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• Excel Solver vs Solver Foundation

  - by JoshReuben

  I recently read a book http://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Engineering-Cookbook-Cookbooks-OReilly/dp/0596008791/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296593374&sr=8-1 - the Excel Scientific and Engineering Cookbook.     The 2 main tools that this book leveraged were the Data Analysis Pack and Excel Solver. I had previously been aquanted with Microsoft Solver Foundation - this is a full fledged API for solving optimization problems, and went beyond being a mere Excel plugin - it exposed a C# programmatic interface for in process and a web service interface for out of process integration. were they the same? apparently not!   2 different solver frameworks for Excel: http://www.solver.com/index.html http://www.solverfoundation.com/ I contacted both vendors to get their perspectives.   Heres what the Excel Solver guys had to say:   "The Solver Foundation requires you to learn and use a very specific modeling language (OML). The Excel solver allows you to formulate your optimization problems without learning any new language simply by entering the formulas into cells on the Excel spreadsheet, something that nearly everyone is already familiar with doing.   The Excel Solver also allows you to seamlessly upgrade to products that combine Monte Carlo Simulation capabilities (our Risk Solver Premium and Risk Solver Platform products) which allow you to include uncertainty into your models when appropriate.   Our advanced Excel Solver Products also have a number of built in reporting tools for advanced analysis of the your model and it's results"           And Heres what the Microsoft Solver Foundation guys had to say:   "  With the release of Solver Foundation 3.0, Solver Foundation has the same kinds of solvers (plus a few more) than what is found in Excel Solver. I think there are two main differences:   1.      Problems are described differently. In Excel Solver the goals and constraints are specified inside the spreadsheet, in formulas. In Solver Foundation they are described either in .Net code that uses the Solver Foundation Services API, or using the OML modeling language in Excel. 2.      Solver Foundation’s primary strength is on solving large linear, mixed integer, and constraint models. That is, models that contain arbitrary nonlinear functions (such as trig functions, IF(), powers, etc) are handled a bit better by the Excel Solver at this point. "

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• Invitation til Oracle Open Experience DK11

  - by user13847369

  Kære Partnere, Vi afholder sammen med Arrow et større kundearrangement den 7. December ved navnet "Oracle Open Experience DK11". I kan se agendaen for dagen her: V. Torben Markussen, Sales director/Middleware director Nordics, Oracle Fornem stemningen fra årets OpenWorld og få præsenteret de største og mest relevante nyheder. Hør hvordan I drager konkret fordel af Oracle-nyheder som Oracle Cloud, storageløsningen Pillar Axiom og de unikke nye muligheder med Fusion Applications. V. Hans Bøge, IT-arkitekt, Oracle Hans Bøge fortæller om hvordan I optimerer jeres licensløsning, og letter administrationen af jeres database. En server fødes med adskillige cores - alle med licensomkostninger. Hvorfor ikke nøjes med at aktivere det antal der matcher jeres behov? Hør hvordan I får en løsning, der kan opgraderes hen ad vejen som behovene opstår. V. Kim Estrup, Produktchef 11G , Oracle Brugerdefinerede implementeringer gør jeres systemer unikke, hvilket kun øger komplek og administration. Kim Estrup vil fortælle alt om, hvordan I letter forvaltningen af jeres traditionelle data-centre, samt etablerer lynhurtig adgang til skyen. Få indføring i en omfattende løsning, der skærer gennem kompleksitet, øger service-kvalitet og minimerer administrations- omkostninger. V. Steen Schmidt, IT-arkitekt, Oracle Hør hvordan de nyeste teknologier indenfor virtualisering og server-management, kan forsimple jeres IT-processer og reducere omkostninger markant. Få demonstreret en løsn der er fire gange mere skalerbar end den seneste VWware, og som kan understøtte op  til 128 virtuelle CPUer per virtuel maskine - endda til en brøkdel af omkostningen. Steen Schmidt fortæller alt om mulighederne i jeres storagesystem V. Erik Lund, Storage Presales-arkitekt, Oracle Lyder det for godt til at være sandt? Det kan faktisk lade sig gøre. Erik Lund fortæller alt om de nyeste storage-teknologier, der åbner op for skalerbarhed på både disc- og controllerniveau, og for database-komprimering med op til faktor 50. Det reducerer behovet for discs og formindsker jeres backup-vindue markant. Kombineret med markedets højeste udnyttelsesgrad og omkostningsfri QoS, giver det helt nye muligheder. Dagen starter kl 8.30 med morgenmad og slutter kl 14.00 Jeg håber I har lyst til at deltage samt at invitere jeres kunder.I skulle gerne have modtaget en invitation som I også kan bruge til at sende ud til jeres kunder.Er det ikke tilfældet så send mig endeligt en mail. Du kan også tilmelde dig via dette link: http://www.woho.dk/oracle og indtaste billetnummer: 1500Mvh Thomas Stenvald

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• Virtual Lab part 2&ndash;Templates, Patterns, Baselines

  - by Geoff N. Hiten

  Once you have a good virtualization platform chosen, whether it is a desktop, server or laptop environment, the temptation is to build “X”.  “X” may be a SharePoint lab, a Virtual Cluster, an AD test environment or some other cool project that you really need RIGHT NOW.  That would be doing it wrong. My grandfather taught woodworking and cabinetmaking for twenty-seven years at a trade school in Alabama.  He was the first instructor hired at that school and the only teacher for the first two years.  His students built tables, chairs, and workbenches so the school could start its HVAC courses.   Visiting as a child, I also noticed many extra “helper” stands, benches, holders, and gadgets all built from wood.  What does that have to do with a virtual lab, you ask?  Well, that is the same approach you should take.  Build stuff that you will use.  Not for solving a particular problem, but to let the Virtual Lab be part of your normal troubleshooting toolkit. Start with basic copies of various Operating Systems.  Load and patch server and desktop OS environments.  This also helps build your collection of ISO files, another essential element of a virtual Lab.  Once you have these “baseline” images, you can use your Virtualization software’s snapshot capability to freeze the image.  Clone the snapshot and you have a brand new fully patched machine in mere moments.  You may have to sysprep some of the Microsoft OS environments if you are going to create a domain environment or experiment with clustering.  That is still much faster than loading and patching from scratch. So once you have a stock of raw materials (baseline images in this case) where should you start.  Again, my grandfather’s workshop gives us the answer.  In the shop it was workbenches and tables to hold large workpieces that made the equipment more useful.  In a Windows environment the same role falls to the fundamental network services:  DHCP, DNS, Active Directory, Routing, File Services, and Storage services.  Plan your internal network setup.  Build out an AD controller with all the features listed.  Make the actual domain an isolated domain so it will not care about where you take it.  Add the Microsoft iSCSI target.  Once you have this single system, you can leverage it for almost any network environment beyond a simple stand-alone system. Having these templates and fundamental infrastructure elements ready to run means I can build a quick lab in minutes instead of hours.  My solutions are well-tested, my processes fully documented with screenshots, and my plans validated well before I have to make any changes to client systems.  the work I put in is easily returned in increased value and client satisfaction.

