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• Boost Netbook Speed with an SD Card & ReadyBoost

  - by Matthew Guay

  Looking for a way to increase the performance of your netbook?  Here’s how you can use a standard SD memory card or a USB flash drive to boost performance with ReadyBoost. Most netbooks ship with 1Gb of Ram, and many older netbooks shipped with even less.  Even if you want to add more ram, often they can only be upgraded to a max of 2GB.  With ReadyBoost in Windows 7, it’s easy to boost your system’s performance with flash memory.  If your netbook has an SD card slot, you can insert a memory card into it and just leave it there to always boost your netbook’s memory; otherwise, you can use a standard USB flash drive the same way. Also, you can use ReadyBoost on any desktop or laptop; ones with limited memory will see the most performance increase from using it. Please Note:  ReadyBoost requires at least 256Mb of free space on your flash drive, and also requires minimum read/write speeds.  Most modern memory cards or flash drives meet these requirements, but be aware that an old card may not work with it. Using ReadyBoost Insert an SD card into your card reader, or connect a USB flash drive to a USB port on your computer.  Windows will automatically see if your flash memory is ReadyBoost capable, and if so, you can directly choose to speed up your computer with ReadyBoost. The ReadyBoost settings dialog will open when you select this.  Choose “Use this device” and choose how much space you want ReadyBoost to use. Click Ok, and Windows will setup ReadyBoost and start using it to speed up your computer.  It will automatically use ReadyBoost whenever the card is connected to the computer. When you view your SD card or flash drive in Explorer, you will notice a ReadyBoost file the size you chose before.  This will be deleted when you eject your card or flash drive. If you need to remove your drive to use elsewhere, simply eject as normal. Windows will inform you that the drive is currently being used.  Make sure you have closed any programs or files you had open from the drive, and then press Continue to stop ReadyBoost and eject your drive. If you remove the drive without ejecting it, the ReadyBoost file may still remain on the drive.  You can delete this to save space on the drive, and the cache will be recreated when you use ReadyBoost next time. Conclusion Although ReadyBoost may not make your netbook feel like a Core i7 laptop with 6GB of RAM, it will still help performance and make multitasking even easier.  Also, if you have, say, a memory stick and a flash drive, you can use both of them with ReadyBoost for the maximum benefit.  We have even noticed better battery life when multitasking with ReadyBoost, as it lets you use your hard drive less.  SD cards and thumb drives are relatively cheap today, and many of us have several already, so this is a great way to improve netbook performance cheaply. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Speed up Your Windows Vista Computer with ReadyBoostSet the Speed Dial as the Opera Startup PageAsk the Readers: What are Your Computer’s Hardware Specs?Understanding Windows Vista Aero Glass RequirementsReplace Google Chrome’s New Tab Page with Speed Dial 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 Recycle ! Find That Elusive Icon with FindIcons Looking for Good Windows Media Player 12 Plug-ins? Find Out the Celebrity You Resemble With FaceDouble Whoa ! Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems

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• Release Management as Orchestra

