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• Working with Reporting Services Filters – Part 3: The TOP and BOTTOM Operators

  - by smisner

  Thus far in this series, I have described using the IN operator and the LIKE operator. Today, I’ll continue the series by reviewing the TOP and BOTTOM operators. Today, I happened to be working on an example of using the TOP N operator and was not successful on my first try because the behavior is just a bit different than we find when using an “equals” comparison as I described in my first post in this series. In my example, I wanted to display a list of the top 5 resellers in the United States for AdventureWorks, but I wanted it based on a filter. I started with a hard-coded filter like this: Expression Data Type Operator Value [ResellerSalesAmount] Float Top N 5 And received the following error: A filter value in the filter for tablix 'Tablix1' specifies a data type that is not supported by the 'TopN' operator. Verify that the data type for each filter value is Integer. Well, that puzzled me. Did I really have to convert ResellerSalesAmount to an integer to use the Top N operator? Just for kicks, I switched to the Top % operator like this: Expression Data Type Operator Value [ResellerSalesAmount] Float Top % 50 This time, I got exactly the results I expected – I had a total of 10 records in my dataset results, so 50% of that should yield 5 rows in my tablix. So thinking about the problem with Top N some  more, I switched the Value to an expression, like this: Expression Data Type Operator Value [ResellerSalesAmount] Float Top N =5 And it worked! So the value for Top N or Top % must reflect a number to plug into the calculation, such as Top 5 or Top 50%, and the expression is the basis for determining what’s in that group. In other words, Reporting Services will sort the rows by the expression – ResellerSalesAmount in this case – in descending order, and then filter out everything except the topmost rows based on the operator you specify. The curious thing is that, if you’re going to hard-code the value, you must enter the value for Top N with an equal sign in front of the integer, but you can omit the equal sign when entering a hard-coded value for Top %. This experience is why working with Reporting Services filters is not always intuitive! When you use a report parameter to set the value, you won’t have this problem. Just be sure that the data type of the report parameter is set to Integer. Jessica Moss has an example of using a Top N filter in a tablix which you can view here. Working with Bottom N and Bottom % works similarly. You just provide a number for N or for the percentage and Reporting Services works from the bottom up to determine which rows are kept and which are excluded.

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• Multiple render targets and gamma correctness in Direct3D9

  - by Mario

  Let's say in a deferred renderer when building your G-Buffer you're going to render texture color, normals, depth and whatever else to your multiple render targets at once. Now if you want to have a gamma-correct rendering pipeline and you use regular sRGB textures as well as rendertargets, you'll need to apply some conversions along the way, because your filtering, sampling and calculations should happen in linear space, not sRGB space. Of course, you could store linear color in your textures and rendertargets, but this might very well introduce bad precision and banding issues. Reading from sRGB textures is easy: just set SRGBTexture = true; in your texture sampler in your HLSL effect code and the hardware does the conversion sRGB-linear for you. Writing to an sRGB rendertarget is theoretically easy, too: just set SRGBWriteEnable = true; in your effect pass in HLSL and your linear colors will be converted to sRGB space automatically. But how does this work with multiple rendertargets? I only want to do these corrections to the color textures and rendertarget, not to the normals, depth, specularity or whatever else I'll be rendering to my G-Buffer. Ok, so I just don't apply SRGBTexture = true; to my non-color textures, but when using SRGBWriteEnable = true; I'll do a gamma correction to all the values I write out to my rendertargets, no matter what I actually store there. I found some info on gamma over at Microsoft: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb173460%28v=vs.85%29.aspx For hardware that supports Multiple Render Targets (Direct3D 9) or Multiple-element Textures (Direct3D 9), only the first render target or element is written. If I understand correctly, SRGBWriteEnable should only be applied to the first rendertarget, but according to my tests it doesn't and is used for all rendertargets instead. Now the only alternative seems to be to handle these corrections manually in my shader and only correct the actual color output, but I'm not totally sure, that this'll not have any negative impact on color correctness. E.g. if the GPU does any blending or filtering or multisampling after the Linear-sRGB conversion... Do I even need gamma correction in this case, if I'm just writing texture color without lighting to my rendertarget? As far as I know, I DO need it because of the texture filtering and mip sampling happening in sRGB space instead, if I don't correct for it. Anyway, it'd be interesting to hear other people's solutions or thoughts about this.

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• The Dispose Pattern (and FxCop warnings)

  - by Scott Dorman

  [This is actually a response to Bill’s blog post, but since it isn’t possible to leave this as a comment on his blog it’s a post here.] There are many different ways to implement the Dispose pattern correctly. Some are (in my opinion) better than others. In Bill’s blog post he presents a particular pattern, which is an excerpt from his book (Effective C#). The issue centers around the fact that a reader took the code sample presented in the book and ran FxCop (Code Analysis) on it, which generated a warning: “Ensure that base.Dispose() is always called.” The “lesson learned” that Bill presents is that “tools are there to help us, not control us.” While I completely agree with the belief that tools are there to help us, I think it’s important to understand why FxCop is raising this particular warning. The code presented in Bill’s book looks like: // Have its own disposed flag.private bool disposed = false;protected override void Dispose(bool isDisposing){ // Don't dispose more than once. if (disposed) return; if (isDisposing) { // TODO: free managed resources here. } // TODO: free unmanaged resources here. // Let the base class free its resources. // Base class is responsible for calling // GC.SuppressFinalize( ) base.Dispose(isDisposing); // Set derived class disposed flag: disposed = true;} This code does follow all of the guidelines for implementing the Dispose pattern. In this case, it’s presumably part of a larger example showing how to implement the pattern as part of a base class. The reason FxCop is warning you about this code is the first if statement in the Dispose method, which will cause the method to exit if disposed is true. The problem here is that there is the possibility that if the disposed flag is true, the call to base.Dispose() will never be executed. As Bill points out, it is possible for some other code elsewhere in the class to set this flag. He states that this is an “unlikely occurrence.” While that is probably true, it can be a potentially dangerous assumption to make and is one that can be easily corrected. By changing the code slightly you can remove this assumption and correct the FxCop violation. private bool disposed = false;protected override void Dispose(bool disposing){ if (!disposed) { if (disposing) { // Dispose managed resources. } // Dispose unmanaged resources. disposed = true; } base.Dispose(disposing);} Using this implementation allows the call to base.Dispose() to always occur, which ensures that the the disposal chain is always properly followed. Technorati Tags: .NET,C#,Dispose Pattern

