Search Results

Search found 21331 results on 854 pages for 'require once'.

Page 615/854 | < Previous Page | 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622  | Next Page >

• New Worklist features on 12.1.3

  - by Vijay Shanmugam

  Following new Worklist features are available on E-Business Suite 12.1.3 via Patch 13646173. Ability to view comments on top of a notification If an action is performed on a notification such as Reassign, Request for Information or Provide Information, the recipient of the notification will see who performed the last action and the associated comment on top of the notification. Reassigning a request for information notification If an approver requests more information on a notification from it's submitter, the submitter now has two options Answer Request for More Information Transfer Request for More Information If the submitter thinks the requested information can be provided by another user, he/she can transfer the request to the other user. Please note that only Transfer is supported for Request for More Information. Once transferred, the submitter cannot access the notification and provide the requested information. Use actual sent date when reassigning a notification The Sent field in notification header always showed the date on which the notification was first created. If the notification was later reassigned, the Sent date was not updated to show the last action date. This caused problems in following scenario Approval notification was sent to JACK on 01-JAN-2012 JACK waited for 10 days before reassigning to JILL on 10-JAN-2012 JILL does not see the notification as sent on 10-JAN-2012, instead sees it as sent on 01-JAN-2012 Although the notification was originally created on 01-JAN-2012, it was sent to JILL only on 10-JAN-2012 The enhancement now shows the correct sent date in Worklist and Notification Details page. Figure 1 - Depicts all the above 3 features Related Action History for response required notification So far it was possible to embed Action History of an response-required notification into another FYI notification using #RELATED_HISTORY attribute (Please refer to Workflow Developer Guide for details about this attribute). The enhancement now enables developers to embed Action History of one response-required notification into another response-required notification. To embed Action History of one response-required notification into another, create message attribute #RELATED_HISTORY. To this attribute set a value during run-time in the following format. {TITLE}[ITEM_TYPE:ITEM_KEY]PROCESS_NAME:ACTIVITY_LABEL_NAMEThe TITLE, ITEM_TYPE and ITEM_KEY are optional values. TITLE is used as Related Action History header title. If TITLE is not present, then a default title "Related Action History" is shown. If ITEM_TYPE is present and ITEM_KEY is not, For Example: {TITLE}[ITEM_TYPE]PROCESS_NAME:ACTIVITY_LABEL_NAME , the Related Action History is populated from parent item type of the current item. If both ITEM_TYPE and ITEM_KEY is present, For Example: {TITLE}[ITEM_TYPE:ITEM_KEY]PROCESS_NAME:ACTIVITY_LABEL_NAME , the Related Action History is populated from that specific instance activity. Figure 2 - Depicts Related Action History feature

  Read the article

• SQL Saturday 43 (Redmond, WA) Review

  - by BuckWoody

  Last Saturday (June 12th) we held a “SQL Saturday” (more about those here) event in Redmond, Washington. The event was held at the Microsoft campus, at the Mixer in our new location called the “Commons”. This is a mall-like area that we have on campus, and the Mixer is a large building with lots of meeting rooms, so it made a perfect location for the event. There was a sign to find the parking, and once there they had a sign to show how to get to the building. Since it’s a secure facility, Greg Larsen and crew had a person manning the door so that even late arrivals could get in. We had about 400 sign up for the event, and a little over 300 attend (official numbers later). I think we would have had a lot more, but the sun was out – and you just can’t underestimate the effect of that here in the Pacific Northwest. We joke a lot about not seeing the sun much, but when a day like what we had on Saturday comes around, and on a weekend at that, you’d cancel your wedding to go outside to play in the sun. And your spouse would agree with you for doing it. We had some top-notch speakers, including Clifford Dibble and Kalen Delany. The food was great, we had multiple sponsors (including Confio who seems to be at all of these) and the attendees were from all over the professional spectrum, from developers to BI to DBA’s. Everyone I saw was very engaged, and when I visited room-to-room I saw almost no one in the halls – everyone was in the sessions. I also saw a much larger Microsoft presence this year, especially from Dan Jones’ team. I had a great turnout at my session, and yes, I was wearing an Oracle staff shirt. I did that because I wanted to show that the session I gave on “SQL Server for the Oracle DBA” was non-marketing – I couldn’t exactly bash Oracle wearing their colors! These events are amazing. I can’t emphasize enough how much I appreciate the volunteers and how much work they put into these events, and to you for coming. If you’re reading this and you haven’t attended one yet, definitely find out if there is one in your area – and if not, start one. It’s a lot of work, but it’s totally worth it.       Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• Managing Joomla via Android

  Surprisingly, it was only today that I actually looked for possible solutions to write more content for my blog. Since quite some time I'm using my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for all kind of social media activities like Google+, FB, etc. but also for my casual mail during the evening hours. And yes, I feel a little bit guilty about missing the chance to use my tablet to write some content here... OK, only a little bit. ;-) These are not the droids you are looking for But those lazy times are over! While searching the Play Store with the expression 'joomla' I got three interesting hits: - Joomla Admin Mobile! - Joooid - Joomla! Security Checklist After reading the reviews I installed the two later apps. Joomla! Security Checklist The author clearly outlines here that the app is primarily for his personal purpose to have safety checklist at hand at anytime. I guess that any reader of this article has an Android based smartphone or tablet, so that simple app should be part of your toolbox when using Joomla! for your websites. Joooid plugin & app Although I was looking for an app that could work with the default XML RPC interface of Joomla I have to admit that this combination of an enhanced Web service suits me better, mainly due to performance reason. The official website has not only the downloads for Joomla versions 1.5 - 2.5 but also very good and easy to follow step-by-step instructions to prepare your server for the Android app. It will take you less than 5 minutes to get it up and running. For safety reasons, I recommend that you should configure your Web server to have an additional authentication layer on the plugins folder. The smartphone app has the ability to run against HTTP authentication. Personally, I like the look and feel of the app. It is a little bit different compared to the web UI but still easy to use. In fact, this article is the first one written in the Joooid app. At the moment, I only miss the ability to have list tags. Quick and easy Writing full-fledged articles with images, a couple of hyperlinks and some styling here and there should be left to the desktop. At least for the moment. Let's see whether I'm going to change my mind on this during the upcoming months... I'll give it a try, and hope to publish at least once per month to write some content using Joooid. Actually, it would be great to have some feedback about other Joomla! clients in the wild.

