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  • Conceal packet loss in PCM stream

    - by ZeroDefect
    I am looking to use 'Packet Loss Concealment' to conceal lost PCM frames in an audio stream. Unfortunately, I cannot find a library that is accessible without all the licensing restrictions and code bloat (...up for some suggestions though). I have located some GPL code written by Steve Underwood for the Asterisk project which implements PLC. There are several limitations; although, as Steve suggests in his code, his algorithm can be applied to different streams with a bit of work. Currently, the code works with 8kHz 16-bit signed mono streams. Variations of the code can be found through a simple search of Google Code Search. My hope is that I can adapt the code to work with other streams. Initially, the goal is to adjust the algorithm for 8+ kHz, 16-bit signed, multichannel audio (all in a C++ environment). Eventually, I'm looking to make the code available under the GPL license in hopes that it could be of benefit to others... Attached is the code below with my efforts. The code includes a main function that will "drop" a number of frames with a given probability. Unfortunately, the code does not quite work as expected. I'm receiving EXC_BAD_ACCESS when running in gdb, but I don't get a trace from gdb when using 'bt' command. Clearly, I'm trampimg on memory some where but not sure exactly where. When I comment out the *amdf_pitch* function, the code runs without crashing... int main (int argc, char *argv[]) { std::ifstream fin("C:\\cc32kHz.pcm"); if(!fin.is_open()) { std::cout << "Failed to open input file" << std::endl; return 1; } std::ofstream fout_repaired("C:\\cc32kHz_repaired.pcm"); if(!fout_repaired.is_open()) { std::cout << "Failed to open output repaired file" << std::endl; return 1; } std::ofstream fout_lossy("C:\\cc32kHz_lossy.pcm"); if(!fout_lossy.is_open()) { std::cout << "Failed to open output repaired file" << std::endl; return 1; } audio::PcmConcealer Concealer; Concealer.Init(1, 16, 32000); //Generate random numbers; srand( time(NULL) ); int value = 0; int probability = 5; while(!fin.eof()) { char arr[2]; fin.read(arr, 2); //Generate's random number; value = rand() % 100 + 1; if(value <= probability) { char blank[2] = {0x00, 0x00}; fout_lossy.write(blank, 2); //Fill in data; Concealer.Fill((int16_t *)blank, 1); fout_repaired.write(blank, 2); } else { //Write data to file; fout_repaired.write(arr, 2); fout_lossy.write(arr, 2); Concealer.Receive((int16_t *)arr, 1); } } fin.close(); fout_repaired.close(); fout_lossy.close(); return 0; } PcmConcealer.hpp /* * Code adapted from Steve Underwood of the Asterisk Project. This code inherits * the same licensing restrictions as the Asterisk Project. */ #ifndef __PCMCONCEALER_HPP__ #define __PCMCONCEALER_HPP__ /** 1. What does it do? The packet loss concealment module provides a suitable synthetic fill-in signal, to minimise the audible effect of lost packets in VoIP applications. It is not tied to any particular codec, and could be used with almost any codec which does not specify its own procedure for packet loss concealment. Where a codec specific concealment procedure exists, the algorithm is usually built around knowledge of the characteristics of the particular codec. It will, therefore, generally give better results for that particular codec than this generic concealer will. 2. How does it work? While good packets are being received, the plc_rx() routine keeps a record of the trailing section of the known speech signal. If a packet is missed, plc_fillin() is called to produce a synthetic replacement for the real speech signal. The average mean difference function (AMDF) is applied to the last known good signal, to determine its effective pitch. Based on this, the last pitch period of signal is saved. Essentially, this cycle of speech will be repeated over and over until the real speech resumes. However, several refinements are needed to obtain smooth pleasant sounding results. - The two ends of the stored cycle of speech will not always fit together smoothly. This can cause roughness, or even clicks, at the joins between cycles. To soften this, the 1/4 pitch period of real speech preceeding the cycle to be repeated is blended with the last 1/4 pitch period of the cycle to be repeated, using an overlap-add (OLA) technique (i.e. in total, the last 5/4 pitch periods of real speech are used). - The start of the synthetic speech will not always fit together smoothly with the tail of real speech passed on before the erasure was identified. Ideally, we would like to modify the last 1/4 pitch period of the real speech, to blend it into the synthetic speech. However, it is too late for that. We could have delayed the real speech a little, but that would require more buffer manipulation, and hurt the efficiency of the no-lost-packets case (which we hope is the dominant case). Instead we use a degenerate form of OLA to modify the start of the synthetic data. The last 1/4 pitch period of real speech is time reversed, and OLA is used to blend it with the first 1/4 pitch period of synthetic speech. The result seems quite acceptable. - As we progress into the erasure, the chances of the synthetic signal being anything like correct steadily fall. Therefore, the volume of the synthesized signal is made to decay linearly, such that after 50ms of missing audio it is reduced to silence. - When real speech resumes, an extra 1/4 pitch period of sythetic speech is blended with the start of the real speech. If the erasure is small, this smoothes the transition. If the erasure is long, and the synthetic signal has faded to zero, the blending softens the start up of the real signal, avoiding a kind of "click" or "pop" effect that might occur with a sudden onset. 3. How do I use it? Before audio is processed, call plc_init() to create an instance of the packet loss concealer. For each received audio packet that is acceptable (i.e. not including those being dropped for being too late) call plc_rx() to record the content of the packet. Note this may modify the packet a little after a period of packet loss, to blend real synthetic data smoothly. When a real packet is not available in time, call plc_fillin() to create a sythetic substitute. That's it! */ /*! Minimum allowed pitch (66 Hz) */ #define PLC_PITCH_MIN(SAMPLE_RATE) ((double)(SAMPLE_RATE) / 66.6) /*! Maximum allowed pitch (200 Hz) */ #define PLC_PITCH_MAX(SAMPLE_RATE) ((SAMPLE_RATE) / 200) /*! Maximum pitch OLA window */ //#define PLC_PITCH_OVERLAP_MAX(SAMPLE_RATE) ((PLC_PITCH_MIN(SAMPLE_RATE)) >> 2) /*! The length over which the AMDF function looks for similarity (20 ms) */ #define CORRELATION_SPAN(SAMPLE_RATE) ((20 * (SAMPLE_RATE)) / 1000) /*! History buffer length. The buffer must also be at leat 1.25 times PLC_PITCH_MIN, but that is much smaller than the buffer needs to be for the pitch assessment. */ //#define PLC_HISTORY_LEN(SAMPLE_RATE) ((CORRELATION_SPAN(SAMPLE_RATE)) + (PLC_PITCH_MIN(SAMPLE_RATE))) namespace audio { typedef struct { /*! Consecutive erased samples */ int missing_samples; /*! Current offset into pitch period */ int pitch_offset; /*! Pitch estimate */ int pitch; /*! Buffer for a cycle of speech */ float *pitchbuf;//[PLC_PITCH_MIN]; /*! History buffer */ short *history;//[PLC_HISTORY_LEN]; /*! Current pointer into the history buffer */ int buf_ptr; } plc_state_t; class PcmConcealer { public: PcmConcealer(); ~PcmConcealer(); void Init(int channels, int bit_depth, int sample_rate); //Process a block of received audio samples. int Receive(short amp[], int frames); //Fill-in a block of missing audio samples. int Fill(short amp[], int frames); void Destroy(); private: int amdf_pitch(int min_pitch, int max_pitch, short amp[], int channel_index, int frames); void save_history(plc_state_t *s, short *buf, int channel_index, int frames); void normalise_history(plc_state_t *s); /** Holds the states of each of the channels **/ std::vector< plc_state_t * > ChannelStates; int plc_pitch_min; int plc_pitch_max; int plc_pitch_overlap_max; int correlation_span; int plc_history_len; int channel_count; int sample_rate; bool Initialized; }; } #endif PcmConcealer.cpp /* * Code adapted from Steve Underwood of the Asterisk Project. This code inherits * the same licensing restrictions as the Asterisk Project. */ #include "audio/PcmConcealer.hpp" /* We do a straight line fade to zero volume in 50ms when we are filling in for missing data. */ #define ATTENUATION_INCREMENT 0.0025 /* Attenuation per sample */ #if !defined(INT16_MAX) #define INT16_MAX (32767) #define INT16_MIN (-32767-1) #endif #ifdef WIN32 inline double rint(double x) { return floor(x + 0.5); } #endif inline short fsaturate(double damp) { if (damp > 32767.0) return INT16_MAX; if (damp < -32768.0) return INT16_MIN; return (short)rint(damp); } namespace audio { PcmConcealer::PcmConcealer() : Initialized(false) { } PcmConcealer::~PcmConcealer() { Destroy(); } void PcmConcealer::Init(int channels, int bit_depth, int sample_rate) { if(Initialized) return; if(channels <= 0 || bit_depth != 16) return; Initialized = true; channel_count = channels; this->sample_rate = sample_rate; ////////////// double min = PLC_PITCH_MIN(sample_rate); int imin = (int)min; double max = PLC_PITCH_MAX(sample_rate); int imax = (int)max; plc_pitch_min = imin; plc_pitch_max = imax; plc_pitch_overlap_max = (plc_pitch_min >> 2); correlation_span = CORRELATION_SPAN(sample_rate); plc_history_len = correlation_span + plc_pitch_min; ////////////// for(int i = 0; i < channel_count; i ++) { plc_state_t *t = new plc_state_t; memset(t, 0, sizeof(plc_state_t)); t->pitchbuf = new float[plc_pitch_min]; t->history = new short[plc_history_len]; ChannelStates.push_back(t); } } void PcmConcealer::Destroy() { if(!Initialized) return; while(ChannelStates.size()) { plc_state_t *s = ChannelStates.at(0); if(s) { if(s->history) delete s->history; if(s->pitchbuf) delete s->pitchbuf; memset(s, 0, sizeof(plc_state_t)); delete s; } ChannelStates.erase(ChannelStates.begin()); } ChannelStates.clear(); Initialized = false; } //Process a block of received audio samples. int PcmConcealer::Receive(short amp[], int frames) { if(!Initialized) return 0; int j = 0; for(int k = 0; k < ChannelStates.size(); k++) { int i; int overlap_len; int pitch_overlap; float old_step; float new_step; float old_weight; float new_weight; float gain; plc_state_t *s = ChannelStates.at(k); if (s->missing_samples) { /* Although we have a real signal, we need to smooth it to fit well with the synthetic signal we used for the previous block */ /* The start of the real data is overlapped with the next 1/4 cycle of the synthetic data. */ pitch_overlap = s->pitch >> 2; if (pitch_overlap > frames) pitch_overlap = frames; gain = 1.0 - s->missing_samples * ATTENUATION_INCREMENT; if (gain < 0.0) gain = 0.0; new_step = 1.0/pitch_overlap; old_step = new_step*gain; new_weight = new_step; old_weight = (1.0 - new_step)*gain; for (i = 0; i < pitch_overlap; i++) { int index = (i * channel_count) + j; amp[index] = fsaturate(old_weight * s->pitchbuf[s->pitch_offset] + new_weight * amp[index]); if (++s->pitch_offset >= s->pitch) s->pitch_offset = 0; new_weight += new_step; old_weight -= old_step; if (old_weight < 0.0) old_weight = 0.0; } s->missing_samples = 0; } save_history(s, amp, j, frames); j++; } return frames; } //Fill-in a block of missing audio samples. int PcmConcealer::Fill(short amp[], int frames) { if(!Initialized) return 0; int j =0; for(int k = 0; k < ChannelStates.size(); k++) { short *tmp = new short[plc_pitch_overlap_max]; int i; int pitch_overlap; float old_step; float new_step; float old_weight; float new_weight; float gain; short *orig_amp; int orig_len; orig_amp = amp; orig_len = frames; plc_state_t *s = ChannelStates.at(k); if (s->missing_samples == 0) { // As the gap in real speech starts we need to assess the last known pitch, //and prepare the synthetic data we will use for fill-in normalise_history(s); s->pitch = amdf_pitch(plc_pitch_min, plc_pitch_max, s->history + plc_history_len - correlation_span - plc_pitch_min, j, correlation_span); // We overlap a 1/4 wavelength pitch_overlap = s->pitch >> 2; // Cook up a single cycle of pitch, using a single of the real signal with 1/4 //cycle OLA'ed to make the ends join up nicely // The first 3/4 of the cycle is a simple copy for (i = 0; i < s->pitch - pitch_overlap; i++) s->pitchbuf[i] = s->history[plc_history_len - s->pitch + i]; // The last 1/4 of the cycle is overlapped with the end of the previous cycle new_step = 1.0/pitch_overlap; new_weight = new_step; for ( ; i < s->pitch; i++) { s->pitchbuf[i] = s->history[plc_history_len - s->pitch + i]*(1.0 - new_weight) + s->history[plc_history_len - 2*s->pitch + i]*new_weight; new_weight += new_step; } // We should now be ready to fill in the gap with repeated, decaying cycles // of what is in pitchbuf // We need to OLA the first 1/4 wavelength of the synthetic data, to smooth // it into the previous real data. To avoid the need to introduce a delay // in the stream, reverse the last 1/4 wavelength, and OLA with that. gain = 1.0; new_step = 1.0/pitch_overlap; old_step = new_step; new_weight = new_step; old_weight = 1.0 - new_step; for (i = 0; i < pitch_overlap; i++) { int index = (i * channel_count) + j; amp[index] = fsaturate(old_weight * s->history[plc_history_len - 1 - i] + new_weight * s->pitchbuf[i]); new_weight += new_step; old_weight -= old_step; if (old_weight < 0.0) old_weight = 0.0; } s->pitch_offset = i; } else { gain = 1.0 - s->missing_samples*ATTENUATION_INCREMENT; i = 0; } for ( ; gain > 0.0 && i < frames; i++) { int index = (i * channel_count) + j; amp[index] = s->pitchbuf[s->pitch_offset]*gain; gain -= ATTENUATION_INCREMENT; if (++s->pitch_offset >= s->pitch) s->pitch_offset = 0; } for ( ; i < frames; i++) { int index = (i * channel_count) + j; amp[i] = 0; } s->missing_samples += orig_len; save_history(s, amp, j, frames); delete [] tmp; j++; } return frames; } void PcmConcealer::save_history(plc_state_t *s, short *buf, int channel_index, int frames) { if (frames >= plc_history_len) { /* Just keep the last part of the new data, starting at the beginning of the buffer */ //memcpy(s->history, buf + len - plc_history_len, sizeof(short)*plc_history_len); int frames_to_copy = plc_history_len; for(int i = 0; i < frames_to_copy; i ++) { int index = (channel_count * (i + frames - plc_history_len)) + channel_index; s->history[i] = buf[index]; } s->buf_ptr = 0; return; } if (s->buf_ptr + frames > plc_history_len) { /* Wraps around - must break into two sections */ //memcpy(s->history + s->buf_ptr, buf, sizeof(short)*(plc_history_len - s->buf_ptr)); short *hist_ptr = s->history + s->buf_ptr; int frames_to_copy = plc_history_len - s->buf_ptr; for(int i = 0; i < frames_to_copy; i ++) { int index = (channel_count * i) + channel_index; hist_ptr[i] = buf[index]; } frames -= (plc_history_len - s->buf_ptr); //memcpy(s->history, buf + (plc_history_len - s->buf_ptr), sizeof(short)*len); frames_to_copy = frames; for(int i = 0; i < frames_to_copy; i ++) { int index = (channel_count * (i + (plc_history_len - s->buf_ptr))) + channel_index; s->history[i] = buf[index]; } s->buf_ptr = frames; return; } /* Can use just one section */ //memcpy(s->history + s->buf_ptr, buf, sizeof(short)*len); short *hist_ptr = s->history + s->buf_ptr; int frames_to_copy = frames; for(int i = 0; i < frames_to_copy; i ++) { int index = (channel_count * i) + channel_index; hist_ptr[i] = buf[index]; } s->buf_ptr += frames; } void PcmConcealer::normalise_history(plc_state_t *s) { short *tmp = new short[plc_history_len]; if (s->buf_ptr == 0) return; memcpy(tmp, s->history, sizeof(short)*s->buf_ptr); memcpy(s->history, s->history + s->buf_ptr, sizeof(short)*(plc_history_len - s->buf_ptr)); memcpy(s->history + plc_history_len - s->buf_ptr, tmp, sizeof(short)*s->buf_ptr); s->buf_ptr = 0; delete [] tmp; } int PcmConcealer::amdf_pitch(int min_pitch, int max_pitch, short amp[], int channel_index, int frames) { int i; int j; int acc; int min_acc; int pitch; pitch = min_pitch; min_acc = INT_MAX; for (i = max_pitch; i <= min_pitch; i++) { acc = 0; for (j = 0; j < frames; j++) { int index1 = (channel_count * (i+j)) + channel_index; int index2 = (channel_count * j) + channel_index; //std::cout << "Index 1: " << index1 << ", Index 2: " << index2 << std::endl; acc += abs(amp[index1] - amp[index2]); } if (acc < min_acc) { min_acc = acc; pitch = i; } } std::cout << "Pitch: " << pitch << std::endl; return pitch; } } P.S. - I must confess that digital audio is not my forte...

