Search Results

Search found 167 results on 7 pages for 'bearing'.

Page 6/7 | < Previous Page | 2 3 4 5 6 7  | Next Page >

• Need opinions on LaTeX and ever upgrading

  - by yCalleecharan

  Hi, I've been using LaTeX since 2005 with the TeXLive distribution and I've been upgrading as each new TeXLive distribution comes out. In the recent years I noticed an increase in new packages, updated packages and in one instance a new package bearing a different name replacing an old one by the same package author. A LaTeX document which relies heavily on packages and which has been produced a few years back may start to get some warnings and error messages on present-day LaTeX compilation. The primary reason I switched to LaTeX is because of its reliability and robustness to create big documents easily, not to mention the adorable typographic quality. With LaTeX one doesn't have to worry about how to open a docx in an old program supporting only doc for instance. Now, when there are so much continual changes in the packages in a LaTeX distribution, I tend to wonder when will this madness end. Not that having enhanced and new features are bad in packages, but not all updated packages are backward compatible. Eventually one would like to be able to compile a LaTeX file in 10 years time that he/she is working on at present and not get any compilation warnings/error messages due to some unpredictable behavior of updated packages or due to a package that has been cast-off from a LaTeX distribution. If I understand correctly CTAN do keep a database with all packages from different versions. I would like to know how you LaTeX users handle this issue. Thanks a lot...

  Read the article

• Android: SurfaceView and Z-Level Question

  - by JimBadger

  I have a FrameLayout containint first a SurfaceView, and second a RelativeLayout which in turn contians various Buttons and TextViews. Upon the canvas of the SurfaceView I am drawing numerous Bitmaps, and, via Touch and Motion Events am allowing the user to drag them around. These Bitmaps, when dragged around pass underneath the Buttons etc that are inside the RelativeLayout. Now, it's my (possibly mistaken) understanding that the "Z-level" of the SurfaceView, or whatever it has that passes for it, is entirely unrelated to the actual Z-level of the rest of the Layout. Is this the case? If so, how may I get around it, so that dragged Bitmaps are drawn ontop of other Views? Or what other way can I implement a full-screen canvas and yet not have my buttons etc act like the controls of an overlay. I guess what I actually need is an underlay, where touch events can still be picked up by the Buttons etc underneath. But I don't know how to achieve this, as, when redrawing my Canvas, I have to also redraw the background. Can I swap the order of the RelativeLayout and the SurfaceView inside the FrameLayout, and then make the background of the Canvas transparent? If so how? Will touch events still "fall through" to the buttons underneath? Thanks for bearing with me, I know I'm a bit of a waffler.

  Read the article

• To implement a remote desktop sharing solution

  - by Cameigons

  Hi, I'm on planning/modeling phase to develop a remote desktop sharing solution, which must be web browser based. In other words: an user will be able to see and interact with someone's remote desktop using his web-browser. Everything the user who wants to share his desktop will need, besides his browser, is installing an add-in, which he's going to be prompted about when necessary. The add-in is required since (afaik) no browser technology allows desktop control from an app running within the browser alone. The add-in installation process must be as simple and transparent as possible to the user (similar to AdobeConnectNow, in case anyone's acquainted with it). The user can share his desktop with lots of people at the same time, but concede desktop control to only one of them at a time(makes no sense being otherwise). Project requirements: All technology employed must be open-source license compatible Both front ends are going to be in flash (browser) Must work on Linux, Windows XP(and later) and MacOSX. Must work at least with IE7(and later) and Firefox3.0(and later). At the very least, once the sharer's stream hits the server from where it'll be broadcast, hereon it must be broadcasted in flv (so I'm thinking whether to do the encoding at the client's machine (the one sharing the desktop) or send it in some other format to the server and encode it there). Performance and scalability are important: It must be able to handle hundreds of dozens of users(one desktop sharer, the rest viewers) We'll definitely be using red5. My doubts concern mostly implementing the desktop publisher side (add-in and streamer): 1) Are you aware of other projects that I could look into for ideas? (I'm aware of bigbluebutton.org and code.google.com/p/openmeetings) 2) Should I base myself on VNC ? 3) Bearing in mind the need to have it working cross-platform, what language should I go with? (My team is very used with java and I have some knowledge of C/C++, but anything goes really). 4) Any other advices are appreciated.

  Read the article

• Accomodating Multiple DLL Versions

  - by shadeseeker

  I have an application that uses a Microsoft DLL (Microsoft.ComponentStudio.ComponentPlatformImplementation.dll) which is used for OS deployment and accessing the catalog files. Version 6.0.0.0 is specific to the Windows Server 2008 catalog files. The newer version 6.1.0.0 is specific to Windows Server 2008 R2 catalog files. Attempting to access a catalog file with the incorrect version results in an exception. My application (VB.NET using VS2005) needs to be able to access either version of these catalogs - I'd be happy with two executables (one for each catalog version) but obviously I don't want to maintain two sets of source code for each. Specifying both sets of DLLs in the project reference is not possible as the DLL names are identical. I'd rather not have to manually add and remove the DLL references each time I want to a build. As far as I know the interfaces etc are effectively identical between the two. I've read a few articles here and elsewhere about bindingRedirect, Assembly.Load etc but none seem to be bearing fruit. Any guidance on the best path to follow would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

  Read the article

• Sorting in Lua, counting number of items

  - by Josh

  Two quick questions (I hope...) with the following code. The script below checks if a number is prime, and if not, returns all the factors for that number, otherwise it just returns that the number prime. Pay no attention to the zs. stuff in the script, for that is client specific and has no bearing on script functionality. The script itself works almost wonderfully, except for two minor details - the first being the factor list doesn't return itself sorted... that is, for 24, it'd return 1, 2, 12, 3, 8, 4, 6, and 24 instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24. I can't print it as a table, so it does need to be returned as a list. If it has to be sorted as a table first THEN turned into a list, I can deal with that. All that matters is the end result being the list. The other detail is that I need to check if there are only two numbers in the list or more. If there are only two numbers, it's a prime (1 and the number). The current way I have it does not work. Is there a way to accomplish this? I appreciate all the help! function get_all_factors(number) local factors = 1 for possible_factor=2, math.sqrt(number), 1 do local remainder = number%possible_factor if remainder == 0 then local factor, factor_pair = possible_factor, number/possible_factor factors = factors .. ", " .. factor if factor ~= factor_pair then factors = factors .. ", " .. factor_pair end end end factors = factors .. ", and " .. number return factors end local allfactors = get_all_factors(zs.param(1)) if zs.func.numitems(allfactors)==2 then return zs.param(1) .. " is prime." else return zs.param(1) .. " is not prime, and its factors are: " .. allfactors end

  Read the article

• Find if a user is facing a certain Location using Digital Compass by constructing a triangle and usi

  - by Aidan

  Hi Guys, I'm constructing a geolocation based application and I'm trying to figure out a way to make my application realise when a user is facing the direction of the given location (a particular long / lat co-ord). I've done some Googling and checked the SDK but can't really find anything for such a thing. Does anyone know of a way? To clarify Android knows my location, the second location and my orientation. What I want is a way for Android to recognise when my orientation is "facing" the second location (e.g within 90 Degrees or so). We're also assuming that the user is stationary and needs updates every second or so therefore getBearing(); is useless. Alright so we get it has to be math, there appears to be no simple SDK stuff we can use. I did some searching of my own and found Barycentric Co-ords http://www.blackpawn.com/texts/pointinpoly/default.html . So what I'm trying to do now is map the camera's field of view. For Example if the person is facing a certain direction the program should construct a triangle around that field of view, e.g it should make one vertices the phone's position and then go out either side for a set distance making the 2 end points vertices constructing a triangle. If I had this I could then apply Barycentric co-ords to see if the point lay within the newly constructed triangle. Idea's anyone? Example. I could get my current orientation, add 45 to it and go up X distance one side and subtact 45 and go up X distance the other side to find my 2 other points. Though, how would I make android know which way it should go "up" I guess? It would know its baring as this stage so I need it to recognise it's bearing and go out that direction.

  Read the article

• Python: need to get energies of charge pairs.

  - by Two786

  I am new to python. I have to make a program for a project that takes a PDB format file as input and returns a list of all the intra-chain and inter-chain charge pairs and their energies (using coulomb’s law assuming a dielectric constant of (?) of 40.0). For simplicity, the charged residues for this program are just Arg (CZ), Lys (NZ), Asp (CG) and Glu (CD) with the charge bearing atoms for each indicated in parentheses. The program should report any attractive or repulsive interactions within 8.0 Å. Here is some additional information needed for the program. Eij = energy of interaction between atoms i and j in kilocalories/mole (kcals/mol) qi = charge for atom i (+1 for Lys or Arg, -1 for Glu or Asp) rij = distance between atoms i and j in angstroms using the distance formula The output should adhere to the following format: First residue : Second residue Distance Energy Lys 10 Chain A: ASP 46 Chain A D= 4.76 ang E= -2.32 kcals/mol (For some reason I can't organize the top two rows, but the first row should be lables and below it the corresponding values.) I really have no idea how to tackle this problem, any and all help is greatly appreciated. I hope this is the right place to ask. Thank you in advance. Using python 2.5

  Read the article

• How to learn a new programming language? And how to choose the appropriate language?