  Read the article

• .Net Application & Database Modularity/Reuse

  - by Martaver

  I'm looking for some guidance on how to architect an app with regards to modularity, separation of concerns and re-usability. I'm working on an application (ASP.Net, C#) that has distinctly generic chunks of functionality, that I'd love to be able to lift out, all layers, into re-usable components. This means the module handles the database schema, data access, API, everything so that the next time I want to use it I can just register the module and hook into it. Developing modules of re-usable functionality is a no-brainer, but what is really confusing me is what to do when it comes to handling a core re-usable database schema that serves the module's functionality. In an ideal world, I would register a module and it would ensure that the associated database schema exists in the DB. I would code on the assumption that the tables exist, calling the module's functionality through the DLL, agnostic of the database layer. Kind of like Enterprise Library's Caching/Logging Application Block, which can create a DB schema in the target DB to use as a data store. My Questions is: What do you think is the best way to achieve this, firstly, in terms design architecture, and secondly solution structure. What patterns/frameworks do you know that exist & support this kind of thing? My thoughts so far: I mostly use Entity Framework and SQL Server DB Projects. I thought about a 'black box' approach to modules of functionality. I could use use a code-first approach in EF4, and use the ObjectContext to create a database when the module is initialized. However this means that all of the entities that my module encapsulates would be disconnected from the rest of the application because they belonged to an abstracted ObjectContext. Further - Creating appropriate indexes and references between domain entities and the module's entities would be impossible to do practically. I've thought of adopting Enterprise Library and creating my own Application Blocks. I'm not sure how this would play nice with Entity Framework (if at all) though. I like the idea of building on proven patterns & practices to encapsulate established, reusable functionality. I thought of abandoning Entity Framework for the Module, and just creating a separate DB schema for the module with its own set of stored procedures & ADO.Net. Then deploying the script at run-time if interrogation shows that it doesn't exist. But once again, for application developing outside of the application, I would want to use Entity Framework and I would have to use the module separately, disconnected from the domain ObjectContext. Has anyone had experience developing these sorts of full-stack modules? What advice can you offer? Am I biting off more than I can chew?

  Read the article

• Are there any concerns with using a static read-only unit of work so that it behaves like a cache?

  - by Rowan Freeman

  Related question: How do I cache data that rarely changes? I'm making an ASP.NET MVC4 application. On every request the security details about the user will need to be checked with the area/controller/action that they are accessing to see if they are allowed to view it. The security information is stored in the database. For example: User Permission UserPermission Action ActionPermission A "Permission" is a token that is applied to an MVC action to indicate that the token is required in order to access the action. Once a user is given the permission (via the UserPermission table) then they have the token and can therefore access the action. I've been looking in to how to cache this data (since it rarely changes) so that I'm only querying in-memory data and not hitting a database (which is a considerable performance hit at the moment). I've tried storing things in lists, using a caching provider but I either run in to problems or performance doesn't improve. One problem that I constantly run in to is that I'm using lazy loading and dynamic proxies with EntityFramework. This means that even if I ToList() everything and store them somewhere static, the relationships are never populated. For example, User.Permissions is an ICollection but it's always null. I don't want to Include() everything because I'm trying to keep things simple and generic (and easy to modify). One thing I know is that an EntityFramework DbContext is a unit of work that acts with 1st-level caching. That is, for the duration of the unit of work, everything that is accessed is cached in memory. I want to create a read-only DbContext that will exist indefinitely and will only be used to read about permission data. Upon testing this it worked perfectly; my page load times went from 200ms+ to 20ms. I can easily force the data to refresh at certain intervals or simply leave it to refresh when the application pool is recycled. Basically it will behave like a cache. Note that the rest of the application will interact with other contexts that exist per request as normal. Is there any disadvantage to this approach? Could I be doing something different?

  Read the article

• Sync Google Calendar with SharePoint Calendar

  - by dataintegration

  The ADO.NET Providers for Google and SharePoint make it easy to retrieve and update data in both Google's web services and SharePoint. This article shows how the SQL interface to data makes it easy to build applications that need to move data from one source to another. The application described here is a demo Windows application that synchronizes calendar events between Google and SharePoint, but the RSSBus Providers can be used to achieve integrations on both the .NET and the Java platforms, including more sophisticated features like full automation. Getting the Events Step 1: Google accounts can have several calendars. Obtain a list of a user's Google Calendars by issuing a query to the Calendars table. For example: SELECT * FROM Calendars. Step 2: In order to get a list of the events from a given Google Calendar, issue a query to the CalendarEvents table while specifying the CalendarId from the Calendars table. The resulting events can be further filtered by using the StartDateTime or EndDateTime columns. For example: SELECT * FROM CalendarEvents WHERE (CalendarId = '[email protected]') AND (StartDateTime >= '1/1/2012') AND (StartDateTime <= '2/1/2012') Step 3: SharePoint stores data in Lists. There are various types of lists, e.g., document lists and calendar lists. A SharePoint account can have several lists of the same type. To find all the calendar lists in SharePoint, use the ListLists stored procedure and inspect the BaseTemplate column. Step 4: The SharePoint data provider models each SharPoint list as a table. Get the events in a particular calendar by querying the table with the same name as the list. The events may be filtered further by specifying the EventDate or EndDate columns. For example: SELECT * FROM Calendar WHERE (EventDate >= '1/1/2012') AND (EventDate <= '2/1/2012') Synchronizing the Events Synchronizing the events is a simple process. Once the events from Google and SharePoint are available they can be compared and synchronized based on user preference. The sample application does this based on user input, but it is easy to create one that does the synchronization automatically. The INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements available in both data providers makes it easy to create, update, or delete events as needed. Pre-Built Demo Application The executable for the demo application can be downloaded here. Note that this demo is built using BETA builds of the ADO.NET Provider for Google V2 and ADO.NET Provider for SharePoint V2, and will expire in 2013. Source Code You can download the full source of the demo application here. You will need the Google ADO.NET Data Provider V2 and the SharePoint ADO.NET Data Provider V2, which can be obtained here.