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  • Looking for a .NET 3.5 / J2EE architecture concept comparison article/chart

    - by Edward Tanguay
    We are thinking about combining .NET technology with Java technology (WCF, JBoss/ESB, MOM, WPF, WF) and I need to have a high-level idea of what are the apples and oranges in the .NET 3.5 and Java worlds. Does anyone know of a good, clear article or better yet a simple chart which answers questions such as: WCF in the Java world is __ the equivalent of WPF in the Java world is _ the closes thing to JBoss in the .NET world is _ the JVM and CLR are essentially the same except for these differences: .... in the Java world you don't have the concept of WF/WCF/WPF, instead you have .... there is no "LINQ" in the Java world yet, but you can use ___ the closest you get to ADO.NET Data Services in the Java world is .... I'm not looking to debate this so I'm not looking for "fighting points", I just need a neutral what-is-what chart comparing the two worlds.

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  • Long connection times from PHP to MySQL on EC2

    - by Erik Giberti
    I'm having an intermittent issue connecting to a database slave with InnoDB. Intermittently I get connections taking longer than 2 seconds. These servers are hosted on Amazon's EC2. The app server is PHP 5.2/Apache running on Ubuntu. The DB slave is running Percona's XtraDB 5.1 on Ubuntu 9.10. It's using an EBS Raid array for the data storage. We already use skip name resolve and bind to address 0.0.0.0. This is a stub of the PHP code that's failing $tmp = mysqli_init(); $start_time = microtime(true); $tmp-options(MYSQLI_OPT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT, 2); $tmp-real_connect($DB_SERVERS[$server]['server'], $DB_SERVERS[$server]['username'], $DB_SERVERS[$server]['password'], $DB_SERVERS[$server]['schema'], $DB_SERVERS[$server]['port']); if(mysqli_connect_errno()){ $timer = microtime(true) - $start_time; mail($errors_to,'DB connection error',$timer); } There's more than 300Mb available on the DB server for new connections and the server is nowhere near the max allowed (60 of 1,200). Loading on both servers is < 2 on 4 core m1.xlarge instances. Some highlights from the mysql config max_connections = 1200 thread_stack = 512K thread_cache_size = 1024 thread_concurrency = 16 innodb-file-per-table innodb_additional_mem_pool_size = 16M innodb_buffer_pool_size = 13G Any help on tracing the source of the slowdown is appreciated. [EDIT] I have been updating the sysctl values for the network but they don't seem to be fixing the problem. I made the following adjustments on both the database and application servers. net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling = 1 net.ipv4.tcp_sack = 0 net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps = 0 net.ipv4.tcp_fin_timeout = 20 net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time = 180 net.ipv4.tcp_max_syn_backlog = 1280 net.ipv4.tcp_synack_retries = 1 net.core.rmem_max = 16777216 net.core.wmem_max = 16777216 net.ipv4.tcp_rmem = 4096 87380 16777216 net.ipv4.tcp_wmem = 4096 87380 16777216 [EDIT] Per jaimieb's suggestion, I added some tracing and captured the following data using time. This server handles about 51 queries/second at this the time of day. The connection error was raised once (at 13:06:36) during the 3 minute window outlined below. Since there was 1 failure and roughly 9,200 successful connections, I think this isn't going to produce anything meaningful in terms of reporting. Script: date /root/database_server.txt (time mysql -h database_Server -D schema_name -u appuser -p apppassword -e '') /dev/null 2 /root/database_server.txt Results: === Application Server 1 === Mon Feb 22 13:05:01 EST 2010 real 0m0.008s user 0m0.001s sys 0m0.000s Mon Feb 22 13:06:01 EST 2010 real 0m0.007s user 0m0.002s sys 0m0.000s Mon Feb 22 13:07:01 EST 2010 real 0m0.008s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.001s === Application Server 2 === Mon Feb 22 13:05:01 EST 2010 real 0m0.009s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.002s Mon Feb 22 13:06:01 EST 2010 real 0m0.009s user 0m0.001s sys 0m0.003s Mon Feb 22 13:07:01 EST 2010 real 0m0.008s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.001s === Database Server === Mon Feb 22 13:05:01 EST 2010 real 0m0.016s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.010s Mon Feb 22 13:06:01 EST 2010 real 0m0.006s user 0m0.010s sys 0m0.000s Mon Feb 22 13:07:01 EST 2010 real 0m0.016s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.010s [EDIT] Per a suggestion received on a LinkedIn question, I tried setting the back_log value higher. We had been running the default value (50) and increased it to 150. We also raised the kernel value /proc/sys/net/core/somaxconn (maximum socket connections) to 256 on both the application and database server from the default 128. We did see some elevation in processor utilization as a result but still received connection timeouts.

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  • Parallel processing slower than sequential?

    - by zebediah49
    EDIT: For anyone who stumbles upon this in the future: Imagemagick uses a MP library. It's faster to use available cores if they're around, but if you have parallel jobs, it's unhelpful. Do one of the following: do your jobs serially (with Imagemagick in parallel mode) set MAGICK_THREAD_LIMIT=1 for your invocation of the imagemagick binary in question. By making Imagemagick use only one thread, it slows down by 20-30% in my test cases, but meant I could run one job per core without issues, for a significant net increase in performance. Original question: While converting some images using ImageMagick, I noticed a somewhat strange effect. Using xargs was significantly slower than a standard for loop. Since xargs limited to a single process should act like a for loop, I tested that, and found it to be about the same. Thus, we have this demonstration. Quad core (AMD Athalon X4, 2.6GHz) Working entirely on a tempfs (16g ram total; no swap) No other major loads Results: /media/ramdisk/img$ time for f in *.bmp; do echo $f ${f%bmp}png; done | xargs -n 2 -P 1 convert -auto-level real 0m3.784s user 0m2.240s sys 0m0.230s /media/ramdisk/img$ time for f in *.bmp; do echo $f ${f%bmp}png; done | xargs -n 2 -P 2 convert -auto-level real 0m9.097s user 0m28.020s sys 0m0.910s /media/ramdisk/img$ time for f in *.bmp; do echo $f ${f%bmp}png; done | xargs -n 2 -P 10 convert -auto-level real 0m9.844s user 0m33.200s sys 0m1.270s Can anyone think of a reason why running two instances of this program takes more than twice as long in real time, and more than ten times as long in processor time to complete the same task? After that initial hit, more processes do not seem to have as significant of an effect. I thought it might have to do with disk seeking, so I did that test entirely in ram. Could it have something to do with how Convert works, and having more than one copy at once means it cannot use processor cache as efficiently or something? EDIT: When done with 1000x 769KB files, performance is as expected. Interesting. /media/ramdisk/img$ time for f in *.bmp; do echo $f ${f%bmp}png; done | xargs -n 2 -P 1 convert -auto-level real 3m37.679s user 5m6.980s sys 0m6.340s /media/ramdisk/img$ time for f in *.bmp; do echo $f ${f%bmp}png; done | xargs -n 2 -P 1 convert -auto-level real 3m37.152s user 5m6.140s sys 0m6.530s /media/ramdisk/img$ time for f in *.bmp; do echo $f ${f%bmp}png; done | xargs -n 2 -P 2 convert -auto-level real 2m7.578s user 5m35.410s sys 0m6.050s /media/ramdisk/img$ time for f in *.bmp; do echo $f ${f%bmp}png; done | xargs -n 2 -P 4 convert -auto-level real 1m36.959s user 5m48.900s sys 0m6.350s /media/ramdisk/img$ time for f in *.bmp; do echo $f ${f%bmp}png; done | xargs -n 2 -P 10 convert -auto-level real 1m36.392s user 5m54.840s sys 0m5.650s

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  • What are the equivalent of the following .NET concepts (ASP.NET, IIS, Linq, etc.) in Java world?

