline UL LI A:hover { line-height: 25px; background: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; height: 25px; color: #c60; } .dropline UL.right LI A { border-left: #e60 1px solid; border-right: 0px; } .dropline UL LI A.last { border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; } .dropline :hover UL { left: 0px; } .dropline LI.current UL { z-index: 1; left: 0px; } .dropline LI.current A { line-height: 36px; background: url(../images/menus/tab_a.gif) no-repeat right top; height: 44px; } .dropline LI.current A B { line-height: 36px; background: url(../images/menus/tab_b.gif) no-repeat left top; } .dropline LI.current UL LI A { padding-bottom: 0px; line-height: 25px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; background: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; height: 25px; color: #000; padding-top: 0px; } .dropline LI.current UL LI.current_sub A { color: #c60; } .dropline LI.current UL LI A:hover { color: #c60; } <div id="top_nav"> <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="phTopNav" runat="server"> <!-- MENU --> <ul id="dropline" class="dropline" runat="server" style="left: -6px; top: -2px; width:1000px;" clientidmode="Static"> <li runat="server" id="Home"> <a runat="server" id="lnkHome" href="../Default.aspx" title="Go to the Home page"><b>Home</b> <!--[if gte IE 7]><!--></a> <!--<![endif]--> <!--[if lte IE 6]> <table> <tr> <td> <![endif]--><!--[if lte IE 6]> </td> </tr> </table> </a><![endif]--> </li> <li runat="server" id="ApplyNow"> <a runat="server" id="lnkEditOrder" href="../OrderChinaVisa.aspx" title="Use our Price Calculator and simultaneously begin the China Visa application process!"><b>Apply Now!</b> <!--[if gte IE 7]><!--></a> <!--<![endif]--> <!--[if lte IE 6]> <table> <tr> <td> <![endif]--><!--[if lte IE 6]> </td> </tr> </table> </a><![endif]--> </li> <li runat="server" id="CheckStatus"> <a id="lnkCheckStatus" runat="server" href="../Check_Status.aspx" title="Check on the status of a placed order"><b>Check Status</b><!--[if gte IE 7]><!--></a><!--<![endif]--> <!--[if lte IE 6]> <table> <tr> <td> <![endif]--><!--[if lte IE 6]> </td> </tr> </table> </a><![endif]--></li> <li runat="server" id="Affiliate"> <a id="lnkAffiliate" runat="server" href="../Secure/VisaActivity.aspx" title=""><b>Affiliate</b><!--[if gte IE 7]><!--></a><!--<![endif]--> <!--[if lte IE 6]> <table> <tr> <td> <![endif]--><!--[if lte IE 6]> </td> </tr> </table> </a><![endif]--></li> </ul> </asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </div>

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• Location redirect - is tracking possible ?

  - by Gerald Ferreira

  Hi there, I was wondering if someone can help me, I have the following script that redirect users to an affiliate link when they click on a banner. <?php $targets = array( 'site1' => 'http://www.site1.com/', 'site2' => 'http://www.site2.com/', 'site3' => 'http://www.site3.com/', 'site4' => 'http://www.site4.com/', ); if (isset($targets[$_GET['id']])) { header('Location: '.$targets[$_GET['id']]); exit; } ?> Is it possible to track when a user hits the banner telling me the referer site as well as the ip address of the person clicking on the banner. hmmmm something like pixel tracking? I have tried to add an iframe that does the tracking but it creates an error Hope it makes sense Thanks! This is more or less how I would have done it in asp <% var Command1 = Server.CreateObject ("ADODB.Command"); Command1.ActiveConnection = MM_cs_stats_STRING; Command1.CommandText = "INSERT INTO stats.g_stats (g_stats_ip, g_stats_referer) VALUES (?, ? ) "; Command1.Parameters.Append(Command1.CreateParameter("varg_stats_ip", 200, 1, 20, (String(Request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_ADDR")) != "undefined" && String(Request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_ADDR")) != "") ? String(Request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_ADDR")) : String(Command1__varg_stats_ip))); Command1.Parameters.Append(Command1.CreateParameter("varg_stats_referer", 200, 1, 255, (String(Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")) != "undefined" && String(Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")) != "") ? String(Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")) : String(Command1__varg_stats_referer))); Command1.CommandType = 1; Command1.CommandTimeout = 0; Command1.Prepared = true; Command1.Execute(); %> I am not sure how to do it in php - unfortunately for me the hosting is only supporting php so I am more or less clueless on how to do it in php I was thinking if I can somehow call a picture I can do it with pixel tracking in anoter asp page, on another server. Hope this makes better sense

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• Using nohup mysqldump from php script is inserting a '!' and breaking to a new line.