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• View the Real Links Behind Shortened URLs in Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  When you encounter shortened URLs there is always that worry in the back of your mind about where they really lead to. Now you can get a “sneak peak” at the real links behind those URLs with the View Thru extension for Google Chrome. The URL Shortening services officially supported at this time are: bit.ly, cli.gs, ff.im, goo.gl, is.gd, nyti.ms, ow.ly, post.ly, su.pr, & tinyurl.com. Before When you encounter a shortened URL you are pretty much on your own in deciding whether to trust that link or not. It would really be nice if you could just hover your mouse over those links and know where they will lead ahead of time. After Once you have the extension installed you are ready to access that link viewing goodness. Please note that you will need to reload any pages that were open prior to installing the extension. For our first example we chose a shortened URL from “bit.ly”. As you can see the entire link behind the shortened URL is displayed very nicely…no hidden surprises there! Note: There are no options to worry with for the extension. Another perfect result for the “goo.gl URL” shown below. View Thru will certainly remove a lot of the stress related to clicking on shortened URLs. Bonus Find Just out of curiosity we looked for a shortened URL not listed as being officially supported at this time. We found one with the “http://nyti.ms/” domain and View Thru showed the link perfectly…so be sure to give it a try on other services too. Conclusion If you worry about where a shortened URL will really lead you then the View Thru extension can help alleviate that stress. Links Download the View Thru extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips See Where Shortened URLs “Link To” in Your Favorite BrowserVerify the Destinations of Shortened URLs the Easy WayCreate Shortened goo.gl URLs in Google Chrome the Easy WayCreate Shortened goo.gl URLs in Your Favorite BrowserAccess Google Chrome’s Special Pages the Easy Way 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 QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job?

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• Rant on EDI

  - by Anthony Trudeau

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tonyt/archive/2013/06/27/153261.aspxMy post this month is a rant and not something informational. I hope y'all will forgive me.It's been a slow month. I was on vacation with my daughter for the middle part of the month. And the rest of my time has been preparing for a major ERP upgrade, and dealing with a last minute surprise from a customer that has EDI changes.The subject of EDI is my rant. I was tossed into EDI years ago by the same customer. I understood the basic concepts, but not details -- implementation or otherwise. I started with my network including a couple of people with EDI experience. And for one that was all she did. She was my first taste of what seems to be a protected group.I started looking for the standards with a budget in mind, or rather a lack of budget. See whenever someone stone walls you like that it tells me that what they're doing isn't as mystical as they'd like you to believe. Real magic doesn't need to be kept secret. And that is the case with EDI; however, the EDI industry tries to protect it. You cannot even download the standards. They cost thousands of dollars.All this does is ensure that they continue to rack up consulting dollars from their ignorant clients. Well sirs and madams, I put my finger in your eye. I developed my own translator. And while it's not robust enough to resell due to the limited scope of information I could gather. It did save my employer tens if not over a hundred thousand dollars.My public service message, therefore is as follows. Don't be afraid to tackle implementing EDI if you're even a semi-competent developer. You need some experience parsing, familiarity with your business system, and a little patience. Also, pick your VAN well. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the biggest names are the best choice. That was a costly mistake for us that we are stuck with for a couple more years.

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• How to store Role Based Access rights in web application?

  - by JonH

  Currently working on a web based CRM type system that deals with various Modules such as Companies, Contacts, Projects, Sub Projects, etc. A typical CRM type system (asp.net web form, C#, SQL Server backend). We plan to implement role based security so that basically a user can have one or more roles. Roles would be broken down by first the module type such as: -Company -Contact And then by the actions for that module for instance each module would end up with a table such as this: Role1 Example: Module Create Edit Delete View Company Yes Owner Only No Yes Contact Yes Yes Yes Yes In the above case Role1 has two module types (Company, and Contact). For company, the person assigned to this role can create companies, can view companies, can only edit records he/she created and cannot delete. For this same role for the module contact this user can create contacts, edit contacts, delete contacts, and view contacts (full rights basically). I am wondering is it best upon coming into the system to session the user's role with something like a: List<Role> roles; Where the Role class would have some sort of List<Module> modules; (can contain Company, Contact, etc.).? Something to the effect of: class Role{ string name; string desc; List<Module> modules; } And the module action class would have a set of actions (Create, Edit, Delete, etc.) for each module: class ModuleActions{ List<Action> actions; } And the action has a value of whether the user can perform the right: class Action{ string right; } Just a rough idea, I know the action could be an enum and the ModuleAction can probably be eliminated with a List<x, y>. My main question is what would be the best way to store this information in this type of application: Should I store it in the User Session state (I have a session class where I manage things related to the user). I generally load this during the initial loading of the application (global.asax). I can simply tack onto this session. Or should this be loaded at the page load event of each module (page load of company etc..). I eventually need to be able to hide / unhide various buttons / divs based on the user's role and that is what got me thinking to load this via session. Any examples or points would be great.

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• A Community Cure for a String Splitting Headache

  - by Tony Davis

  A heartwarming tale of dogged perseverance and Community collaboration to solve some SQL Server string-related headaches. Michael J Swart posted a blog this week that had me smiling in recognition and agreement, describing how an inquisitive Developer or DBA deals with a problem. It's a three-step process, starting with discomfort and anxiety; a feeling that one doesn't know as much about one's chosen specialized subject as previously thought. It progresses through a phase of intense research and learning until finally one achieves breakthrough, blessed relief and renewed optimism. In this case, the discomfort was provoked by the mystery of massively high CPU when searching Unicode strings in SQL Server. Michael explored the problem via Stack Overflow, Google and Twitter #sqlhelp, finally leading to resolution and a blog post that shared what he learned. Perfect; except that sometimes you have to be prepared to share what you've learned so far, while still mired in the phase of nagging discomfort. A good recent example of this recently can be found on our own blogs. Despite being a loud advocate of the lightning fast T-SQL-based string splitting techniques, honed to near perfection over many years by Jeff Moden and others, Phil Factor retained a dogged conviction that, in theory, shredding element-based XML using XQuery ought to be even more efficient for splitting a string to create a table. After some careful testing, he found instead that the XML way performed and scaled miserably by comparison. Somewhat subdued, and with a nagging feeling that perhaps he was still missing "something", he posted his findings. What happened next was a joy to behold; the community jumped in to suggest subtle changes in approach, using an attribute-based rather than element-based XML list, and tweaking the XQuery shredding. The result was performance and scalability that surpassed all other techniques. I asked Phil how quickly he would have arrived at the real breakthrough on his own. His candid answer was "never". Both are great examples of the power of Community learning and the latter in particular the importance of being brave enough to parade one's ignorance. Perhaps Jeff Moden will accept the string-splitting gauntlet one more time. To quote the great man: you've just got to love this community! If you've an interesting tale to tell about being helped to a significant breakthrough for a problem by the community, I'd love to hear about it. Cheers, Tony.