  - by Sebi

  Unfortunately my last question was closed, so I reformulated the question: I know this question was here a lot of times and can't be answered at all, but im not looking for a single name, but rather for an advice in my situation. I learned programming with Java and now I'm developing in Java for more or less 5 years (at the university) and I thinks my programming skills their are really ok/average. I have also small experience in C/C++ and C#. Now I have some spare time and I'd like to learn a new language or deepen the knowledge of Java/C/C++. But how to choose the right language to learn? I'd like to learn a language which will be usefull in the future concerning working in a software development business? I know there is no single answer, but I'm sure you could mention some languages that are more usefull than others. And what's the best way to learn such a language efficiently (bearing in mind that one has already learned some other languages)? Just doing tutorials? Or trying to implement a project? Trying to move a Java project to the new language?

  Read the article

• The Koyal Group Info Mag News¦Charged building material could make the renewable grid a reality

  - by Chyler Tilton

  What if your cell phone didn’t come with a battery? Imagine, instead, if the material from which your phone was built was a battery. The promise of strong load-bearing materials that can also work as batteries represents something of a holy grail for engineers. And in a letter published online in Nano Letters last week, a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University describes what it says is a breakthrough in turning that dream into an electrocharged reality. The researchers etched nanopores into silicon layers, which were infused with a polyethylene oxide-ionic liquid composite and coated with an atomically thin layer of carbon. In doing so, they created small but strong supercapacitor battery systems, which stored electricity in a solid electrolyte, instead of using corrosive chemical liquids found in traditional batteries. These supercapacitors could store and release about 98 percent of the energy that was used to charge them, and they held onto their charges even as they were squashed and stretched at pressures up to 44 pounds per square inch. Small pieces of them were even strong enough to hang a laptop from—a big, fat Dell, no less. Although the supercapacitors resemble small charcoal wafers, they could theoretically be molded into just about any shape, including a cell phone’s casing or the chassis of a sedan. They could also be charged—and evacuated of their charge—in less time than is the case for traditional batteries. “We’ve demonstrated, for the first time, the simple proof-of-concept that this can be done,” says Cary Pint, an assistant professor in the university’s mechanical engineering department and one of the authors of the new paper. “Now we can extend this to all kinds of different materials systems to make practical composites with materials specifically tailored to a host of different types of applications. We see this as being just the tip of a very massive iceberg.” Pint says potential applications for such materials would go well beyond “neat tech gadgets,” eventually becoming a “transformational technology” in everything from rocket ships to sedans to home building materials. “These types of systems could range in size from electric powered aircraft all the way down to little tiny flying robots, where adding an extra on-board battery inhibits the potential capability of the system,” Pint says. And they could help the world shift to the intermittencies of renewable energy power grids, where powerful batteries are needed to help keep the lights on when the sun is down or when the wind is not blowing. “Using the materials that make up a home as the native platform for energy storage to complement intermittent resources could also open the door to improve the prospects for solar energy on the U.S. grid,” Pint says. “I personally believe that these types of multifunctional materials are critical to a sustainable electric grid system that integrates solar energy as a key power source.”

  Read the article

• Choosing parts for a high-spec custom PC - feedback required [closed]

  - by James

  I'm looking to build a high-spec PC costing under ~£800 (bearing in mind I can get the CPU half price). This is my first time doing this so I have plenty of questions! I have been doing lots of research and this is what I have come up with: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/p/j4lE Usage: I will be using it for Adobe CS6, rendering in 3DS Max, particle simulations in Realflow and for playing games like GTA IV (and V when it comes out), Crysis 1/2, Saints Row The Third, Deus Ex HR, etc. Questions: Can you see any obvious problem areas with the current setup? Will it be sufficient for the above usage? I won't be doing any overclocking initially. Is it worth buying the H60 liquid cooler, or will the fan that comes with the CPU be sufficient? Is water cooling generally quieter? Is the chosen motherboard good for the current components? And is it future-proof? I read that the HDD is often the bottleneck when it comes to gaming. I presume this is true to other high-end applications? If so, is my selection good? I keep changing my mind about the GPU; first the 560, now the 660. Can anyone shed some light on how to choose? I read mixed opinions about matching the GPU to the CPU. Will the 560 or the 660 be sufficient for my required usage? Atm I'm basing my choice on the PassMark benchmarks and how much they cost. The specs on the GeForce website state that the 560 and the 660 both require 450W. Is this a good figure to base the wattage of my PSU on? If so, how do you decide? Do I really need 750W? The latest GTX 690 requires 650W. Is it a good idea to buy a 750W PSU now to future-proof myself?

  Read the article

• I Didn&rsquo;t Get You Anything&hellip;

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Nearly every day this blog features a  list posts and articles written by members of the OTN architect community. But with Christmas just days away, I thought a break in that routine was in order. After all, if the holidays aren’t excuse enough for an off-topic post, then the terrorists have won. Rather than buy gifts for everyone -- which, given the readership of this blog and my budget could amount to a cash outlay of upwards of $15.00 – I thought I’d share a bit of holiday humor. I wrote the following essay back in the mid-90s, for a “print” publication that used “paper” as a content delivery system.  That was then. I’m older now, my kids are older, but my feelings toward the holidays haven’t changed… It’s New, It’s Improved, It’s Christmas! The holidays are a time of rituals. Some of these, like the shopping, the music, the decorations, and the food, are comforting in their predictability. Other rituals, like the shopping, the  music, the decorations, and the food, can leave you curled into the fetal position in some dark corner, whimpering. How you react to these various rituals depends a lot on your general disposition and credit card balance. I, for one, love Christmas. But there is one Christmas ritual that really tangles my tinsel: the seasonal editorializing about how our modern celebration of the holidays pales in comparison to that of Christmas past. It's not that the old notions of how to celebrate the holidays aren't all cozy and romantic--you can't watch marathon broadcasts of "It's A Wonderful White Christmas Carol On Thirty-Fourth Street Story" without a nostalgic teardrop or two falling onto your plate of Christmas nachos. It's just that the loudest cheerleaders for "old-fashioned" holiday celebrations overlook the fact that way-back-when those people didn't have the option of doing it any other way. Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh? No thanks. When Christmas morning rolls around, I'm going to be mighty grateful that the family is going to hop into a nice warm Toyota for the ride over to grandma's place. I figure a horse-drawn sleigh is big fun for maybe fifteen minutes. After that you’re going to want Old Dobbin to haul ass back to someplace warm where the egg nog is spiked and the family can gather in the flickering glow of a giant TV and contemplate the true meaning of football. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Sorry, no fireplace. We've got a furnace for heat, and stuffing nuts in there voids the warranty. Any of the roasting we do these days is in the microwave, and I'm pretty sure that if you put chestnuts in the microwave they would become little yuletide hand grenades. Although, if you've got a snoot full of Yule grog, watching chestnuts explode in your microwave might be a real holiday hoot. Some people may see microwave ovens as a symptom of creeping non-traditional holiday-ism. But I'll bet you that if there were microwave ovens around in Charles Dickens' day, the Cratchits wouldn't have had to entertain an uncharacteristically giddy Scrooge for six or seven hours while the goose cooked. Holiday entertaining is, in fact, the one area that even the most severe critic of modern practices would have to admit has not changed since Tim was Tiny. A good holiday celebration, then as now, involves lots of food, free-flowing drink, and a gathering of friends and family, some of whom you are about as happy to see as a subpoena. Just as the Cratchit's Christmas was spent with a man who, for all they knew, had suffered some kind of head trauma, so the modern holiday gathering includes relatives or acquaintances who, because they watch too many talk shows, and/or have poor personal hygiene, and/or fail to maintain scheduled medication, you would normally avoid like a plate of frosted botulism. But in the season of good will towards men, you smile warmly at the mystery uncle wandering around half-crocked with a clump of mistletoe dangling from the bill of his N.R.A. cap. Dickens' story wouldn't have become the holiday classic it has if, having spotted on their doorstep an insanely grinning, raw poultry-bearing, fresh-off-a-rough-night Scrooge, the Cratchits had pulled their shades and pretended not to be home. Which is probably what I would have done. Instead, knowing full well his reputation as a career grouch, they welcomed him into their home, and we have a touching story that teaches a valuable lesson about how the Christmas spirit can get the boss to pump up the payroll. Despite what the critics might say, our modern Christmas isn't all that different from those of long ago. Sure, the technology has changed, but that just means a bigger, brighter, louder Christmas, with lasers and holograms and stuff. It's our modern celebration of a season that even the least spiritual among us recognizes as a time of hope that the nutcases of the world will wake up and realize that peace on earth is a win/win proposition for everybody. If Christmas has changed, it's for the better. We should continue making Christmas bigger and louder and shinier until everybody gets it.  *** Happy Holidays, everyone!   del.icio.us Tags: holiday,humor Technorati Tags: holiday,humor