  - by Aglystas

  I'm trying to run a mysqldump from php using the nohup command to prevent the script from hanging. Here's the command (The database is mc6_erik_test, everything else is just a table list until you get to the end) exec("mysqldump -u root -pPassword -h vfmy1-dev.mountainmedia.com mc6_erik_test access_log admin affiliate affiliate_2_product authorized_ip category category_2_product claim_code claim_code_log country_exclude customer customer_2_subscription customer_account_log customer_address customer_bill customer_discount customer_ip customer_key email_bulk_log email_draft email_queue email_queue_log email_template endicia_log gift_wrap image_bulk_upload log mailing_list manufacturer merchant merchant_checkout merchant_ip merchant_ship merchant_ship_conf new_account_temp order_dest order_item order_item_2_dest order_item_2_package order_item_log order_item_registrant order_note order_package order_package_label orders package package_2_product pref product product_2_supplier product_also product_event_date product_image product_option product_related product_review product_review_helpful product_ship_disable report search_log subscription supplier temp_product transaction_account transactions wish_list wish_list_fill wish_list_item --opt --where='merchant_id=\'6\'' /tmp/sync_db_card_20100519105358.sql"); As you can see it's really long, because I have to specifically include only the tables I want to dump. The command works great from the command line, however when I run it through a web script towards the end the following is being used as the command... supplier temp_product transaction_account transactio! ns wish_list wish_list_fill wish_list_item --opt --where='merchant_id="6"' > /tmp/sync_db_card_20100519105358.sql So the table 'transactions' is being split by an exclamation point and newline. The rest of the command is exactly the same. And if I run this through the php-cli interface it doesn't happen only when I try running it via the webserver using nohup. I'm wondering if there is some inherit string length to using the exec command within a php script, or really if anyone has any general idea what is going on here.

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• What is your favorite API developer community site? And why? [closed]

  - by whatupwilly

  There are a lot of great sites out there that offer good documentation, tools, tips, best-practices, sample code, etc. for the API's they are publishing. A sample: http://apiwiki.twitter.com http://developer.netflix.com/ http://developers.facebook.com/ https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/advertising/api/detail/main.html http://code.google.com/ http://remix.bestbuy.com/ http://www.flickr.com/services/api/misc.overview.html http://products.wolframalpha.com/api/webserviceapi.html There are some no-brainers that I think a good developer site should have: Hi level introduction Quick start guide API specific details - showing example request and responses Links to sample code and/or 3rd party libraries Developer registration (e.g. get an API key) Blog But what about some other things: Online-Forum or Msg Board vs. Google Group (or similar) Galleries/ShowCases - spotlighting great apps built on the API - who has done nice galleries? Community Wiki - How do people feel about letting the community have edit rights on API documentation pages Online testing tools (like Facebook has a lot of nice interactive tools to simulate request/responses) What are some packages that you would recommend to put this all together: pbwiki Google Group pages MediaWiki API vendor package such as Sonoa Systems that offers a customizable developer portal So, to summarize: What are some other great API developer portals out there What are some nice features you like on them Any recommendations on what to use to build these features out Thanks, Will Zappos.com Public API (soon to launch) Product Manager

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• Hosting images from unsecured servers (travelnow.com)

  - by i.am.not.aids

  Hi, My application needs to serve images hosted in travelnow.com (ie. this image) but the application only allow images hosted on a secured server (ie. https). What are my options? TravelNow's suggestion is as follows. How do I do this? Akamai image servers are not secure. Therefore you are unable to serve any of the image urls with a secure HTTPS URL. If you need to serve an image with HTTPS, you must temporarily save the image to your own secure server. This is suggested only for images to be saved as you use them or need them temporarily on the secure page. The hotel images file available from the Affiliate Center provides up to 1.5 million URLs at any time for all properties storing images in the Akamai system. It is not recommended or advised to store all files in advance on your own system since properties change and update images frequently. Although we are not responsible for the images each property stores on the Akamai system, YOU will be responsible for any customer issues arising from displaying outdated or saved image files on your own pages. Thanks! Adrian

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• Switch front-end's of a website after X amount of hits