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• How Microsoft Market DotNet?

  - by Fendy

  I just read an Joel's article about Microsoft's breaking change (non-backwards compatibility) with dot net's introduction. It is interesting and explicitly reflected the condition during that time. But now almost 10 years has passed. The breaking change It is mainly on how bad is Microsoft introducing non-backwards compatibility development tools, such as dot net, instead of improving the already-widely used asp classic or VB6. As much have known, dot net is not natively embedded in windows XP (yes in vista or 7), so in order to use the .net apps, you need to install the .net framework of over 300mb (it's big that day). However, as we see that nowadays many business use .net as their main development tools, with asp.net or mvc as their web-based applications. C# nowadays be one of tops programming languages (the most questions in stackoverflow). The more interesing part is, win32api still alive even there is newer technology out there (and still widely used). Imagine if microsoft does not introduce the breaking change, there will many corporates still uses asp classic or vb-based applications (there still is, but not that much). There are many corporates use additional services such as azure or sharepoint (beside how expensive is it). Please note that I also know there are many flagships applications (maybe adobe's and blizzard's) still use C-based or older language and not porting to newer high-level language. The question How can Microsoft persuade the users to migrate their old applications into dot net? As we have known it is very hard and give no immediate value when rewrite the applications (netscape story), and it is very risky. I am more interested in Microsoft's way and not opinion such as "because dot net is OOP, or dot net is dll-embedable, etc". This question may be constructive, as the technology is vastly changes over times lately. As we can see, Microsoft changes Asp.Net webform to MVC, winform is legacy now, it is starting to change to use windows store rather than basic-installment, touchscreen and later on we will have see-through applications such as google class. And that will be breaking changes. We will need to account portability as an issue nowadays. We will need other than just mere technology choice, but also migration plans. Even maybe as critical as we might need multiplatform language compiler, as approached by Joel's Wasabi. (hey, I read his articles too much!)

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• Are we ready for the Cloud computing era?

  - by andrewkatumba

  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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; 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;} "Elite?" developer circles are abuzz with the notion of Cloud computing . The increasing bandwidth, the desire for faster and leaner operations and ofcourse the need for outsourcing non core it related business requirements e.g wordprocessing, spreadsheets, data backups. In strolls Chrome OS (am sure other similar OSes will join with their own wagons for us to jump on), offering just that, internet based services(more like a repository of), quick efficient and "reliable" and for the most part cheap and often time even free! And we all go rhapsodic!  It boils down to the age old dilemma, "if the cops are so busy protecting us then who will protect them" (even the folks back at Hollywood keep us reminded)! Who is going to ensure that these internet based services do not go down(either intentionally or by some malicious third party) leading to a multinational colossal disaster .At the risk of sounding pessimistic,  IT IS NOT AN ISSUE OF TRUST, this is but a mere case of Murphy's Law!  What then? Should the "cloud" be trusted to this extent at this time?  This is an era where challenges are rapidly solved with lightning promptness to "beat the competition", my hope is that our solutions are not just creating problems that we may not be able to solve!  Keeping my ear on the Ground.

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• Oracle Could Lead In Cloud Business Apps Within Year

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Below is the reprint from an article, writen by By Pete Barlas, Investor's Business Daily, published on Investorscom: Oracle (ORCL) is all but destined to become the largest seller of cloud business-software applications, analysts say, and perhaps within a year. What that means in the long run is much debated, though, as analysts aren't sure whether pricing competition might cut into profit or what other issues might develop in the fast-emerging cloud software field. But the database leader, which is either No. 1 or 2 to SAP (SAP) in business apps overall, simply has the size and scope to overtake current cloud business-app leader, Salesforce.com (CRM), analysts say. Oracle rolled out its first full suite of cloud applications on June 6. Cloud computing lets companies store data and apps on the Internet "cloud" and access it quickly and easily. The applications run the gamut of customer relationship management software to social networking sites for employees, partners and customers. For longtime software giants like Oracle, the cloud is a big switch. They get the great bulk of revenue from companies and other enterprises buying or licensing software that the customers keep on their own computer systems. Vendors also get annual maintenance fees. Analysts estimate Oracle is taking in a mere $1 billion or so a year from cloud-based software sales and services now. But while that's just a sliver of the company's $37 billion in sales last year, it's already about a third of the total sales for Salesforce, which is expected to end this year with some $3 billion in revenue. Operates In 145 Countries Oracle operates in more than 145 countries vs. about 70 for Salesforce. And Oracle has far more apps than Salesforce. Revenue doesn't equate to profit, but it's inevitable that huge Oracle will become the largest seller of cloud applications, says Trip Chowdhry, an analyst for Global Equities Research. "What Oracle has is global presence," he said. "They have two things driving the revenue: breadth of the offering and breadth of the distribution. You put those applications in those sales reps' hands and you get deployments not in just one country but several countries." At the June 6 event, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison emphasized that his company could and would beat Salesforce.com in head-to-head battles for customers. Oracle makes software to help companies manage such tasks as customer relationships, recruiting, supply chains, projects, finances and more. That range gives it an edge over all rivals, says Michael Fauscette, an analyst for research firm IDC.

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• Agile team with no dedicated Tester members. Insane or efficient?

  - by MetaFight

  I'm a software developer. I've been thinking a lot about the efficiency of the Software Testers I've worked with so far in my career. In fact, I've been thinking a lot about the Software Testers role in general and have reached a potentially contentious conclusion: Non-developer Software Testers staff are less efficient at software testing than developers. Now, before everyone gets upset, hear me out. This isn't mere opinion: Software Testing and Software Development both require a lot of skills in common: Problem solving Thinking about corner cases Analytical skills The ability to define clear and concise step-by-step scenarios What developers have in addition to this is the ability to automate their tests. Yes, I know non-dev testers can automate their tests too, but that often then becomes a test maintenance issue. Because automating UI tests is essentially programming, non-dev members encounter all the same difficulties software developers encounter: Copy-pasta, lack of code reusibility/maintainability, etc. So, I was wondering. Why not replace all non-dev roles with developer roles? Developers have the skills required to perform Software Testing tasks, and they have the skills to automate tests and keep them maintainable. Would the following work: Hire a bunch of developers and split them into 2 roles: Software developers Software developers doing testing (some manual, mostly automated by writing integration tests, unit tests, etc) Software developers doing application support. (I've removed this as it is probably a separate question altogether) And, in our case since we're doing Agile development, rotate the roles every sprint or two. Also, if at all possible, try to have people spend their Developer stints and Testing stints on different projects. Ideally you would want to reduce the turnover rate per rotation. So maybe you could have 2 groups and make sure the rotation cycles of the groups are elided. So, for example, if each rotation was two sprints long, the two groups would have their rotations 1 sprint apart. That way there's only a 50% turn-over rate per sprint. Am I crazy, or could this work? (Obviously a key component to this working is that all devs want to be in the 3 roles. Let's assume I'm starting a new company and I can hire these ideal people) Edit I've removed the phrase "QA", as apparently we are using it incorrectly where I work.