  Read the article

• Goodbye, Spreadsheets and Hello Modern ERP

  - by Christine Randle

  By: Steve Cox, Vice President, Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies     Signs of the resurging economy continue to sprout, with green shoots rising across different sectors and industries. With the economy on the rebound, businesses are increasing their investment in technology to keep up with growth and evolving demands; as proof, Gartner recently increased its worldwide IT spending forecast for 2012 to $3.6 trillion, anticipating a 3 percent increase from 2011 spending.   One of the segments most reliant on technology to catapult growth is midsize companies – established businesses leveraging every competitive efficiency and advantage to compete with much larger enterprises. We find that to compete against the big guys, they need to create an internal technology infrastructure to fuel that growth. Goodbye, spreadsheets and hello modern ERP.   While many businesses postponed upgrading or replacing financial and HR management systems during the recession, now some have started dusting off RFPs and revisiting technology options. Years ago, midsize organizations used spreadsheet-based systems and processes to manage employees, customers, partners, products and revenue. We’ve found that as companies scale up, they are apt to avoid heavily customizing their existing systems, and instead are more prone to standardize on a modern, enterprise-class ERP system.   Modern ERP platforms enable growing companies to immediately address the most pressing challenges – accounting, talent management, customer retention, et. al. Midsize companies implement these systems and processes to help them earn more, go public or expand globally.   And today, choice is a primary factor when selecting an ERP solution. Businesses have more deployment options now than ever before, depending on their unique structures and needs. Whether the preference is on demand, cloud, hosted or on premise, a modular, scalable deployment is available to meet the need.   With modern ERP systems, business that once struggled to do more with fewer resources have access to the same quality tools as larger competitors. By adopting top tier ERP systems tailored to individual business needs, midsize companies can support business operations while creating an enterprise system that seamlessly scales up to fuel future growth. Meaning that the ERP decision that your company makes today, will have legs to serve your business for years to come.

  Read the article

• How to Remove Extensions From, and Force the Trailing Slash at the End of URLs?

  - by Kronbernkzion

  Example of current file structure: example.com/foo.php example.com/bar.html example.com/directory/ example.com/directory/foo.php example.com/directory/bar.html example.com/cgi-bin/directory/foo.cgi I would like to remove HTML, PHP and CGI extensions from, and then force the trailing slash at the end of URLs. So, it could look like this: example.com/foo/ example.com/bar/ example.com/directory/ example.com/directory/foo/ example.com/directory/bar/ example.com/cgi-bin/directory/foo/ I am very frustrated because I've searched for 17 hours straight for solution and visited more than a few hundred pages on various blogs and forums. I'm not joking. So I think I've done my research. Here is the code that sits in my .htaccess file right now: RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f RewriteRule ^(([^/]+/)*[^./]+)/$ $1.html RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.[a-zA-Z0-9]|/)$ RewriteRule (.*)$ /$1/ [R=301,L] As you can see, this code only removes .html (and I'm not very happy with it because I think it could be done a lot simpler). I can remove the extension from PHP files when I rename them to .html through .htaccess, but that's not what I want. I want to remove it straight. This is the first thing I don't know how to do. The second thing is actually very annoying. My .htaccess file with code above, adds .html/ to every string entered after example.com/directory/foo/. So if I enter example.com/directory/foo/bar (obviously /bar doesn't exist since foo is a file), instead of just displaying message that page is not found, it converts it to example.com/directory/foo/bar.html/, then searches for a file for a few seconds and then displays the not found message. This, of course, is bad behavior. So, once again, I need the code in .htaccess to do the following things: Remove .html extension Remove .php extension Remove .cgi extension Force the trailing slash at the end of URLs Requests should behave correctly (no adding trailing slashes or extensions to strings if file or directory doesn't exist on server) Code should be as simple as possible I would very much appreciate any help. And to first person that gives me the solution, I'll send two $50 iTunes Store gift cards for US store. If this offends anyone, I am truly sorry and I apologize. Thanks in advance.

  Read the article

• Portland Silverlight User Group: WP7 &amp; XNA &ndash; I survived.

  - by George Clingerman

  Last night I gave a talk to the Portland Silverlight User Group. http://www.portlandsilverlight.net/Meetings/Details/15 And I survived (which you should have probably already figured out since you’re reading this post AND that’s what I titled it…) Really though it was a fantastic time and I had a lot of fun! I was a little nervous getting ready for it, but I’m always a little nervous getting ready for things. I had the game all written,  I knew the general flow for what the talk was going to be. I read over Scott Hanselman’s 11 Top Tips for a Successful Technical presentation (which has become something I do EVERY time I’m preparing for a talk). I gave myself a brief list of points I wanted to make sure I covered or worked into the talk. But then I was ready and I waited. I hate the waiting. It makes me nervous. Once I was up in front of the room though with my laptop open and some XNA code in front of me, my nerves go away. Then I’m ready. I know XNA, I love talking about XNA and I love sharing what I know and hearing questions that make me think. And hopefully that came through while I was talking. I had a freaking blast. The swag went quickly (and I was even able to hand out some XNA 2.0 books that have been around forever!) and the pizza was been gobbled down. I started the talk at about 6:10 and managed to cover a very brief intro to programming against the game loop (it’s a different concept and one that seems to trip a lot of people up getting started with game development) and then rolled into making a basic 2D game for Windows Phone 7 using XNA. And I finished the whole thing before 8:30. Wahoo! I’m planning on posting the source code and assets on my site so those should be coming soon. And to make things even better, they recorded the whole thing on video so everyone will get to see me pretend I can speak! Just wait till you hear the new song I wrote for this talk…