  - by ericajanine

  I read an excellent, concise article (http://www.buildmeister.com/articles/software_release_management_best_practices) on the basics of release management practices. In the article, it states "Release Management is often likened to the conductor of an orchestra, with the individual changes to be implemented the various instruments within it." I played in music ensembles for years, so this is especially close to my heart as example. I learned most of my discipline from hours and hours of practice at the hand of a very skilled conductor and leader. I also learned that the true magic in symphonic performance is one where everyone involved is focused on one sound, one goal. In turn, that solid focus creates a sound and experience bigger than just mechanics alone accomplish. In symphony, a conductor's true purpose is to make you, a performer, better so the overall sound and end product is better. The big picture (the performance of the composition) is the end-game, and all musicians in the orchestra know without question their part makes up an important but incomplete piece of that performance. A good conductor works with each section (e.g. group) to ensure their individual pieces are solid. Let's restate: The conductor leads and is responsible for ensuring those pieces are solid. While the performers themselves are doing the work, the conductor is the final authority on when the pieces are ready or not. If not, the conductor initiates the efforts to get them ready or makes the decision to scrap their parts altogether for the sake of an overall performance. Let it sink in, because it's clear--It is not the performer's call if they play their part as agreed, it's the conductor's final call to allow it. In comparison, if a software release manager is a conductor, the only way for that manager to be effective is to drive the overarching process and execution of individual pieces of a software development lifecycle. It does not mean the release manager performs each and every piece, it means the release manager has oversight and influence because the end-game is a successful software enhancin a useable environment. It means the release manager, not the developer or development manager, has the final call if something goes into a software release. Of course, this is not a process of autocracy or dictation of absolute rule, it's cooperative effort. But the release manager must have the final authority to make a decision if something is ready to be added to the bigger piece, the overall symphony of software changes being considered for package and release. It also goes without saying a release manager, like a conductor, must have full autonomy and isolation from other software groups. A conductor is the one on the podium waving a little stick at the each section and cueing them for their parts, not yelling from the back of the room while also playing a tuba and taking direction from the horn section. I have personally seen where release managers are relegated to being considered little more than coordinators, red-tapers to "satisfy" the demands of an audit group without being bothered to actually respect all that a release manager gives a group willing to employ them fully. In this dysfunctional scenario, development managers, project managers, business users, and other stakeholders have been given nearly full clearance to demand and push their agendas forward, causing a tail-wagging-the-dog scenario where an inherent conflict will ensue. Depending on the strength, determination for peace, and willingness to overlook a built-in expectation that is wrong, the release manager here must face the crafted conflict head-on and diffuse it as quickly as possible. Then, the release manager must clearly make a case why a change cannot be released without negative impact to all parties involved. If a political agenda is solely driving a software release, there IS no symphony, there is no "software lifecycle". It's just out-of-tune noise. More importantly, there is no real conductor. Sometimes, just wanting to make a beautiful sound is not enough. If you are a release manager, are you freed up enough to move, to conduct the sections of software creation to ensure a solid release performance is possible? If not, it's time to take stock in what your role actually is and see if that is what you truly want to achieve in your position. If you are, then you can successfully build your career and that of the people in your groups to create truly beautiful software (music) together.

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• What I Expect From Myself This Year

  - by Lee Brandt

  I am making it a point not to call them resolutions, because the word has become an institution and is beginning to have no meaning. That's why I end up not keeping my resolutions, I think. So in the spirit of holding myself to my own commitments, I will make a plan and some realistic goals. 1.) Lose weight. Everyone has this on their list, but I am going to be conservative and specific. I currently weigh 393lbs. (yeah, I know). So I want to plan to lose 10lbs per month, that's 1lb. every three days, that shouldn't be difficult if I stick to my diet and exercise plan. - How do I do this?     - Diet: vegetarian. Since I already know I have high blood pressure and borderline high cholesterol, a meat-free diet is in order. I was vegan for a little over 2 years in 2006-2008, I think I can handle vegetarian.     - Exercise: at least 3 times (preferably every day) a week for 30 minutes. It has to be something that gets my heart rate up, or burns in my muscles. I can walk for cardio to start and mild calisthenics (girly push-ups, crunches, etc.).         - Move: I spend all my time behind the computer. I have recently started to use a slight variation of the Pomodoro Technique (my Pomodoros are 50 minutes instead of 25). During my 10 minutes every hour to answer emails, chats, etc., I will take a few minutes to stretch. 2.) Get my wife pregnant. We've been talking about it for years. Now that she is done with graduate school and I have a great job, now's the time. We'll be the oldest parents in the PTA most likely, but I don't care. 3.) Blog More. Another favorite among bloggers, but I do have about six drafts for blog posts started. The topics are there all I need to do is flesh out the post. This can be the first hour of any computer time I have after work. As soon as I am done exercising, shower and post. 4.) Speak less. Most people want to speak more. I want to concentrate on the places that I enjoy and that can really use the speakers (like local code camps), rather than trying to be some national speaker. I love speaking at conferences, but I need to spend some more time at home if we're going to get pregnant. 5.) Read more. I got a Kindle for Christmas and I am loving it so far. I have almost finished Treasure Island, and am getting ready to pick my next book. I will probably read a lot of classics for 2 reasons: (1) they teach deep lessons and (2) most are free for the Kindle. 6.) Find my religion. I was raised Southern Baptist, but I want to find my own way. I've been wanting to go to the local Unitarian Church, so I will make a point to go before the end of March. I also want to add a few religious books to my reading list. My boss bought me a copy of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus , and I have a copy of Bruce Feiler's Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths (P.S.) . I will start there. Seems like a lot now that I spell it out like this. But these are only starters. I am forty years old. I cannot keep living like I am twenty anymore. So here we go, 2011.