    - by Richard77
    Hello, I'm the only one among my people who navigate in .NET water, the rest is in the Java world. So, I'd like to have some common points to talk with them. What are the equivalent concepts in Java for: (by concept, I mean the purpose of such technology) Visual Studio IIS Linq Development server that ships with VS (I don't know the name) NHibernate, Subsonic, ... ASP.NET WebForm (Is there any equivalent in Java with drag and drop) ASP.NET MVC etc.(Please, add some other concepts if they are important to know) Thanks for helping

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  • How Oracle Data Integration Customers Differentiate Their Business in Competitive Markets

    - by Irem Radzik
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 With data being a central force in driving innovation and competing effectively, data integration has become a key IT approach to remove silos and ensure working with consistent and trusted data. Especially with the release of 12c version, Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate offer easy-to-use and high-performance solutions that help companies with their critical data initiatives, including big data analytics, moving to cloud architectures, modernizing and connecting transactional systems and more. In a recent press release we announced the great momentum and analyst recognition Oracle Data Integration products have achieved in the data integration and replication market. In this press release we described some of the key new features of Oracle Data Integrator 12c and Oracle GoldenGate 12c. In addition, a few from our 4500+ customers explained how Oracle’s data integration platform helped them achieve their business goals. In this blog post I would like to go over what these customers shared about their experience. Land O’Lakes is one of America’s premier member-owned cooperatives, and offers an extensive line of agricultural supplies, as well as production and business services. Rich Bellefeuille, manager, ETL & data warehouse for Land O’Lakes told us how GoldenGate helped them modernize their critical ERP system without impacting service and how they are moving to new projects with Oracle Data Integrator 12c: “With Oracle GoldenGate 11g, we've been able to migrate our enterprise-wide implementation of Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, ERP system, to a new database and application server platform with minimal downtime to our business. Using Oracle GoldenGate 11g we reduced database migration time from nearly 30 hours to less than 30 minutes. Given our quick success, we are considering expansion of our Oracle GoldenGate 12c footprint. We are also in the midst of deploying a solution leveraging Oracle Data Integrator 12c to manage our pricing data to handle orders more effectively and provide a better relationship with our clients. We feel we are gaining higher productivity and flexibility with Oracle's data integration products." ICON, a global provider of outsourced development services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, highlighted the competitive advantage that a solid data integration foundation brings. Diarmaid O’Reilly, enterprise data warehouse manager, ICON plc said “Oracle Data Integrator enables us to align clinical trials intelligence with the information needs of our sponsors. It helps differentiate ICON’s services in an increasingly competitive drug-development industry."  You can find more info on ICON's implementation here. A popular use case for Oracle GoldenGate’s real-time data integration is offloading operational reporting from critical transaction processing systems. SolarWorld, one of the world’s largest solar-technology producers and the largest U.S. solar panel manufacturer, implemented Oracle GoldenGate for real-time data integration of manufacturing data for fast analysis. Russ Toyama, U.S. senior database administrator for SolarWorld told us real-time data helps their operations and GoldenGate’s solution supports high performance of their manufacturing systems: “We use Oracle GoldenGate for real-time data integration into our decision support system, which performs real-time analysis for manufacturing operations to continuously improve product quality, yield and efficiency. With reliable and low-impact data movement capabilities, Oracle GoldenGate also helps ensure that our critical manufacturing systems are stable and operate with high performance."  You can watch the full interview with SolarWorld's Russ Toyama here. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; 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;} Starwood Hotels and Resorts is one of the many customers that found out how well Oracle Data Integration products work with Oracle Exadata. Gordon Light, senior director of information technology for StarWood Hotels, says they had notable performance gain in loading Oracle Exadata reporting environment: “We leverage Oracle GoldenGate to replicate data from our central reservations systems and other OLTP databases – significantly decreasing the overall ETL duration. Moving forward, we plan to use Oracle GoldenGate to help the company achieve near-real-time reporting.”You can listen about Starwood Hotels' implementation here. Many companies combine the power of Oracle GoldenGate with Oracle Data Integrator to have a single, integrated data integration platform for variety of use cases across the enterprise. Ufone is another good example of that. The leading mobile communications service provider of Pakistan has improved customer service using timely customer data in its data warehouse. Atif Aslam, head of management information systems for Ufone says: “Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate help us integrate information from various systems and provide up-to-date and real-time CRM data updates hourly, rather than daily. The applications have simplified data warehouse operations and allowed business users to make faster and better informed decisions to protect revenue in the fast-moving Pakistani telecommunications market.” You can read more about Ufone's use case here. In our Oracle Data Integration 12c launch webcast back in November we also heard from BT’s CTO Surren Parthab about their use of GoldenGate for moving to private cloud architecture. Surren also shared his perspectives on Oracle Data Integrator 12c and Oracle GoldenGate 12c releases. You can watch the video here. These are only a few examples of leading companies that have made data integration and real-time data access a key part of their data governance and IT modernization initiatives. They have seen real improvements in how their businesses operate and differentiate in today’s competitive markets. You can read about other customer examples in our Ebook: The Path to the Future and access resources including white papers, data sheets, podcasts and more via our Oracle Data Integration resource kit. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; 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;}

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  • SQL Authority News – Play by Play with Pinal Dave – A Birthday Gift

    - by Pinal Dave
    Today is my birthday. Personal Note When I was young, I was always looking forward to my birthday as on this day, I used to get gifts from everybody. Now when I am getting old on each of my birthday, I have almost same feeling but the direction is different. Now on each of my birthday, I feel like giving gifts to everybody. I have received lots of support, love and respect from everybody; and now I must return it back.Well, on this birthday, I have very unique gifts for everybody – my latest course on SQL Server. How I Tune Performance I often get questions where I am asked how do I work on a normal day. I am often asked that how do I work when I have performance tuning project is assigned to me. Lots of people have expressed their desire that they want me to explain and demonstrate my own method of solving performance problem when I am facing real world problem. It is a pretty difficult task as in the real world, nothing goes as planned and usually planned demonstrations have no place there. The real world, demands real solutions and in a timely fashion. If a consultant goes to industry and does not demonstrate his/her capabilities in very first few minutes, it does not matter how much fame he/she is, the door is shown to them eventually. It is true and in my early career, I have faced it quite commonly. I have learned the trick to be honest from the start and request absolutely transparent communication from the organization where I am to consult. Play by Play Play by Play is a very unique setup. It is not planned and it is a step by step course. It is like a reality show – a very real encounter to the problem and real problem solving approach. I had a great time doing this course. Geoffrey Grosenbach (VP of Pluralsight) sits down with me to see what a SQL Server Admin does in the real world. This Play-by-Play focuses on SQL Server performance tuning and I go over optimizing queries and fine-tuning the server. The table of content of this course is very simple. Introduction In the introduction I explained my basic strategies when I am approached by a customer for performance tuning. Basic Information Gathering In this module I explain how I do gather various information for performance tuning project. It is very crucial to demonstrate to customers for consultant his capability of solving problem. I attempt to resolve a small problem which gives a big positive impact on performance, consultant have to gather proper information from the start. I demonstrate in this module, how one can collect all the important performance tuning metrics. Removing Performance Bottleneck In this module, I build upon the previous module’s statistics collected. I analysis various performance tuning measures and immediately start implementing various tweaks on the performance, which will start improving the performance of my server. This is a very effective method and it gives immediate return of efforts. Index Optimization Indexes are considered as a silver bullet for performance tuning. However, it is not true always there are plenty of examples where indexes even performs worst after implemented. The key is to understand a few of the basic properties of the index and implement the right things at the right time. In this module, I describe in detail how to do index optimizations and what are right and wrong with Index. If you are a DBA or developer, and if your application is running slow – this is must attend module for you. I have some really interesting stories to tell as well. Optimize Query with Rewrite Every problem has more than one solution, in this module we will see another very famous, but hard to master skills for performance tuning – Query Rewrite. There are few do’s and don’ts for any query rewrites. I take a very simple example and demonstrate how query rewrite can improve the performance of the query at many folds. I also share some real world funny stories in this module. This course is hosted at Pluralsight. You will need a valid login for Pluralsight to watch  Play by Play: Pinal Dave course. You can also sign up for FREE Trial of Pluralsight to watch this course. As today is my birthday – I will give 10 people (randomly) who will express their desire to learn this course, a free code. Please leave your comment and I will send you free code to watch this course for free. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Video