  Read the article

• Design a T-shirt for .NET Reflector Pro

  - by Laila

  Win a .NET Reflector Pro license, a box of Red Gate goodies, and a t-shirt printed with your design! Red Gate likes t-shirts. Each of our teams has one. In fact, each individual person has one, numbered according to when they joined the company: Red Gate's 1st, 2nd, and so on right up to Red Gate's 170th, with the slogan "More than just a number". Those t-shirts are important, chiefly because they remind the people wearing them that they are important. But that isn't enough. What really makes us great are the people who choose to use our tools. So we'd like to extend our tradition of t-shirts to include you and put the design of our next shirt entirely in your hands. We'd like you to come up with a witty slogan or create an inventive or simply beautiful t-shirt design for .NET Reflector Pro, our add-in for Visual Studio, which allows you to step into decompiled assemblies whilst debugging in Visual Studio. When you're done, post your masterpiece to Twitter with the hash tag #reflectortees, and @redgate will take a look! We'll pick the best design, and the winner will get a licensed copy of .NET Reflector Pro and a box of Red Gate goodies - not to mention a copy of their t-shirt. The winning design will go into production and be worn and given out at tradeshows, conferences, and user group events across the world, proudly bearing the name of their designer. We'll also pick three runners-up who will receive licenses for .NET Reflector Pro. Red Gate goodie box Interested? If you're up for the challenge, then we've got some resources to get you started. Inside the .zip file you'll find high-quality versions of the following: T-shirt templates: don't forget to design the front and the back! Different versions of the .NET Reflector Pro logo and Red Gate logo. Colour sheets to give you an easy reference to the Red Gate colours, including hex and RGB values. You can create and send us as many designs as you like, and each of them will be considered for the prize. To submit your designs, simply tweet including the competition hash tag, #reflectortees, and a link to somewhere we can see your design: either an image hosting site such as Twitpic, Flickr or Picasa, or a personal blog. You will need to create a Twitter account (which is free), if you don't already have one. You only have three limits: The background colour of the t-shirt should be one of our brand colours (red, light/dark grey or black), though you're welcome to use other colours in the rest of the design. You need to make use of either the .NET Reflector Pro logo OR the Red Gate logo (please keep them as they are) If you include any text or slogan, stick with just one or two colors for it. Apart from that, go wild. Go and do whatever it is you do when you get creative: whether you walk barefoot on the grass with a pencil and paper, sit cross-legged on a pile of cushions with a laptop, or simply close your eyes and float through a mist of ideas, now is your chance. Make sure you enjoy it. We're looking forward to seeing your creations. Terms and conditions 1. The closing date for entries is June 11th, 2010 (4 p.m. UK time). Red Gate Software Ltd reserves the right to extend the competition deadline at its discretion. If there is a revision, the revised date will be published on this blog and the date for announcing the results will be postponed accordingly. 2. The winning designer will be notified on June 14th, 2010 through Twitter. The winner must claim his/her prize by sending us a high-resolution image of their design via email (i.e. Illustrator EPS files or appropriate format, ideally at 300dpi). If the winner does not come forward within 3 days of the announcement, they will forfeit their prize and another winner will be selected from the runners-up. The names of the winner and runners-up will be posted on this blog by June 18th.  3. Entry is completed on the designer posting a link to their entry in a tweet with the correct hash tag, #reflectortees. 4. Red Gate Software needs to hold the rights to using the winning design in order to put the t-shirt into production. We will make sure that this is fine with the winner before we do so, but if you do not want us holding the rights to your design, please do not submit your designs. We reserve the right to slightly alter or adjust any artwork we decide to use (mainly to make it easier to print), but we will make sure we contact the winner for approval first. The winner will also need to allow us the use of his/her name for purposes of promoting your design. 5. Entries must be entirely your own original work and must not breach any copyright or third party rights. Red Gate Software Ltd will not be made partially or fully liable for any non-original work submitted by you. 6. This competition is free: you do not need to buy anything or be an existing customer to enter. 7. This competition is not open to employees of Red Gate Software Ltd, their families, or any other company directly connected with the administration of this promotion.

  Read the article

• Productivity vs Security [closed]

  - by nerijus

  Really do not know is this right place to ask such a questions. But it is about programming in a different light. So, currently contracting with company witch pretends to be big corporation. Everyone is so important that all small issues like developers are ignored. Give you a sample: company VPN is configured so that if you have VPN then HTTP traffic is banned. Bearing this in mind can you imagine my workflow: Morning. Ok time to get latest source. Ups, no VPN. Let’s connect. Click-click. 3 sec. wait time. Ok getting source. Do I have emails? Ups. VPN is on, can’t check my emails. Need to wait for source to come up. Finally here it is! Ok Click-click VPN is gone. What is in my email. Someone reported a bug. Good, let’s track it down. It is in TFS already. Oh, dam, I need VPN. Click-click. Ok, there is description. Yea, I have seen this issue in stachoverflow.com. Let’s go there. Ups, no internet. Click-click. No internet. What? IPconfig… DHCP server kicked me out. Dam. Renew ip. 1..2..3. Ok internet is back. Google: site: stachoverflow.com 3 min. I have solution. Great I love stackoverflow.com. Don’t want to remember days where there was no stackoveflow.com. Ok. Copy paste this like to studio. Dam, studio is stalled, can’t reach files on TFS. Click-click. VPN is back. Get source out, paste my code. Grand. Let’s see what other comments about an issue in stackoverflow.com tells. Hmm.. There is a link. Click. Dammit! No internet. Click-click. No internet. DHCP kicked me out. Dammit. Now it is even worse: this happens 3-4 times a day. After certain amount of VPN connections open\closed my internet goes down solid. Only way to get internet back is reboot. All my browser tabs/SQL windows/studio will be gone. This happened just now when I am typing this. Back to issue I am solving right now: I am getting frustrated - I do not care about better solution for this issue. Let’s do it somehow and forget. This Click-click barrier between internet and TFS kills me… Sounds familiar? You could say there are VPN settings to change. No! This is company laptop, not allowed to do changes. I am very very lucky to have admin privileges on my machine. Most of developers don’t. So just learned to live with this frustration. It takes away 40-60 minutes daily. Tried to email company support, admins. They are too important ant too busy with something that just ignored my little man’s problem. Politely ignored. Question is: Is this normal in corporate world? (Have been in States, Canada, Germany. Never seen this.)

  Read the article

• Spring rejecting bean name, no URL paths specified

  - by richever

  I am trying to register an interceptor using a annotation-driven controller configuration. As far as I can tell, I've done everything correctly but when I try testing the interceptor nothing happens. After looking in the logs I found the following: 2010-04-04 20:06:18,231 DEBUG [main] support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory (AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:452) - Finished creating instance of bean 'org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping#0' 2010-04-04 20:06:18,515 DEBUG [main] handler.AbstractDetectingUrlHandlerMapping (AbstractDetectingUrlHandlerMapping.java:86) - Rejected bean name 'org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping#0': no URL paths identified 2010-04-04 20:06:19,109 DEBUG [main] support.AbstractBeanFactory (AbstractBeanFactory.java:241) - Returning cached instance of singleton bean 'org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping#0' Look at the second line of this log snippet. Is Spring rejecting the DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping bean? And if so could this be the problem with my interceptor not working? Here is my application context: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p" xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context" xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc" xsi:schemaLocation=" http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd" default-autowire="byName"> <!-- Configures the @Controller programming model --> <mvc:annotation-driven /> <!-- Scan for annotations... --> <context:component-scan base-package=" com.splash.web.controller, com.splash.web.service, com.splash.web.authentication"/> <bean id="authorizedUserInterceptor" class="com.splash.web.handler.AuthorizedUserInterceptor"/> <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping"> <property name="interceptors"> <list> <ref bean="authorizedUserInterceptor"/> </list> </property> </bean> Here is my interceptor: package com.splash.web.handler; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse; import org.apache.log4j.Logger; import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired; import org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.HandlerInterceptorAdapter; public class AuthorizedUserInterceptor extends HandlerInterceptorAdapter { @Override public boolean preHandle(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, Object handler) throws Exception { log.debug(">>> Operation intercepted..."); return true; } } Does anyone see anything wrong with this? What does the error I mentioned above actually mean and could it have any bearing on the interceptor not being called? Thanks!