  - by Derek Adair

  Sorry about the title - not sure what to call this one. A client of mine would like to redirect users to different front-ends of his eCommerce site based on a hit-counter (possibly a timer?). important: -The content is moderately different in the two sites, enough to consider them two different websites. Knowing this client he will likely add more drastic content changes and other front-ends. So for this question consider the content to be -This site has a rather large back-end. With affiliate networking, multiple payment gateways, order-tracking, and several other features in the works. It is essential that these two front-ends have identical back-end functionality I know that if it was just a simple CSS swap this would be as simple as an if statement that ran off some kind of counter stored in a DB... but the different HTML markup is throwing me for a loop. Q: How can I serve two different front-ends (HTML/CSS) based on a hit counter? Also, I don't have any clue what to tag this one as...

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• Trying to compress some PHP code

  - by blachawk

  I'm using PHP 5.2.9 at the very moment. Is there a way to compress this code this way it's easier to read or taking less line items? if ($is_read_only == true) { echo ($affiliate['affiliate_gender'] == 'm') ? MALE : FEMALE; } elseif ($error == true) { if ($entry_gender_error == true) { echo tep_draw_radio_field('a_gender', 'm', $male) . '&nbsp;&nbsp;' . MALE . '&nbsp;&nbsp;' . tep_draw_radio_field('a_gender', 'f', $female) . '&nbsp;&nbsp;' . FEMALE . '&nbsp;' . ENTRY_GENDER_ERROR; } else { echo ($a_gender == 'm') ? MALE : FEMALE; echo tep_draw_hidden_field('a_gender'); } } else { echo tep_draw_radio_field('a_gender', 'm', $male) . '&nbsp;&nbsp;' . MALE . '&nbsp;&nbsp;' . tep_draw_radio_field('a_gender', 'f', $female) . '&nbsp;&nbsp;' . FEMALE . '&nbsp;' . ENTRY_GENDER_TEXT; }

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• Looking for home networking hardware and software advice

  - by phobos7

  Note: I originally wrote this up in a blog post. I've removed any affiliate links that I put in my original post to ensure I don't annoy anybody. I've recently moved home and I now need to go to the trouble of sorting out my home network yet again. We had Virgin broadband in Hertford but you can't get Virgin in the street we've moved to so I've had to go with O2 Broadband. Normally I prefer to use my own hardward, and previously used the DLink DIR-655 router which was great, but in this situation I am using the O2 Wirelss Box III since I only have an old Netgear DG834PN Wireless G modem router and I'd rather be using Wireless N. Anyway, the place we have moved into has only one phone point in the hallway, has the best TV point in one room and the best place to put the TV and other entertainment stuff in yet another room. So, networking the house up for Internet and TV is required. The diagram below shows the things that I'll have in my home network but there are three points where I'm not quite sure what hardware to us. Wireless Access Point/Bridge, that acts only as a wireless to wire bridge and not an AP, that links up a Media Centre/PC and a couple of consoles to the network. I'm pretty much settled on us an Acer Aspire Revo R3600 as my media PC, probably with Ubuntu or Windows and XBMC installed. Wireless Access Point/Bridge, that acts only as a wireless to wire bridge and not an AP, that links up a device that can decode and stream TV from a TV aerial across the network. The device that is connected to 2). At the moment I'm considering a HDHomeRun by SiliconDust. At the moment I'm considering either the TP LINK TL-WA701ND 150Mbps Wireless Lite N Access Point (very cheap at Amazon) or the Netgear 5 GHz Wireless-N HD Access Point/Bridge. I'd love to get some insight into what you would do in my situation. What Wireless Access Point/Bridge should I put at points 1) and 2)? What device should I choose for point 3) that can decode and stream a TV signal? Is the Acer Aspire Revo R3600 a good choice? ![alt text][6] Note 2: I've also posted this question on AVForums.