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• Programming and Ubiquitous Language (DDD) in a non-English domain

  - by Sandor Drieënhuizen

  I know there are some questions already here that are closely related to this subject but none of them take Ubiquitous Language as the starting point so I think that justifies this question. For those who don't know: Ubiquitous Language is the concept of defining a (both spoken and written) language that is equally used across developers and domain experts to avoid inconsistencies and miscommunication due to translation problems and misunderstanding. You will see the same terminology show up in code, conversations between any team member, functional specs and whatnot. So, what I was wondering about is how to deal with Ubiquitous Language in non-English domains. Personally, I strongly favor writing programming code in English completely, including comments but ofcourse excluding constants and resources. However, in a non-English domain, I'm forced to make a decision either to: Write code reflecting the Ubiquitous Language in the natural language of the domain. Translate the Ubiquitous Language to English and stop communicating in the natural language of the domain. Define a table that defines how the Ubiquitous Language translates to English. Here are some of my thoughts based on these options: 1) I have a strong aversion against mixed-language code, that is coding using type/member/variable names etc. that are non-English. Most programming languages 'breathe' English to a large extent and most of the technical literature, design pattern names etc. are in English as well. Therefore, in most cases there's just no way of writing code entirely in a non-English language so you end up with mixed languages anyway. 2) This will force the domain experts to start thinking and talking in the English equivalent of the UL, something that will probably not come naturally to them and therefore hinders communication significantly. 3) In this case, the developers communicate with the domain experts in their native language while the developers communicate with each other in English and most importantly, they write code using the English translation of the UL. I'm sure I don't want to go for the first option and I think option 3 is much better than option 2. What do you think? Am I missing other options? UPDATE Today, about year later, having dealt with this issue on a daily basis, I have to say that option 3 has worked out pretty well for me. It wasn't as tedious as I initially feared and translating in real time while talking to the client wasn't a problem either. I also found the following advantages to be true, based on my experience. Translating the UL makes you pay more attention to defining the UL and even the domain itself, especially when you don't know how to translate a term and you have to start looking through dictionaries etc. This has even caused me to reconsider domain modeling decisions a few times. It helps you make your knowledge of the English language more profound. Obviously, your code is much more pleasant to look at instead of being a mind boggling obscenity.

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• Canonicalization of single, small pages like reviews or product categories

  - by Valorized

  In general I pretty much like the idea of canonicalization. And in most cases, Google explains possible procedures in a clear way. For example: If I have duplicates because of parameters (eg: &sort=desc) it's clear to use the canonical for the site, provided the within the head-tag. However I'm wondering how to handle "small - no to say thin content - sites". What's my definition of a small site? An Example: On one of my main sites, we use a directory based url-structure. Let's see: example.com/ (root) example.com/category-abc/ example.com/category-abc/produkt-xy/ Moreover we provide on page, that includes all products example.com/all-categories/ (lists all products the same way as in the categories) In case of reviews, we use a similar structure: example.com/reviews/product-xy/ shows all review for one certain product example.com/reviews/product-xy/abc-your-product-is-great/ shows one certain review example.com/reviews/ shows all reviews for all products (latest first) Let's make it even more complicated: On every product site, there are the latest 2 reviews at the end of the page. So you see, a lot of potential duplicates. Q1: Should I create canonicals for a: example.com/category-abc/ to example.com/all-categories/ b: example.com/reviews/product-xy/abc-your-product-is-great/ to example.com/reviews/product-xy/ or to example.com/review/ or none of them? Q2: Can I link the collection of categories (all-categories/) and collection of all reviews (reviews/ and reviews/product-xy/) to the single category respectively to the single review. Example: example.com/reviews/ includes - let's say - 100 reviews. Can I somehow use a markup that tells search engines: "Hey, wait, you are now looking at a collection of 100 reviews - do not index this collection, you should rather prefer indexing every single review as a single page!". In HTML it might be something like that (which - of course - does not work, it's only to show you what I mean): <div class="review" rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/reviews/product-xz/abc-your-product-is-great/"> HERE GOES THE REVIEW</div> Reason: I don't think it is a great user experience if the user searches for "your product is great" and lands on example.com/reviews/ instead of example.com/reviews/product-xy/abc-your-product-is-great/. On the first site, he will have to search and might stop because of frustration. The second result, however, might lead to a conversion. The same applies for categories. If the user is searching for category-Z, he might land on the all-categories page and he has to scroll down to the (last) category, to find what he searched for (Z). So what's best practice? What should I do?

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• How to get my IR remote to work? Lirc can't see it

  - by user1234567

  I'm using Ubuntu 11.10 (amd64) and I'm trying to get my infrared remote control working. The IR device is a part of a DVB-T USB stick (Based on a RTL2832u chip). I'm using these drivers - it's the only way of getting this device to work under 11.10 that I found. It's a big impromevent from previous Ubuntu version, where I had to edit the driver's code. The device works quite great - and the IR part of it works, too. The driver's page says that the code it's in alpha stage, but I'm pretty sure that my issue has nothing to do with that. If, and only if driver's module is loaded with parameter rtl2832u_rc_mode=2 (which means "use NEC protocol for IR") the remote kind of works, I can see this by running cat /dev/.. ../input6 - when I press a button, random letters appear. The remote works just like a keyboard, but keys are totally messed up - when I press '5' the volume goes down, etc. I would like to use Lirc to fix that, but Lirc can't detect my device (i.e. irw shows nothing). I suspect, it's because something gets into control of the device and sets it up as a keyboard. Lirc seems to be working, it's KDE settings module works too, but it just doesn't detect the device. The Lirc page describes this issue, but since 2009 - the last year when that page was updated, Ubuntu moved from HAL (described there) to DeviceKit, rendering provided instruction useless. I had a similar issue with my previous remote, but the keys were not messed up so much - the remote was usable, so I gave up trying to get Lirc working. I tried the answer provided here, but it changed nothing. I also tried forcing lircd to use my device, but this didn't work too: for i in /sys/class/input/input* ; do echo -n "$(basename "$i"): "; cat "$i/name"; done shows input0: Power Button input1: Power Button input2: Logitech Logitech USB Keyboard input3: A4Tech PS/2+USB Mouse input6: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver But when I run: lircd -n --device=name='IR*' as root (also tried with the full name) I always see: lircd-0.9.0[3983]: lircd(default) ready, using /var/run/lirc/lircd lircd-0.9.0[3983]: accepted new client on /var/run/lirc/lircd lircd-0.9.0[3983]: could not get file information for name=IR* lircd-0.9.0[3983]: default_init(): No such file or directory lircd-0.9.0[3983]: Failed to initialize hardware So, how to set up Lirc with devinput driver in such case?