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• Tomcat performing terribly for no apparent reason

  - by John

  We're running a game application .WAR on Tomcat 6 on an Amazon EC2 server, 8 core processor, 7gb RAM. The application uses a MySQL database hosted on Amazon RDS. This Facebook application takes ages to access when a mere 20-30 users are playing it. Big difference from 1-2 users. The entire .WAR is ~4mb, all static content hosted elsewhere. The server has never been close to running out of RAM. The CPU utilization has never been higher than 13.5-14%. Even with ~500 users that completely slowed everything to a standstill. The thread count or threadpools isn't close to being maxed out. I heightened maxthreads but it didn't make a noticeable difference. My theory is that Tomcat can only use one processor core, which would explain why it was slowed to a halt even though CPU usage was stably at 13-14% at the activity spike. But I'm struggling to understand why it would only use one CPU core. There is no processor cap in server.xml. The app contains several servlets (4 or 5). There is no mention of SingleThreadModel in the Java code. WHAT could be causing the application to run extremely slowly? If there is only 1-5 people on the application it runs fine. With 20-30 people it's barely contactable.

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• Windows Bluescreen - atikmpag.sys

  - by Mochan

  Information Name: atikmpag.sys bluescreen (BSOD or BlueScreen of Death) Error code: 0x00000116 Appears when: Playing games, watching videos Can be reproduced: Yes Cause: Graphics Card is the main assumption System Specifications Before we begin - I will inform you of my specifications. OS: Windows 7 x64 Home Edition Model: Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition (aka Inspiron 7520) (Add 2GB of RAM to the model linked) Hard Drive: 1TB CPU: Intel Quad-Core i7 Sandy Bridge (I think) Processor at 2.10GHz (I think it can be clocked to 3GHz?) RAM: 6GB (I think 1 x 4GB and 1 x 2GB) Display: 15.6" HD (1366x768) Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 7500M 2GB Details So now that you know some basics about my computer, I'll get to the problem. Being an Ubuntu user I hardly use Windows, but occasionally I do. Like to run Skyrim and other games incompatible with Linux and WINE. The new Sims 3 Seasons patch is also now not supported. When playing these two games and other ones, theoretically. I have also heard others saying that while watching HD movies and video series it also happens. While watching the bluescreen as it happens, I see it is the 'atikmpag.sys' error. I have not installed much and nothing significant. I think I have downloaded Skyrim, Firefox and The Sims 3. I haven't done much more... since Ubuntu is definitely the best in comparison! (No hate, just a joke :P). I can reproduce it easily (just by running a game for less than a minute). It is always there each time, but it's never at a specific time or anything. So far I have found that it may be caused by lack of power to the graphics card, or it may be damaged or fried. Since I've had the computer for a mere 4 months (and have had other problems with it also). I have contacted Dell but they are useless beyond belief. Anyone with any information, solutions or details are encouraged to share your knowledge, as it would be immensely appreciated.

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• Quad channel memory and compatibility

  - by balteo

  My motherboard has quad channel memory compatibility. There are 8 memory slots in all: 4 slots are black the other 4 slots are white. I currently have 4 memory modules of 1 GB each in the 4 white slots. That leaves me with 4 free memory slots. My question is: can I put 4 memory modules of 2 GB each in the 4 remaining slots or do I have to use modules of 1 GB all over? FYI here is the output of lshw: alpha description: Ordinateur Tour produit: Precision WorkStation 690 *-cpu:0 description: CPU produit: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5355 @ 2.66GHz *-memory description: Mémoire Système identifiant matériel: 1000 emplacement: Carte mère taille: 4GiB *-bank:0 description: FB-DIMM DDR2 FB-DIMM Synchrone 667 MHz (1,5 ns) produit: HYMP512F72CP8N3-Y5 fabriquant: Hynix Semiconductor (Hyundai Electronics) identifiant matériel: 0 numéro de série: 56737501 emplacement: DIMM 1 taille: 1GiB bits: 64 bits horloge: 667MHz (1.5ns) *-bank:1 description: FB-DIMM DDR2 FB-DIMM Synchrone 667 MHz (1,5 ns) produit: HYMP512F72CP8N3-Y5 fabriquant: Hynix Semiconductor (Hyundai Electronics) identifiant matériel: 1 numéro de série: 48115124 emplacement: DIMM 2 taille: 1GiB bits: 64 bits horloge: 667MHz (1.5ns) *-bank:2 description: FB-DIMM DDR2 FB-DIMM Synchrone 667 MHz (1,5 ns) produit: HYMP512F72CP8N3-Y5 fabriquant: Hynix Semiconductor (Hyundai Electronics) identifiant matériel: 2 numéro de série: 48115523 emplacement: DIMM 3 taille: 1GiB bits: 64 bits horloge: 667MHz (1.5ns) *-bank:3 description: FB-DIMM DDR2 FB-DIMM Synchrone 667 MHz (1,5 ns) produit: HYMP512F72CP8N3-Y5 fabriquant: Hynix Semiconductor (Hyundai Electronics) identifiant matériel: 3 numéro de série: 48115424 emplacement: DIMM 4 taille: 1GiB bits: 64 bits horloge: 667MHz (1.5ns) *-bank:4 description: FB-DIMM DDR2 FB-DIMM Synchrone 667 MHz (1,5 ns) [vide] fabriquant: FFFFFFFFFFFF identifiant matériel: 4 numéro de série: FFFFFFFF emplacement: DIMM 5 bits: 64 bits horloge: 667MHz (1.5ns) *-bank:5 description: FB-DIMM DDR2 FB-DIMM Synchrone 667 MHz (1,5 ns) [vide] fabriquant: FFFFFFFFFFFF identifiant matériel: 5 numéro de série: FFFFFFFF emplacement: DIMM 6 bits: 64 bits horloge: 667MHz (1.5ns) *-bank:6 description: FB-DIMM DDR2 FB-DIMM Synchrone 667 MHz (1,5 ns) [vide] fabriquant: FFFFFFFFFFFF identifiant matériel: 6 numéro de série: FFFFFFFF emplacement: DIMM 7 bits: 64 bits horloge: 667MHz (1.5ns) *-bank:7 description: FB-DIMM DDR2 FB-DIMM Synchrone 667 MHz (1,5 ns) [vide] fabriquant: FFFFFFFFFFFF identifiant matériel: 7 numéro de série: FFFFFFFF emplacement: DIMM 8 bits: 64 bits horloge: 667MHz (1.5ns) *-pci:0 description: Host bridge produit: 5000X Chipset Memory Controller Hub fabriquant: Intel Corporation identifiant matériel: 100 information bus: pci@0000:00:00.0 version: 12 bits: 32 bits horloge: 33MHz