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• Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in NetBeans IDE

  - by Geertjan

  When you need to connect to Amazon Web Services, NetBeans IDE gives you a nice start. You can drag and drop the "itemSearch" service into a Java source file and then various Amazon files are generated for you. From there, you need to do a little bit of work because the request to Amazon needs to be signed before it can be used. Here are some references and places that got me started: http://associates-amazon.s3.amazonaws.com/signed-requests/helper/index.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSSimpleQueueService/latest/SQSGettingStartedGuide/AWSCredentials.html https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/flex/advertising/api/sign-in.html You definitely need to sign up to the Amazon Associates program and also register/create an Access Key ID, which will also get you a Secret Key, as well. Here's a simple Main class that I created that hooks into the generated RestConnection/RestResponse code created by NetBeans IDE: public static void main(String[] args) {    try {        String searchIndex = "Books";        String keywords = "Romeo and Juliet";        RestResponse result = AmazonAssociatesService.itemSearch(searchIndex, keywords);        String dataAsString = result.getDataAsString();        int start = dataAsString.indexOf("<Author>")+8;        int end = dataAsString.indexOf("</Author>");        System.out.println(dataAsString.substring(start,end));    } catch (Exception ex) {        ex.printStackTrace();    }} Then I deleted the generated properties file and the authenticator and changed the generated AmazonAssociatesService.java file to the following: public class AmazonAssociatesService {    private static void sleep(long millis) {        try {            Thread.sleep(millis);        } catch (Throwable th) {        }    }    public static RestResponse itemSearch(String searchIndex, String keywords) throws IOException {        SignedRequestsHelper helper;        RestConnection conn = null;        Map queryMap = new HashMap();        queryMap.put("Service", "AWSECommerceService");        queryMap.put("AssociateTag", "myAssociateTag");        queryMap.put("AWSAccessKeyId", "myAccessKeyId");        queryMap.put("Operation", "ItemSearch");        queryMap.put("SearchIndex", searchIndex);        queryMap.put("Keywords", keywords);        try {            helper = SignedRequestsHelper.getInstance(                    "ecs.amazonaws.com",                    "myAccessKeyId",                    "mySecretKey");            String sign = helper.sign(queryMap);            conn = new RestConnection(sign);        } catch (IllegalArgumentException | UnsupportedEncodingException | NoSuchAlgorithmException | InvalidKeyException ex) {        }        sleep(1000);        return conn.get(null);    }} Finally, I copied this class into my application, which you can see is referred to above: http://code.google.com/p/amazon-product-advertising-api-sample/source/browse/src/com/amazon/advertising/api/sample/SignedRequestsHelper.java Here's the completed app, mostly generated via the drag/drop shown at the start, but slightly edited as shown above: That's all, now everything works as you'd expect.

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• What is in your Mathematica tool bag?

  - by Timo

  We all know that Mathematica is great, but it also often lacks critical functionality. What kind of external packages / tools / resources do you use with Mathematica? I'll edit (and invite anyone else to do so too) this main post to include resources which are focused on general applicability in scientific research and which as many people as possible will find useful. Feel free to contribute anything, even small code snippets (as I did below for a timing routine). Also, undocumented and useful features in Mathematica 7 and beyond you found yourself, or dug up from some paper/site are most welcome. Please include a short description or comment on why something is great or what utility it provides. If you link to books on Amazon with affiliate links please mention it, e.g., by putting your name after the link. Packages: LevelScheme is a package that greatly expands Mathematica's capability to produce good looking plots. I use it if not for anything else then for the much, much improved control over frame/axes ticks. David Park's Presentation Package ($50 - no charge for updates) Tools: MASH is Daniel Reeves's excellent perl script essentially providing scripting support for Mathematica 7. (This is finally built in as of Mathematica 8 with the -script option.) Resources: Wolfram's own repository MathSource has a lot of useful if narrow notebooks for various applications. Also check out the other sections such as Current Documentation, Courseware for lectures, and Demos for, well, demos. Books: Mathematica programming: an advanced introduction by Leonid Shifrin (web, pdf) is a must read if you want to do anything more than For loops in Mathematica. Quantum Methods with Mathematica by James F. Feagin (amazon) The Mathematica Book by Stephen Wolfram (amazon) (web) Schaum's Outline (amazon) Mathematica in Action by Stan Wagon (amazon) - 600 pages of neat examples and goes up to Mathematica version 7. Visualization techniques are especially good, you can see some of them on the author's Demonstrations Page. Mathematica Programming Fundamentals by Richard Gaylord (pdf) - A good concise introduction to most of what you need to know about Mathematica programming. Undocumented (or scarcely documented) Features: How to customize Mathematica keyboard shortcuts. See this question. How to inspect patterns and functions used by Mathematica's own functions. See this answer How to achieve Consistent size for GraphPlots in Mathematica? See this question.