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• Script For Detecting Availability of XMLHttp in Internet Explorer

  - by Duncan Mills

  Having the XMLHttpRequest API available is key to any ADF Faces Rich Client application. Unfortunately, it is possible for users to switch off this option in Internet Explorer as a Security setting. Without XMLHttpRequest available, your ADF Faces application will simply not work correctly, but rather than giving the user a bad user experience wouldn't it be nicer to tell them that they need to make some changes in order to use the application?  Thanks to Blake Sullivan in the ADF Faces team we now have a little script that can do just this. The script is available from https://samplecode.oracle.com here - The attached file browserCheck.js is what you'll need to add to your project.The best way to use this script is to make changes to whatever template you are using for the entry points to your application. If you're not currently using template then you'll have to make the same change in each of your JSPX pages. Save the browserCheck.js file into a /js/ directory under your HTML root within your UI project (e.g. ViewController)In the template or page, select the <af:document> object in the Structure window. From the right mouse (context) menu choose Facet and select the metaContainer facet.Switch to the source code view and locate the metaContainer facet. Then insert the following lines (I've included the facet tag for clarity but you'll already have that):      <f:facet name="metaContainer">        <af:resource type="javascript"                      source="/js/browserCheck.js"/>        <af:resource type="javascript">           xmlhttpNativeCheck(                     "help/howToConfigureYourBrowser.html");        </af:resource>      </f:facet>Note that the argument to the xmlhttpNativeCheck function is a page that you want to show to the user if they need to change their browser configuration. So build this page in the appropriate place as well. You can also just call the function without any arguments e.g. xmlhttpNativeCheck(); in which case it will pop up default instructions for the user to follow, but not redirect to any other page.

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• SQL Developer Data Modeler v3.3 Early Adopter: Link Model Objects Across Designs

  - by thatjeffsmith

  The third post in our “What’s New in SQL Developer Data Modeler v3.3” series, SQL Developer Data Modeler now allows you to link objects across models. If you need to catch up on the earlier posts, here are the first two: New and Improved Search Collaborative Design via Excel Today’s post is a very simple and straightforward discussion on how to share objects across models and designs. In previous releases you could easily copy and paste objects between models and designs. Simply select your object, right-click and select ‘Copy’ Once copied, paste it into your other designs and then make changes as required. Once you paste the object, it is no longer associated with the source it was copied from. You are free to make any changes you want in the new location without affecting the source material. And it works the other way as well – make any changes to the source material and the new object is also unaffected. However. What if you want to LINK a model object instead of COPYING it? In version 3.3, you can now do this. Simply drag and drop the object instead of copy and pasting it. Select the object, in this case a relational model table, and drag it to your other model. It’s as simple as it sounds, here’s a little animated GIF to show you what I’m talking about. Drag and drop between models/designs to LINK an object Notes The ‘linked’ object cannot be modified from the destination space Updating the source object will propagate the changes forward to wherever it’s been linked You can drag a linked object to another design, so dragging from A - B and then from B - C will work Linked objects are annotated in the model with a ‘Chain’ bitmap, see below This object has been linked from another design/model and cannot be modified. A very simple feature, but I like the flexibility here. Copy and paste = new independent object. Drag and drop = linked object.

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• Should I be an algorithm developer, or java web frameworks type developer?

  - by Derek

  So - as I see it, there are really two kinds of developers. Those that do frameworks, web services, pretty-making front ends, etc etc. Then there are developers that write the algorithms that solve the problem. That is, unless the problem is "display this raw data in some meaningful way." In that case, the framework/web developer guy might be doing both jobs. So my basic problem is this. I have been an algorithms kind of software developer for a few years now. I double majored in Math and Computer science, and I have a master's in systems engineering. I have never done any web-dev work, with the exception of a couple minor jobs, and some hobby level stuff. I have been job interviewing lately, and this is what happens: Job is listed as "programmer- 5 years of experience with the following: C/C++, Java,Perl, Ruby, ant, blah blah blah" Recruiter calls me, says they want me to come in for interview In the interview, find out they have some webservices development, blah blah blah When asked in the interview, talk about my experience doing algorithms, optimization, blah blah..but very willing to learn new languages, frameworks, etc Get a call back saying "we didn't think you were a fit for the job you interviewed wtih, but our algorithm team got wind of you and wants to bring you on" This has happened to me a couple times now - see a vague-ish job description looking for a "programmer" Go in, find out they are doing some sort of web-based tool, maybe with some hardcore algorithms running in the background. interview with people for the web-based tool, but get an offer from the algorithms people. So the question is - which job is the better job? I basically just want to get a wide berth of experience at this level of my career, but are algorithm developers so much in demand? Even more so than all these supposed hot in demand web developer guys? Will I be ok in the long run if I go into the niche of math based algorithm development, and just little to no, or hobby level web-dev experience? I basically just don't want to pigeon hole myself this early. My salary is already starting to get pretty high - and I can see a company later on saying "we really need a web developer, but we'll hire this 50k/year college guy, instead of this 100k/year experience algorithm guy" Cliffs notes: I have been doing algorithm development. I consider myself to be a "good programmer." I would have no problem picking up web technologies and those sorts of frameworks. During job interviews, I keep getting "we think you've got a good skillset - talk to our algorithm team" instead of wanting me to learn new skills on the job to do their web services or whhatever other new technology they are doing. Edit: Whenever I am talking about algorithm development here - I am talking about the code that produces the answer. Typically I think of more math-based algorithms: solving a financial problem, solving a finite element method, image processing, etc

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• Web 2.0 Solutions with Oracle WebCenter 11g &ndash; Book Review

