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• Is Innovation Dead?

  - by wulfers

  My question is has innovation died?  For large businesses that do not have a vibrant, and fearless leadership (see Apple under Steve jobs), I think is has.  If you look at the organizational charts for many of the large corporate megaliths you will see a plethora of middle managers who are so risk averse that innovation (any change involves risk) is choked off since there are no innovation champions in the middle layers.  And innovation driven top down can only happen when you have a visionary in the top ranks, and that is also very rare.So where is actual innovation happening, at the bottom layer, the people who live in the trenches…   The people who live for a challenge. So how can big business leverage this innovation layer?  Remove the middle management layer.   Provide an innovation champion who has an R&D budget and is tasked with working with the bottom layer of a company, the engineers, developers  and business analysts that live on the edge (Where the corporate tires meet the road). Here are two innovation failures I will tell you about, and both have been impacted by a company so risk averse it is starting to fail in its primary business ventures: This company initiated an innovation process several years ago.  The process was driven companywide with team managers being the central points of collection of innovative ideas.  These managers were given no budget to do anything with these ideas.  There was no process or incentive for these managers to drive it about their team.  This lasted close to a year and the innovation program slowly slipped into oblivion…. A second example:  This same company failed an attempt to market a consumer product in a line where there was already a major market leader.  This product was under development for several years and needed to provide some major device differentiation form the current market leader.  This same company had a large Lead Technologist community made up of real innovators in all areas of technology.  Did this same company leverage the skills and experience of this internal community,   NO!!! So to wrap this up, if large companies really want to survive, then they need to start acting like a small company.  Support those innovators and risk takers!  Reward them by implementing their innovative ideas.  Champion (from the top down) innovation (found at the bottom) in your companies.  Remember if you stand still you are really falling behind.Do it now!  Take a risk!

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• Some Problems Can't Be Outsourced

  - by mikef

  More and more companies are becoming attracted to the idea of Infrastructure as a Service (or IaaS). It would seem that you can outsource the provisioning and management of your services, encompassing everything from Email, through to your servers, workstations and software, all the way down to your LAN and internet services. This type of outsourcing can be a very attractive option for companies who have tight budgets who are short of technical skills or don't have the means to provide long-term IT support. Essentially, they can outsource your services at low short-term costs that are knowable and controllable, are quickly and easily scalable, and generate a minimum of hassle for your internal staff. If you want to get a sophisticated IT infrastructure set up in a hurry without the usual high buy-in costs, or the task of finding and hiring the right specialists. It would seem the way to go, particularly when their salesmen are hypnotizing you with oleaginous phrases such as "we are closely aligned with our client organization's core business requirements, providing agile services". It sounds too good to be true, and so it is. Whereas the costs will have initially been calculated on the annual renewal fees and service fees for ongoing support, there are other charges too which aren't so obvious. It can end up costing far more than the conventional solution once you take into account the extra costs, the fees for customization and upgrades. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) only becomes apparent when it is too late to extract the company easily from the arrangement. After a few years, these annual fees can add up to more than the initial cost of implementing a traditional in-house system. Worse than that is that you can then lose your power to determine your priorities: When you become reliant on this company, with its own schedule of priorities, to implement every change, however simple, you have effectively lost control of your technical infrastructure. This will make senior management very nervous. There is definitely a requirement for this sort of service. If you urgently need an exceptionally high class of service or more expertise than you currently possess, then outsourcing is probably for you. You and your IT colleagues will always have something to do, be it user assistance, smoothing out integrations with an external provider, or working on something entirely new. Heck, if you outsource to IBM, the SysAdmins can go along for the ride and polish their expertise. What you need to figure out is how much your time is worth, because time is ultimately all that outsourcing will buy you and your organization. Now you just need to convince your nervous CEO. Cheers, Michael

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• Keep Learning After Your Oracle Training Class is Over - Save 50%!

  - by KJones

  Written by Amit Kumar, Senior Director Oracle University Digital Training        Every training class you take about the latest Oracle application or technology moves you closer to developing the skills you need to succeed. But after class is over, how do you keep up with today’s accelerating pace of innovation? To   To keep with the very latest technological advances, you need an ongoing and flexible training solution.       One that lets you learn during your own downtime.       Knowledge that’s easy to access.       Interactive lessons where you connect with experts.       A simple way to increase your knowledge, on your own time and at your own pace. The new Oracle Learning Streams is the flexible training solution you're looking for. Continuously Learn with Oracle Learning Streams Over time, Oracle Learning Streams help you develop the depth and breadth of knowledge that will give you the tools to become an expert in your field. By taking advantage of comprehensive and frequently updated information, you can keep learning continuously, at your own pace, when it's convenient for you. Sign up today and get 12 months of unlimited access to: •    Hundreds of videos delivered by Oracle experts for fresh and continuous product learning•    Live connections with Oracle's top instructors•    Robust video search capability to find exactly what you’re looking for•    Features that allow you to build your own custom learning queue and request new content Oracle Learning Streams are now available for Oracle Database and Oracle Middleware. Take a moment to preview the content now.  For a Limited Time - Save 50% For a limited time, save 50% when you order Oracle Learning Streams with any other Oracle Classroom, Live Virtual Class or Training On Demand course. Now there is no reason for learning to stop when class is over!