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• Apache stops responding to http requests -- https continues to work

  - by Apropos

  Okay. Very strange problem that I'm having here. I just recently updated to Apache 2.4.2 from 2.2.17, mostly to try to get name-based SSL VirtualHosts working (although they should have been working on 2.2.17). Server is Win2008 R2 (so x64 by definition) running with PHP 5.4.3 and MySQL 5.1.40 (outdated, I know). When I launch the server, it initially works fine. Responds to all requests, VirtualHosts all in order. However, after an uncertain amount of time (appears to only take a few minutes for the most part, but sometimes takes hours), it stops responding to regular HTTP requests (on any VirtualHost). HTTPS continues to work. No errors in the log, and nothing in the access logs when I attempt to connect. I'm having a hard time finding the source of this error given its intermittent nature. When removing all SSL-based VirtualHosts, it seemingly increased stability (still responding to HTTP requests twelve hours later). This could be mere coincidence, though. Entirety of SSL VirtualHost is as follows, should there happen to be a problem with it. <VirtualHost *:443> DocumentRoot "C:\Server\www\virtualhosts\mysite.net" ErrorLog logs/ssl.mysite.net-error_log CustomLog logs/ssl.mysite.net-access_log common env=!dontlog SSLEngine on SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 SSLCipherSuite ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT:!SSLv2:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM SSLCertificateFile C:/Server/bin/apache/apache2.4.2/conf/ssl/server.crt SSLCertificateKeyFile C:/Server/bin/apache/apache2.4.2/conf/ssl/server.key SSLCertificateChainFile C:/Server/bin/apache/Apache2.4.2/conf/ssl/sub.class1.server.ca.pem SSLCACertificateFile C:/Server/bin/apache/Apache2.4.2/conf/ssl/ca.pem </VirtualHost> Any ideas what I'm missing?

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• Mirroring the Global Address List on Blackberries

  - by Wyatt Barnett

  In times immemorial, back in the day when men were men and blackberries still took AA batteries, we rolled them out to our users for our 100 person operation. At that time, there was no such thing as address list lookups, so we were forced to hack a bit. The ingenious hack we came up with was to mirror the GAL as a public folder and then synch up blackberries to that. While there have been a few downsides here and there, they have been mere annoyances. And our users, having grown fat and prosperous in the intervening years, have been used to seeing every single employee and department here listed on their hand-held automatically. Alas, it appears that Outlook 2010 breaks this functionality as Blackberry desktop manager is completely incompatible with it. Moreover, this presents us with an opportunity to change things for the better given that public folders are going away next time we upgrade exchange. So, we are in search of a tool or technique that will allow us to mimic current functionality--that is to: Push an essentially arbitrary list of ~100 contacts to blackberry address books Said list shall be centrally updated Without requiring desktop manager or exchange public folders. Any suggestions, crowd?

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• nginx config woes for multiple subdomains & domains

  - by Peter Hanneman

  I'm finally moving away from Apache and I've got the latest development version of nginx running on a fully updated Ubuntu 10.04 VPS. I've got a single dedicated IP for the box (1.2.3.4) but I've got two separate domains pointing to the server: www.example1.com and www.example2.net. I would like to map the fallowing relationships between urls and document roots in the config: www.example1.com / example1.com -> /var/www/pub/example1.com/ subdomain.example1.com -> /var/www/dev/subdomain/example1.com/ www.example2.net / example2.net -> /var/www/pub/example2.net/ subdomain.example2.net -> /var/www/dev/subdomain/example2.net/ Where the name of the requested subdomain is a folder under /var/www/dev/. Ideally a request for a non-existent subdomain(no matching folder found) would result in a rewrite to the public site (eg: invalid.example1.com -- www.example1.com) however a mere "404 Not Found" wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. It would also be nice if I didn't need to modify the config every time I mkdir a new subdomain folder - even better if I don't need to edit it for a new domain either...but now I'm getting greedy... :p Although in my defense Apache did all of this with a single directive. Does anyone know how I can efficiently mimic this behavior in nginx? Thanks in advance, Peter Hanneman

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• Why is my computer randomly restarting? How can I fix it?

  - by kinglime

  I have a custom built desktop computer that I've been using since about a year ago. The main specs are: ASUS P8Z68-V LE Motherboard Intel Core i7 2600k Corsair Vengeance 16GB Ram ASUS ENGTX570 GPU Corsair TX650M PSU I was running an overclock of 4.4ghz for my cpu (I have a Hyper212 EVO) and 1600mhz for my RAM but have it currently turned off due to my issues. I am also currently running Windows 8 but this problem occured in Windows 7 too. Basically my issue is that seemingly randomly, with no pattern my PC will reset itself and ASUS Anti-Surge will alert me that something went wrong. This issue is not related to system stress. I can run it fine for an hour maxxed out on Prime95 then later I can be watching a mere YouTube video when it will randomly reset. This has been occurring probably for the last two weeks and it seems to be getting worse. I believe this might be related to the power supply but when I monitor it in the bios and in Windows it appears to be putting out the proper voltages. Also possibly related or not but my Nvidia drivers frequently temporarily fail and then warn me of some kind of kernel error? If I have to buy a new power supply that is what I'll do but I want to make damn sure that's the only issue at hand. Thank you everyone in advance, please help me diagnose the issue and tell me what I can do to fix it. If you need any additional info about my setup please ask me.

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• Very high Magento/Apache memory usage even without visitors (are we fooled by our hosting company?)

  - by MrDobalina

  I am no server guy and we have issues with our speed so I come here asking for advise. We have a VPS with 2 cores and 2gb of RAM at a Magento specialized hosting company. Over the course of the last weeks our site speed has gotten worse, even though our store is new, has less than 1000 SKUs and not even 100 visitos a day. At magespeedtest.com we only get 1.87 trans/sec @ 2.11 secs each with a mere 5 concurrent users. Our magento log files are clean, we have no huge database tables or anything like that. When we take a look at our server real time stats, we see that the memory usage jumped up from about 34% to 71% and now 82% in just a few days in idle, with no visitors on the site. Our hosting company said that we do not need to worry about that as it`s maybe related to mysql which creates buffers (which are maybe not even actually being used) and what is important is CPU and swap - stats are ok here. They also said that the low benchmark scores are caused by bad extensions or template modifications on our side. We are not sure if we can trust that statement as we only have 4 plugins installed (all from aheadworks and amasty which are known to be one of the best magento extension developers). Our template modifications are purely html and css, no modifications to the php code. Our pagespeed is ranked with 93/100 in firebug and Magento is properly configured, so the problem really just gets obvious when there are a handful of users on the site at the same time. Can anyone confirm our hosting`s statement about memory usage and where can I start looking for a solution?