  Read the article

• Loading a Page into a jQuery Dialog

  - by Dave

  I tend to follow a fairly "modular" approach to building applications and I recently started working with jQuery. The application I'm working on is going to be fairly large so I'm trying to break pieces out into separate files/modules when possible. One example of this is a "User Settings" dialog. This dialog has a form, a few tabs, and quite a good number of input fields so I want to develop it in a separate HTML file (PHP actually, but it can be considered HTML for the purposes of this example). It's an entire page in and of itself with all the tags you would expect such as: <html><head></head><body></body></html> So I can now develop, what I want to be, the dialog separate from the base application. This dialog has it's own Javascript (A LOT of Javascript, in fact) in the head as well, with jQuery $(document).ready(){} capturing, etc. Everything works flawlessly in isolation. However, when I attempt to load the jQuery modal dialog with the page (inside of the main application page), as one might expect, trouble ensues. Here's a brief, very simple, example of what it looks like: editUserDialog.load ("editUser.php", {id : $('#userList').val(), popup : "true"}, function () { editUserDialog.dialog ("option", "title" , "Edit User"); editUserDialog.dialog ('open'); }); (I'm passing in a "popup" flag to the page so that the page can determine its context -- i.e. as a page or inside of the jQuery dialog). Question 1: When I moved the code from the "head" into "body" (in the editUser.php page) it actually worked for the most part. It seemed that jQuery was calling the $(document).ready() function in the context of the body of the loaded file and not the head. Is this a bad idea? Question 2: Is my process for building this application just totally flawed to begin with? I've scoured the net to attempt to find a "best practices" sort of document to building reasonably large applications using jQuery/PHP without a lot of success so maybe there's something out there someone else is aware of that I've somehow missed. Thanks for bearing with me while I attempt to describe the issues I've encountered and I hope I've accurately described the problem.

  Read the article

• List of objects sent over WCF, but null list received?

  - by GONeale

  Hey there, I have an object containing a list of custom objects which I am returning over a response in WCF, however on the receiving end, the list is null? But it contains 112 objects just prior to stepping out of the service on the server. This wasn't always the case, I have seen it return a list. I've just recently upgraded it to use NET TCP bindings, but I can't confirm when I started losing the data or if it was since the conversion from wsHttpBinding to netTcpBinding as it moved along with about four other services. I have looked on the WCF Service messages and trace file and also the WCF client's messages and trace file, no exceptions reported, and both message logs indicate they are sending the List<T> and for client, receiving the list - very frustrating! It's not a super light array, but not huge either, around 100KB. it has about 12 properties each and as stated 112 items are being sent. I have tried everything I can think of on client and server, note: Client: this.binding = new NetTcpBinding(SecurityMode.None) { MaxReceivedMessageSize = int.MaxValue, ReaderQuotas = { MaxStringContentLength = int.MaxValue, MaxArrayLength = int.MaxValue } }; ... Server app.config (sorry I have no idea if the quota settings have any bearing on net tcp? I only just added it similar to what I use for wsHttpBinding to test, but still list is null): <netTcpBinding> <binding name="SecurityByNetTcpTransportBinding" sendTimeout="00:03:00" maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647"> <readerQuotas maxStringContentLength="2147483647" maxArrayLength="2147483647" /> <security mode="None" /> </binding> </netTcpBinding> and something else I tried in my net tcp binding behavior: <dataContractSerializer maxItemsInObjectGraph="2147483647" /> <serviceTimeouts transactionTimeout="05:05:00" /> <serviceThrottling maxConcurrentSessions="400" maxConcurrentInstances="400" maxConcurrentCalls="400"/> I hope somebody can help, I hate 5 steps forward 3 steps backward which always seems to be the case with WCF :P In the interim until I [hopefully] get a response I will now try reducing this array just to see if it's a sizing issue.. Ok, It seems I have bigger problems. Because the list was the only thing I was sending, I thought it was an array issue. I am even setting an int to "25" and it's coming back as 0 - Anybody? I know I must have done something obviously stupid.

  Read the article

• With sqlalchemy how to dynamically bind to database engine on a per-request basis

  - by Peter Hansen

  I have a Pylons-based web application which connects via Sqlalchemy (v0.5) to a Postgres database. For security, rather than follow the typical pattern of simple web apps (as seen in just about all tutorials), I'm not using a generic Postgres user (e.g. "webapp") but am requiring that users enter their own Postgres userid and password, and am using that to establish the connection. That means we get the full benefit of Postgres security. Complicating things still further, there are two separate databases to connect to. Although they're currently in the same Postgres cluster, they need to be able to move to separate hosts at a later date. We're using sqlalchemy's declarative package, though I can't see that this has any bearing on the matter. Most examples of sqlalchemy show trivial approaches such as setting up the Metadata once, at application startup, with a generic database userid and password, which is used through the web application. This is usually done with Metadata.bind = create_engine(), sometimes even at module-level in the database model files. My question is, how can we defer establishing the connections until the user has logged in, and then (of course) re-use those connections, or re-establish them using the same credentials, for each subsequent request. We have this working -- we think -- but I'm not only not certain of the safety of it, I also think it looks incredibly heavy-weight for the situation. Inside the __call__ method of the BaseController we retrieve the userid and password from the web session, call sqlalchemy create_engine() once for each database, then call a routine which calls Session.bind_mapper() repeatedly, once for each table that may be referenced on each of those connections, even though any given request usually references only one or two tables. It looks something like this: # in lib/base.py on the BaseController class def __call__(self, environ, start_response): # note: web session contains {'username': XXX, 'password': YYY} url1 = 'postgres://%(username)s:%(password)s@server1/finance' % session url2 = 'postgres://%(username)s:%(password)s@server2/staff' % session finance = create_engine(url1) staff = create_engine(url2) db_configure(staff, finance) # see below ... etc # in another file Session = scoped_session(sessionmaker()) def db_configure(staff, finance): s = Session() from db.finance import Employee, Customer, Invoice for c in [ Employee, Customer, Invoice, ]: s.bind_mapper(c, finance) from db.staff import Project, Hour for c in [ Project, Hour, ]: s.bind_mapper(c, staff) s.close() # prevents leaking connections between sessions? So the create_engine() calls occur on every request... I can see that being needed, and the Connection Pool probably caches them and does things sensibly. But calling Session.bind_mapper() once for each table, on every request? Seems like there has to be a better way. Obviously, since a desire for strong security underlies all this, we don't want any chance that a connection established for a high-security user will inadvertently be used in a later request by a low-security user.

  Read the article

• How to sort my paws?

  - by Ivo Flipse

  In my previous question I got an excellent answer that helped me detect where a paw hit a pressure plate, but now I'm struggling to link these results to their corresponding paws: I manually annotated the paws (RF=right front, RH= right hind, LF=left front, LH=left hind). As you can see there's clearly a pattern repeating pattern and it comes back in aknist every measurement. Here's a link to a presentation of 6 trials that were manually annotated. My initial thought was to use heuristics to do the sorting, like: There's a ~60-40% ratio in weight bearing between the front and hind paws; The hind paws are generally smaller in surface; The paws are (often) spatially divided in left and right. However, I’m a bit skeptical about my heuristics, as they would fail on me as soon as I encounter a variation I hadn’t thought off. They also won’t be able to cope with measurements from lame dogs, whom probably have rules of their own. Furthermore, the annotation suggested by Joe sometimes get's messed up and doesn't take into account what the paw actually looks like. Based on the answers I received on my question about peak detection within the paw, I’m hoping there are more advanced solutions to sort the paws. Especially because the pressure distribution and the progression thereof are different for each separate paw, almost like a fingerprint. I hope there's a method that can use this to cluster my paws, rather than just sorting them in order of occurrence. So I'm looking for a better way to sort the results with their corresponding paw. For anyone up to the challenge, I have pickled a dictionary with all the sliced arrays that contain the pressure data of each paw (bundled by measurement) and the slice that describes their location (location on the plate and in time). To clarfiy: walk_sliced_data is a dictionary that contains ['ser_3', 'ser_2', 'sel_1', 'sel_2', 'ser_1', 'sel_3'], which are the names of the measurements. Each measurement contains another dictionary, [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] (example from 'sel_1') which represent the impacts that were extracted. Also note that 'false' impacts, such as where the paw is partially measured (in space or time) can be ignored. They are only useful because they can help recognizing a pattern, but won't be analyzed. And for anyone interested, I’m keeping a blog with all the updates regarding the project!

  Read the article

• How to troubleshoot a Highcharts script that's not rendering data when date is added and hanging the JS engine with large datasets?