  - by juan.ruiz

  Recently I obtained a copy of the book Web 2.0 Solutions with Oracle Web Center 11g from Packt Publishing, right away I noticed that one of the authors of this book is a good and long time colleague of  mine Plinio Arbizu, whom I have joined for different developer events in Latin America in the past. In this entry you will find my review of the book. Chapter 1: What's Oracle WebCenter? Provides you with basic knowledge to understand the pieces of WebCenter and the role that these pieces play in the overall Oracle Fusion Middleware strategy. Chapter 2 and 3: Will guide you through installation process and set up instructions, required to start developing Web2.0 applications. The screenshots are very helpful. Chapter 4: The chapter will guide you through a series of steps for creating a basic HelloWorld application that uses ADF/Webservices/WebCenter framework to understand the relevant pieces that are part of the architecture in large Web2.0 solutions for WebCenter. One caveat on this chapter is that the use HTML in combination with ADF Faces is not a recommended practice, because in some cases (not in this one) HTML code generated by the components can conflict with existent HTML code place on the same page... so be careful. Chapter 5: Describes the basics to understand the usage of ADF Faces Rich Client Components, with templates and ADF Business components. Chapter 6: This chapter explains how to encapsulate, deploy and consume ADF UIs as JSR 168 portlets in a declarative way Chapter 7: Explains some of the WebCenter services and the different ways that these services can be integrated within WebCenter applications. Chapter 8: Goes over how to include a series of  WebCenter services provided out-of-the-box within applications. This chapter presents a simple and clear way of how to include RSS feeds, search capabilities, tagging and discussions using practical samples that are easy to follow. Chapter 9: Presents an important component of Oracle WebCenter - the composer. Through the composer and Oracle Metadata Services the composer adds all the functionality to perform end-user personalizations, which is a very common user case when working with portals. The concept is self-explanatory when running over the practice developed in this chapter. Chapter 10: Provides an introduction to WebCenter spaces, explaining common concepts about installation, administration (role creation, group creation, etc) and through a sample, the readers can put everything in practice on their own environments. Summary: This book would provide the reader with a fast start to work with Oracle WebCenter 11g  and its different components. In my opinion the book targets the developer audience, rather than the Portal type of audience, or content generator. For the readers of this book I recommend that to better understand the concepts discussed, first you need to understand the basics on Oracle Application Development Framework. Believe me you can thank me later!

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• Internal Mutation of Persistent Data Structures

  - by Greg Ros

  To clarify, when I mean use the terms persistent and immutable on a data structure, I mean that: The state of the data structure remains unchanged for its lifetime. It always holds the same data, and the same operations always produce the same results. The data structure allows Add, Remove, and similar methods that return new objects of its kind, modified as instructed, that may or may not share some of the data of the original object. However, while a data structure may seem to the user as persistent, it may do other things under the hood. To be sure, all data structures are, internally, at least somewhere, based on mutable storage. If I were to base a persistent vector on an array, and copy it whenever Add is invoked, it would still be persistent, as long as I modify only locally created arrays. However, sometimes, you can greatly increase performance by mutating a data structure under the hood. In more, say, insidious, dangerous, and destructive ways. Ways that might leave the abstraction untouched, not letting the user know anything has changed about the data structure, but being critical in the implementation level. For example, let's say that we have a class called ArrayVector implemented using an array. Whenever you invoke Add, you get a ArrayVector build on top of a newly allocated array that has an additional item. A sequence of such updates will involve n array copies and allocations. Here is an illustration: However, let's say we implement a lazy mechanism that stores all sorts of updates -- such as Add, Set, and others in a queue. In this case, each update requires constant time (adding an item to a queue), and no array allocation is involved. When a user tries to get an item in the array, all the queued modifications are applied under the hood, requiring a single array allocation and copy (since we know exactly what data the final array will hold, and how big it will be). Future get operations will be performed on an empty cache, so they will take a single operation. But in order to implement this, we need to 'switch' or mutate the internal array to the new one, and empty the cache -- a very dangerous action. However, considering that in many circumstances (most updates are going to occur in sequence, after all), this can save a lot of time and memory, it might be worth it -- you will need to ensure exclusive access to the internal state, of course. This isn't a question about the efficacy of such a data structure. It's a more general question. Is it ever acceptable to mutate the internal state of a supposedly persistent or immutable object in destructive and dangerous ways? Does performance justify it? Would you still be able to call it immutable? Oh, and could you implement this sort of laziness without mutating the data structure in the specified fashion?

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• MySQL Enterprise Backup 3.8.2 - Overview

  - by Priya Jayakumar

    MySQL Enterprise Backup (MEB) is the ideal solution for backing up MySQL databases. MEB 3.8.2 is released in June 2013. MySQL Enterprise Backup 3.8.2 release’s main goal is to improve usability. With this release, users can know the progress of backup completed both in terms of size and as a percentage of the total. This release also offers options to be able to manage the behavior of MEB in case the space on the secondary storage is completely exhausted during backup. The progress indicator is a (short) string that indicates how far the execution of a time-consuming MEB command has progressed. It consists of one or more "meters" that measures the progress of the command. There are two options introduced to control the progress reporting function of mysqlbackup command (1) –show-progress (2) –progress-interval. The user can control the progress indicator by using “--show-progress” option in any of the MEB operations. This option instructs MEB to output periodically short reports on the progress of time-consuming commands. The argument of this option instructs where the output could be sent. For example it could be stderr, stdout, file, fifo and table. With the “--show-progress” option both the total size of the backup to be copied and the size that’s already copied will be shown. Along with this, the state of the operation for example data or meta-data being copied or tables being locked and other such operations will also be reported. This gives more clear information to the DBA on the progress of the backup that’s happening. Interval between progress report in seconds is controlled by “--progress-interval” option. For more information on this please refer progress-report-options. MEB can also be accessed through GUI from MySQL WorkBench’s next version. This can be used as the front end interface for MEB users to perform backup operations at the click of a button. This feature was highly requested by DBAs and will be very useful. Refer http://insidemysql.com/mysql-workbench-6-0-a-sneak-preview/ for WorkBench upcoming release info. Along with the progress report feature some of the important issues like below are also addressed in MEB 3.8.2. In MEB 3.8.2 a new command line option “--on-disk-full” is introduced to abort or warn the user when a backup process encounters a full disk condition. When no option is given, by default it would abort. A few issues related to “incremental-backup” are also addressed in this release. Please refer 3.8.2 documentation for more details. It would be good for MEB users to move to 3.8.2 to take incremental backups. Overall the added usability and the important defects fixed in this release makes MySQL Enterprise Backup 3.8.2 a promising release.  

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• Preview Links and Images in Google Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  Anyone who has used the CoolPreviews extension in Firefox knows how wonderful that preview window can be. Now you can get the same kind of functionality in Chrome with the ezLinkPreview extension. Note: Extension will not work on websites containing “frame buster” code (navigation to the actual URL will occur). Before Normally if you want to have a better look at a particular webpage the only option you have is to go ahead and open it in a new tab or window. But it would certainly be nice to be able to take a quick “sneak peek” before-hand… After As soon as you have finished installing the extension everything is ready to go…just refresh any pages open prior to installation and enjoy the preview goodness. When you hover your mouse near any link you will notice a small “Preview Button” appear with the letters “EZ” inside. A closer look at the “Preview Button”. Click on the “Preview Button” to open the popup window. Now you can get a very good idea of whether the page is worth visiting or not. Here is a closer look at the popup window. Notice that you can see the URL for the webpage and access a convenient set of buttons on the right side (Open to new tab, Pin to keep overlay open, and Close). You can even resize the window as desired to best suit your needs (you can actually grab any of the four corners to resize the popup window). It is also possible to open a “preview window” inside the popup window…you can see the “Preview Button” here… If you have Chrome maximized you can enjoy using a large sized “preview window”. Now that is nice! For those who may be curious you can see that ezLinkPreview works nicely with images too. Conclusion The ezLinkPreview extension provides a quick and simple way to preview links and/or images while you are browsing. If you are looking for similar functionality in Firefox then be sure to read our article on CoolPreviews here. Links Download the ezLinkPreview extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Google Image Search Quick FixSubscribe to RSS Feeds in Chrome with a Single ClickFind a Website’s Actual Location with Chrome FlagsHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default BrowserEnable Auto-Paging Goodness in Google Chrome 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 QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job?