  Read the article

• Accessing SQL Server data from iOS apps

  - by RobertChipperfield

  Almost all mobile apps need access to external data to be valuable. With a huge amount of existing business data residing in Microsoft SQL Server databases, and an ever-increasing drive to make more and more available to mobile users, how do you marry the rather separate worlds of Microsoft's SQL Server and Apple's iOS devices? The classic answer: write a web service layer Look at any of the questions on this topic asked in Internet discussion forums, and you'll inevitably see the answer, "just write a web service and use that!". But what does this process gain? For a well-designed database with a solid security model, and business logic in the database, writing a custom web service on top of this just to access some of the data from a different platform seems inefficient and unnecessary. Desktop applications interact with the SQL Server directly - why should mobile apps be any different? The better answer: the iSql SDK Working along the lines of "if you do something more than once, make it shared," we set about coming up with a better solution for the general case. And so the iSql SDK was born: sitting between SQL Server and your iOS apps, it provides the simple API you're used to if you've been developing desktop apps using the Microsoft SQL Native Client. It turns out a web service remained a sensible idea: HTTP is much more suited to the Big Bad Internet than SQL Server's native TDS protocol, removing the need for complex configuration, firewall configuration, and the like. However, rather than writing a web service for every app that needs data access, we made the web service generic, serving only as a proxy between the SQL Server and a client library integrated into the iPhone or iPad app. This client library handles all the network communication, and provides a clean API. OSQL in 25 lines of code As an example of how to use the API, I put together a very simple app that allowed the user to enter one or more SQL statements, and displayed the results in a rather primitively formatted text field. The total amount of Objective-C code responsible for doing the work? About 25 lines. You can see this in action in the demo video. Beta out now - your chance to give us your suggestions! We've released the iSql SDK as a beta on the MobileFoo website: you're welcome to download a copy, have a play in your own apps, and let us know what we've missed using the Feedback button on the site. Software development should be fun and rewarding: no-one wants to spend their time writing boiler-plate code over and over again, so stop writing the same web service code, and start doing exciting things in the new world of mobile data!

  Read the article

• Please Help Me Install Firestorm?

  - by Elle Caszatt

  I have been trying for hours just to install one program. In this time, I've tried my best to follow directions and not screw everything up but I have. I'm new to Linux. I tried to install Firestorm and this is what happened: parent@ubuntu:~$ sudo '/home/parent/Downloads/Phoenix_Firestorm-Release_i686_4.2.1.29803/install.sh' [sudo] password for parent: Enter the desired installation directory [/opt/firestorm-install]: /home/parent/downloads - Installing to /home/parent/downloads /home/parent/Downloads/Phoenix_Firestorm-Release_i686_4.2.1.29803/install.sh: line 80: /home/parent/downloads/etc/refresh_desktop_app_entry.sh: Permission denied parent@ubuntu:~$ sudo opt/firestorm-install sudo: opt/firestorm-install: command not found parent@ubuntu:~$ ./etc/refresh_desktop_app_entry.sh bash: ./etc/refresh_desktop_app_entry.sh: No such file or directory parent@ubuntu:~$ sudo '/home/parent/Downloads/Phoenix_Firestorm-Release_i686_4.2.1.29803/install.sh' Enter the desired installation directory [/opt/firestorm-install]: /home/parent - Backing up previous installation to /home/parent.backup-2012-08-27 - Installing to /home/parent cp: cannot stat `/home/parent/Downloads/Phoenix_Firestorm-Release_i686_4.2.1.29803/*': No such file or directory Failed parent@ubuntu:~$ Now whenever I go into my files it says it can't find anything. Like Cannot find home/parent/Downloads. Now, I KNOW there are downloads. I don't know why it's doing this all of a sudden. I'm so frustrated that I'm ready to just go back to Windows. I've already had to uninstall/reinstall Ubuntu once today. It's looking like I"m going to have to do it again. How can I fix my file problem that I'm now having and can someone please, please tell me how to install Firestorm? I mean they don't even have their repository listed. It's ridiculous to have to go through this over a program. Spotify wasn't hard at all to install so why is this? Someone please help, and I'm sorry if I sound like a total idiot. I'm pretty tech savvy but I'm honestly pretty upset after struggling with this for hours. Edit Okay, I see the problem with the directory files (showing the error I mentioned above when I try to click on them). I can only access my downloads, desktop, ect, through the backup that was created when I tried to install Firestorm. It's like that's the real home now. How can I get it back to the way it was? Edit Ubuntu has stopped working for me on reboot now. It doesn't go past the login screen. This is exactly what happened when I had to uninstall it before after trying to install Firestorm. Maybe I'm giving up too easily but I think I'm just going to go back to Windows. If this is what's going to happen every time I innocently try to install a program then it's just not worth it. I installed it specifically to run Firestorm because Windows sucks up a lot of CPU and causes lag. I still appreciate any input but this is just too much hassle for something that shouldn't be hard.

  Read the article

• Play the Microsoft Game “Are You Certifiable?”