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  • Technologies similar to Flash and Silverlight for Desktop apps

    - by M.A. Hanin
    Long story short: we use Flash as a partial GUI in our .NET desktop applications. Normally, this means that the Flash player control sits in some WinForm, playing a movie file. Changes in the real world are presented in the movie (e.g., a light-bulb turned on in the real world? a matching one will light up inside the Flash movie), and interaction with the instances in the movie will affect the real world (clicked the light-bulb? the light bulb in the real world will turn on). My question is: which technologies / products can offer me similar capabilities? Of course, I'm looking for something that can compete with Flash / Silverlight: animations, object-oriented scripting and design, powerful tools allowing the artists to design symbols conveniently, etc... static image objects won't cut it

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  • XNA 3D model collision is inaccurate

    - by Daniel Lopez
    I am creating a classic game in 3d that deals with asteriods and you have to shoot them and avoid being hit from them. I can generate the asteroids just fine and the ship can shoot bullets just fine. But the asteroids always hit the ship even it doesn't look they are even close. I know 2D collision very well but not 3D so can someone please shed some light to my problem. Thanks in advance. Code For ModelRenderer: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; namespace _3D_Asteroids { class ModelRenderer { private float aspectratio; private Model model; private Vector3 camerapos; private Vector3 modelpos; private Matrix rotationy; float radiansy = 0; private bool isalive; public ModelRenderer(Model m, float AspectRatio, Vector3 initial_pos, Vector3 initialcamerapos) { isalive = true; model = m; if (model.Meshes.Count == 0) { throw new Exception("Invalid model because it contains zero meshes!"); } modelpos = initial_pos; camerapos = initialcamerapos; aspectratio = AspectRatio; return; } public float RadiusOfSphere { get { return model.Meshes[0].BoundingSphere.Radius; } } public BoundingBox BoxBounds { get { return BoundingBox.CreateFromSphere(model.Meshes[0].BoundingSphere); } } public BoundingSphere SphereBounds { get { return model.Meshes[0].BoundingSphere; } } public Vector3 CameraPosition { set { camerapos = value; } get { return camerapos; } } public bool IsAlive { get { return isalive; } } public Vector3 ModelPosition { set { modelpos = value; } get { return modelpos; } } public void RotateY(float radians) { radiansy += radians; rotationy = Matrix.CreateRotationY(radiansy); } public Matrix RotationY { set { rotationy = value; } get { return rotationy; } } public float AspectRatio { set { aspectratio = value; } get { return aspectratio; } } public void Kill() { isalive = false; } public void Draw(float scale) { Matrix world; if (rotationy == new Matrix(0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0)) { world = Matrix.CreateScale(scale) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(modelpos); } else { world = rotationy * Matrix.CreateScale(scale) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(modelpos); } Matrix view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(camerapos, Vector3.Zero, Vector3.Up); Matrix projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), this.AspectRatio, 1f, 100000f); foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.World = world; effect.View = view; effect.Projection = projection; } mesh.Draw(); } } public void Draw() { Matrix world; if (rotationy == new Matrix(0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0)) { world = Matrix.CreateTranslation(modelpos); } else { world = rotationy * Matrix.CreateTranslation(modelpos); } Matrix view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(camerapos, Vector3.Zero, Vector3.Up); Matrix projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), this.AspectRatio, 1f, 100000f); foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.World = world; effect.View = view; effect.Projection = projection; } mesh.Draw(); } } } Code For Game1: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; namespace _3D_Asteroids { /// <summary> /// This is the main type for your game /// </summary> public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; int score = 0, lives = 5; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; GameState gstate = GameState.OnMenuScreen; Menu menu = new Menu(Color.Yellow, Color.White); SpriteFont font; Texture2D background; ModelRenderer ship; Model b, a; List<ModelRenderer> bullets = new List<ModelRenderer>(); List<ModelRenderer> asteriods = new List<ModelRenderer>(); float time = 0.0f; int framecount = 0; SoundEffect effect; public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = 1280; graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = 796; graphics.ApplyChanges(); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to perform any initialization it needs to before starting to run. /// This is where it can query for any required services and load any non-graphic /// related content. Calling base.Initialize will enumerate through any components /// and initialize them as well. /// </summary> protected override void Initialize() { // TODO: Add your initialization logic here base.Initialize(); } /// <summary> /// LoadContent will be called once per game and is the place to load /// all of your content. /// </summary> protected override void LoadContent() { // Create a new SpriteBatch, which can be used to draw textures. spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); font = Content.Load<SpriteFont>("Fonts\\Lucida Console"); background = Content.Load<Texture2D>("Textures\\B1_stars"); Model p1 = Content.Load<Model>("Models\\p1_wedge"); b = Content.Load<Model>("Models\\pea_proj"); a = Content.Load<Model>("Models\\asteroid1"); effect = Content.Load<SoundEffect>("Audio\\tx0_fire1"); ship = new ModelRenderer(p1, GraphicsDevice.Viewport.AspectRatio, new Vector3(0, 0, 0), new Vector3(0, 0, 9000)); } /// <summary> /// UnloadContent will be called once per game and is the place to unload /// all content. /// </summary> protected override void UnloadContent() { } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to run logic such as updating the world, /// checking for collisions, gathering input, and playing audio. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { KeyboardState state = Keyboard.GetState(PlayerIndex.One); switch (gstate) { case GameState.OnMenuScreen: { if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Enter)) { switch (menu.SelectedChoice) { case MenuChoices.Play: { gstate = GameState.GameStarted; break; } case MenuChoices.Exit: { this.Exit(); break; } } } if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down)) { menu.MoveSelectedMenuChoiceDown(gameTime); } else if(state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up)) { menu.MoveSelectedMenuChoiceUp(gameTime); } else { menu.KeysReleased(); } break; } case GameState.GameStarted: { foreach (ModelRenderer bullet in bullets) { if (bullet.ModelPosition.X < (ship.ModelPosition.X + 4000) && bullet.ModelPosition.Z < (ship.ModelPosition.X + 4000) && bullet.ModelPosition.X > (ship.ModelPosition.Z - 4000) && bullet.ModelPosition.Z > (ship.ModelPosition.Z - 4000)) { bullet.ModelPosition += (bullet.RotationY.Forward * 120); } else if (collidedwithasteriod(bullet)) { bullet.Kill(); } else { bullet.Kill(); } } foreach (ModelRenderer asteroid in asteriods) { if (ship.SphereBounds.Intersects(asteroid.BoxBounds)) { lives -= 1; asteroid.Kill(); // This always hits no matter where the ship goes. } else { asteroid.ModelPosition -= (asteroid.RotationY.Forward * 50); } } for (int index = 0; index < asteriods.Count; index++) { if (asteriods[index].IsAlive == false) { asteriods.RemoveAt(index); } } for (int index = 0; index < bullets.Count; index++) { if (bullets[index].IsAlive == false) { bullets.RemoveAt(index); } } if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { ship.RotateY(0.1f); if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space)) { if (time < 17) { firebullet(); //effect.Play(); } } else { time = 0; } } else if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { ship.RotateY(-0.1f); if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space)) { if (time < 17) { firebullet(); //effect.Play(); } } else { time = 0; } } else if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up)) { ship.ModelPosition += (ship.RotationY.Forward * 50); if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space)) { if (time < 17) { firebullet(); //effect.Play(); } } else { time = 0; } } else if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space)) { time += gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.Milliseconds; if (time < 17) { firebullet(); //effect.Play(); } } else { time = 0.0f; } if ((framecount % 60) == 0) { createasteroid(); framecount = 0; } framecount++; break; } } base.Update(gameTime); } void firebullet() { if (bullets.Count < 3) { ModelRenderer bullet = new ModelRenderer(b, GraphicsDevice.Viewport.AspectRatio, ship.ModelPosition, new Vector3(0, 0, 9000)); bullet.RotationY = ship.RotationY; bullets.Add(bullet); } } void createasteroid() { if (asteriods.Count < 2) { Random random = new Random(); float z = random.Next(-13000, -11000); float x = random.Next(-9000, -8000); Random random2 = new Random(); int degrees = random.Next(0, 45); float radians = MathHelper.ToRadians(degrees); ModelRenderer asteroid = new ModelRenderer(a, GraphicsDevice.Viewport.AspectRatio, new Vector3(x, 0, z), new Vector3(0,0, 9000)); asteroid.RotateY(radians); asteriods.Add(asteroid); } } /// <summary> /// This is called when the game should draw itself. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); switch (gstate) { case GameState.OnMenuScreen: { spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(background, Vector2.Zero, Color.White); menu.DrawMenu(ref spriteBatch, font, new Vector2(GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width / 2, GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height / 2) - new Vector2(50f), 100f); spriteBatch.End(); break; } case GameState.GameStarted: { spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(background, Vector2.Zero, Color.White); spriteBatch.DrawString(font, "Score: " + score.ToString() + "\nLives: " + lives.ToString(), Vector2.Zero, Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); ship.Draw(); foreach (ModelRenderer bullet in bullets) { bullet.Draw(); } foreach (ModelRenderer asteroid in asteriods) { asteroid.Draw(0.1f); } break; } } base.Draw(gameTime); } bool collidedwithasteriod(ModelRenderer bullet) { foreach (ModelRenderer asteroid in asteriods) { if (bullet.SphereBounds.Intersects(asteroid.BoxBounds)) { score += 10; asteroid.Kill(); return true; } } return false; } } } }