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• Turn-Based RPG Battle Instance Layout For Larger Groups

  - by SoulBeaver

  What a title, eh? I'm currently designing a videogame; a turn-based RPG like Final Fantasy (because everybody knows Final Fantasy). It's a 2D sprite game. These are my ideas for combat: -The player has a group of 15 members (main character included) -During battle, five of the group are designated as active, and appear in the battle. -These five may be switched out at leisure, or when one of the five die. -At any time, the Waiting members can cast buffs, be healed by the active members, or perform special attacks. -Battles should contain 10+ monsters at least. I'm aiming for 20, but I'm not sure if that's possible yet. -Battles should feel larger than normal due to the interaction of Waiting members, active members and the increased amount of monsters per battle. -The player has two rows in which to put the Active members: front and back. -Depending on the implementation, I might allow comboing of player attacks and skills. These are just design ideas, so beware! I have not been able to test this out yet- I have no idea yet if any of these ideas bunched together will make for a compelling game. What sounds good on paper doesn't necessarily have to be good in practice! What I'm asking now is how to create the layout for this. My starting point are the battles in Final Fantasy VI, with up to 5-6 monsters on the left and the characters on the right- monsters on both sides if it's a pincer attack. However, this view would not work feasible with my goal of 20 monsters and 5 characters. All the monsters on the left would appear cluttered unless I scale them far far back. If I create a pincer-like map, then there would be no real pincer-attack possible. If I space the monsters out I force the player to scroll the screen- a game mechanic I've come across and not enjoyed imho. My question is: does anybody have any layouts or guides for designing battle maps in turn-based RPGs, especially with a larger number of enemies taken into consideration? How should it look? I am not asking for specific combat mechanics, just the layout for the moment.

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• returning a heap block by reference in c++

  - by basicR

  I was trying to brush up my c++ skills. I got 2 functions: concat_HeapVal() returns the output heap variable by value concat_HeapRef() returns the output heap variable by reference When main() runs it will be on stack,s1 and s2 will be on stack, I pass the value by ref only and in each of the below functions, I create a variable on heap and concat them. When concat_HeapVal() is called it returns me the correct output. When concat_HeapRef() is called it returns me some memory address (wrong output). Why? I use new operator in both the functions. Hence it allocates on heap. So when I return by reference, heap will still be VALID even when my main() stack memory goes out of scope. So it's left to OS to cleanup the memory. Right? string& concat_HeapRef(const string& s1, const string& s2) { string *temp = new string(); temp->append(s1); temp->append(s2); return *temp; } string* concat_HeapVal(const string& s1, const string& s2) { string *temp = new string(); temp->append(s1); temp->append(s2); return temp; } int main() { string s1,s2; string heapOPRef; string *heapOPVal; cout<<"String Conact Experimentations\n"; cout<<"Enter s-1 : "; cin>>s1; cout<<"Enter s-2 : "; cin>>s2; heapOPRef = concat_HeapRef(s1,s2); heapOPVal = concat_HeapVal(s1,s2); cout<<heapOPRef<<" "<<heapOPVal<<" "<<endl; return -9; }

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• I didn't mean to become a database developer, but now I am. Should I stop or try to get better?

  - by pretlow majette

  20 years ago I couldn't afford even a cheap POS program when I opened my first surf shop in the Virgin Islands. I bought a copy of Paradox (remember that?) in 1990 and spent months in a back room scratching out a POS application. Over many iterations, including a switch to Access (2000)/SQL Server (2003), I built a POS and backoffice solution that runs four stores with multiple cash registers, a warehouse and office. Until recently, all my stores were connected to the same LAN (in a small shopping center) and performance wasn't an issue. Now that we've opened a location in the States that's changed. Connecting to my local server via the internet has slowed that locations application to a crawl. This is partly due to the slow and crappy dsl service we have in the Virgin Islands, and partly due to my less-than-professional code and sql. With other far-away stores in the works, I need a better solution. I like my application. My staff knows it well, and I'm not inclined to take on the expense of a proper commercial solution. So where does that leave me? I should probably host my sql online to sidestep the slow dsl here. I think I can handle cleaning up my SQL querries to speed that up a bit. What about Access? My version seems so old, but I don't like the newer versions with the 'ribbon'. There are so many options... Should I be learning Visual Studio with an eye on moving completely to the web? Will my VBA skills help me at all there? I don't have the luxury of a year at the keyboard to figure it out anymore. What about dotnetnuke, sharepoint, or lightswitch? They all seem like possibilities, but even understanding their capabilities is daunting. I'm pretty deep into it, but maybe I should bail and hire a consultant or programmer. That sounds expensive tho, and there's no guarantee there either... Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Or, if anybody is interested in buying a small chain of surf shops...