  - by Mysticgeek

  Want to know if you have what it takes to be certified by Microsoft? Today we check out an enjoyable way to practice and test your IT knowledge of Microsoft products.  There are two modes, one where you log in with your Live account so you can save your progress, and play additional levels.   If you log in with your Live account, it’s obvious that Microsoft wants to sell you some certification courses, so just be aware of that. Or Guest Play where you can only play one episode and scores are not saved.   Playing the Game We’ll take a look at the Guest Play just so you get a sense of what the game is about. Enter in a username and pick an avatar… Then read the instructions…we won’t go over them all here, there are a lot of options and points are scored by correct answers, amount of time it takes to answer them, you get vouchers to play a question before answers are shown…etc. Once you start playing, you get certification questions, you can take as much time to read the question as you want, then hit the Answer button when you’re ready. Now you have four answers to choose from…notice the time clicking down, so you want to try to answer as quickly as possible. After selecting the answer, you’re told if it is correct or not, then given an answer explaination, along with your score. You can flag the topic so it comes up again, which is a good way to get repetition of various topics, which really helps when taking the cert tests. If you get an answer wrong, you still get an answer explanation which is cool, so you can learn and better understand the topic. Conclusion This game is definitely not for everyone, only those who are curious or want a fun way to practice for Microsoft certifications. If you are interested in a cert from Microsoft, it’s a fun way to practice up. Play Are You Certifiable? Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Fun: Play Alien Arena the Free FPS GameFriday Fun: Get Your Mario OnFriday Fun: Play Bubble QuodFriday Fun: 13 Days in HellFriday Fun: Open Doors TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar Manage Photos Across Different Social Sites With Dropico Test Drive Windows 7 Online Download Wallpapers From National Geographic Site Spyware Blaster v4.3

  Read the article

• EBS Accounts Payables Customer Advisory

  - by cwarticki

  Blogging to let you know of an important set of Oracle Payables patches that were released for R12.1 customers.  Accounts Payable Customer Advisory: Dear Valued Oracle Support Customer, Since the release of R12.1.3 a number of recommended Payables patches have been made available as standalone patches, to help address important business process incidents. Adoption of these patches is highly recommended. To further facilitate adoption of these Payables patches Oracle has consolidated them into a single Recommended Patch Collection (RPC). The RPC is a collection of recommended Payables patches created with the following goals in mind: Stability: Help address issues that are identified by Oracle Development and Oracle Software Support that may interfere with the normal completion of important business processes such as period close. Root Cause Fixes: Help make available root cause fix for data integrity that may delay period close, normal invoice flow and other business actions. Compact: Keep the file footprint as small as possible to help facilitate the install process and minimize testing. Granular: Collection of patches based on functional area that allows customer to apply, based on their individual needs and goals, all three RPC’s at once or in phases. Payables: -          New AP RPC (14273383:R12.AP.B) has all data corruption root cause fixes known to date plus tons of other crucial fixes (Note: 1397581.1). -          Companion must have RPCs: o   Note: 1481221.1: R12.1: Payments Recommended Patch Collection (IBY RPC), August 2012 o   Note: 1481235.1: R12.1: E-Business Tax Recommended Patch Collection (ZX RPC), August 2012 o   Note: 1481222.1: R12.1: Sub Ledger Accounting (SLA) Recommended Patch Collection (XLA RPC), August 2012 -          This time we beat the system far harder on testing and it held up remarkably well. We could not get any data corruption events in the Invoice Cancel/Discard flow (that is the #1 generator) neither we could cause Orphan Events in the system. Therefore this is very good code. Financials: -          ALL FIN modules now have RPCs: full listing is in (Note: 954704.1)

  Read the article

• How are you coping with Ubuntu's Unity app launcher? (It auto-hides, can't minimize apps)

  - by Bad Learner

  [Firstly, let me tell you that this cannot be subjective in anyway, as I think at least Ubuntu beginners will have these questions boggling in their mind; and yes, this is a question that has a definite answer - - so, I am completely within the rules.] Okay, coming to the point, I see that Ubuntu uses Unity since v10.xx (netbook edition?) and carried the same to v11.04 & v11.10. As someone who's stuck to Windows for all these years, it's somewhat difficult to cope with Ubuntu's Unity, for the following reasons: [1] The Unity app launcher (to the screen's left) auto-hides when a window is maximized. [2]- And once launched, apps cannot be minimized by clicking the app's icon in the launcher. I have to go to the top-left of the screen and click the "_" button. I do know I can fix these issues by installing some configuration tool. But the thing is, if that's how it's meant to work, Canonical/Ubuntu would have designed it that way. But they didn't. Why? w.r.t above points [1], [2]: [1] EDITED: So, does it mean, it's good to work without maximizing the windows? Because if I maximize the window, the app launcher hides. And I need to hover the mouse to the left of the screen, wait a bit (even if it's a sec or even less, I can still feel the lag), and then click on the next app icon in the launcher to switch to it. I do know, I can use Alt+TAB to switch, but I am not sure which window comes next. This, I feel, isn't productive. Also, this makes me feel, Ubuntu is designed for large screens (it's nice on my 1920x1080p screen), because I can have two windows side-by-side or something like that on a large screen. This is not possible on smaller screens. [2]- Being able to minimize an application's window by clicking on its icon in the launcher (just like it works on Windows & probably elsewhere) would have been great, rather than having to go to the top-left and clicking the _ (minimize) button which brings up the app launcher itself (from hiding) most of the time. It's too tiring to have these small issues in the UI. I really would like to know how you are coping with these issues the way they are?