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• Improved appointment rendering in RadScheduler for ASP.NET AJAX, Q1 2010

  Now that Q1 2010 release is out in the wild, we can sit down and discuss some of the changes we decided to make in the new release. One of them is the new appointment rendering of RadScheduler - a potentially breaking change, but a much needed one. If you have problems with your old custom skins, include the old base stylesheet along with your RadScheduler and set EnableEmbeddedBaseStylesheet=false in your RadScheduler. You can find the said base stylesheet attached to this post.   While trying to improve the performance of RadScheduler, I noticed that the number of resources slows down the rendering and overall performance considerably. This had to be expected - the images to support the appointment rounded corners (and the predefined resources) were quite large. However, I didnt take into account that all browsers keep for performance reasons their images uncompressed in memory and with the color depth of the current desktop. A simple calculation later I discovered that the appointment sprite itself is taking 25MB memory when loaded. Add 5 resources to the fray and you have 150MB memory down with a single blow. As it turns out - a sprite image is not a panacea, if it gets too big - dont be afraid to break it in two. The loading time may suffer, but your browser suffers more while rendering a 25MB monster. First I thought of undertaking the aforementioned solution - breaking the appointment sprite in two and thus reducing the two appointment sprites to mere 2MB uncompressed. Then I thought - the rounded corners are small - I can use borders and backgrounds to simulate rounded appointment borders while still keeping the same HTML structure. The gradients can be done with a single 10x50px image plus we have a gain - border colors and backgrounds can be changed on the fly.  I started with five rendering elements at first, then tried with four and finally I settled on only three elements.  Behold the new appointment rendering (quite simple really):       On the left you can see that the first container has only top and bottom borders and a background. In fact, the background isnt even needed since it will be obscured by the elements on top of it. The whole first container is only needed for the four dots that reside in the four corners of the appointment. On top of this container is another one that holds the left and right borders and slightly lighter background to create the illusion of a second lighter border beside the other two. At last on top of all others is placed the text container that also holds the top and bottom borders and the gradient background. On the right you can see the final result - Im quite happy with it and I hope you will be too. After creating the new rendering we took another step further - we decided to use alpha gradients for the resource rendering, thus supporting any color appointments with rounded corners and gradients. You can see some examples below:We plan on adding BorderColor and BackColor properties  to the ResourceStyles definitions for Q1 SP1. However with the new rendering in Q1 2010 we do support BackColor and BorderColor appointment properties - you only need to set AppointmentStyleMode=Default to keep RadScheduler from switching to Simple appointment rendering. Here is one screenshot of RadScheduler with appointments set to different colors: I hope that you will enjoy working with the new appointments in RadScheduler. RadScheduler base stylesheet 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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• Improved appointment rendering in RadScheduler for ASP.NET AJAX, Q1 2010

  Now that Q1 2010 release is out in the wild, we can sit down and discuss some of the changes we decided to make in the new release. One of them is the new appointment rendering of RadScheduler - a potentially breaking change, but a much needed one. If you have problems with your old custom skins, include the old base stylesheet along with your RadScheduler and set EnableEmbeddedBaseStylesheet=false in your RadScheduler. You can find the said base stylesheet attached to this post.   While trying to improve the performance of RadScheduler, I noticed that the number of resources slows down the rendering and overall performance considerably. This had to be expected - the images to support the appointment rounded corners (and the predefined resources) were quite large. However, I didnt take into account that all browsers keep for performance reasons their images uncompressed in memory and with the color depth of the current desktop. A simple calculation later I discovered that the appointment sprite itself is taking 25MB memory when loaded. Add 5 resources to the fray and you have 150MB memory down with a single blow. As it turns out - a sprite image is not a panacea, if it gets too big - dont be afraid to break it in two. The loading time may suffer, but your browser suffers more while rendering a 25MB monster. First I thought of undertaking the aforementioned solution - breaking the appointment sprite in two and thus reducing the two appointment sprites to mere 2MB uncompressed. Then I thought - the rounded corners are small - I can use borders and backgrounds to simulate rounded appointment borders while still keeping the same HTML structure. The gradients can be done with a single 10x50px image plus we have a gain - border colors and backgrounds can be changed on the fly.  I started with five rendering elements at first, then tried with four and finally I settled on only three elements.  Behold the new appointment rendering (quite simple really):       On the left you can see that the first container has only top and bottom borders and a background. In fact, the background isnt even needed since it will be obscured by the elements on top of it. The whole first container is only needed for the four dots that reside in the four corners of the appointment. On top of this container is another one that holds the left and right borders and slightly lighter background to create the illusion of a second lighter border beside the other two. At last on top of all others is placed the text container that also holds the top and bottom borders and the gradient background. On the right you can see the final result - Im quite happy with it and I hope you will be too. After creating the new rendering we took another step further - we decided to use alpha gradients for the resource rendering, thus supporting any color appointments with rounded corners and gradients. You can see some examples below:We plan on adding BorderColor and BackColor properties  to the ResourceStyles definitions for Q1 SP1. However with the new rendering in Q1 2010 we do support BackColor and BorderColor appointment properties - you only need to set AppointmentStyleMode=Default to keep RadScheduler from switching to Simple appointment rendering. Here is one screenshot of RadScheduler with appointments set to different colors: I hope that you will enjoy working with the new appointments in RadScheduler. RadScheduler base stylesheet 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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• 11 Types of Developers