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• Complete Beginner to Game Programming and Unreal Engine 4, Looking For Advice [on hold]

  - by onemic

  I am currently a 2nd year programming student(Just finished my first year so I will be starting my second year in September) and have mainly learned C and C++ in my classes. In terms of what I know of C++, I know about general inheritance, polymorphism, overloading operators, iterators, a little bit about templates(only class and function templates) etc. but not of the more advanced topics like linked lists and other sequential containers(containers in general I guess), enumerations, most of the standard library(other than like strings and vectors), and probably a bunch of other stuff I dont even know about yet. I subscribed to Unreal Engine 4 as I was very intrigued by their Unreal Tournament announcement earlier this month, especially after hearing that UE4 is going completely C++. Of course my end goal in doing this programming program is to eventually go into game/graphics programming. Since it's my summer off, I thought what better way then to actually apply some of my skills to a personal project so I actually have a firmer understanding of C++ past what my professors tell me. My questions are this: What would be the best way to start off making a small personal game in UE4 as a project for the summer? What should I be aiming for, especially for someone that is still learning C++? Should I focus on making a simple 2D game rather than a 3D one to get started? Seeing the Flappy Chicken showcase intrigued me because before I thought the UE engine was pretty much pigeonholed into being for FPS games What should my expectations be going into UE4 and a game engine for the first time?(UE4 will be my first foray into making a game) What can I expect to gain from making things in UE4, in terms of making games and in terms of further fleshing out my knowledge of C++? Would you recommend I start off 100% using C++ for scripting or using the visual blueprints? Since I'm not a designer, how would I be able to add objects and designs to my game? For someone at my level is retaining the UE4 subscription worth it or is it better to cancel and resub when I learn enough about UE4 and C++? Lastly is there anything to be gained in terms of knowledge/insight through me looking at the source code for UE4? I opened it in VS2013, but noticed that most of the files were C# files and not cpp's. Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer.

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• Where does a "Technical Programmer" fit in, and what does the title mean? [closed]

  - by Mike E

  Was: "What is a 'Technical Programmer'"? I've noticed in job posting boards a few postings, all from European companies in the games industry, for a "Technical Programmer". The job description was similar, having to do with tools development, 3d graphics programming, etc. It seems to be somewhere between a Technical Artist who's more technical than artist or who can code, and a Technical Director but perhaps without the seniority/experience. Information elsewhere on the position is sparse. The title seems redundant and I haven't seen any American companies post jobs by that name, exactly. One example is this job posting on gamedev.net which isn't exactly thorough. In case the link dies: Subject: Technical Programmer Frictional Games, the creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the Penumbra series, are looking for a talented programmer to join the company! You will be working for a small team with a big focus on finding new and innovating solutions. We want you who are not afraid to explore uncharted territory and constantly learn new things. Self-discipline and independence are also important traits as all work will be done from home. Some the things you will work with include: 3D math, rendering, shaders and everything else related. Console development (most likely Xbox 360). Hardware implementations (support for motion controls, etc). All coding is in C++, so great skills in that is imperative. Revised Summarised Question: So, where does a programmer of this nature fit in to software development team? If I had these on my team, what tasks am I expecting them to complete? Can I ask one to build a new level editor, or optimize the rendering engine? It doesn't seem to be a "tools programmer" which focuses on producing artist tools, often in high-level languages like C#, Python, or Java. Nor does it seem to be working directly on the engine, nor a graphics programmer, as such. Yet, a strong C++ requirement, which was mirrored in other postings besides this one I quoted. Edited To Add As far as it being a low-level programmer, I had considered that but lacking from the posting was a requirement of Assembly. Instead, they tend to require familiarity with higher-level hardware APIs such as DirectX, or DirectInput. I wasn't fully clear in my original post. I think, however, that Mathew Foscarini has it right in his answer, so barring someone who definitely works with or as a "Technical Programmer" stepping in to provide a clearer explanation, I'll go with that. A generalist, which also fits the description of a more-technical-than-artist TA.

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• Is is possible to get a patch included in the current release? If so, how?

  - by Oli

  So a while back I reported a bug in Compiz's Place Window plugin. It's a fairly major regression for people affected by it: mainly those using Gnome-Fallback, judging by the reports. A patch surfaced a short time later. I created a PPA for testing and everybody involved so far is reporting the issues are fixed. It even fixes another bug. I've done testing with a standard Unity desktop and can say (for my testing) no adverse effects were visible. I want to get this pushed to Ubuntu right now for two main reasons: I'm selfish. I don't want to need to update my PPA every time a new version of Compiz is pushed to 12.04. I don't want Ubuntu users seeing their windows flying around because of a silly little bug. I want this patch pushed to Ubuntu's version of Compiz as soon as possible, so we can mark these bugs fixed and move on with our lives. Whose leg do I have to hump to get this pulled into Ubuntu right now? I don't maintain this project and it's an upstream thing but it's fairly integral to Ubuntu. I could go to Compiz but I imagine that if they accept the patch, it'll be months (at least a release) before it's anywhere near Ubuntu. And when I do find the right person, how can I make the process as slick as possible for them? I want them to see my request, go "Yup, that all looks great, done" and that be it. I don't want seventeen rounds of emails addressing aspects of the patch. More importantly, I don't want to waste their time either. And what do I have to provide them? My packaging skills are... lamentable. This was my first attempt at patching a package for redistribution so I've probably made every single packaging error known to man. Will they be happy with the original patch (so they can apply it themselves) or should I repackage things so the diff/changelog is a little cleaner (it took me a few goes and the versioning is all over the place). Note: This question is about Compiz but I'd prefer if answers could address other styles of package too so we have an authoritative and comprehensive thread of how to get things fixed.