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• Solaris 11 Launch Blog Carnival Roundup

  - by constant

  Solaris 11 is here! And together with the official launch activities, a lot of Oracle and non-Oracle bloggers contributed helpful and informative blog articles to help your datacenter go to eleven. Here are some notable blog postings, sorted by category for your Solaris 11 blog-reading pleasure: Getting Started/Overview A lot of people speculated that the official launch of Solaris 11 would be on 11/11 (whatever way you want to turn it), but it actually happened two days earlier. Larry Wake himself offers 11 Reasons Why Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Isn't Being Released on 11/11/11. Then, Larry goes on with a summary: Oracle Solaris 11: The First Cloud OS gives you a short and sweet rundown of what the major new features of Solaris 11 are. Jeff Victor has his own list of What's New in Oracle Solaris 11. A popular Solaris 11 meme is to write a blog post about 11 favourite features: Jim Laurent's 11 Reasons to Love Solaris 11, Darren Moffat's 11 Favourite Solaris 11 Features, Mike Gerdt's 11 of My Favourite Things! are just three examples of "11 Favourite Things..." type blog posts, I'm sure many more will follow... More official overview content for Solaris 11 is available from the Oracle Tech Network Solaris 11 Portal. Also, check out Rick Ramsey's blog post Solaris 11 Resources for System Administrators on the OTN Blog and his secret 5 Commands That Make Solaris Administration Easier post from the OTN Garage. (Automatic) Installation and the Image Packaging System (IPS) The brand new Image Packaging System (IPS) and the Automatic Installer (IPS), together with numerous other install/packaging/boot/patching features are among the most significant improvements in Solaris 11. But before installing, you may wonder whether Solaris 11 will support your particular set of hardware devices. Again, the OTN Garage comes to the rescue with Rick Ramsey's post How to Find Out Which Devices Are Supported By Solaris 11. Included is a useful guide to all the first steps to get your Solaris 11 system up and running. Tim Foster had a whole handful of blog posts lined up for the launch, teaching you everything you need to know about IPS but didn't dare to ask: The IPS System Repository, IPS Self-assembly - Part 1: Overlays and Part 2: Multiple Packages Delivering Configuration. Watch out for more IPS posts from Tim! If installing packages or upgrading your system from the net makes you uneasy, then you're not alone: Jim Laurent will tech you how Building a Solaris 11 Repository Without Network Connection will make your life easier. Many of you have already peeked into the future by installing Solaris 11 Express. If you're now wondering whether you can upgrade or whether a fresh install is necessary, then check out Alan Hargreaves's post Upgrading Solaris 11 Express b151a with support to Solaris 11. The trick is in upgrading your pkg(1M) first. Networking One of the first things to do after installing Solaris 11 (or any operating system for that matter), is to set it up for networking. Solaris 11 comes with the brand new "Network Auto-Magic" feature which can figure out everything by itself. For those cases where you want to exercise a little more control, Solaris 11 left a few people scratching their heads. Fortunately, Tschokko wrote up this cool blog post: Solaris 11 manual IPv4 & IPv6 configuration right after the launch ceremony. Thanks, Tschokko! And Milek points out a long awaited networking feature in Solaris 11 called Solaris 11 - hostmodel, which I know for a fact that many customers have looked forward to: How to "bind" a Solaris 11 system to a specific gateway for specific IP address it is using. Steffen Weiberle teaches us how to tune the Solaris 11 networking stack the proper way: ipadm(1M). No more fiddling with ndd(1M)! Check out his tutorial on Solaris 11 Network Tunables. And if you want to get even deeper into the networking stack, there's nothing better than DTrace. Alan Maguire teaches you in: DTracing TCP Congestion Control