  - by Lee Brandt

  Jack Dawson Jack Dawson is the homeless drifter in Titanic. At one point in the movie he says, “I figure life’s a gift, and I don’t intend on wasting it.” He is happy to wander wherever life takes him. He works himself from place to place, making just enough money to make it to his next adventure. The “Jack Dawson” developer clings on to any new technology as the ‘next big thing’, and will find ways to shoe-horn it in to places where it is not a fit. He is very appealing to the other developers because they want to try the newest techniques and tools too, He will only stay until the new technology either bores him or becomes problematic. Jack will also be hard to find once the technology has been implemented, because he will be on to the next shiny thing. However, having a Jack Dawson on your team can be beneficial. Jack can be a great ally when attempting to convince a stodgy, corporate entity to upgrade. Jack usually has an encyclopedic recall of all the new features of the technology upgrade and is more than happy to interject them in any conversation. Tom Smykowski Tom is the neurotic employee in Office Space, and is deathly afraid of being fired. He will do only what is necessary to keep the status quo. He believes as long as nothing changes, his job is safe. He will scoff at anything new and be the naysayer during any change initiative. Tom can be useful in off-setting Jack Dawson. Jack will constantly be pushing for change and Tom will constantly be fighting it. When you see that Jack is getting kind of bored with a new technology and Tom has finally stopped wetting himself at the mere mention of it, then it is probably the sweet spot of beginning to implement that new technology (providing it is the right tool for the job). Ray Consella Ray is the guy who built the Field of Dreams. He took a risk. Sometimes he screwed it up, but he knew he didn’t want to end up regretting not attempting it. He constantly doubted himself, but he knew he had to keep going. Granted, he was doing what the voices in his head were telling him to do, but my point is he was driven to do something that most people considered crazy. Even when his friends, his wife and even he told himself he was crazy, somewhere inside himself, he knew it was the right thing to do. These are the innovators. These are the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the world. The take risks, they fail, they learn and the get better. Obviously, this kind of person thrives in start-ups and smaller companies, but that is due to their natural aversion to bureaucracy. They want to see their ideas put into motion quickly, and withdrawn quickly if it doesn’t work. Short feedback cycles are essential to Ray. He wants to know if his idea is working or not. He wants to modify or reverse his idea if it is not working or makes things worse. These are the agilistas. May I always be one.

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• My Mother Bought a Droid

  - by Ben Griswold

  I converted to iPhone two years ago when I left my former employer and my Blackberry behind. The truth is I half-heartedly purchased my iPhone. It was a great looking device, but as far as I was concerned, it was a mere toy compared to my Blackberry.  I remember hiding the toy in my briefcase when attending business meetings because I didn’t consider it to be professional enough.  I’ve since owned all three generations of the iPhone and, well, iPhone seems to have caught on. I still miss the click of the Blackberry keyboard and the blinking red light letting me know that someone/something requires my attention, but I’m officially an iPhone fanboy now.  My mom called last weekend and asked if she should buy an iPhone. I talked her ear off about everything I love about iPhone. I went on for about twenty minutes. I couldn’t help myself. I mentioned everything from my podcast subscriptions to the application which manages my workouts.  I went as far as to say that someday all smart phones will be referred to as iPhones just like all tissues are referred to as Kleenex and all sodas are referred to as Cokes.  I was really on a roll and then I stopped. I had to…the call dropped.  There I was, strategically standing in the far corner of my backyard where I get the most reliable AT&T reception and the call drops in middle of my iPhone pitch.  Folks, I don’t care how good a salesperson you are, it’s tough to recover from a situation like this.   I dialed my mom back and jokingly asked if she was planning to make calls with her new phone. I explained that AT&T is bound to provide better service eventually but I’m not sure she should wait. After all, I have troubles with the network in San Diego and I can only image how bad it would be for her in Western Massachusetts. Mom called back a few days later exclaiming, “I bought a Droid! I love this phone! I haven’t done anything with it but make phone calls, but I love it.”  I had to laugh.  My mom made the right call (pun intended.)  The iPhone is an amazing device, but owners are constantly reminded that its core function (it’s a phone, remember?) is subpar.  If you love gadgets, you’re probably enthralled by iPhone’s many bells and whistles and, relatively speaking, the terrible phone service might not amount to much.  (Maybe it amounts to a rant on your blog.) The overall iPhone offering is so attractive that consumers are willing to wait for AT&T to straighten up their act or wait until Apple grants a choice of carriers.  But I don’t see either of these remedies coming soon. In the interim, I’m willing to take my iPhone for what it is and just continue to enjoy my favorite features while pretending that poor coverage isn’t a big deal. With any luck, more and more reasonable folks will recognize that Android Phones are legitimate players in the smart phone space, they will buy loads of them and there will become plenty of functional phones to borrow when my “phone” is showing zero bars.  Heck, I’m already covered when I visit my mom.

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• Innovative SPARC: Lighting a Fire Under Oracle's New Hardware Business

  - by Paulo Folgado

  "There's a certain level of things you can do with commercially available parts," says Oracle Executive Vice President Mike Splain. But, he notes, you can do so much more if you design the parts yourself. Mike Splain,EVP, OracleYou can, for example, design cryptographic accelerators into your microprocessors so customers can run their networks fully encrypted if they choose.Of course, it helps if you've already built multiple processing "cores" into those chips so they can handle all that encrypting and decrypting while still getting their other work done.System on a ChipAs the leader of Oracle Microelectronics, Mike knows how implementing clever innovations in silicon can give systems a real competitive advantage.The SPARC microprocessors that his team designed at Sun pioneered the concept of multiple cores several years ago, and the UltraSPARC T2 processor--the industry's first "system on a chip"--packs up to eight cores per chip, each running as many as eight threads at once. That's the most cores and threads of any general-purpose processor. Looking back, Mike points out that the real value of large enterprise-class servers was their ability to run a lot of very large applications in parallel."The beauty of our CMT [chip multi-threading] machines is you can get that same kind of parallel-processing capability at a much lower cost and in a much smaller footprint," he says.The Whole StackWhat has Mike excited these days is that suddenly the opportunity to innovate is much bigger as part of Oracle."In my group, we used to look up the software stack and say, 'We can do any innovation we want, provided the only thing we have to change is what's in the Solaris operating system'--or maybe Java," he says. "If we wanted to change things beyond that, we'd have to go outside the walls of Sun and we'd have to convince the vendors: 'You have to align with us, you have to test with us, you have to build for us, and then you'll reap the benefits.' Now we get access to the entire stack. We can look all the way through the stack and say, 'Okay, what would make the database go faster? What would make the middleware go faster?'"Changing the WorldMike and his microelectronics team also like the fact that Oracle is not just any software company. We're #1 in database, middleware, business intelligence, and more."We're like all the other engineers from Sun; we believe we can change the world, if we can just figure out how to get people to pay attention to us," he says. "Now there's a mechanism at Oracle--much more so than we ever had at Sun."He notes, too, that every innovation in SPARC has involved some combination of hardware and softwareoptimization."Take our cryptography framework, for example. Sure, we can accelerate rapidly, but the Solaris OS has to provide the right set of interfaces that applications can tap into," Mike says. "Same thing with our multicore architecture. We have to have software that can utilize all those threads and run in parallel." His engineers, he points out, have never been interested in producing chips that sell as mere components."Our chips are always designed to go into systems and be combined with various pieces of software," he says. "Our job is to enable the creation of systems."

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• Is Microsoft&rsquo;s Cloud Bet Placed on the Ground?