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• JavaOne 2013: (Key) Notes of a conference – State of the Java platform and all the roadmaps by Amis

  - by JuergenKress

  Last week’s JavaOne conference provided insights in the roadmap of the Java platform as well as in the current state of things in the Java community. The close relationship between Oracle and IBM concerning Java, the (continuing) lack of such a relationship with Google, the support from Microsoft for Java applications on its Azure cloud and the vibrant developer community – with over 200 different Java User Groups in many countries of the world. There were no major surprises or stunning announcements. Java EE 7 (release in June) was celebrated, the progress of Java 8 SE explained as well as the progress on Java Embedded and ME. The availability of NetBeans 7.4 RC1 and JDK 8 Early Adopters release as well as the open sourcing of project Avatar probably were the only real news stories. The convergence of JavaFX and Java SE is almost complete; the upcoming alignment of Java SE Embedded and Java ME is the next big consolidation step that will lead to a unified platform where developers can use the same skills, development tools and APIs on EE, SE, SE Embedded and ME development. This means that anything that runs on ME will run on SE (Embedded) and EE – not necessarily the reverse because not all SE APIs are part of the compact profile or the ME environment. However, the trimming down of the SE libraries and the increased capabilities of devices mean that a pretty rich JVM runs on many devices – such as JavaFX 8 on the Raspberry PI. The major theme of the conference was Internet of Things. A world of things that are smart and connected, devices like sensors, cameras and equipment from cars, fridges and television sets to printers, security gates and kiosks that all run Java and are all capable of sending data over local network connections or directly over the internet. The number of devices that has these capabilities is rapidly growing. This means that the number of places where Java programs can help program the behavior of devices is growing too. It also means that the volume of data generated is expanding and that we have to find ways to harvest that data, possibly do a local pre-processing (filter, aggregate) and channel the data to back end systems. Terms typically used are edge devices (small, simple, publishing data), gateways (receiving data from many devices, collecting and consolidating, pre-processing, sending onwards to back end – typically using real time event processing) and enterprise services – receiving the data-turned-information from the gateways to further consolidate, distribute and act upon. A cheap device like the Raspberry PI is a perfect way to get started as a Java developer with what embedded (device) programming means and how interaction with physical input and output takes place. Roadmaps The over all progress on Java is visualized in this overview: Read the full article here. WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: Amis,OOW,Oracle OpenWorld,JavaOne,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• High-Powered Sites for low Cost

  - by HighAltitudeCoder

  Ahh, I am experiencing the intimidation of my very first post - visible by the whole world. Ok, here goes.   This first post is nothing exceptional.  It is simply a recommendation based (fittingly, I suppose) upon the job search you may be gearing up for.  I find myself in this very situation right now.  And, I will take my own recommendation after posting this entry. Job-Seekers: To the left you will notice two links under "Recommended Learning".  I have found these links to be invaluable when it comes to re-tooling, re-familiarizing, or otherwise resharping my skills when looking for that next job. Often, you will find job-postings with the text, usually posted after a laborious list of qualifications indicating the company's desire to hire candidates who know what they are doing: "...Looking for a candidate who can hit the ground running...".  The interesting thing about this post to me is I've encountered many individuals who, after speaking and working with them for some time, I've realized are perfectly capable of hitting the ground running - and FAST.  But what if they speed off in the wrong direction? The next time you spearhead a major task in your job, ask yourself: Am I headed in the wrong direction?  There are many ways to do this.  In fact, I've found in this new field there are more tempting ways to steer your project in the wrong direction than there are good ones.  I don't want to suggest that every one of my posts will fall into the "right direction" category, however I do think a healthy dose of introspection of the pros and cons will always be beneficial before you set off. That said, allow me to expound on the previously mentioned links. These web sites are invaluable.  They demonstrate the capabilities of existing as well as new and upcoming tools available in several IDE's.  I've viewed many tutorials in LearnVisualStudio.NET, and only one or two so far in TrainingSpot, however I've been delighted in their simplicity and straightforward approach to proper usage of the particular tool or concept being discussed.  They have not (so far in my experience) demonstrated ways in which to use the tools that become cumbersome, impractical, or error-prone. Each website has step-by-step videos that can be paused, replayed, and most importantly, they are done in real time.  As the author is typing, the viewer gets to experience the coding experience from a first-person perspective, including syntax errors, unexpected behaviors, IDE setup idiosyncracies, everything.  A subtle value I've gained from these videos is that a certain degree of confusion and introspection is normal when working with new tools and exploring new paths.  They (as well as your own experience) are not to be feared, but enjoyed.  I highly recommend them. Good work, guys!

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• Can Anything be Done to Make Improv (a 1993 Win 3.1 App) handle larger Files?