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• Is ASP.NET MVC completely (and exclusively) based on conventions?

  - by Mike Valeriano

  --TL;DR Is there a "Hello World!" ASP.NET MVC tutorial out there that doesn't rely on conventions and "stock" projects? Is it even possible to take advantage of the technology without reusing the default file structure, and start from a single "hello_world.asp" file or something (like in PHP)? Am I completely mistaken and I should be looking somewhere else, maybe this? I'm interested in the MVC framework, not Web Forms --Background I've played a bit with PHP in the past, just for fun, and now I'm back to it since web development became relevant for me once again. I'm no professional, but I try to gain as much knowledge and control over the technology I'm working with as possible. I'm using Visual Studio 2012 for C# - my "desktop" language of choice - and since I got the Professional Edition from Dreamspark, the Web Development Tools are available, including ASP.NET MVC 4. I won't touch Web Forms, but the MVC Framework got my attention because the MVC pattern is something I can really relate to, since it provides the control I want but... not quite. Learning PHP was easy - and right form the start I could just create a "hello_world.php" file and just do something like this for immediate results: <!-- file: hello_world.php --> <?php> echo "Hello World!"; <?> But I couldn't find a single ASP.NET (MVC) tutorial out there (I'll be sure to buy one of the upcoming MVC 4 books, only a month away or so) that would start like that. They all start with a sample project, building up knowledge from the basics and heavily using conventions as they go along. Which is fine, I suppose, but it's now the best way for me to learn things. Even the "Empty" project template for a new ASP.NET MVC 4 Application in VS2012 is not empty at all: several files and folders are created for you - much like a new C# desktop application project, but with C# I can in fact start from scratch, creating the project structure myself. It is not the case with PHP: I can choose from a plethora of different MVC frameworks I can just create my own framework I can just skip frameworks altogether, and toss random PHP along with my HTML on a single file and make it work I understand the framework needs to establish some rules, but what if I just want to create a single page website with some C# logic behind it? Do I really need to create a whole bloat of files and folders for the sake of convention? Also, please understand that I haven't gotten far on any of those tutorials mainly because of this reason, but, if that's the only way to do it, I'll go for it using one of the books I've mentioned before. This is my first contact with ASP.NET but from the few comparisons I've read, I believe I should stay the hell away from Web Forms. Thank you. (Please forgive the broken English - it is not my primary language.)

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• Stop YouTube Videos from Automatically Playing in Chrome

  - by The Geek

  If you’ve actually used the internet before, you’ve probably come across a page with an auto-playing YouTube clip, and chances are good it was a rather annoying one. Here’s how to stop them from starting automatically in Chrome. We’ve already told you how to stop them from automatically playing if you’re a Firefox user (best answer: use Flashblock!), but now it’s time for Chrome users to get their turn. Use the Stop Autoplay for YouTube Extension The great thing about this extension is that it stops the video from playing, but it allows it to continue buffering, so when you do feel like playing the video, it’ll already be downloaded—really useful for people with slower internet connections. There’s no UI or anything fancy, just head to the extension page and click the Install button. If you want to get rid of it later, use the Tools –> Extensions menu (or you can type chrome://extensions/ into your address bar), and then click the Uninstall link for that add-on.   Download Stop Autoplay for YouTube [Google Chrome Extensions] Using FlashBlock for Chrome If you really wanted to, you could just disable Flash across the board using FlashBlock for Chrome. Once you’ve installed the extension, you won’t see any Flash elements anywhere, and you’ll have to move your mouse over them and click to enable them each time. When I installed the extension the first time, I noticed that YouTube was already in the allow list. I’m not sure if that’s the default setting or not, but you can use the icon in the address bar, or the Options from the Extensions panel to get to the settings page, and from there you can remove anything from the White List that you wouldn’t want. Another nice feature about Flash Block is that it can also block Silverlight, or you could simply uninstall or remove unnecessary Chrome plug-ins. Download FlashBlock for Chrome Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stop YouTube Videos from Automatically Playing in FirefoxDisable YouTube Comments while using ChromeApologies About An Awful Audio AdvertisementImprove YouTube Video Viewing in Google ChromeWatch YouTube Videos in Cinema Style in Firefox 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 Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites

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• Removing hard-coded values and defensive design vs YAGNI

  - by Ben Scott

  First a bit of background. I'm coding a lookup from Age - Rate. There are 7 age brackets so the lookup table is 3 columns (From|To|Rate) with 7 rows. The values rarely change - they are legislated rates (first and third columns) that have stayed the same for 3 years. I figured that the easiest way to store this table without hard-coding it is in the database in a global configuration table, as a single text value containing a CSV (so "65,69,0.05,70,74,0.06" is how the 65-69 and 70-74 tiers would be stored). Relatively easy to parse then use. Then I realised that to implement this I would have to create a new table, a repository to wrap around it, data layer tests for the repo, unit tests around the code that unflattens the CSV into the table, and tests around the lookup itself. The only benefit of all this work is avoiding hard-coding the lookup table. When talking to the users (who currently use the lookup table directly - by looking at a hard copy) the opinion is pretty much that "the rates never change." Obviously that isn't actually correct - the rates were only created three years ago and in the past things that "never change" have had a habit of changing - so for me to defensively program this I definitely shouldn't store the lookup table in the application. Except when I think YAGNI. The feature I am implementing doesn't specify that the rates will change. If the rates do change, they will still change so rarely that maintenance isn't even a consideration, and the feature isn't actually critical enough that anything would be affected if there was a delay between the rate change and the updated application. I've pretty much decided that nothing of value will be lost if I hard-code the lookup, and I'm not too concerned about my approach to this particular feature. My question is, as a professional have I properly justified that decision? Hard-coding values is bad design, but going to the trouble of removing the values from the application seems to violate the YAGNI principle. EDIT To clarify the question, I'm not concerned about the actual implementation. I'm concerned that I can either do a quick, bad thing, and justify it by saying YAGNI, or I can take a more defensive, high-effort approach, that even in the best case ultimately has low benefits. As a professional programmer does my decision to implement a design that I know is flawed simply come down to a cost/benefit analysis?