  - by ylluminate

  I have a Highchart JS graph that I'm building in Rails (although I don't think Ruby has real bearing on this problem unless it's the Date output format) to which I'm adding the timestamp of each datapoint. Presently the array of floats is rendering fine without timestamps, however when I add the timestamp to the series it fails to rend. What's worse is that when the series has hundreds of entries all sorts of problems arise, not the least of which is the browser entirely hanging and requiring a force quit / kill. I'm using the following to build the array of arrays data series: series1 = readings.map{|row| [(row.date.to_i * 1000), (row.data1.to_f if BigDecimal(row.data1) != BigDecimal("-1000.0"))] } This yields a result like this: series: [{"name":"Data 1","data":[[1326262980000,1.79e-09],[1326262920000,1.29e-09],[1326262860000,1.22e-09],[1326262800000,1.42e-09],[1326262740000,1.29e-09],[1326262680000,1.34e-09],[1326262620000,1.31e-09],[1326262560000,1.51e-09],[1326262500000,1.24e-09],[1326262440000,1.7e-09],[1326262380000,1.24e-09],[1326262320000,1.29e-09],[1326262260000,1.53e-09],[1326262200000,1.23e-09],[1326262140000,1.21e-09]],"color":"blue"}] Yet nothing appears on the graph as noted. Notwithstanding, when I compare the data series in one of their very similar examples here: http://www.highcharts.com/demo/spline-irregular-time It appears that really the data series are formatted identically (except in mine I use the timestamp vs date method). This leads me to think I've got a problem with the timestamp output, but I'm just not able to figure out where / how as I'm converting the date output to an integer multipled by 1000 to convert it to milliseconds as per explained in a similar Railscasts tutorial. I would very much appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction here as to what I may be doing wrong. What could cause no data to appear on the graph in smaller sized sets (<100 points) and when into the hundreds causes an apparent hang in the javascript engine in this case? Perhaps ultimately the key lies here as this is the entire js that's being generated and not rendering: jQuery(function() { // 1. Define JSON options var options = { chart: {"defaultSeriesType":"spline","renderTo":"chart_name"}, title: {"text":"Title"}, legend: {"layout":"vertical","style":{}}, xAxis: {"title":{"text":"UTC Time"},"type":"datetime"}, yAxis: [{"title":{"text":"Left Title","margin":10}},{"title":{"text":"Right Groups Title"},"opposite":true}], tooltip: {"enabled":true}, credits: {"enabled":false}, plotOptions: {"areaspline":{}}, series: [{"name":"Data 1","data":[[1326262980000,1.79e-08],[1326262920000,1.69e-08],[1326262860000,1.62e-08],[1326262800000,1.42e-08],[1326262740000,1.29e-08],[1326262680000,1.34e-08],[1326262620000,1.31e-08],[1326262560000,1.51e-08],[1326262500000,1.64e-08],[1326262440000,1.7e-08],[1326262380000,1.64e-08],[1326262320000,1.69e-08],[1326262260000,1.53e-08],[1326262200000,1.23e-08],[1326262140000,1.21e-08]],"color":"blue"},{"name":"Data 2","data":[[1326262980000,9.79e-09],[1326262920000,9.78e-09],[1326262860000,9.8e-09],[1326262800000,9.82e-09],[1326262740000,9.88e-09],[1326262680000,9.89e-09],[1326262620000,1.3e-06],[1326262560000,1.32e-06],[1326262500000,1.33e-06],[1326262440000,1.33e-06],[1326262380000,1.34e-06],[1326262320000,1.33e-06],[1326262260000,1.32e-06],[1326262200000,1.32e-06],[1326262140000,1.32e-06]],"color":"red"}], subtitle: {} }; // 2. Add callbacks (non-JSON compliant) // 3. Build the chart var chart = new Highcharts.StockChart(options); });

  Read the article

• Computer makes hissing noise, turns off after few seconds

  - by Kaustubh P

  I have a problem similar to the questions posted here and here. This is my config: Asus M3N78-EM, with AMD Phenom X3 720 2800 Black Edition, 4GB Transcend DDR2 RAM, Nvidia 9400GT. HD is a 160 GB IDE, and a LG IDE DVD-ROM. The power button is a bit off, I have removed the cover of the switch, and the only way it turns on is just giving the "stick" under the cover a gentle press. It turns on sometimes, and at other times, I have to cut-off the power from the PSU, and try again. I will describe my problem in as detail as possible, please bear with me: The problem has started in the last week, a few months after I changed the to the powerswitch arrangement as described above. The PC makes a hissing noise, and I wasn't able to pin-point the noise source, because of the various other fans. At first, removing the HD, rebooting w/o the HD, turning it off, reconnecting and booting made the problem go away. But of late, it doesn't happen. As suggested in the other questions, I tried reducing the load by disconnecting both the IDE drives, and the problem (noise + turn-off) still occurs. I also connected another 80G IDE HD,today morning, adn it still made that noise, and turned off. I also opened up the PSU, but I couldn't see any fault in that, I tried rotating the fan by blowing into the blades, and with my fingers, but the hissing noise didn't come from there. Or maybe the speed wasn't enough to evoke that noise. A few weeks ago: I had cleaned the Cabinet and had repasted the processor and its fan using some thermal paste. Could that be at fault? I also used a vacuum to blow the dust out of the PSU, could the power have been too much, to maybe offset the fan or something? A label on the PSU says it uses a ball-bearing fan. That only leaves me with the Processor fan and the processor itself. I didn't try removing the processor fan and processor from the motherboard, and then turning the PC on, fearing damage. Will doing so cause any damage? What can I do to localize and pin-point the problem? Also, after a few tries, the Computer starts up. Sometimes it turns of within 2 seconds, sometimes after the POST. Once it turned off at the grub. Another time it booted completely and then turned off. The only way to ensure that the PC wont turn off, is if the hissing noise stops. EDIT: I suspect it to be the Processor/Processor fan, owing to the source of noise. All the config, except for the Cabinet, is just over a year old. EDIT2: I also just remembered, that I had set the "On-power resume" to turn on, i.e. If I supply he PC with power, it will turn itself on, w/o me needing to press the switch. I had done that to workaround the faulty power-switch, as noted above. EDIT3: I calculated the power my system needs, from the antec site, and I just arrived at 292W

  Read the article

• Network update solutions for a company of ~20 (5 local, 15 remote)?

  - by Margaret

  Hi all This is probably going to be a bit up in the air, because we're still in the "reaching towards solutions" phase, but I figured I'd see what you guys had to say. Plus I honestly know very little about systems and what is good and bad pratice. My organisation has always more or less worked on the concept of local machines; since it primarily employed contractors who were working from home, each of those people was largely responsible for their own machine and backup procedures and the like. We're now expanding, though we're still reasonably small (we're up to about 20 staff members). Most people still work remotely, but we have a central office where about five people are working. But we're getting large enough that we're starting to think it would be a good idea to have a central file server, and things like that - if someone gets hit by a bus, we want someone else to know where to look for the files to continue their work. A lot of the people who work for us remotely work on projects for other companies as well, so I don't want to force them to log in to our server whenever they're on a network. But I do want to make connection to be as painless as possible to do so, to improve utilisation. The other thing is that we're getting more people who would like to remote into the office server and do their work there. Our current remote connection application is an SSH install that allows people access to the network; the problem is, it's a black box to me, and I've never understood how to even connect to it (despite supposedly being de facto sysadmin). Thus far I've been able to bounce questions about how to get it working to the guy who does know it well, but he's leaving the company soon. So we probably need a solution for this that I actually understand. We were knocking around the idea of implementing a VPN with some form of remote desktop, and someone mentioned that this was largely a matter of purchasing a router capable of it; I'm not sure of the truth of that statement. This is what we have in the office: Two shiny new i7 servers, each running Windows Server 2008. Precise eventual layout is still being debated, a little, but the current suggestion is that one is primary database crunching, while the other is a warm backup of the databases, along with running Reporting Services. They currently have SQL Server 2008 installed on them, which is being connected to via the 'sa' account. We're hoping to make each person use their own account (preferably one tied to the 'central' password we set up, so we can use Windows Authentication). An older server, running XP Pro, that we are currently using as a test bed for a project that requires access to older versions of software. This machine is also being used to take backups, but I'm thinking of moving that functionality elsewhere. A spare desktop from a guy who left the company (XP Pro). We're thinking of bumping up the hard disk space and using it as the magical file server that's going to solve one particular everything. Assorted desktops, laptops, etc, at least one for each person in the office (mix of Win XP and Win 7; occasionally a person who normally works remotely might drop in to the office and bring a laptop bearing Vista, but it's pretty rare). All are set up as local user accounts at the moment; I don't know if it's the best arrangement. Purchasing more hardware is not a big problem, but we figure we might as well make use of what we've got first. Is Active Directory a big magic wand that's going to solve all the world's problems? Is there some other arrangement we should be looking to instead?