  Read the article

• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-10-12

  - by Bob Rhubart

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

  Read the article

• Fixing a NoClassDefFoundError

  - by Chris Okyen

  I have some code: package ftc; import java.util.Scanner; public class Fer_To_Cel { public static void main(String[] argv) { // Scanner object to get the temp in degrees Farenheit Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in); boolean isInt = true; // temporarily put as true in case the user enters a valid int the first time int degreesF = 0; // initialy set to 0 do { try { // Input the temperature text. System.out.print("\nPlease enter a temperature (integer number, no fractional part) in degrees Farenheit: "); degreesF = Integer.parseInt(keyboard.next()); // Get user input and Assign the far. temperature variable, which is casted from String to int. } // Let the user know in a user friendly notice that the value entered wasnt an int ( give int value range ) , and then give error log catch(java.lang.Exception e) { System.out.println("Sorry but you entered a non-int value ( needs to be between ( including ) -2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647 ).. \n"); e.printStackTrace(); isInt = false; } } while(!isInt); System.out.println(""); // print a new line. final int degreesC = (5*(degreesF-32)/9); // convert the degrees from F to C and store the resulting expression in degreesC // Print out a newline, then print what X degrees F is in Celcius. System.out.println("\n" + degreesF + " degrees Farenheit is " + degreesC + " degrees Celcius"); } } And The following error: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_06\bin>java Fer_To_Cel Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Fer_To_Cel (wrong name: ftc/Fer_To_Cel) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:791) at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:14 at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:449) at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:71) at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:361) at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:355) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:354) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:423) at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:308) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:356) at sun.launcher.LauncherHelper.checkAndLoadMain(LauncherHelper.java:480) The code compiled without compile errors, but presented errors during execution. Which leads me to two questions. I know Errors can be termed Compiler, Runtime and Logic Errors, but the NoClassDefFoundError inherits java.lang.LinkageError. Does that make it a Linker error, being niether of the three types of errors I listed, If I am right this is the answer. For someone else who obtains the singular .java file and compiles it, would this be the only way to solve this problem? Or can I (should I ) do/have done something to fix this problem? Basically, based on a basis of programming, is this a fault of me as the writer? Could this be done once on, my half and be distributed and not needed be done again?

  Read the article

• How can I diagnose/debug "maximum number of clients reached" X errors?

  - by jmtd

  Hi, I'm hitting a problem whereby X prevents processes from creating windows, uttering something like the following into ~/.xsession-errors: cannot open display: :0.0 Maximum number of clients reached Searching around there are lots of examples of people facing this problem, and sometimes people identify which program they are running is using up all the client slots. See e.g. LP 70872 (Firefox), LP 263211 (gnome-screensaver). For what it's worth, I run gnome-terminal, thunderbird, chromium-browser, empathy, tomboy and virtualbox nearly all the time, on top of the normal stuff you get with the GNOME desktop, and occasionally some other bits and pieces. However my question is not "which of my programs is causing this problem" but rather, how can one go about diagnosing this problem? In the above (and other) bugs, forum reports, etc., a number of tools are suggested: xlsclients - lists the client applications for the given display, but I don't think that corresponds to 'X clients' xrestop - a top-style X resources tool, one row per X client. Lots of '' clients, not shown in xlsclients output xwininfo -root -children lists X window objects From what I can gather, the problem might not be too many clients at all, but rather resources kept around in the X server for clients who have long-since detached. But it would also appear that you cannot (easily?) relate X resources back to their client. Can one effectively diagnose this issue once it has started to occur, or is a tedious divide-and-conquer approach for the apps I run the only approach open to me? Update Jan 2011: I think I have resolved this issue. For the benefit of anyone stumbling across this, nautilus and/or compiz or something in that chain of software was segfaulting due to a wallpaper I had. I had chosen an XML file as my wallpaper, which defined a rotating gallery of images. It was hand-made, but based on /usr/share/backgrounds/contest/background-1.xml or similar. Disabling the wallpaper and I have not had a crash since. I'm not marking this as answered yet, since the actual specific problem was not my question, but how to diagnose it was. Unfortunately this was mostly trial-and-error which sucks.

  Read the article

• C# 5: At last, async without the pain

  - by Alex.Davies

  For me, the best feature in Visual Studio 11 is the async and await keywords that come with C# 5. I am a big fan of asynchronous programming: it frees up resources, in particular the thread that a piece of code needs to run in. That lets that thread run something else, while waiting for your long-running operation to complete. That's really important if that thread is the UI thread, or if it's holding a lock because it accesses some data structure. Before C# 5, I think I was about the only person in the world who really cared about asynchronous programming. The trouble was that you had to go to extreme lengths to make code asynchronous. I would forever be writing methods that, instead of returning a value, accepted an extra argument that is a "continuation". Then, when calling the method, I'd have to pass a lambda in to it, which contained all the stuff that needed to happen after the method finished. Here is a real snippet of code that is in .NET Demon: m_BuildControl.FilterEnabledForBuilding(     projects,     enabledProjects = m_OutOfDateProjectFinder.FilterNeedsBuilding(         enabledProjects,         newDirtyProjects =         {             // Mark any currently broken projects as dirty             newDirtyProjects.UnionWith(m_BrokenProjects);             // Copy what we found into the set of dirty things             m_DirtyProjects = newDirtyProjects;             RunSomeBuilds();         })); It's just obtuse. Who puts a lambda inside a lambda like that? Well, me obviously. But surely enabledProjects should just be the return value of FilterEnabledForBuilding? And newDirtyProjects should just be the return value of FilterNeedsBuilding? C# 5 async/await lets you write asynchronous code without it looking so stupid. Here's what I plan to change that code to, once we upgrade to VS 11: var enabledProjects = await m_BuildControl.FilterEnabledForBuilding(projects); var newDirtyProjects = await m_OutOfDateProjectFinder.FilterNeedsBuilding(enabledProjects); // Mark any currently broken projects as dirty newDirtyProjects.UnionWith(m_BrokenProjects); // Copy what we found into the set of dirty things m_DirtyProjects = newDirtyProjects; RunSomeBuilds(); Much easier to read! But how is this the same code? If we were on the UI thread, doesn't the UI thread have to block while FilterEnabledForBuilding runs? No, it doesn't, and that's the magic of the await keyword! It cuts your method up into its constituent pieces, much like I did manually with lambdas before. When you run it, only the piece up to the first await actually runs. The rest is passed to FilterEnabledForBuilding as a continuation, which will get called back whenever that method is finished. In the meantime, our thread returns, and can go back to making the UI responsive, or whatever else threads do in their spare time. This is actually a massive simplification, and if you're interested in all the gory details, and speed hacks that the await keyword actually does for you, I recommend Jon Skeet's blog posts about it.