how to probe deeply into the Solaris 11 TCP/IP stack, the TCP congestion control part in particular. Don't miss his other DTrace and TCP related blog posts! DTrace And there we are: DTrace, the king of all observability tools. Long time DTrace veteran and co-author of The DTrace book*, Brendan Gregg blogged about Solaris 11 DTrace syscall provider changes. BTW, after you install Solaris 11, check out the DTrace toolkit which is installed by default in /usr/dtrace/DTT. It is chock full of handy DTrace scripts, many of which contributed by Brendan himself! Security Another big theme in Solaris 11, and one that is crucial for the success of any operating system in the Cloud is Security. Here are some notable posts in this category: Darren Moffat starts by showing us how to completely get rid of root: Completely Disabling Root Logins on Solaris 11. With no root user, there's one major entry point less to worry about. But that's only the start. In Immutable Zones on Encrypted ZFS, Darren shows us how to double the security of your services: First by locking them into the new Immutable Zones feature, then by encrypting their data using the new ZFS encryption feature. And if you're still missing sudo from your Linux days, Darren again has a solution: Password (PAM) caching for Solaris su - "a la sudo". If you're wondering how much compute power all this encryption will cost you, you're in luck: The Solaris X86 AESNI OpenSSL Engine will make sure you'll use your Intel's embedded crypto support to its fullest. And if you own a brand new SPARC T4 machine you're even luckier: It comes with its own SPARC T4 OpenSSL Engine. Dan Anderson's posts show how there really is now excuse not to encrypt any more... Developers Solaris 11 has a lot to offer to developers as well. Ali Bahrami has a series of blog posts that cover diverse developer topics: elffile: ELF Specific File Identification Utility, Using Stub Objects and The Stub Proto: Not Just For Stub Objects Anymore to name a few. BTW, if you're a developer and want to shape the future of Solaris 11, then Vijay Tatkar has a hint for you: Oracle (Sun Systems Group) is hiring! Desktop and Graphics Yes, Solaris 11 is a 100% server OS, but it can also offer a decent desktop environment, especially if you are a developer. Alan Coopersmith starts by discussing S11 X11: ye olde window system in today's new operating system, then Calum Benson shows us around What's new on the Solaris 11 Desktop. Even accessibility is a first-class citizen in the Solaris 11 user interface. Peter Korn celebrates: Accessible Oracle Solaris 11 - released! Performance Gone are the days of "Slowaris", when Solaris was among the few OSes that "did the right thing" while others cut corners just to win benchmarks. Today, Solaris continues doing the right thing, and it delivers the right performance at the same time. Need proof? Check out Brian's BestPerf blog with continuous updates from the benchmarking lab, including Recent Benchmarks Using Oracle Solaris 11! Send Me More Solaris 11 Launch Articles! These are just a few of the more interesting blog articles that came out around the Solaris 11 launch, I'm sure there are many more! Feel free to post a comment below if you find a particularly interesting blog post that hasn't been listed so far and share your enthusiasm for Solaris 11! *Affiliate link: Buy cool stuff and support this blog at no extra cost. We both win! var flattr_uid = '26528'; var flattr_tle = 'Solaris 11 Launch Blog Carnival Roundup'; var flattr_dsc = '<strong>Solaris 11 is here!</strong>And together with the official launch activities, a lot of Oracle and non-Oracle bloggers contributed helpful and informative blog articles to help your datacenter <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven">go to eleven</a>.Here are some notable blog postings, sorted by category for your Solaris 11 blog-reading pleasure:'; var flattr_tag = 'blogging,digest,Oracle,Solaris,solaris,solaris 11'; var flattr_cat = 'text'; var flattr_url = 'http://constantin.glez.de/blog/2011/11/solaris-11-launch-blog-carnival-roundup'; var flattr_lng = 'en_GB'