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  • OWB/ODI Users: Last Chance to Submit and Vote On Sessions for OpenWorld 2010

    - by antonio romero
    Now is the last chance for OWB and ODI users to propose new ETL/DW/DI sessions for OpenWorld! Oracle OpenWorld 2010 "Suggest a Session" lets members of the Oracle Mix community submit and vote on papers/talks for OpenWorld. The most popular session proposals will be included in the conference program. One promising OWB-related topic has already been submitted: Case Study: Real-Time Data Warehousing and Fraud Detection with Oracle 11gR2 Dr. Holger Friedrich and consultants from sumIT AG in Switzerland built a real-time data warehouse and accompanying BI system for real-time online fraud detection with very limited resources and a short schedule. His presentation will cover: How sumIT AG efficiently loads complex data feeds in real time in Oracle 11gR2 using, among others, Advanced Queues and XML DB How they lowered costs and sped up development, by leveraging the DBs development features including Oracle Warehouse Builder How they delivered a production-ready solution in a few short months using only three part-time developers Come vote for this proposal, on Oracle Mix: https://mix.oracle.com/oow10/proposals/10566-case-study-real-time-data-warehousing-and-fraud-detection-with-oracle-11gr2  I have already invited members of the OWB/ODI Linkedin group (with over 1400 members) to come vote on topics like this one and propose their own. If enough of us vote on a few topics, we are sure to get some on the agenda!  And if you have your own topics, using the Suggest-a-Session instructions here: http://wiki.oracle.com/page/Oracle+OpenWorld+2010+Suggest-a-Session If you propose a topic, don't forget to come to Linkedin and promote it! I have already sent the members of the Linkedin group an email announcement about this, and I will send another in a week, with links to all topics submitted. Thanks, all!

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  • Adopting Technologies for the Sake of Technologies

    - by shiju
    Unlike other engineering industries, the software engineering industry is really lacking maturity. The lack of maturity can see in different aspects of entire software development life cycle. I think other engineering industries are well organised and structured with common, proven engineering practices. The software engineering industry is greatly a diverse industry with different operating systems, and variety of development platforms, programming languages, frameworks and tools. Now these days, people are going behind the hypes and intellectual thoughts without understanding their core business problems and adopting technologies and practices for the sake of technologies and practices and simply becoming a “poster child” of technologies and practices. Understanding the core business problem and providing best, solid solution with a platform neutral approach, will give you more business values and ROI, instead of blindly adopting technologies and tailor-made your applications for the sake of technologies and practices. People have been simply migrating their solutions in favour of new technologies and different versions of frameworks without any business need. The “Pepsi Challenge” in the Software Development  Pepsi Challenge marketing campaign of the 1980s was a popular and very interesting marketing promotion in which people taste one cup of Pepsi and another cup with Coca Cola. In the taste test, more than 50% of people were preferred Pepsi  over Coca Cola. The success story behind the Pepsi was more sweetness contains in the Pepsi cola. They have simply added more sugar and more people preferred more sweet flavour. You can’t simply identify the better one after sipping one cup of cola based on the sweetness which contains. These things have been happening in the software industry for choosing development frameworks and technologies. People have been simply choosing frameworks based on the initial sugary feeling without understanding its core strengths and weakness. The sugary framework might be more harmful when you develop real-world systems. There is not any silver bullet for solving all kind of problems and frameworks and tools do have strengths and weakness. So it would be better to understand their strength and weakness. And please keep in mind that you have to develop real apps to understand the real capabilities and weakness of a framework. Evaluating a technology based on few blog posts will harm your projects and these bloggers might be lacking real-world experience with the framework. The Problem with Align a Development Practice with Tools Recently I have observed a discussion in a group where one guy asked suggestions for practicing Continuous Delivery (CD) as part of the agile based application engineering. Then the discussion quickly went to using and choosing a Continuous Integration (CI) tool and different people suggested different Continuous Integration (CI) tools for simply practicing Continuous Delivery. If you have worked with core agile engineering practices, you could clearly know that the real essence of agile is neither choosing a tool nor choosing a process. By simply choosing CI tool from a particular vendor will not ensure that you are delivering an evolving software based on customer feedback. You have to understand the real essence of a engineering practice and choose a right tool for practicing it instead of simply focus on a particular tool for a practicing an development practice. If you want to adopt a practice, you need a solid understanding on it with its real essence where tools are just helping us for better automation. Adopting New Technologies for the Sake of Technologies The another problem is that developers have been a tendency to adopt new technologies and simply migrating their existing apps to new technologies. It is okay if your existing system is having problem  with a technology stack or or maintainability challenge with existing solution, and moving to new technology for solving the current problems. We have been adopting new technologies for solving new challenges like solving the scalability challenges when the application or user bases is growing unpredictably. Please keep in mind that all new technologies will become old after working with it for few years. The below Facebook status update of Janakiraman, expresses the attitude of a typical customer. For an example, Node.js is becoming a hottest buzzword in the software industry and many developers are trying to adopt Node.js for their apps. The important thing is that Node.js is a minimalist framework that does some great things for some problems, but it’s not a silver bullet. I have been also working with Node.js which is good for some problems, but really bad for choosing it for all kind of problems. By adopting new technologies for new projects is good if we could get real business values from it because newer framework would solve some existing well known problems and provide better solutions where it can incorporate good solutions for the latest challenges . But adopting a new technology for the sake of new technology is really bad idea. Another example is JavaScript is getting lot of attention so that lot of developers are developing heavy JavaScript centric web apps. First, they will adopt a client-side JavaScript MV* framework from AngularJS, Ember, Backbone etc, and develop a Single Page App(SPA) where they are repeating the mistakes we did in the past with server-side. The mistakes we did in the server-side is transforming to client-side. The problem is that people are just adopting new technologies, but not improving their solutions. I predict that many Single Page App will suck in the future. We need a hybrid approach where we should be able to leverage both server-side and client-side for developing next-generation web apps. The another problem is that if you like a particular framework, use it for all kind of apps. In the past, I know some Silverlight passionate guys were tried to use that framework for all kind of apps including larger line of business apps. And these days developers are migrating their existing Silverlight apps in favour of HTML5 buzzword. So the real question is, what is the business values we are getting from these apps when we are developing it for the sake of a particular technology instead of business need. The another problem is that our solutions consultants are trying to provide unnecessary solutions for the sake of a particular technology or for a hype. For an example, Big Data solutions are great for solving the problem of three Vs : volume, velocity and variety. But trying to put this for every application will make problems. Let’s say, there is a small web site running with limited budget and saying that we need a recommendation engine for the web site with a Hadoop based solution with a 16 node cluster, would be really horrible. If we really need a Hadoop based solution, got for it, but trying to put this for all application would be a big disaster. It would be great if could understand the core business problems first, and later choose a right framework for providing solutions for the actual business problem, instead of trying to provide so many solutions. The Problem with Tied Up to a Platform Vendor Some organizations and teams are tied up with a particular platform vendor where they don’t want to use any product other than their preferred or existing platform vendor. They will accept any product provided by the vendor regardless of its capability. This will lets you some benefits regards with integration and collaboration of different products provided by the same vendor, but it will loose your opportunity to provide better solution for your business problems. For a real world sample scenario, lot of companies have been using SAP for their ERP solutions. When they are thinking about mobility or thinking about developing hybrid mobile apps, they can easily find out a framework from SAP. SAP provides a framework for HTML 5 based UI development named SAPUI5. If you are simply adopting that framework only based for the preference of existing platform vendor, you might be loose different opportunities for providing better solution. Initially you might enjoy the sugary feeling provided by the platform vendor, but you have to think about developing apps which should be capable for solving future challenges. I am not saying that any framework is not good and I believe that all frameworks are good over another one for solving at least one problem. My point is that we should not tied up with any specific platform vendor unless your organization is having resource availability problems. Being Polyglot for Providing Right Solutions The modern software engineering industry is greatly diverse with different tools and platforms. Lot of open source frameworks and new programming languages have been releasing to the developer community, where choosing the right platform without any biased opinion, is really a difficult task. But it would really great if we could develop an attitude with platform neutral mindset and being a polyglot developer for providing better solutions based on the actual business problems. IMHO, we should learn a new programming language and a new framework every year. This will improve the quality of our developer capabilities and also improve the quality of our primary programming language skills. Being polyglot for individual developers and organizational teams will give you greater opportunity to your developer experience and also for your applications. Organizations can analyse their business problem without tied with any technology and later they can provide solutions by choosing different platform and tools. Summary    In this blog post, what I was trying to say that we should not tied up or biased with any development platform, technology, vendor or programming language and we should not adopt technologies and practices for the sake of technologies. If we are adopting a technology or a practice for the sake of it, we are simply becoming a “poster child” of the technology and practice. We should not become a poster child of other people’s intellectual thoughts and theories, instead of it we should become solutions developers and solutions consultants where we should be able to provide better solutions for the business problems. Being a polyglot developer is a good idea for improving your developer skills which lets you provide better solutions for the business problems. The most important thing is that we should become platform neutral developers where our passion should be for providing brilliant solutions. It would be great if we could provide minimalist, pragmatic business solutions. You can follow me on Twitter @shijucv