  Read the article

• Sharing on Github

  - by Alan

  Over the past couple weeks I have gotten a lot of help from StackOverflow users on a project, and rather than keep the finished product to myself I wanted to share it unencumbered by licenses, but don't want there to be so much legwork during installation that users shy away from trying it. I am about to post it to Github and choosing public domain licensing. I would like to to be super simple for users to make use of and just FTP it up and go. That being said, do I need to make sure I remove things like the JQuery file, and other GPL / MIT licensed dependencies that I didn't write but that my code depends on? I haven't removed any copyright notices from the other code and all of it open source, it would just be nice if users could download everything at once while of course not trying to represent that I am the license holder of the dependencies. Inside my files are also some snippets, do those have to be externalized with installation instructions or can it be posted as is? Here is an example, my nav.php file is 115 lines long and I have these at the top: <script type="text/javascript" src="./js/ddaccordion.js"> /*********************************************** * Accordion Content script- (c) Dynamic Drive DHTML code library (www.dynamicdrive.com) * Visit http://www.dynamicDrive.com for hundreds of DHTML scripts * This notice must stay intact for legal use ***********************************************/ </script> <link href="css/admin.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script type="text/javascript"> ddaccordion.init({ headerclass: "submenuheader", //Shared CSS class name of headers group contentclass: "submenu", //Shared CSS class name of contents group revealtype: "click", //Reveal content when user clicks or onmouseover the header? Valid value: "click", "clickgo", or "mouseover" mouseoverdelay: 200, //if revealtype="mouseover", set delay in milliseconds before header expands onMouseover collapseprev: false, //Collapse previous content (so only one open at any time)? true/false defaultexpanded: [], //index of content(s) open by default [index1, index2, etc] [] denotes no content onemustopen: false, //Specify whether at least one header should be open always (so never all headers closed) animatedefault: false, //Should contents open by default be animated into view? persiststate: true, //persist state of opened contents within browser session? toggleclass: ["", ""], //Two CSS classes to be applied to the header when it's collapsed and expanded, respectively ["class1", "class2"] togglehtml: ["suffix", "<img src='./images/plus.gif' class='statusicon' />", "<img src='./images/minus.gif' class='statusicon' />"], //Additional HTML added to the header when it's collapsed and expanded, respectively ["position", "html1", "html2"] (see docs) animatespeed: "fast", //speed of animation: integer in milliseconds (ie: 200), or keywords "fast", "normal", or "slow" oninit:function(headers, expandedindices){ //custom code to run when headers have initalized //do nothing }, onopenclose:function(header, index, state, isuseractivated){ //custom code to run whenever a header is opened or closed //do nothing } }) </script>

  Read the article

• Business Analytics Oracle Partner Advisory Council 2013

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  72 544x376 WHEN: Friday the 20th of September 2013 (just before OpenWorld) Register by: 1st of August 2013 WHERE: Sofitel San Francisco Bay 223 Twin Dolphin Drive, 94065 REDWOOD CITY, CA, USA Don’t miss this once a year opportunity to meet and drive a closer engagement with Oracle’s global Product Management Team: Oracle global Product Management will host this workshop. Target group: ACE Directors, Lead Consultants and key architects from our partners Topics: Product Development Roadmap, Partner project experience, your feedback, Q&A session For any inquiries please contact [email protected] As part of registering for the event, please note that you will need to complete the BI / EPM PAC-survey. Thank you for taking the time to provide this, your valuable input. The PAC (one for BI, and a separate track for Hyperion) is free of charge, but is only for OPN Specialised member partners, and is subject to availability. (Please do not attend unless you have received a confirmation from Oracle to do so.) Registration Link Coming Soon We do hope you will be able to join us - and I look forward to welcoming you in San Francisco. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

  Read the article

• I need help installing Ubuntu 11.10 to multi-drive system

  - by CookyMonzta

  I have a machine with 3 hard drives; the primary, which is 750GB (drive 0), and 2 others, each of which is 640GB (drives 1 and 2). On the last screen before the actual installation begins, this is how my hard drive configuration looks: /dev/sda [DISK0, 750GB] /dev/sda1 ntfs 104MB [Win7 System Reserved] /dev/sda2 ntfs 499,997MB [Windows 7 Pro] free space 250,052MB [This space intended for Windows 8] /dev/sdb [DISK1, 640GB] /dev/sdb1 ntfs 400,085MB [Windows XP Pro] free space 240,049MB [This space intended for Ubuntu] /dev/sdc [DISK2, 640GB] [This drive intended for various backups] free space 160,033MB /dev/sdc5 ntfs 480,101MB [Acronis Secure Zone] As you can see, I have 3 drives, all SATA. I have Win7 on my first drive (0), WinXP on my second drive (1) and a secure zone for daily backups on my third drive (2). I want to put Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot on the drive that also has XP. I've already used 400GB for XP and I have 240GB remaining, for which, my intention was to create a 4GB swap file and use the rest for Ubuntu itself. This is what my second hard drive looked like, for my intended setup before installation: /dev/sdb /dev/sdb5 swap 4,095MB [Linux swap] /dev/sdb6 ext4 235,951MB [Ubuntu 11.10] Needless to say, this is only the second time I have attempted to install Linux. I managed to get 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon working on an old machine. I have two problems with this installation: Ubuntu asks for a location to install the boot loader (i.e., "Device for Boot Loader Installation"). I already have a boot loader; namely, Acronis OS Selector (from Acronis Disk Director 11). So I decided to put the Ubuntu boot loader in /dev/sdb6 (where I intend to install Ubuntu), to keep it from interfering with my Acronis OS Selector. Once I hit "Install now", I ended up with the following error: "No root file system is defined. Please correct this from the partitioning menu." What am I missing? Did I attempt to put the boot loader in the wrong place? I assume I did, because as I am writing this entry, I am looking at LinuxIdentity.com's Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal magazine, and I see a screenshot (Figure 7 on Page 13) that implies that the boot loader can be installed anywhere, including the first hard drive (in the MBR, which would obviously force me to reinstall the Acronis OS Selector) or even on a floppy. But why do I get an undefined root file system error? I thought /dev/sdb6 was the root file. Obviously I'm missing something in the installation procedure. Should I try installing it in Windows using the WUBI Installer? I assume that, if I attempt to install Ubuntu from WinXP (on the second drive), it will automatically install Ubuntu on the empty partition alongside XP. But will I have the option of creating a swap partition? And what if the WUBI Installer searches all of my drives and decides to install Ubuntu on my first drive's empty partition (which I have left empty for Win8 upon its release)?