  - by user75185

  My very favorite spradsheet is Improv, a 1993 Windows 3.1 application. It still puts Excel to shame for building spreadsheets and writing formulas. The only problem is because Improv was written when 1 Meg of RAM was state of the art, it becomes unstable when working with larger spreadsheets and often crashes and/or corrupts the data file. I am working on a project that greatly exceeds Improv's limits. Although it will ultimately require more robust databasing capability, I could save a lot of critical time if I could delay that headache and continue working in Improv for now. To that end, I moved to the only product I could find that comes close, Quantrix, which is nothing more than Improv updated to handle large spreadsheets and utilize today's technologies. The problems with Quantrix are its speed (significantly slower than Improv) and its $1000 price (which I cannot afford). I have already had 3 15 day extensions after the initial 30 day trial, so my time to use Quantrix as a bridge is at its end. Searches for Improv over the years have gotten me nowhere and, not surprisingly after reading some posts on this site, I got nothing for the money and time invested to find a programmer to write code to "fix" this problem. Improv is freely available as "abandonware" at http://vetusware.com/download/LotusImprov2.1/?id=5797 , and the best background info can be found on Wikipedia and at "Moose's Greatest Software Products of All Time - Lotus Improv" http://moosevalley.fhost.com.au/mooses_review_page_lotus_improv.html It is critically urgent for me to focus on analyzing the data asap. Working in a stable Improv would, without question, be the fastest route. To that end, I am looking for answers to the following questions and anything else that might be helpful: 1) Is it lawful to hire someone to fix Improv for my own use? If so, 2) About how much should it cost? 3) About how long should it take? 4) What skills should I be looking for &/or how should a post be worded? 5) Is there a niche site where it should it be posted? 6) What questions can I ask to quickly screen candidates? Since I am not a programmer, I need questions the answers to which leave no room to confuse me, whether intentional or not. For example, what tools or players should someone with an acceptable competency level have knowledge of?

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• How do you feel about being asked to code during an interview?

  - by Mystere Man

  I have seen a lot of comments about good interview questions and puzzles to require potential developers to solve during the interview process. I have personally had several interviews in which the interviewer has asked me to write some piece of code or solve a problem during the interview, and I have always performed very poorly in these "tests". The reason is simple, as a developer who spends my days talking to computers, I find I have to prepare myself and "switch gears" to be in "interview mode". I prepare myself to make a good impression. When I'm programming, I'm very focused and am totally different from when I'm being "interpersonal". I just can't get into "the zone" when I'm also having to be a charming and witty potential employee. I feel that by asking a developer to prove his skills during an interview, all you're doing is finding out if they can code under pressure, and at the drop of a hat. It has almost no ability to determine how you would perform in a "real life" development situation. Maybe, if you're looking for someone that can code and chat at the same time, i can see how that would be beneficial. But I think you overlook potential candidates that simply do not perform well in such an artificial environment. While I appreciate that a potential employer wants to see what I can do, I don't think an interview is the place for such a test. I mean, suppose a job for an over the road trucker required that you drive while being interviewed. How does that really end well? So I'm curious as to what others think about such situations. Have you failed interviews because you were not in the right frame of mind? Have you failed to make a good interpersonal impression because you were too distracted trying to solve the problem? If you're a hiring manager, or someone that gives interviews, do you even think about such things? Is it really important that someone perform well in an interview? EDIT: To clarify, I'm not against testing applicants. My concern is about testing during an interview. See also: What are the pros and cons for the employer of code questions during an interview? looking at this from the interviewer's point of view.

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• Is it smart to take a year off from school to get experience?

  - by user134147

  firstly I apologize if this question is not appropriate for the site, but I've seen other similar (though slightly deviant) questions on this sight before and I know the people here are the most qualified to answer my question. Anyways, I'm currently between my sophomore and junior years at a 4 year university, and after a bit of deliberation I've decided on computer science as a major (BA, by the way, as a BS would require me to stay at least an extra year the way our program is set up). I've been interested now in programming for a few months and I've developed a passion for it in a very short time. I began learning C++, migrating to Java recently when I learned my school focuses on this language. Now, I should mention that the concept of higher education has never sat well with me, so part of my motivation for wanting to take time off is to truly challenge myself and see what I can accomplish when I actually try at something. The autodidact in me finds it difficult to focus on my passions while trying to keep a high GPA in unrelated classes. However, I understand the times we live in and therefore would plan to complete my degree after this year. So my question is whether or not the skills I learn in a year off from college could justify the time off from school. Unfortunately, I don't believe I know enough yet to gain any professional experience (internship, etc.) so I would mostly focus my time on learning Java and another language, possibly Wordpress (to gain an understanding of web programming concepts as I have not yet decided what field I want to get into, and to make some money to fund my off-year), and to delve into security concepts, which also interest me. I'm hoping I could work on projects, such as simple applications or contributions to open source software during this time to enhance my resume once I do finish school, so I can find a job out of college easier. I do not want to be the new hire who knows nothing beyond the concepts of his Java textbooks. Does anyone have any input about these thoughts of mine, or any ideas for where I should focus my studies or how high I might set the bar for my work? Thanks a lot everyone!

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• Developing a cloud based app

  - by user134897

  I am a company owner that has developed a cloud based app. My code writer has told me how good he is more than once, well, better stated, he did a good job telling me he was better than everyone else in my rather small community. In the last 18 months I have spent nearly 160,000.00 dollars trying to get this company to the "making money" stage. I am now nearly broke, sitting on the edge of a brilliant marketing plan to launch a much needed cloud based app. We did launch our app last year (late 2013), and the feedback was amazing from the users. One user that signed up to use the free app stated that we needed to call him the moment our company goes public because he wants to be the first to buy stock. Now, here's my problem. We did not originally set out to develop a freemium app, we just sort of ended up there by the natural progression of the app. So, now I have an app that really needs to be scrapped and re-built. Although I do feel my code writer has displayed some brilliance in what he has done, he was extremely weak on graphics and every time we speak he tells me there is a newer better way to code that he is trying to learn. So, here's the million dollar question. Ho do I find code writers that already know the newest, best ways to write code? Or maybe better asked, what is the newest best code writing technique? Second, is it even possible to find code writers that are good at graphics? In short, I am nearly broke and need to start over, but I do not know where to find people qualified to write it good the first time around and display good graphic skills. I am trying to build a team of writers instead of just one person. Maybe 3 good at code and two good at graphics, but I am clueless as to what criteria I should use to determine if I am building the right team members. Please help, I am sure you can tell I am fairly lost by my continued rambling.