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• Handy SQL Server Function Series: Part 1

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  I've been preparing to give a presentation on SQL Server for a while now, and a topic that was recommended was SQL Server functions.  More specifically, the lesser-known functions (like @@OPTIONS), and maybe some interesting ways to use well-known functions (like using PARSENAME to split IP addresses)  I think this is a veritable goldmine of useful information, and researching for the presentation has confirmed that beyond my initial expectations.I even found a few undocumented/underdocumented functions, so for the first official article in this series I thought I'd start with 2 of each, COLLATIONPROPERTY() and COLLATIONPROPERTYFROMID().COLLATIONPROPERTY() provides information about (wait for it) collations, SQL Server's method for handling foreign character sets, sort orders, and case- or accent-sensitivity when sorting character data.  The Books Online entry for  COLLATIONPROPERTY() lists 4 options for code page, locale ID, comparison style and version.  Used in conjunction with fn_helpcollations():SELECT *, COLLATIONPROPERTY(name,'LCID') LCID, COLLATIONPROPERTY(name,'CodePage') CodePage, COLLATIONPROPERTY(name,'ComparisonStyle') ComparisonStyle, COLLATIONPROPERTY(name,'Version') Version FROM fn_helpcollations()You can get some excellent information. (c'mon, be honest, did you even know about fn_helpcollations?)Collations in SQL Server have a unique name and ID, and you'll see one or both in various system tables or views like syscolumns, sys.columns, and INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS.  Unfortunately they only link the ID and name for collations of existing columns, so if you wanted to know the collation ID of Albanian_CI_AI_WS, you'd have to declare a column with that collation and query the system table.While poking around the OBJECT_DEFINITION() of sys.columns I found a reference to COLLATIONPROPERTYFROMID(), and the unknown property "Name".  Not surprisingly, this is how sys.columns finds the name of the collation, based on the ID stored in the system tables.  (Check yourself if you don't believe me)Somewhat surprisingly, the "Name" property also works for COLLATIONPROPERTY(), although you'd already know the name at that point.  Some wild guesses and tests revealed that "CollationID" is also a valid property for both functions, so now:SELECT *, COLLATIONPROPERTY(name,'LCID') LCID, COLLATIONPROPERTY(name,'CodePage') CodePage, COLLATIONPROPERTY(name,'ComparisonStyle') ComparisonStyle, COLLATIONPROPERTY(name,'Version') Version, COLLATIONPROPERTY(name,'CollationID') CollationID FROM fn_helpcollations() Will get you the collation ID-name link you…probably didn't know or care about, but if you ever get on Jeopardy! and this question comes up, feel free to send some of your winnings my way. :)And last but not least, COLLATIONPROPERTYFROMID() uses the same properties as COLLATIONPROPERTY(), so you can use either one depending on which value you have available.Keep an eye out for Part 2!

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• Recipient address rejected: User unknown in local recipient table;

  - by Thufir

  I've gone through the guide for mailman with some difficulty, but seem to be nearly there. I'm able to navigate to the mailman web GUI, create lists and subscribe. I just subscribe my local FQDN, so [email protected] for testing purposes. This FQDN only works on localhost. However, e-mails to the list address, in this case [email protected], are rejected: root@dur:~# root@dur:~# tail /var/log/mail.log Aug 28 08:28:43 dur postfix/master[12208]: terminating on signal 15 Aug 28 08:28:44 dur postfix/postfix-script[12322]: starting the Postfix mail system Aug 28 08:28:44 dur postfix/master[12323]: daemon started -- version 2.9.1, configuration /etc/postfix Aug 28 08:28:46 dur postfix/postfix-script[12332]: stopping the Postfix mail system Aug 28 08:28:46 dur postfix/master[12323]: terminating on signal 15 Aug 28 08:28:47 dur postfix/postfix-script[12437]: starting the Postfix mail system Aug 28 08:28:47 dur postfix/master[12438]: daemon started -- version 2.9.1, configuration /etc/postfix Aug 28 08:29:29 dur postfix/smtpd[12460]: connect from localhost[127.0.0.1] Aug 28 08:29:30 dur postfix/smtpd[12460]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from localhost[127.0.0.1]: 550 5.1.1 <[email protected]>: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in local recipient table; from=<[email protected]> to=<[email protected]> proto=ESMTP helo=<dur.bounceme.net> Aug 28 08:29:33 dur postfix/smtpd[12460]: disconnect from localhost[127.0.0.1] root@dur:~# root@dur:~# ll /var/lib/mailman/data/ total 56 drwxrwsr-x 2 root list 4096 Aug 28 08:28 ./ drwxrwsr-x 8 root list 4096 Aug 27 19:58 ../ -rw-r--r-- 1 root list 0 Aug 28 04:36 aliases -rw-r--r-- 1 root list 12288 Aug 28 04:36 aliases.db -rw-r--r-- 1 root list 12288 Aug 28 08:28 aliases.db.db -rw-r----- 1 root list 41 Aug 27 21:04 creator.pw -rw-rw-r-- 1 root list 10 Aug 27 19:58 last_mailman_version -rw-r--r-- 1 root list 14100 Oct 19 2011 sitelist.cfg root@dur:~# root@dur:~# grep alias /etc/postfix/main.cf alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases, hash:/var/lib/mailman/data/aliases alias_database = hash:/var/lib/mailman/data/aliases.db #alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases root@dur:~# root@dur:~# postconf -n alias_database = hash:/var/lib/mailman/data/aliases.db alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases, hash:/var/lib/mailman/data/aliases append_dot_mydomain = no biff = no broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes config_directory = /etc/postfix default_transport = smtp home_mailbox = Maildir/ inet_interfaces = loopback-only mailbox_command = /usr/lib/dovecot/deliver -c /etc/dovecot/conf.d/01-mail-stack-delivery.conf -m "${EXTENSION}" mailbox_size_limit = 0 mailman_destination_recipient_limit = 1 mydestination = $myhostname localhost.$mydomain localhost $mydomain myhostname = dur.bounceme.net mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128 readme_directory = no recipient_delimiter = + relay_domains = lists.example.com relay_transport = relay relayhost = smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtp_scache smtp_use_tls = yes smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Ubuntu) smtpd_recipient_restrictions = reject_unknown_sender_domain, reject_unknown_recipient_domain, reject_unauth_pipelining, permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated, reject_unauth_destination smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtpd_sasl_authenticated_header = yes smtpd_sasl_local_domain = $myhostname smtpd_sasl_path = private/dovecot-auth smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot smtpd_tls_auth_only = yes smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-mail.pem smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/ssl/private/ssl-mail.key smtpd_tls_mandatory_ciphers = medium smtpd_tls_mandatory_protocols = SSLv3, TLSv1 smtpd_tls_received_header = yes smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtpd_scache smtpd_use_tls = yes tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom transport_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/transport root@dur:~# Why is this e-mail rejected? It seems to, maybe be related to the alias_maps and alias_database settings in postfix.