  Read the article

• How to keep a data structure synchronized over a network?

  - by David Gouveia

  Context In the game I'm working on (a sort of a point and click graphic adventure), pretty much everything that happens in the game world is controlled by an action manager that is structured a bit like: So for instance if the result of examining an object should make the character say hello, walk a bit and then sit down, I simply spawn the following code: var actionGroup = actionManager.CreateGroup(); actionGroup.Add(new TalkAction("Guybrush", "Hello there!"); actionGroup.Add(new WalkAction("Guybrush", new Vector2(300, 300)); actionGroup.Add(new SetAnimationAction("Guybrush", "Sit")); This creates a new action group (an entire line in the image above) and adds it to the manager. All of the groups are executed in parallel, but actions within each group are chained together so that the second one only starts after the first one finishes. When the last action in a group finishes, the group is destroyed. Problem Now I need to replicate this information across a network, so that in a multiplayer session, all players see the same thing. Serializing the individual actions is not the problem. But I'm an absolute beginner when it comes to networking and I have a few questions. I think for the sake of simplicity in this discussion we can abstract the action manager component to being simply: var actionManager = new List<List<string>>(); How should I proceed to keep the contents of the above data structure syncronized between all players? Besides the core question, I'm also having a few other concerns related to it (i.e. all possible implications of the same problem above): If I use a server/client architecture (with one of the players acting as both a server and a client), and one of the clients has spawned a group of actions, should he add them directly to the manager, or only send a request to the server, which in turn will order every client to add that group? What about packet losses and the like? The game is deterministic, but I'm thinking that any discrepancy in the sequence of actions executed in a client could lead to inconsistent states of the world. How do I safeguard against that sort of problem? What if I add too many actions at once, won't that cause problems for the connection? Any way to alleviate that?

  Read the article

• My First 5K, the recap.

  - by Chris Williams

  It was a nice day to be outside (and trust me, those aren't words you'll hear from me often.) I got to the site around 7:45, hit the pre-reg table and got my number along with a goody bag full of coupons for racing gear, a water bottle and a tshirt. Oh and a map. Stashed all that stuff in the jeep, emptied my pockets of everything but my iPhone and my jeep key, and proceeded to walk around for a bit as people started showing up and signing in. It was fairly breezy, and there was definitely a storm coming... but it was anyone's guess on when it would actually arrive. It was interesting to see everyone who was participating. If I had to guess, I would say the event was 60-70% women, with a pretty broad distribution of age... as young as 13 to well over 60 (in both genders.) I don't know exactly how many folks were there, but it was well over 300. Eventually it was time to kick things off, and everyone made their way to the start line. All of the 5k and 10k runners were mixed together, starting at the same time. All the walkers and the people with strollers or dogs were in the back. It was pretty chaotic at first, once things started, but it thinned out fairly quickly. The 10k people and the hardcore runners sped ahead of everyone else and the walkers gradually lagged behind. The 5K course was pretty nice, winding around a lake down in Eden Prairie. The 10K course overlapped most of ours, but branched off a couple times too. I didn't run the whole time, but I started the race running and I ended it running, and did a mix of walking and running along the way. I met my goals, which were a) don't ever stop and b) don't be last. The weather managed to hold out for the entire race. It never got too hot, there was a nice breeze and it was mostly overcast. Pretty much perfect in my book. About 20-30 minutes after I left, the rain came down pretty hard. I had a good time, and will most likely do more of them. We'll see.

  Read the article

• Independent Research on 1500 Companies Reveals Challenges in Performance Visibility – Part 1

  - by ndwyouell

  At the end of May I was joined by Professor Andy Neely of Cambridge University on a webinar, with an audience of over 700, to discuss the results of this extensive study which covered 13 countries and nearly every commercial and industrial sector.  What stunned both of us was not so much the number listening but the 100 questions they asked in just 1 hour.  This certainly represents a record in my experience and for those that organized the webinar. So what was all the fuss about?  Well, to begin with this was a pretty big sample and it represented organizations with over $100m sales across the USA, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. It also delivered some pretty interesting results across a wide range of EPM subjects such as profitability, planning and reporting.  Let’s look at some of those findings. We kicked off with profitability, one of the key factors in driving performance, or that is what you would think, but in fact 82% of our respondents said they did not have complete visibility into the profitability of their organization. 91% of these went further to say that, not surprisingly, this lack of knowledge into the profitability has implications with over half citing 3 or more implications.  Implications cited included misallocated resources, revenue opportunities not maximized, erroneous decisions made and impaired financial performance.  Quite a list of implications, especially given the difficult economic circumstances many organizations are operating in at this time. So why is this?  Well other results in the study point to some of the potential reasons.  Firstly 59% of respondents that use spreadsheets use them for monitoring profitability and 93% of all managers responding to the study use spreadsheets to gather and analyze information.  This is an enormous proportion given the problems with using spreadsheets based performance management systems that have been widely talked about for many years.  For profitability analysis this is particularly important when you consider the typical requirement will be to allocate cost and revenue across 6+ dimensions based on many different allocation methods.  Not something that can be done easily in spreadsheets plus it gets to be a nightmare once you want to change allocations, run different scenarios and then change the basis of your planning and budgeting! It is no wonder so many organizations have challenges in performance visibility. My next blog will look at the fragmented nature of many organizations’ planning.  In the meantime if you want to read the complete report on the research go to: http://www.oracle.com/webapps/dialogue/ns/dlgwelcome.jsp?p_ext=Y&p_dlg_id=10077790&src=7038701&Act=29

  Read the article

• 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

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622  | Next Page >