  - by andrewbrust

  Today at the Unversity of Washington, Steve Ballmer gave a speech on Microsoft’s cloud strategy.  Significantly, Azure was only briefly mentioned and was not shown.  Instead, Ballmer spoke about what he called the five “dimensions” of the cloud, and used that as the basis for an almost philosophical discussion.  Ballmer opined on how the cloud should be distinguished from the Internet.as well as what the cloud will and should enable.  Ballmer worked hard to portray the cloud not as a challenger to Windows and PCs (as Google would certainly suggest it is) but  really as just the latest peripheral that adds value to PCs and devices. At one point during his speech, Ballmer said “We start with Windows at Microsoft.  It’s the most popular smart device on the planet.  And our design center for the future of Windows is to make it one of those smarter devices that the cloud really wants.”  I’m not sure I agree with Ballmer’s ambition here, but I must admit he’s taken the “software + services” concept and expanded on it in more consumer-friendly fashion. There were demos too.  For example, Blaise Aguera y Arcas reprised his Bing Maps demo from the TED conference held last month.  And Simon Atwell showed how Microsoft has teamed with Sky TV in the UK to turn Xbox into something that looks uncannily like Windows Media Center.  Specifically, an Xbox console app called Sky Player provides full access to Sky’s on-demand programming but also live TV access to an array of networks carried on its home TV service, complete with an on-screen programming guide.  Windows Phone 7 Series was shown quickly and Ballmer told us that while Windows Mobile/Phone 6.5 and earlier were designed for voice and legacy functionality, Windows Phone 7 Series is designed for the cloud. Over and over during Ballmer’s talk (and those of his guest demo presenters), the message was clear: Microsoft believes that client (“smart”) devices, and not mere HTML terminals, are the technologies to best deliver on the promise of the cloud.  The message was that PCs running Windows, game consoles and smart phones  whose native interfaces are Internet-connected offer the most effective way to utilize cloud capabilities.  Even the Bing Maps demo conveyed this message, because the advanced technology shown in the demo uses Silverlight (and thus the PCs computing power), and not AJAX (which relies only upon the browser’s native scripting and rendering capabilities) to produce the impressive interface shown to the audience. Microsoft’s new slogan, with respect to the cloud, is “we’re all in.”  Just as a Texas Hold ‘em player bets his entire stash of chips when he goes all in, so too is Microsoft “betting the company” on the cloud.  But it would seem that Microsoft’s bet isn’t on the cloud in a pure sense, and is instead on the power of the cloud to fuel new growth in PCs and other client devices, Microsoft’s traditional comfort zone.  Is that a bet or a hedge?  If the latter, is Microsoft truly all in?  I don’t really know.  I think many people would say this is a sucker’s bet.  But others would say it’s suckers who bet against Microsoft.  No matter what, the burden is on Microsoft to prove this contrarian view of the cloud is a sensible one.  To do that, they’ll need to deliver on cloud-connected device innovation.  And to do that, the whole company will need to feel that victory is crucial.  Time will tell.  And I expect to present progress reports in future posts.

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• Google, typography, and cognitive fluency for persuasion

  - by Roger Hart

  Cognitive fluency is - roughly - how easy it is to think about something. Mere Exposure (or familiarity) effects are basically about reacting more favourably to things you see a lot. Which is part of why marketers in generic spaces like insipid mass-market lager will spend quite so much money on getting their logo daubed about the place; or that guy at the bus stop starts to look like a dating prospect after a month or two. Recent thinking suggests that exposure effects likely spin off cognitive fluency. We react favourably to things that are easier to think about. I had to give tech support to an older relative recently, and suggested they Google the problem. They were confused. They could not, apparently, Google the problem, because part of it was that their Google toolbar had mysteriously vanished. Once I'd finished trying not to laugh, I started thinking about typography. This is going somewhere, I promise. Google is a ubiquitous brand. Heck, it's a verb, and their recent, jaw-droppingly well constructed Paris advert is more or less about that ubiquity. It trades on Google's integration into any information-seeking behaviour. But, as my tech support encounter suggests, people settle into comfortable patterns of thinking about things. They build schemas, and altering them can take work. Maybe the ubiquity even works to cement that. Alongside their online effort, Google is running billboard campaigns to advertise Chrome, a free product in a crowded space. They are running these ads in some kind of kooky Calibri / Comic Sans hybrid. Now, at first it seems odd that one of the world's more ubiquitous brands needs to run a big print campaign in public places - surely they have all the fluency they need? Well, not so much. Chrome, after all, is not the same as their core product, so there's some basic awareness work to do, and maybe a whole new batch of exposure effect to try and grab. But why the typeface? It's heavily foregrounded, and the ads are extremely textual. Plus, don't we all know that jovial, off-beat fonts look unprofessional, or something? There's a whole bunch of people who want (often rightly) to ban Comic Sans I wonder, though. Are Google trying to subtly disrupt cognitive fluency? There's an interesting paper (pdf) about - among other things - the effects of typography on they way people answer survey questions. Participants given the slightly harder to read question gave more abstract answers. The paper references other work suggesting that generally speaking, less-fluent question framing elicits more considered answers. The Chrome ad typeface is less fluent for print. Reactions may therefore be more considered, abstract, and disruptive. Is that, in fact, what Google need? They have brand ubiquity, but they want here to change accustomed behaviour, to get people to think about changing their browser. Is this actually a very elegant piece of persuasive information design? If you think about their "what is a browser?" vox pop research video, there's certainly a perceptual barrier they're going to have to tackle somehow.

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• Content Challenge: You Can Only Get it Here

  - by Mike Stiles

  Part of the content conundrum for brands is figuring out what kind of content customers would find cool, desirable, and relevant. The mere fact many brands have no idea what this content might be is, in itself, pretty alarming. You’d have to have a pretty thorough lack of involvement with and understanding of your customers to not know what they might like. But despite what should be a great awakening in which consumers are using every technology and trick in the book to shield themselves from ads and commercials, brand self-obsession continues as marketers concentrate on their message, their campaign, what they want to say, and what they want social users to do. When individuals conduct themselves in that same fashion on Facebook and Twitter, it gets tiresome and starts losing value pretty quickly. Their posts eventually get hidden. Conversely, friends who post things that consistently entertain or inform, with little self-marketing desperation involved, win the coveted “show all updates” setting. Of course brands are going to use social to market. It’s pretty much the point of having social in the marketing mix. And yes, people who follow a brand’s Twitter account or “Like” a brand’s Facebook Page implicitly state they want to know what’s going on with that brand’s products and services. But if you have a Facebook friend that assumes you want every one of her posts to be about what wine she likes (Mitsubishi’s current campaign is even based around weeding out pretentious Facebook friends, then running them over), then you know how it must feel for your fans and followers to get a sales pitch for your crackers or whatever you’re selling every single time. Is there such a thing as content that doesn’t sell but that still advances the brand and makes the consumer more involved and valuable? Of course. And perhaps there are no better companies than enterprise brands to do it. Enterprise organizations are large enough to go beyond a product and engage readers/viewers at higher, broader levels…communicating expertise across entire sectors, subjects and industries. You’re going from pitchman to news source, and getting full credit for it as the presenter. A recent GigaOM article pointed out the success a San Francisco-based startup called Crunchyroll is having. Their niche (and they proudly admit it’s a niche) is providing Japanese anime, Korean drama and Asian live action content to countries that can’t get it any other way via licensing deals. Shows are available in HD and on the same day they air in the host country. Crunchyroll not only gets 8 million viewers a month, they have 100,000 paying subscribers at $7-12/month. Got a point, Mike? I do happen to have one. Crunchyroll illustrates the content opportunity enterprise companies have…which is to determine your “area,” the interest graph of your customers, then provide content that speaks to and satisfies those interests that can’t be found anywhere else. At least not in the same style, or of the same quality, or with the same authority. Do what no one else is doing. Provide what no one else is providing in your sector. If underserved users are willing to pay monthly for access to awkwardly moving cartoon dragons, imagine the audience you could attract with free, useful, non-sales content in your customers’ area of interest. It’s an audience you’ll want in place when the time does come to put out that marketing message. A content challenge is better than a content conundrum any day.