  Read the article

• Using Lightbox with _Screen

  Although, I have to admit that I discovered Bernard Bout's ideas and concepts about implementing a lightbox in Visual FoxPro quite a while ago, there was no "spare" time in active projects that allowed me to have a closer look into his solution(s). Luckily, these days I received a demand to focus a little bit more on this. This article describes the steps about how to integrate and make use of Bernard's lightbox class in combination with _Screen in Visual FoxPro. The requirement in this project was to be able to visually lock the whole application (_Screen area) and guide the user to an information that should not be ignored easily. Depending on the importance any current user activity should be interrupted and focus put onto the notification. Getting the "meat", eh, source code Please check out Bernard's blog on Foxite directly in order to get the latest and greatest version. As time of writing this article I use version 6.0 as described in this blog entry: The Fastest Lightbox Ever The Lightbox class is sub-classed from the imgCanvas class from the GdiPlusX project on VFPx and therefore you need to have the source code of GdiPlusX as well, and integrate it into your development environment. The version I use is available here: Release GDIPlusX 1.20 As soon as you open the bbGdiLightbox class the first it, VFP might ask you to update the reference to the gdiplusx.vcx. As we have the sources, no problem and you have access to Bernard's code. The class itself is pretty easy to understand, some properties that you do not need to change and three methods: Setup(), ShowLightbox() and BeforeDraw() The challenge - _Screen or not? Reading Bernard's article about the fastest lightbox ever, he states the following: "The class will only work on a form. It will not support any other containers" Really? And what about _Screen? Isn't that a form class, too? Yes, of course it is but nonetheless trying to use _Screen directly will fail. Well, let's have look at the code to see why: WITH This .Left = 0 .Top = 0 .Height = ThisForm.Height .Width = ThisForm.Width .ZOrder(0) .Visible = .F.ENDWITH During the setup of the lightbox as well as while capturing the image as replacement for your forms and controls, the object reference Thisform is used. Which is a little bit restrictive to my opinion but let's continue. The second issue lies in the method ShowLightbox() and introduced by the call of .Bitmap.FromScreen(): Lparameters tlVisiblilty* tlVisiblilty - show or hide (T/F)* grab a screen dump with controlsIF tlVisiblilty Local loCaptureBmp As xfcBitmap Local lnTitleHeight, lnLeftBorder, lnTopBorder, lcImage, loImage lnTitleHeight = IIF(ThisForm.TitleBar = 1,Sysmetric(9),0) lnLeftBorder = IIF(ThisForm.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(3)) lnTopBorder = IIF(ThisForm.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(4)) With _Screen.System.Drawing loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(ThisForm.HWnd,; lnLeftBorder,; lnTopBorder+lnTitleHeight,; ThisForm.Width ,; ThisForm.Height) ENDWITH * save it to a property This.capturebmp = loCaptureBmp ThisForm.SetAll("Visible",.F.) This.DraW() This.Visible = .T.ELSE ThisForm.SetAll("Visible",.T.) This.Visible = .F.ENDIF My first trials in using the class ended in an exception - GdiPlusError:OutOfMemory - thrown by the Bitmap object. Frankly speaking, this happened mainly because of my lack of knowledge about GdiPlusX. After reading some documentation, especially about the FromScreen() method I experimented a little bit. Capturing the visible area of _Screen actually was not the real problem but the dimensions I specified for the bitmap. The modifications - step by step First of all, it is to get rid of restrictive object references on Thisform and to change them into either This.Parent or more generic into This.oForm (even better: This.oControl). The Lightbox.Setup() method now sets the necessary object reference like so: *====================================================================* Initial setup* Default value: This.oControl = "This.Parent"* Alternative: This.oControl = "_Screen"*====================================================================With This .oControl = Evaluate(.oControl) If Vartype(.oControl) == T_OBJECT .Anchor = 0 .Left = 0 .Top = 0 .Width = .oControl.Width .Height = .oControl.Height .Anchor = 15 .ZOrder(0) .Visible = .F. EndIfEndwith Also, based on other developers' comments in Bernard articles on his lightbox concept and evolution I found the source code to handle the differences between a form and _Screen and goes into Lightbox.ShowLightbox() like this: *====================================================================* tlVisibility - show or hide (T/F)* grab a screen dump with controls*====================================================================Lparameters tlVisibility Local loControl m.loControl = This.oControl If m.tlVisibility Local loCaptureBmp As xfcBitmap Local lnTitleHeight, lnLeftBorder, lnTopBorder, lcImage, loImage lnTitleHeight = Iif(m.loControl.TitleBar = 1,Sysmetric(9),0) lnLeftBorder = Iif(m.loControl.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(3)) lnTopBorder = Iif(m.loControl.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(4)) With _Screen.System.Drawing If Upper(m.loControl.Name) == Upper("Screen") loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(m.loControl.HWnd) Else loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(m.loControl.HWnd,; lnLeftBorder,; lnTopBorder+lnTitleHeight,; m.loControl.Width ,; m.loControl.Height) EndIf Endwith * save it to a property This.CaptureBmp = loCaptureBmp m.loControl.SetAll("Visible",.F.) This.Draw() This.Visible = .T. Else This.CaptureBmp = .Null. m.loControl.SetAll("Visible",.T.) This.Visible = .F. Endif {loadposition content_adsense} Are we done? Almost... Although, Bernard says it clearly in his article: "Just drop the class on a form and call it as shown." It did not come clear to my mind in the first place with _Screen, but, yeah, he is right. Dropping the class on a form provides a permanent link between those two classes, it creates a valid This.Parent object reference. Bearing in mind that the lightbox class can not be "dropped" on the _Screen, we have to create the same type of binding during runtime execution like so: *====================================================================* Create global lightbox component*==================================================================== Local llOk, loException As Exception m.llOk = .F. m.loException = .Null. If Not Vartype(_Screen.Lightbox) == "O" Try _Screen.AddObject("Lightbox", "bbGdiLightbox") Catch To m.loException Assert .F. Message m.loException.Message EndTry EndIf m.llOk = (Vartype(_Screen.Lightbox) == "O")Return m.llOk Through runtime instantiation we create a valid binding to This.Parent in the lightbox object and the code works as expected with _Screen. Ease your life: Use properties instead of constants Having a closer look at the BeforeDraw() method might wet your appetite to simplify the code a little bit. Looking at the sample screenshots in Bernard's article you see several forms in different colors. This got me to modify the code like so: *====================================================================* Apply the actual lightbox effect on the captured bitmap.*====================================================================If Vartype(This.CaptureBmp) == T_OBJECT Local loGfx As xfcGraphics loGfx = This.oGfx With _Screen.System.Drawing loGfx.DrawImage(This.CaptureBmp,This.Rectangle,This.Rectangle,.GraphicsUnit.Pixel) * change the colours as needed here * possible colours are (220,128,0,0),(220,0,0,128) etc. loBrush = .SolidBrush.New(.Color.FromArgb( ; This.Opacity, .Color.FromRGB(This.BorderColor))) loGfx.FillRectangle(loBrush,This.Rectangle) EndwithEndif Create an additional property Opacity to specify the grade of translucency you would like to have without the need to change the code in each instance of the class. This way you only need to change the values of Opacity and BorderColor to tweak the appearance of your lightbox. This could be quite helpful to signalize different levels of importance (ie. green, yellow, orange, red, etc...) of notifications to the users of the application. Final thoughts Using the lightbox concept in combination with _Screen instead of forms is possible. Already Jim Wiggins comments in Bernard's article to loop through the _Screen.Forms collection in order to cascade the lightbox visibility to all active forms. Good idea. But honestly, I believe that instead of looping all forms one could use _Screen.SetAll("ShowLightbox", .T./.F., "Form") with Form.ShowLightbox_Access method to gain more speed. The modifications described above might provide even more features to your applications while consuming less resources and performance. Additionally, the restrictions to capture only forms does not exist anymore. Using _Screen you are able to capture and cover anything. The captured area of _Screen does not include any toolbars, docked windows, or menus. Therefore, it is advised to take this concept on a higher level and to combine it with additional classes that handle the state of toolbars, docked windows and menus. Which I did for the customer's project.