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  • Oracle Database Upcoming Event dates to know

    - by mandy.ho
    February may be a short month, but it's not short of exciting Oracle events. From information packed "Real Performance Days" to participation in one of the biggest IT Security events - look out for Oracle Database and let us know if you are there with us! Feb 13-18, 2011 - Las Vegas, NV TDWI World Conference Series Join Oracle in highlighting Exadata x2-2 and x2-8, along with Oracle Business Intelligence, Enterprise Performance management and Data Warehousing solutions. Oracle will be presenting a workshop - Oracle Data Integration: Best-of-Breed Solutions for the Enterprise Wednesday, February 16, 2011 7p.m - 9p.m Glen Goodrich, Director of Product Management Christophe Dupupet, Director of Product Management, Data Integration http://events.tdwi.org/events/las-vegas-world-conference-2011/sessions/session-list.aspx Feb 14-17, 2011 - Barcelona, Spain Mobile World Congress MWC is an event where Oracle showcases the near complete breadth and depth of value that our Communications Industry strategy and Hardware and Software Solutions can deliver. Oracle supports Communications Service Providers today and delivers platforms and flexibility primed for the future. Oracle will have a two story Pavilion, along with an Oracle Java and Embedded Solutions Center - App Planet. The Exhibition times are Monday, 14th February 09.00 - 19.00 Tuesday, 15th February 09.00 - 19.00 Wednesday, 16th February 09.00 - 19.00 Thursday, 17th February 09.00 - 16.00 Have questions? Meet with Oracle Sales representatives at the Oracle Café. Open every day from 9am to 17:00pm. http://eventreg.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=109912&src=6973382&src=6973382&Act=4 Feb 14-18, 2011 - San Francisco, CA RSA Conference As the world's most complete, open, integrated business software and hardware systems provider, Oracle can uniquely safeguard your information throughout its entire lifecycle. Learn more by attending these sessions: Cloud Computing: A Brave New World for Security and Privacy (CLD-201) Wednesday, February 16 at 8:30 a.m. Databases Under Attack - Securing Heterogeneous Database Infrastructures (DAS-301) Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 8:30 a.m. Seven Steps to Protecting Databases (DAS-402) Friday, February 18 at 10:10 a.m. RSA Conference Attendees will also have the opportunity to meet with Oracle Security Solution experts, see live product demos and more by visiting booth # 1559. Hours: Monday, February 14, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., Tuesday, February 15, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. - 6:00p.m., Wednesday, February 16, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., and Thursday, February 17, 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. http://eventreg.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=127657&src=6967733&src=6967733&Act=12 Feb 21-25, 2011 - Various Locations IOUG Presents - A Day of Real World Performance with Tom Kyte, Andrew Holdsworth and Graham Wood These Oracle experts will debate, discuss and delineate the best practices for designing hardware architectures, deploying Oracle databases, and developing applications that deliver the fastest possible performance for your business.Topics are covered in a conversational format - with all three chiming in where appropriate. Each presenter has their own screen projector to demonstrate their individual points to the participants. Customers will have the opportunity to get their specific performance/tuning questions answered and learn how to balance all the different environmental requirements for their applications to improve performance. Register today for the following dates and locations • February 21 in San Diego, CA • February 22 in Los Angeles, CA • February 23 in Seattle, WA • February 25 in Phoenix, AZ http://www.ioug.org/tabid/194/Default.aspx Feb 8-24 - Various Oracle Enterprise Cloud Summit This series of full-day events with cloud experts, sharing real-world best practices, reference architectures and more continues during the month of February. Attend the Oracle Enterprise Cloud Summit to learn how to: • Build a state-of-the-art cloud architecture • Leverage your existing IT investments • Optimize your IT management processes Whether you are considering a move to cloud computing or have already adopted a cloud model, this event offers you the insights you need to take full advantage of cloud computing. Check below to see if the event is coming to a city near you. http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/events/cloud-events-214342.html

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  • Cocos2d Box2d how to shoot an object inside the screen