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• Differences between a retail and wholesale website, and how difficult would it be to integrate them? [closed]

  - by kmy

  I was told to come here for some guidance, I know that my questions can be quite broad, but I just really want some kind of direction to go towards (links, articles, etc). So here it goes: For the past month I have been planning and started implementing a wholesale website, but plans got changed on me and I need to allow both retail and wholesale orders which will also depend on whether the account is a regular customer or also has a seller account. There are various types of products and it has been decided that I would use subcategories as tables to organize them and allow various specific item fields. So here are some of my specific questions: How different is the database structure for each item to be available for both wholesale and retail? Will it just be adding a quantity column and have two different pricing, or much more complicated? I am unaware if there's any price tables but would that be more difficult? They use Quickbooks POS software, how difficult/inefficient will it be to update inventory quantities if they have like 2000-4000 products? And what would be the best ways to extract the information and update the system? I know it export an excel spreadsheet so maybe a suggested php plugin for it? How difficult is this project in your professional opinion, and how big should a team usually be? (At the moment it is just me.) Projected time for planning, implementation, and quality assurance in accordance to team size? I am an entry level developer and I know that I do not have enough knowledge to direct myself on this website...What kind of web developer skills will I need to find to help me? (My company is willing to hire people to get this website done as fast as possible.) Also, what would be some great questionnaires to ask the product stakeholder about what he wants from the website? (He has made it clear he is neither computer or internet savvy...) Sorry for the amount of questions, I'm an entry level web developer and do not have a senior to look up to for guidance. I have knowledge in HTML, CSS, Javascript, jQuery, PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin. I have never used any frameworks like Zend, Magento, etc, and is doing this all from scratch. So far the website is built in an object oriented way, MVC architecture to the best of my abilities, but I have many doubts because I would really want to have this done right. If I have been unclear on some parts please tell me and I'll add more detail. I'm sure I'll have more additional questions later on, if anyone is open to that please tell me. Thanks in advance!

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• Screen scraping software that will traverse pages

  - by nilbus

  We're creating a mashup site that pulls information from many sources all over the web. Many of these sites don't provide RSS feeds or APIs to access the information they provide. This leaves us with screen scraping as our method for collecting the data. There are many scripting tools out there written in different scripting languages for screen scraping that require you to write scraping scripts in the language the scraper was written in. Scrapy, scrAPI, and scrubyt are a few written in Ruby and Python. There are other web-based tools I've seen like Dapper that create XML or RSS feeds based on a webpage. It has a beautiful web-based interface that requires no scripting skills to use. This would be a great tool, if it were able to traverse multiple pages to gather data from hundreds pages of results. We need something that will scrape information from paginated web sites, much like scrubyt, but with a user interface that a non-programmer could use. We'll script up our own solution if we need to, probably using scrubyt, but if there's a better solution out there, we want to use it. Does anything like this exist?

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• email output of powershell script

  - by Gordon Carlisle

  I found this wonderful script that outputs the status of the current DFS backlog to the powershell console. This works great, but I need the script to email me so I can schedule it to run nightly. I have tried using the Send-MailMessage command, but can't get it to work. Mainly because my powershell skills are very weak. I believe most of the issue revolve around the script using the Write-Host command. While the coloring is nice I would much rather have it email me the results. I also need the solution to be able to specify a mail server since the dfs servers don't have email capability. Any help or tips are welcome and appreciated. Here is the code. $RGroups = Get-WmiObject -Namespace "root\MicrosoftDFS" -Query "SELECT * FROM DfsrReplicationGroupConfig" $ComputerName=$env:ComputerName $Succ=0 $Warn=0 $Err=0 foreach ($Group in $RGroups) { $RGFoldersWMIQ = "SELECT * FROM DfsrReplicatedFolderConfig WHERE ReplicationGroupGUID='" + $Group.ReplicationGroupGUID + "'" $RGFolders = Get-WmiObject -Namespace "root\MicrosoftDFS" -Query $RGFoldersWMIQ $RGConnectionsWMIQ = "SELECT * FROM DfsrConnectionConfig WHERE ReplicationGroupGUID='"+ $Group.ReplicationGroupGUID + "'" $RGConnections = Get-WmiObject -Namespace "root\MicrosoftDFS" -Query $RGConnectionsWMIQ foreach ($Connection in $RGConnections) { $ConnectionName = $Connection.PartnerName.Trim() if ($Connection.Enabled -eq $True) { if (((New-Object System.Net.NetworkInformation.ping).send("$ConnectionName")).Status -eq "Success") { foreach ($Folder in $RGFolders) { $RGName = $Group.ReplicationGroupName $RFName = $Folder.ReplicatedFolderName if ($Connection.Inbound -eq $True) { $SendingMember = $ConnectionName $ReceivingMember = $ComputerName $Direction="inbound" } else { $SendingMember = $ComputerName $ReceivingMember = $ConnectionName $Direction="outbound" } $BLCommand = "dfsrdiag Backlog /RGName:'" + $RGName + "' /RFName:'" + $RFName + "' /SendingMember:" + $SendingMember + " /ReceivingMember:" + $ReceivingMember $Backlog = Invoke-Expression -Command $BLCommand $BackLogFilecount = 0 foreach ($item in $Backlog) { if ($item -ilike "*Backlog File count*") { $BacklogFileCount = [int]$Item.Split(":")[1].Trim() } } if ($BacklogFileCount -eq 0) { $Color="white" $Succ=$Succ+1 } elseif ($BacklogFilecount -lt 10) { $Color="yellow" $Warn=$Warn+1 } else { $Color="red" $Err=$Err+1 } Write-Host "$BacklogFileCount files in backlog $SendingMember->$ReceivingMember for $RGName" -fore $Color } # Closing iterate through all folders } # Closing If replies to ping } # Closing If Connection enabled } # Closing iteration through all connections } # Closing iteration through all groups Write-Host "$Succ successful, $Warn warnings and $Err errors from $($Succ+$Warn+$Err) replications." Thanks, Gordon