  Read the article

• Getting your bearings and defining the project objective

  - by johndoucette

  I wrote this two years ago and thought it was worth posting… Some may think this is a daunting task and some may even say “what a waste of time” and want to open MS Project and start typing out tasks because someone asked for an estimate and a task list. Hell, maybe you even use Excel and pump out a spreadsheet with some real scientific formula for guessing how long it will take to code a bunch of classes. However, this short exercise will provide the basis for the entire project, whether small or large and be a great friend when communicating to anyone on your team or even your client. I call this the Project Brief. If you find yourself going beyond a single page, then you must decompose the sections and summarize your findings so there is a complete and clear picture of the project you are working on in a relatively short statement. Here is a great quote from the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) relative to what a project is;   A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. With this in mind, the project brief should encompass the entirety (objective) of the endeavor in its explanation and what it will take (goals) to create the product, service or result (deliverables). Normally the process of identifying the project objective is done during the first stage of a project called the Project Kickoff, but you can perform this very important step anytime to help you get a bearing. There are many more parts to helping a project stay on course, but this is usually the foundation where it can be grounded on. Through a series of 3 exercises, you should be able to come up with the objective, goals and deliverables on your project. Follow these steps, and in no time (about &frac12; hour), you will have the foundation of your project plan. (See examples below) Exercise 1 – Objectives Begin with the end in mind. Think about your project in business terms with a couple things to help you understand the objective; Reference the business benefit in terms of cost, speed and / or quality, Provide a higher level of what the outcome will look like (future sense) It should be non-measurable, that’s what the goals are all about The output should be a single paragraph with three sentences and take 10 minutes to write. *Typically, agreement must be reached on the objectives of the project before you would proceed to the next steps of the project. Exercise 2 – Goals A project goal is a statement that answers questions about who, what, why, where and when. A good project goal statement; Answers the five “W” questions for the project Is measurable in each of its parts Is published and agreed on by all the owners This helps the Project Manager receive confirmation on defining the project target. Using the established project objective done in the first exercise, think about the things it will take to get the job done. Think about tangible activities which are the top level tasks in a typical Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). The overall goal statement plus all the deliverables (next exercise) can be seen as the project team’s contract with the project owners. Write 3 - 5 goals in about 10 minutes. You should not write the words “Who, what, why, where and when, but merely be able to answer the questions when you read a goal. Exercise 3 – Deliverables Every project creates some type of output and these outputs are called deliverables. There are two classes of deliverables; Internal – produced for project team members to meet their goals External – produced for project owners to meet their expectations The list you enter here provides a checklist for the team’s delivery and/or is a statement of all the expectations of the project owners. Here are some typical project deliverables; Product and product documentation End product/system Requirements/feature documents Installation guides Demo/prototype System design documents User guides/help files Plans Project plan Training plan Conversion/installation/delivery plan Test plans Documentation plan Communication plan Reports and general documentation Progress reports System acceptance tests Outstanding bug list Procedures Risk and issue logs Project history Deliverables should go with each of the goals. Have 3-5 deliverables for each goal. When you are done, you will have established a great foundation for the clarity of your project. This exercise can take some time, but with practice, you should be able to whip this one out in 10 minutes as well, especially if you are intimate with an ongoing project. Samples  Objective [Client] is implementing a series of MOSS sites to support external public (Internet), internal employee (Intranet) and an external secure (password protected Internet) applications. This project will focus on the public-facing web site and will provide [Client] with architectural recommendations based on the current design being done by their design partner [Partner] and the internal Content Team. In addition, it will provide [Client] with a development plan and confidence they need to deploy a world class public Internet website. Goals 1.  [Consultant] will provide technical guidance and set project team expectations for the implementation of the MOSS Internet site based on provided features/functions within three weeks. 2.  [Consultant] will understand phase 2 secure password-protected Internet site design and provide recommendations.   Deliverables 1.1  Public Internet (unsecure) Architectural Recommendation Plan 1.2  Physical Site construction Work Breakdown Structure and plan (Time, cost and resources needed) 2.1  Two Factor authentication recommendation document   Objective [Client] is currently using an application developed by [Consultant] many years ago called "XXX". This application, although functional, does not meet their new updated business requirements and contains a few defects which [Client] has developed work-around processes. [Client] would like to have a "new and improved" system to support their membership management needs by expanding membership and subscription capabilities, provide accounting integration with internal (GL) and external (VeriSign) systems, and implement hooks to the current CRM solution. This effort will take place through a series of phases, beginning with envisioning. Goals 1. Through discussions with users, [Consultant] will discover current issues/bugs which need to be resolved which must meet the current functionality requirements within three weeks. 2. [Consultant] will gather requirements from the users about what is "needed" vs. "what they have" for enhancements and provide a high level document supporting their needs. 3. [Consultant] will meet with the team members through a series of meetings and help define the overall project plan to deliver a new and improved solution. Deliverables 1.1 Prioritized list of Current application issues/bugs that need to be resolved 1.2 Provide a resolution plan on the issues/bugs identified in the current application 1.3 Risk Assessment Document 2.1 Deliver a Requirements Document showing high-level [Client] needs for the new XXX application. · New feature functionality not in the application today · Existing functionality that will remain in the new functionality 2.2 Reporting Requirements Document 3.1 A Project Plan showing the deliverables and cost for the next (second) phase of this project. 3.2 A Statement of Work for the next (second) phase of this project. 3.3 An Estimate of any work that would need to follow the second phase.

  Read the article

• Master Data

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Let's take a deeper look at what we mean when we talk about 'Master' data. In its most general sense, master data is data that exists in more than one operational application. These are the applications that automate business processes. These applications require significant amounts of data to function correctly.  This includes data about the objects that are involved in transactions, as well as the transaction data itself.  For example, when a customer buys a product, the transaction is managed by a sales application.  The objects of the transaction are the Customer and the Product.  The transactional data is the time, place, price, discount, payment methods, etc. used at the point of sale. Many thousands of transactional data attributes are needed within the application. These important data elements are local to the applications and have no bearing on other applications. Harmonization and synchronization across applications is not necessary. The Customer and Product objects of the transaction also have a large number of attributes. Customer for example, includes hierarchies, hierarchical and matrixed relationships, contacts, classifications, preferences, accounts, identifiers, profiles, and addresses galore for 'ship to', 'mail to'; 'service at'; etc. Dozens of attributes exist for individuals, hundreds for organizations, and thousands for products. This data has meaning beyond any particular application. It exists in many applications and drives the vital cross application enterprise business processes. These are the processes that define and differentiate the organization. At every decision point, information about the objects of the process determines the direction of the process flow. This is the nature of the data that exists in more than one application, and this is why we call it 'master data'. Let me elaborate. Parties Oracle has developed a party schema to model all participants in your daily business operations. It models people, organizations, groups, customers, contacts, employees, and suppliers. It models their accounts, locations, classifications, and preferences.  And most importantly, it models the vast array of hierarchical and matrixed relationships that exist between all the participants in your real world operations.  The model logically separates people and organizations from their relationships and accounts.  This separation creates flexibility unmatched in the industry and accounts for the fact that the Oracle schema for Customers, Suppliers, and Accounts is a true superset of the wide variety of commercial and homegrown customer models in existence. Sites Sites are places where business is conducted. They can be addresses, clusters such as retail malls, locations within a cluster, floors within a building, places where meters are located, rooms on floors, etc.  Fully understanding all attributes of a site is key to many business processes. Attributes such as 'noise abatement policy' at a point of delivery, or the size of an oven in a business kitchen drive day-to-day activities such as delivery schedules or food promotions. Typically this kind of data is siloed in departments and scattered across applications and spreadsheets.  This leads to conflicting information and poor operational efficiencies. Oracle's Global Single Schema can hold all site attributes in one place and enables a single version of authoritative site information across the enterprise. Products and Services The Oracle Global Single Schema also includes a number of entities that define the products and services a company creates and offers for sale. Key entities include Items organized into Catalogs and Price Lists. The Catalog structures provide for the ability to capture different views of a product such as engineering, manufacturing, and service which are based on a unified product model. As a result, designers, manufacturing engineers, purchasers and partners can work simultaneously on a common product definition. The Catalog schema allows for unlimited attributes, combines them into meaningful groups, and maps them to catalog categories to track these different types of information. The model also maps an unlimited number of functional structures for each item. For example, multiple Bills of Material (BOMs) can be constructed representing requirements BOM, features BOM, and packaging BOM for an item. The Catalog model also supports hierarchical information about each item and all standard Global Data Synchronization attributes. Business Processes Utilizing Linked Data Entities Each business entity codified into a centralized master data environment significantly improves the efficiency of the automated business processes that use the consolidated data.  When all the key business entities used by an organization's process are so consolidated, the advantages are multiplied.  The primary reason for business process breakdowns (i.e. data errors across application boundaries) is eliminated. All processes are positively impacted and business process automation is itself automated.  I like to use the "Call to Resolution" business process as an example to help illustrate this important point. It involves call center applications, service applications, RMA applications, transportation applications, inventory applications, etc. Customer, Site, Product and Supplier master data must all be correct and consistent across these applications.  What's more, the data relationships between customer and product, and product and suppliers must be right. This is the minimum quality needed to insure the business process flows without error. But that is not the end of the story. Critical master data attributes such as customer loyalty, profitability, credit worthiness, and propensity to buy can optimize the call center point of contact component of the process. Critical product information such as alternative parts or equivalent products can optimize the resolution selected by the process. A comprehensive understanding of the 'service at' location can help insure multiple trips are avoided in the process. Full supplier information on reliability, delivery delays, and potential alternates can prevent supplier exceptions and play a significant role in optimizing the process.  In other words, these master data attributes enable the optimization of the "Call to Resolution" enterprise business process. Master data supports and guides business process flows. Thus the phrase 'Master Data' is indeed appropriate. MDM is the software that houses, manages, and governs the master data that resides in all applications and controls the enterprise business processes. A complete master data solution takes a data model that holds fully attributed master data entities and their inter-relationships. Oracle has this model. Oracle, with its deep understanding of application data is the logical choice for managing all your master data within the enterprise whether or not your organization actually runs any Oracle Applications.