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• Using Oracle BPM to Extend Oracle Applications

  - by Michelle Kimihira

  Author: Srikant Subramaniam, Senior Principal Product Manager, Oracle Fusion Middleware Customers often modify applications to meet their specific business needs - varying regulatory requirements, unique business processes, product mix transition, etc. Traditional implementation practices for such modifications are typically invasive in nature and introduce risk into projects, affect time-to-market and ease of use, and ultimately increase the costs of running and maintaining the applications. Another downside of these traditional implementation practices is that they literally cast the application in stone, making it difficult for end-users to tailor their individual work environments to meet specific needs, without getting IT involved. For many businesses, however, IT lacks the capacity to support such rapid business changes. As a result, adopting innovative solutions to change the economics of customization becomes an imperative rather than a choice. Let's look at a banking process in Siebel Financial Services and Oracle Policy Automation (OPA) using Oracle Business Process Management. This approach makes modifications simple, quick to implement and easy to maintain/upgrade. The process model is based on the Loan Origination Process Accelerator, i.e., a set of ready to deploy business solutions developed by Oracle using Business Process Management (BPM) 11g, containing customizable and extensible pre-built processes to fit specific customer requirements. This use case is a branch-based loan origination process. Origination includes a number of steps ranging from accepting a loan application, applicant identity and background verification (Know Your Customer), credit assessment, risk evaluation and the eventual disbursal of funds (or rejection of the application). We use BPM to model all of these individual tasks and integrate (via web services) with: Siebel Financial Services and (simulated) backend applications: FLEXCUBE for loan management, Background Verification and Credit Rating. The process flow starts in Siebel when a customer applies for loan, switches to OPA for eligibility verification and product recommendations, before handing it off to BPM for approvals. OPA Connector for Siebel simplifies integration with Siebel’s web services framework by saving directly into Siebel the results from the self-service interview. This combination of user input and product recommendation invokes the BPM process for loan origination. At the end of the approval process, we update Siebel and the financial app to complete the loop. We use BPM Process Spaces to display role-specific data via dashboards, including the ability to track the status of a given process (flow trace). Loan Underwriters have visibility into the product mix (loan categories), status of loan applications (count of approved/rejected/pending), volume and values of loans approved per processing center, processing times, requested vs. approved amount and other relevant business metrics. Summary Oracle recommends the use of Fusion Middleware as an extensions platform for applications. This approach makes modifications simple, quick to implement and easy to maintain/upgrade applications (by moving customizations away from applications to the process layer). It is also easier to manage processes that span multiple applications by using Oracle BPM. Additional Information Product Information on Oracle.com: Oracle Fusion Middleware Follow us on Twitter and Facebook Subscribe to our regular Fusion Middleware Newsletter

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• TDD - Red-Light-Green_Light:: A critical view

  - by Renso

  Subject: The concept of red-light-green-light for TDD/BDD style testing has been around since the dawn of time (well almost). Having written thousands of tests using this approach I find myself questioning the validity of the principle The issue: False positive or a valid test strategy that can be trusted? A critical view: I agree that the red-green-light concept has some validity, but who has ever written 2000 tests for a system that goes through a ton of chnages due to the organic nature fo the application and does not have to change, delete or restructure their existing tests? If you asnwer to the latter question is" "Yes I had a situation(s) where I had to refactor my code and it caused me to have to rewrite/change/delete my existing tests", read on, else press CTRL+ALT+Del :-) Once a test has been written, failed the test (red light), and then you comlpete your code and now get the green light for the last test, the test for that functionality is now in green light mode. It can never return to red light again as long as the test exists, even if the test itself is not changed, and only the code it tests is changed to fail the test. Why you ask? because the reason for the initial red-light when you created the test is not guaranteed to have triggered the initial red-light result for the same reasons it is now failing after a code change has been made. Furthermore, when the same test is changed to compile correctly in case of a compile-breaking code change, the green-light once again has been invalidated. Why? Because there is no guarantee that the test code fix is in the same green-light state as it was when it first ran successfully. To make matters worse, if you fix a compile-breaking test without going through the red-light-green-light test process, your test fix is essentially useless and very dangerous as it now provides you with a false-positive at best. Thinking your code has passed all tests and that it works correctly is far worse than not having any tests at all, well at least for that part of the system that the test-code represents. What to do? My recommendation is to delete the tests affected, and re-create them from scratch. I have to agree. Hard to do and justify if it has a significant impact on project deadlines. What do you think?

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• Launch 2010 Technical Readiness Unofficial Q&amp;A.

  - by mbcrump

  I had an email from one of my readers about the 2010 Technical Readiness Series. Please read below: Hi Michael, I noticed you blogged a while back that you were going to attend MS 2010 Launch event. I’m going to the session in Seattle on May 27, is it worth it to attend? Also, I’m wondering if they give any free software away like VS2010 Pro? Any decent vendors? Looking forward to hearing back from you. I decided this information would probably benefit several instead of just responding back to the reader. In case you are not aware, MS has a 2010 launch event showing VS2010, Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008R2.  You can sign up for an event here: https://microsoft.crgevents.com/Register2010/Content/Event_Selection.aspx I’ve answered the questions asked below. Q: Is it worth going? A: It is if you have had little or no exposure to the latest 2010 products. Most people are familiar with VS2010, but have not seen SharePoint 2010 Office 2010 or Windows Phone 7. It is designed to get you up to speed very quickly. If you have watched most of the MIX videos and keep up with .NET in general, you will benefit more by having the ability to ask questions.    Q: Did you get any free software? A: No, only demos including: VS2010/Office 2010 – They give you a link to the url where you can download the trial version. Windows 7 Enterprise – You get a DVD with the trial version loaded. Q: Do they give away any cool swag? A: Just a Microsoft T-Shirt (XL). Q: What about the vendor selection? A: At the event that I went to, most vendors were pushing SharePoint products. There wasn’t a lot of variety in the selection. Most vendors were giving away the typical pens, buttons and stickers and trial software. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me. I will answer and add to this un-official FAQ.

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