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• IIS7.5 Outbound Rule for lower case URLs in <a href="...">

  - by Quog

  Hi, I know how to canonicalise the case of URLs on incoming request to IIS7.5, in fact, there's a built in rule template to start from. But how about outbound (without changing the code)? This is where I got to so far: <outboundRules> <rule name="Outbound lowercase" preCondition="IsHTML" enabled="true"> <match filterByTags="A" pattern="[A-Z]" ignoreCase="false" /> <action type="Rewrite" value="{ToLower:{R:0}}" /> </rule> <preConditions> <preCondition name="IsHTML"> <add input="{RESPONSE_CONTENT_TYPE}" pattern="^text/html" /> </preCondition> </preConditions> </outboundRules> However, IIS barfs on the action with a 500 implying an invalid web.config, probably on the {ToLower:XXXX} which I stole from the MS-supplied inbound rule template. Anyone know how to do this? Anyone know where the options are fully documented (my GoogleNinja skills failed me: I found this but "Specifies value syntax for the rule. This element is available only for the Rewrite action type" is not really comprehensive). Thanks, Damian

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• Changing MX records in named zone file

  - by Paul England

  I forgot how all this works. I have a GoDaddy account, using my own DNS and whatnot. I'm having trouble getting my email to work. They said I need to update my MX records. basically, I have the following. 184.168.30.42 is the domain's IP address, obviously. gamengai.com. 14400 IN NS n1 gamengai.com. 14400 IN NS n2 ns1 14400 IN A 184.168.30.42 ns2 14400 IN A 184.168.30.42 gamengai.com. 14400 IN A 184.168.30.42 localhost 14400 IN A 127.0.0.1 ftp 14400 IN A 184.168.30.42 www 14400 IN A 184.168.30.42 mail 14400 IN A 184.168.30.42 subdomain 14400 IN A 184.168.30.42 gamengai.com 14400 IN MX 10 mail Mail doesn't work though... they say to make the following change: 0 smtp.secureserver.net 10 mailstore1.secureserver.net So should the last line point to mailstore1.secureserver.net instead of mail in the last field? What about the other line? I had this working at one time, but it's totally gotten away from me. It's a virtual dedicated server and their support for this stuff is pretty bad... almost as bad as my admin skills since I went the programmer route.

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• Troubleshooting iptables and configuring it to drop the priority of long-term connections

  - by intuited

  I'm somewhat familiar with the general concepts of iptables, and would like to learn it in more detail. I'm hoping that my learning experience can also be useful. The situation: I'm running dd-wrt on my router. Despite its purported QoS skills, I'm still seeing connection latency shoot up hugely whenever there's an ongoing http connection, eg some large download. Under such conditions, it can take 10 seconds or more to load a basic webpage; sometimes the connections are dropped entirely. I've tried adjusting the parameters, dropping the allotted bandwidth for up and download to well under my limit, but nothing seems to work. dd-wrt is configured to use HTB as the QoS algorithm; HFSC, although presented as an option, seems to cause the router to crash, and is rumoured to not actually work on any linux system. I'd like to be able to troubleshoot this issue and hopefully improve the settings that dd-wrt is using, but I'm finding the learning curve a bit overwhelming. For starters I am not sure what HTB actually specifies: is this a set of iptables commands, or do some of those commands specify how HTB is to be used? I would like it to prioritize based on protocol the way that it already supposed to, and in addition I'd like to have it drop the priority of connections which have a high total byte count, say over 400KB. Also tips on utilities that can be run under dd-wrt to get more info on what's going on in there are appreciated. I've tried to get iftop to work but there were issues running curses. I'm leaning towards replacing dd-wrt with openwrt; comments on this strategy are also welcome. I suspect that I would be well advised to get a second router as a standin before trying that. It may be worth noting that my total bandwidth is pretty limited (256Kbit/s).