  Read the article

• Does HTML 5 &ldquo;Rich vs. Reach&rdquo; a False Choice?

  - by andrewbrust

  The competition between the Web and proprietary rich platforms, including Windows, Mac OS, iPhone/iPad, Adobe’s Flash/AIR and Microsoft’s Silverlight, is not new. But with the emergence of HTML 5 and imminent support for it in the next release of the major Web browsers, the battle is heating up. And with the announcements made Wednesday at Google's I/O conference, it's getting kicked up yet another notch. The impact of this platform battle on companies in the media and advertising world, and the developers who serve them, is significant. The most prominent question is whether video and rich media online will shift towards pure HTML and away from plug-ins like Flash and Silverlight. In fact, certain features in HTML 5 make it suitable for development for line of business applications as well, further threatening those plug-in technologies. So what's the deal? Is this real or hype? To answer that question, I've done my own research into HTML 5's features and talked to several media-focused, New York area developers to get their opinions. I present my findings to you in this post. Before bearing down into HTML 5 specifics and practitioners’ quotes, let's set the context. To understand what HTML 5 can do, take a look at this video of Sports Illustrated’s HTML 5 prototype. This should start to get you bought into the idea that HTML 5 could be a game-changer. Next, if you happen to have installed the beta version of Google's Chrome 5 browser, take a look at the page linked to below, and in that page, click on any of the game thumbnails to see what's possible, without a plug-in, in this brave new world. (Note, although the instructions for each game tell you to press the A key to start, press the Z key instead.). Here's the link: http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara As an adjunct to what's enabled by HTML 5, consider the various transforms that are part of CSS 3. If you're running Safari as your browser, the following link will showcase this live; if not, you'll see a bitmap that will give you an idea of what's possible: http://webkit.org/blog/386/3d-transforms Are you starting to get the picture (literally)? What has up until now required browser plug-ins and other patches to HTML, most typically Flash, will soon be renderable, natively, in all major browsers. Moreover, it's looking likely that developers will be able to deliver such content and experiences in these browsers using one base of markup and script code (using straight JavaScript and/or jQuery), without resorting to browser-specific code and workarounds. If you're skeptical of this, I wouldn't blame you, especially with respect to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. However, i can tell you with confidence that even Microsoft is dedicated to full-on HTML 5 support in version 9 of that browser, which is currently under development. So what’s new in HTML 5, specifically, that makes sites like this possible?  The specification documents go into deep detail, and there’s no sense in rehashing them here, but a summary is probably in order.   Here is a non-authoritative, but useful, list of the major new feature areas in HTML 5: 2D drawing capabilities and 3D transforms. 2D drawing instructions can be embedded statically into a Web page; application interactivity and animation can be achieved through script.  As mentioned above, 3D transforms are technically part of version 3 of the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) spec, rather than HTML 5, but they can nonetheless be thought of as part of the bundle.  They allow for rendering of 3D images and animations that, together with 2D drawing, make HTML-based games much more feasible than they are presently, as the links above demonstrate. Embedded audio and video. A media player can appear directly in a rendered Web page, using HTML markup and no plug-ins. Alternately, player controls can be hidden and the content can play automatically. Major enhancements to form-based input. This includes such things as specification of required fields, embedding of text “hints” into a control, limiting valid input on a field to dates, email addresses or a list of values.  There’s more to this, but the gist is that line-of-business applications, with complicated input and data validation, are supported directly Offline caching, local storage and client-side SQL database. These facilities allow Web applications to function more like native apps, even if no internet connection is available. User-defined data. Data (or metadata – data about data) can easily be embedded statically and/or retrieved and updated with Javascript code. This avoids having to embed that data in a separate file, or within script code. Taken together, these features position HTML to compete with, and perhaps overtake, Adobe’s Flash/AIR (and Microsoft’s Silverlight) as a viable Web platform for media, RIAs (rich internet applications – apps that function more like desktop software than Web sites) and interactive Web content, including games. What do players in the media world think about this?  From the embedded video above, we know what Sports Illustrated (and, therefore, Time Warner) think.  Hulu, the major Internet site for broadcast TV content, is on record as saying HTML5 video does not pass muster with them, at least not yet.  YouTube, on the other hand, already has an experimental HTML 5-based version of their site.  TechCrunch has reported that NetFlix is flirting with HTML 5 too, especially as it pertains to embedded browsers in TV-based devices.  And the New York Times’ Web site now embeds some video clips without resorting to Flash.  They have to – otherwise iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users couldn’t see them in the Mobile Safari browser. What do media-focused developers think about all this?  I talked to several to get their opinions. Michael Pinto is CEO and Founder of Very Memorable Design whose primary focus has been to help marketing directors get traction online.  The firm’s client roster includes the likes Time, Inc., Scholastic and PBS.  Pinto predicts that “More and more microsites that were done entirely in Flash will be done more and more using jQuery. I can also see slideshows and video now being done without Flash. However if you needed to create a game or highly interactive activity Flash would still be the way to go for the web.” A dissenting view comes from Jesse Erlbaum, CEO of The Erlbaum Group, LLC, which serves numerous clients in the magazine publishing sector.  When I asked Erlbaum whether he thought HTML 5 and jQuery/JavaScript would steal significant market share from Flash, he responded “Not at all!  In particular, not for media and advertising customers!  These sectors are not generally in the business of making highly functional applications, which is the one place where HTML5/jQuery/etc really shines.” Ironically, Pinto’s firm is a heavy user of Flash for its projects and Erlbaum’s develops atop the “LAMP” (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl) stack.  For whatever reason, each firm seems to see the other’s toolset as a more viable choice.  But both agree that the developer tool story around HTML 5 is deficient.  Pinto explains “What’s lost with [HTML 5 and Javascript] techniques is that there isn’t a single widely favored easy-to-use tool of choice for authoring. So with Flash you can get up and running right away and not worry about what is different from one browser to the next.“  Erlbaum agrees, saying: “HTML5/Javascript lacks a sophisticated integrated development environment (IDE) which is an essential part of Flash.  If what someone is trying to make is primarily animation, it's a waste of time…to do this in Javascript.  It can be done much more easily in Flash, and with greater cross-browser compatibility and consistency due to the ubiquity of Flash.” Adobe (maker of Flash since its 2005 acquisition of Macromedia) likely agrees.  And for better or worse, they’ve decided to address this shortcoming of HTML 5, even at risk of diminishing their Flash platfrom. Yesterday Adobe announced that their hugely popular Deamweaver Web design authoring tool would directly support HTML 5 and CSS 3 development.  In fact, the Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 HTML5 Pack is downloadable now from Adobe Labs. Maybe Adobe is bowing to pressure from ardent Web professionals like Scott Kellum, Lead Designer at Channel V Media,  a digital and offline branding firm, serving the media and marketing sectors, among others.  Kellum told me that HTML 5 “…will definitely move people away from Flash. It has many of the same functionalities with faster load times and better accessibility. HTML5 will help Flash as well: with the new caching methods you can now even run Flash apps offline.” Although all three Web developers I interviewed would agree that Flash is still required for more sophisticated applications, Kellum seems to have put his finger on why HTML 5 may nonetheless dominate.  In his view, much of the Web development out there has little need for high-end capabilities: “Most people want to add a little punch to a navigation bar or some video and now you can get the biggest bang for your buck with HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript.” I’ve already mentioned that Google’s ongoing I/O conference, at the Moscone West center in San Francisco, is driving the HTML 5 news cycle, big time.  And Google made many announcements of their own, including the open sourcing of their VP8 video codec, new enterprise-oriented capabilities for its App Engine cloud offering, and the creation of the Chrome Web Store, which the company says will make it easier to find and “install” Web applications, in a fashion similar to  the way users procure native apps on various mobile platforms. HTML 5 looks to be disruptive, especially to the media world.  And even if the technology ends up disappointing, the chatter around it alone is causing big changes in the technology world.  If the richness it promises delivers, then magazine publishers and non-text digital advertisers may indeed have a platform for creating compelling content that loads quickly, is standards-based and will render identically in (the newest versions of) all major Web browsers.  Can this development in the digital arena save the titans of the print world?  I can’t predict, but it’s going to be fun to watch, and the competitive innovation from all players in both industries will likely be immense.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 2 3 4 5 6 7  | Next Page >