    - by Ahoura Ghotbi
    I have the code below : - (id) initWithGame:(mainGame*)game { if ((self = [super init])) { isTouchEnabled_ = YES; self.game = game; CGSize size = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize]; screenH = size.height; screenW = size.width; character = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:@"o.png"]; character.position = ccp( size.width /2 , size.height/2 ); character.contentSize = CGSizeMake(72, 79); [self addChild:character z:10 tag:1]; _body = NULL; _radius = 14.0f; // Create ball body and shape b2BodyDef ballBodyDef; ballBodyDef.type = b2_dynamicBody; ballBodyDef.position.Set(100/PTM_RATIO, 100/PTM_RATIO); ballBodyDef.userData = character; _body = _game.world->CreateBody(&ballBodyDef); b2CircleShape circle; circle.m_radius = 26.0/PTM_RATIO; b2FixtureDef ballShapeDef; ballShapeDef.shape = &circle; ballShapeDef.density = 1.0f; ballShapeDef.friction = 0.2f; ballShapeDef.restitution = 0.8f; _body->CreateFixture(&ballShapeDef); [self schedule:@selector(gameChecker:)]; [self schedule:@selector(tick:)]; } return self; } - (void)gameChecker:(ccTime) dt{ if(character.position.y > 200){ [self unschedule:@selector(tick:)]; [self schedule:@selector(dropObject:)]; } } - (void)tick:(ccTime) dt { b2Vec2 force; force.Set(_body->GetLinearVelocity().x, _body->GetLinearVelocity().y+1.0f); for (b2Body* b = _game.world->GetBodyList(); b; b = b->GetNext()) { if (b->GetUserData() == character) { b->SetLinearVelocity(force); } } _game.world->Step(dt, 10, 10); for(b2Body *b = _game.world->GetBodyList(); b; b=b->GetNext()) { if (b->GetUserData() != NULL) { CCSprite *ballData = (CCSprite *)b->GetUserData(); ballData.position = ccp(b->GetPosition().x * PTM_RATIO, b->GetPosition().y * PTM_RATIO); ballData.rotation = -1 * CC_RADIANS_TO_DEGREES(b->GetAngle()); } } } -(void)dropObject:(ccTime) dt{ b2Vec2 force; force.Set(_body->GetLinearVelocity().x, _body->GetLinearVelocity().y-1.0f); for (b2Body* b = _game.world->GetBodyList(); b; b = b->GetNext()) { if (b->GetUserData() == character) { b->SetLinearVelocity(force); } } _game.world->Step(dt, 10, 10); for(b2Body *b = _game.world->GetBodyList(); b; b=b->GetNext()) { if (b->GetUserData() != NULL) { CCSprite *ballData = (CCSprite *)b->GetUserData(); ballData.position = ccp(b->GetPosition().x * PTM_RATIO, b->GetPosition().y * PTM_RATIO); ballData.rotation = -1 * CC_RADIANS_TO_DEGREES(b->GetAngle()); } } } I have been trying to get the effect that fruit ninja has when shooting the fruits. but it seems like its hard to get such animation so I was wondering if anyone can point me to the right direction and/or give me a sample code for a single object that gets thrown into the screen with a direction.

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  • Allocating Entities within an Entity System

    - by miguel.martin
    I'm quite unsure how I should allocate/resemble my entities within my entity system. I have various options, but most of them seem to have cons associated with them. In all cases entities are resembled by an ID (integer), and possibly has a wrapper class associated with it. This wrapper class has methods to add/remove components to/from the entity. Before I mention the options, here is the basic structure of my entity system: Entity An object that describes an object within the game Component Used to store data for the entity System Contains entities with specific components Used to update entities with specific components World Contains entities and systems for the entity system Can create/destroy entites and have systems added/removed from/to it Here are my options, that I have thought of: Option 1: Do not store the Entity wrapper classes, and just store the next ID/deleted IDs. In other words, entities will be returned by value, like so: Entity entity = world.createEntity(); This is much like entityx, except I see some flaws in this design. Cons There can be duplicate entity wrapper classes (as the copy-ctor has to be implemented, and systems need to contain entities) If an Entity is destroyed, the duplicate entity wrapper classes will not have an updated value Option 2: Store the entity wrapper classes within an object pool. i.e. Entities will be return by pointer/reference, like so: Entity& e = world.createEntity(); Cons If there is duplicate entities, then when an entity is destroyed, the same entity object may be re-used to allocate another entity. Option 3: Use raw IDs, and forget about the wrapper entity classes. The downfall to this, I think, is the syntax that will be required for it. I'm thinking about doing thisas it seems the most simple & easy to implement it. I'm quite unsure about it, because of the syntax. i.e. To add a component with this design, it would look like: Entity e = world.createEntity(); world.addComponent<Position>(e, 0, 3); As apposed to this: Entity e = world.createEntity(); e.addComponent<Position>(0, 3); Cons Syntax Duplicate IDs

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  • Little Wheel Is An Atmospheric and Engaging Point-and-Click Adventure

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you’re a fan of the resurgence of highly stylized and atmospheric adventure games–such as Spirit, World of Goo, and the like–you’ll definitely want to check out this well executed, free, and more than a little bit charming browser-based game. Little Wheel is set in a world of robots where, 10,000 years ago, a terrible accident at the central power plant left all the robots without power. The entire robot world went into a deep sleep and now, thanks to a freak lightning strike, one little robot has woken up. Your job, as that little robot, is to navigate the world of Little Wheel and help bring it back to life. Hit up the link below to play the game for free–the quality of the visual and audio design make going full screen and turning the speakers on a must. Little Wheel [via Freeware Genuis] How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It? HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me?

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  • Low coupling and tight cohesion

    - by hidayat
    Of course it depends on the situation. But when a lower lever object or system communicate with an higher level system, should callbacks or events be preferred to keeping a pointer to higher level object? For example, we have a world class that has a member variable vector<monster> monsters. When the monster class is going to communicate with the world class, should I prefer using a callback function then or should I have a pointer to the world class inside the monster class?

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  • The Information Driven Value Chain - Part 1

    - by Paul Homchick
    One hundred years ago, there were places on Earth that no man had ever seen.  Today, a man standing in one of those places can instantaneously communicate with someone who may be strolling down the street on his way to lunch half way around the globe.  Our world is shrinking and becoming virtual. It is a world of incredible bounty and speed where we can get a product delivered to us anywhere on earth within a day or two. However, this world is also one of challenge where volatility, uncertainty, risk and chaos are our daily companions. To prosper amid the realities of this new world, the enterprise needs a business model. Globalization and instant communications demand greater operational flexibility than ever before. Extended supply chains have elevated the management of risk to a central concern, and regulatory demands from multiple governments place an increasing burden of compliance on companies. Finally, the speed of today's business requires continuous innovation to keep from falling behind the global competition.

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  • 3d vertex translated onto 2d viewport

    - by Dan Leidal
    I have a spherical world defined by simple trigonometric functions to create triangles that are relatively similar in size and shape throughout. What I want to be able to do is use mouse input to target a range of vertices in the area around the mouse click in order to manipulate these vertices in real time. I read a post on this forum regarding translating 3d world coordinates into the 2d viewport.. it recommended that you should multiply the world vector coordinates by the viewport and then the projection, but they didn't include any code examples, and suffice to say i couldn't get any good results. Further information.. I am using a lookat method for the viewport. Does this cause a problem, and if so is there a solution? If this isn't the problem, does anyone have a simple code example illustrating translating one vertex in a 3d world into a 2d viewspace? I am using XNA.

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  • Problem with Ogre::Camera lookAt function when target is directly below.

    - by PigBen
    I am trying to make a class which controls a camera. It's pretty basic right now, it looks like this: class HoveringCameraController { public: void init(Ogre::Camera & camera, AnimatedBody & target, Ogre::Real height); void update(Ogre::Real time_delta); private: Ogre::Camera * camera_; AnimatedBody * target_; Ogre::Real height_; }; HoveringCameraController.cpp void HoveringCameraController::init(Ogre::Camera & camera, AnimatedBody & target, Ogre::Real height) { camera_ = &camera; target_ = &target; height_ = height; update(0.0); } void HoveringCameraController::update(Ogre::Real time_delta) { auto position = target_->getPosition(); position.y += height_; camera_->setPosition(position); camera_->lookAt(target_->getPosition()); } AnimatedBody is just a class that encapsulates an entity, it's animations and a scene node. The getPosition function is simply forwarded to it's scene node. What I want(for now) is for the camera to simply follow the AnimatedBody overhead at the distance given(the height parameter), and look down at it. It follows the object around, but it doesn't look straight down, it's tilted quite a bit in the positive Z direction. Does anybody have any idea why it would do that? If I change this line: position.y += height_; to this: position.x += height_; or this: position.z += height_; it does exactly what I would expect. It follows the object from the side or front, and looks directly at it.

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