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• Configuring DNS & MX records for exchange 2010

  - by Mahmoud Saleh

  i am trying to configure Exchange Server 2010 on Windows Server 2008 R2 to receive emails from the internet following the danscourses tutorials: and i followed this video for the DNS & MX records: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdf_3DRssks i don't have any windows administration skills, and i am stuck with the DNS configuration. and the following are my domain configuration i got from the hosting. following are the steps i made: 1- Add new name server: add ns1.centors.com ip Exchange Server Public IP: 41.233.26.131 2- Change the A record change it to point to the public ip address Exchange Server Public IP: 41.233.26.131 3- New cname record for www and make it resolve to centors.com 4- New mx record for mail.centors.com 5- New A record for mail.centors.com: name: mail ip: Exchange Server Public IP: 41.233.26.131 6- new A record for ns1: ip: Exchange Server Public IP: 41.233.26.131 7- i made port forward in the router for SMTP and POP3 to the exchange server local ip address. ISSUE: i have a user account in the active directory, and the user is member of the domain, the user is [email protected] and when trying to login with this account in outlook 2010 on other machine using following data: account type: POP3 incoming mail server: mail.centors.com outgoing mail server: mail.centors.com i always get the error: Authorization failed, check your server settings. please advise what's wrong with the configuration, thanks in advance.

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• Using two ports on my ZyXel USG gateway to patch two devices together?

  - by Matthew Beza

  I don't know if this is possible but it would save me many long drives! I have drawn, with my epic MS Paint skills, my current setup. I have a ZyXel USG300 Gateway with a built in 5 port switch. It supports bridging, tunnles, VLANs, etc.. I have a Cisco WLC2112 plugged into port 6 (P6). The cisco is set to 192.168.6.2 and P6 is set to 192.168.6.1. This works but I need to incorporate a Nomadix AG3000 to handle guests. (Router (A) in the picture). So I need the Cisco WLC2112 to use the Nomadix as if it where plugged into it's LAN port. Right now the Nomadix WAN Port is plugged into (P2) on the ZyXel, and the Nomadix LAN port is plugged into (P3). Is it possible to set something up where (P3) and (P6) are somehow "Patched" as if the Cisco was plugged directly into the Nomadix LAN port? Basically making the ZyXel a fancy Cat5e coupler?

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• Setting up Windows SBS 2008 network on Xen

  - by samyboy

  I'm trying to install a Windows SBS 2008 server in a Xen environment. The OS is booting fine. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to set up the network settings. Dom0 is a Debian Lenny hosting around 10 virtual servers. Here are the settings I'm using in the hosted Windows SBS: IP address: 10.20.0.8 Network mask: 255.255.0.0 Gateway: 10.20.0.1 Note that during the installation stage, Windows set the net mask at 255.255.255.0 without letting me choose. Gross. Windows SBS tells me I have a "limited connection". I can't ping the gateway nor any other IP except localhost and it's own IP (10.20.0.8). Here is the Xen config file: kernel = '/usr/lib/xen-3.2-1/boot/hvmloader' builder = 'hvm' memory = '4096' device_model='/usr/lib/xen-3.2-1/bin/qemu-dm' acpi=1 apic=1 pae=1 vcpus=1 name = 'winexchange' # Disks disk = [ 'phy:/dev/wnghosts/exchange-disk,ioemu:hda,w', 'file:/mnt/freespace/ISO/DVD1_Installation.iso,ioemu:hdc:cdrom,r' ] # Networking vif = [ 'mac=00:16:3E:0A:D0:1B, type=ioemu, bridge=xenbr0'] # video stdvga=0 serial='pty' ne2000=0 # Behaviour boot='c' sdl=0 # VNC vfb = [ 'type=vnc' ] vnc=1 vncdisplay=1 vncunused=1 usbdevice='tablet' This config is working with others Windows XP domU's. I tried to change the ne2000 values with 0 and 1 with no effect. I am far from having good Windows administration skills so I guess I definitely need some help on this case. Thanks.

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• GnuPG Command Line - Verifying KeePass Signature

  - by Stisfa

  I'm trying to verify the PGP Signature of the latest version of KeePass 2.14's setup file against this signature, but this is the output I receive: C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU\GnuPG>gpg.exe --verify C:\Users\User\Desktop\KeePass-2.14-Setup.exe gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found. gpg: the signature could not be verified. Please remember that the signature file (.sig or .asc) should be the first file given on the command line. C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU\GnuPG> I found this command here, but it made no mention about ".sig" or ".asc" files, so I figured I did something wrong. By reading (http://www.gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg/gpgv.html#gpgv), I further tried the following: C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU\GnuPG>gpg.exe --pgpfile C:\Users\User\Desktop\KeePass-2.14-Setup.exe gpg: Invalid option "--pgpfile" C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU\GnuPG> As you can see, the results are quite obfuscating... I took a look at this on SuperUser (http://superuser.com/questions/16160/short-easy-to-understand-explanation-of-gpg-pgp-for-nontechnical-people - I couldn't use "a href" due to the built in spam filter that discriminates against users with < 10 rep; this is the same reason for the link above this link), but none of the links seemed to really address my question, at least not directly enough for me to get any idea on how to move forward on this. Can anybody here help me with the esoteric technicality of OpenPGP & the associated use of the GnuPG program? I've felt pretty dumb learning VBS, but this is beyond humiliating: it's absolutely debilitating and maiming whatever confidence I had with my IT skills (then again, I have no justification for making any boast either, as I have yet to get my A+ Cert, lol).

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