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• Dissing Architects, or "What's wrong with the coffee?"

  - by Bob Rhubart

  In my conversations with people in architect roles, tales of animosity, disrespect, and outright hostility aren't uncommon. And it's clear that in more than a few organizations architects regularly face a tough uphill climb. For architects with the requisite combination of technical, organizational, and people skills, that rough treatment is grossly undeserved. But tales of unqualified people in positions up and down the IT food chain are also easy to come by. So what's the other side of the architect story? Are some architects tarnishing the role and making life miserable for their more qualified colleagues? The various quotes included below were culled from a variety of sources. The criticism is harsh, and the people behind these quotes clearly have issues with architects. Still, whether based on mere opinion or actual experience, the comments shed some light on behaviors that should raise red flags for anyone pursuing a career as an architect. If you're an architect, and you've ever noticed that your coffee tastes like window cleaner, or your car is repeatedly keyed, or no one ever holds the elevator for you, maybe you need to do a little soul searching... Those Who Can, Code; Those Who Can't, Architect | Joe Winchester [May 18, 2007] "At the moment there seems to be an extremely unhealthy obsession in software with the concept of architecture. A colleague of mine, a recent graduate, told me he wished to become a software architect. He was drawn to the glamour of being able to come up with grandiose ideas - sweeping generalized designs, creating presentations to audiences of acronym addicts, writing esoteric academic papers, speaking at conferences attended by headless engineers on company expense accounts hungrily seeking out this year's grail, and creating e-mails with huge cc lists from people whose signature footer is more interesting than the content. I tried to re-orient him into actually doing some coding, to join a team that has a good product and keen users both of whom are pushing requirements forward, to no avail. Somehow the lure of being an architecture astronaut was too strong and I lost him to the dark side." Don't Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You | Joel Spolsky [April 21, 2001] "It's very hard to get them to write code or design programs, because they won't stop thinking about Architecture. They're astronauts because they are above the oxygen level, I don't know how they're breathing. They tend to work for really big companies that can afford to have lots of unproductive people with really advanced degrees that don't contribute to the bottom line. Remember that the architecture people are solving problems that they think they can solve, not problems which are useful to solve." Non Coding Architects Suck | Richard Henderson [May 24, 2010] "If a guy with a badge saying 'system architect' looks blank on low-level issues then he is not an architect, he is a business-analyst who went on a course. He will probably wax lyrical on all things high-level and 'important.' He will produce lovely object hierarchies without a clue to implementation. He will have a moustache and play golf." Architects Play Golf | Sunir Shah [August 15, 2012] "Often arrogant architects are difficult to get a hold of during the implementation phase because they no longer feel the need to stick around. Especially around midnight when most of the poor sob [sic] developers are still banging away. After all, they've already solved the problem--the rest is just an implementation exercise." Engineer vs Architect(Part of a discussion on the IT Architect Network Group on LinkedIn) "[An] architect spends his time producing white papers full of acronyms he does not understand but that impress his boss [while the] engineer keeps his head down and does the actual job." Architects Don't Code | [Author Unknown] "Faulty belief: System Architects don't need to code anymore. They know what they are talking about by virtue of the fact that they are System Architects."

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• Requesting feedback on my OO design

  - by Prog

  I'm working on an application that creates music by itself. I'm seeking feedback for my OO design so far. This question will focus on one part of the program. The application produces Tune objects, that are the final musical products. Tune is an abstract class with an abstract method play. It has two subclasses: SimpleTune and StructuredTune. SimpleTune owns a Melody and a Progression (chord sequence). It's play implementation plays these two objects simultaneously. StructuredTune owns two Tune instances. It's own play plays the two Tunes one after the other according to a pattern (currently only ABAB). Melody is an abstract class with an abstract play method. It has two subclasses: SimpleMelody and StructuredMelody. SimpleMelody is composed of an array of notes. Invoking play on it plays these notes one after the other. StructuredMelody is composed of an array of Melody objects. Invoking play on it plays these Melodyies one after the other. I think you're starting to see the pattern. Progression is also an abstract class with a play method and two subclasses: SimpleProgression and StructuredProgression, each composed differently and played differently. SimpleProgression owns an array of chords and plays them sequentially. StructuredProgression owns an array of Progressions and it's play implementation plays them sequentially. Every class has a corresponding Generator class. Tune, Melody and Progression are matched with corresponding abstract TuneGenerator, MelodyGenerator and ProgressionGenerator classes, each with an abstract generate method. For example MelodyGenerator defines an abstract Melody generate method. Each of the generators has two subclasses, Simple and Structured. So for example MelodyGenerator has a subclasses SimpleMelodyGenerator, with an implementation of generate that returns a SimpleMelody. (It's important to note that the generate methods encapsulate complex algorithms. They are more than mere factory method. For example SimpleProgressionGenerator.generate() implements an algorithm to compose a series of Chord objects, which are used to instantiate the returned SimpleProgression). Every Structured generator uses another generator internally. It is a Simple generator be default, but in special cases may be a Structured generator. Parts of this design are meant to allow the end-user through the GUI to choose what kind of music is to be created. For example the user can choose between a "simple tune" (SimpleTuneGenerator) and a "full tune" (StructuredTuneGenerator). Other parts of the system aren't subject to direct user-control. What do you think of this design from an OOD perspective? What potential problems do you see with this design? Please share with me your criticism, I'm here to learn. Apart from this, a more specific question: the "every class has a corresponding Generator class" part feels very wrong. However I'm not sure how I could design this differently and achieve the same flexibility. Any ideas?

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