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• Building KPIs to monitor your business Its not really about the Technology

  When I have discussions with people about Business Intelligence, one of the questions the inevitably come up is about building KPIs and how to accomplish that. From a technical level the concept of a KPI is very simple, almost too simple in that it is like the tip of an iceberg floating above the water. The key to that iceberg is not really the tip, but the mass of the iceberg that is hidden beneath the surface upon which the tip sits. The analogy of the iceberg is not meant to indicate that the foundation of the KPI is overly difficult or complex. The disparity in size in meant to indicate that the larger thing that needs to be defined is not the technical tip, but the underlying business definition of what the KPI means. From a technical perspective the KPI consists of primarily the following items: Actual Value This is the actual value data point that is being measured. An example would be something like the amount of sales. Target Value This is the target goal for the KPI. This is a number that can be measured against Actual Value. An example would be $10,000 in monthly sales. Target Indicator Range This is the definition of ranges that define what type of indicator the user will see comparing the Actual Value to the Target Value. Most often this is defined by stoplight, but can be any indicator that is going to show a status in a quick fashion to the user. Typically this would be something like: Red Light = Actual Value more than 5% below target; Yellow Light = Within 5% of target either direction; Green Light = More than 5% higher than Target Value Status\Trend Indicator This is an optional attribute of a KPI that is typically used to show some kind of trend. The vast majority of these indicators are used to show some type of progress against a previous period. As an example, the status indicator might be used to show how the monthly sales compare to last month. With this type of indicator there needs to be not only a definition of what the ranges are for your status indictor, but then also what value the number needs to be compared against. So now we have an idea of what data points a KPI consists of from a technical perspective lets talk a bit about tools. As you can see technically there is not a whole lot to them and the choice of technology is not as important as the definition of the KPIs, which we will get to in a minute. There are many different types of tools in the Microsoft BI stack that you can use to expose your KPI to the business. These include Performance Point, SharePoint, Excel, and SQL Reporting Services. There are pluses and minuses to each technology and the right technology is based a lot on your goals and how you want to deliver the information to the users. Additionally, there are other non-Microsoft tools that can be used to expose KPI indicators to your business users. Regardless of the technology used as your front end, the heavy lifting of KPI is in the business definition of the values and benchmarks for that KPI. The discussion about KPIs is very dependent on the history of an organization and how much they are exposed to the attributes of a KPI. Often times when discussing KPIs with a business contact who has not been exposed to KPIs the discussion tends to also be a session educating the business user about what a KPI is and what goes into the definition of a KPI. The majority of times the business user has an idea of what their actual values are and they have been tracking those numbers for some time, generally in Excel and all manually. So they will know the amount of sales last month along with sales two years ago in the same month. Where the conversation tends to get stuck is when you start discussing what the target value should be. The actual value is answering the What and How much questions. When you are talking about the Target values you are asking the question Is this number good or bad. Typically, the user will know whether or not the value is good or bad, but most of the time they are not able to quantify what is good or bad. Their response is usually something like I just know. Because they have been watching the sales quantity for years now, they can tell you that a 5% decrease in sales this month might actually be a good thing, maybe because the salespeople are all waiting until next month when the new versions come out. It can sometimes be very hard to break the business people of this habit. One of the fears generally is that the status indicator is not subjective. Thus, in the scenario above, the business user is going to be fearful that their boss, just looking at a negative red indicator, is going to haul them out to the woodshed for a bad month. But, on the flip side, if all you are displaying is the amount of sales, only a person with knowledge of last month sales and the target amount for this month would have any idea if $10,000 in sales is good or not. Here is where a key point about KPIs needs to be communicated to both the business user and any user who might be viewing the results of that KPI. The KPI is just one tool that is used to report on business performance. The KPI is meant as a quick indicator of one business statistic. It is not meant to tell the entire story. It does not answer the question Why. Its primary purpose is to objectively and quickly expose an area of the business that might warrant more review. There is always going to be the need to do further analysis on any potential negative or neutral KPI. So, hopefully, once you have convinced your business user to come up with some target numbers and ranges for status indicators, you then need to take the next step and help them answer the Why question. The main question here to ask is, Okay, you see the indicator and you need to discover why the number is what is, where do you go?. The answer is usually a combination of sources. A sales manager might have some of the following items at their disposal (Marketing report showing a decrease in the promotional discounts for the month, Pricing Report showing the reduction of prices of older models, an Inventory Report showing the discontinuation of a particular product line, or a memo showing the ending of a large affiliate partnership. The answers to the question Why are never as simple as a single indicator value. Bring able to quickly get to this information is all about designing how a user accesses the KPIs and then also how easily they can get to the additional information they need. This is where a Dashboard mentality can come in handy. For example, the business user can have a dashboard that shows their KPIs, but also has links to some of the common reports that they run regarding Sales Data. The users boss may have the same KPIs on their dashboard, but instead of links to individual reports they are going to have a link to a status report that was created by the user that pulls together all the data about the KPI in a summary format the users boss can review. So some of the key things to think about when building or evaluating KPIs for your organization: Technology should not be the driving factor KPIs are of little value without some indicator for whether a value is good, bad or neutral. KPIs only give an answer to the Is this number good\bad? question Make sure the ability to drill into the Why of a KPI is close at hand and relevant to the user who is viewing the KPI. The KPI is a key business tool when defined properly to help monitor business performance across the enterprise in an objective and consistent manner. At times it might feel like the process of defining the business aspects of a KPI can sometimes be arduous, the payoff in the end can far outweigh the costs. Some of the benefits of going through this process are a better understanding of the key metrics for an organization and the measure of those metrics and a consistent snapshot of business performance that can be utilized across the organization. And I think that these are benefits to any organization regardless of the technology or the implementation.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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