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• Book review (Book 6) - Wikinomics

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here. The book I chose for November 2011 was: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott   Why I chose this Book: I’ve heard a lot about this book - was one of the “must read” kind of business books (many of which are very “fluffy”) and supposedly deals with collaborating using technology - so I want to see what it says about collaborative efforts and how I can leverage them. What I learned: I really disliked this book. I’ve never been a fan of the latest “business book”, and sadly that’s what this felt like to me. A “business book” is what I call a work that has a fairly simple concept to get across, and then proceeds to use various made-up terms, analogies and other mechanisms to fill hundreds of pages doing it. This perception is at my own – the book is pretty old, and these things go stale quickly. The author’s general point (at least what I took away from it) was: Open Source is good, proprietary is bad. Collaboration is the hallmark of successful companies. In my mind, you can save yourself the trouble of reading this work if you get these two concepts down. Don’t get me wrong – open source is awesome, and collaboration is a good thing, especially in places where it fits. But it’s not a panacea as the author seems to indicate. For instance, he continuously uses the example of MySpace to show a “2.0” company, which I think means that you can enter text as well as read it on a web page. All well and good. But we all know what happened to MySpace, and of course he missed the point entirely about this new web environment: low barriers to entry often mean low barriers to exit. And the open, collaborative company being the best model – well, I think we all know a certain computer company famous for phones and music that is arguably quite successful, and is probably one of the most closed, non-collaborative (at least with its customers) on the planet. So that sort of takes away that argument. The reality of business is far more complicated. Collaboration is an amazing tool, and should be leveraged heavily. However, at the end of the day, after you do your research you need to pick a strategy and stick with it. Asking thousands of people to assist you in building your product probably will not work well. Open Source is great – but some proprietary products are quite functional as well, have a long track record, are well supported, and will probably be upgraded. Everything has its place, so use what works where it is needed. There is no single answer, sadly. So did I waste my time reading the book? Did I make a bad choice? Not at all! Reading the opinions and thoughts of others is almost always useful, and it’s important to consider opinions other than your own. If nothing else, thinking through the process either convinces you that you are wrong, or helps you understand better why you are right.

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• Unable to either locate any wireless networks nor even connect to wifi

  - by Leo Chan

  I'm new to Linux. I currently have installed ubuntu 12.10. I had a previous problem with my wireless card (see url to see previous problem : How to enable wireless in a Fujitsu LH532?). It now shows Connect to hidden network and create new wireless network but now unfortunately it simply cannot find any wireless connections. I did have a very thorough look around about this problem such as wait a little longer since sometimes it cannot load all the wireless connections available that quickly. My wifi is a hidden network and I have used the connect to hidden network feature but it keeps asking for my wep key which has been checked 4 times (I counted) and it still seems to not work; It keeps asking for the WEP key. I did try both WEP 40/128-bit key and WPA & WPA2 since previously on my windows it worked; My family later decided to use WEP. I only have a quick fix using a usb wireless stick and I wish to have a more solid fix. Thanks Results from sudo iwlist wlan0 scan wlan0 Scan completed : Cell 01 - Address: 00:1E:73:C8:62:BD Channel:6 Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6) Quality=25/70 Signal level=-85 dBm Encryption key:on ESSID:"EnigmaHome" Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s 36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s Mode:Master Extra:tsf=000000cb3bb10a5c Extra: Last beacon: 696ms ago IE: Unknown: 000A456E69676D61486F6D65 IE: Unknown: 010482848B96 IE: Unknown: 030106 IE: Unknown: 0706484B20010B1E IE: Unknown: 2A0107 IE: Unknown: 32080C1218243048606C IE: Unknown: DD180050F2020101000003A4000027A4000042435E0062322F00 Cell 02 - Address: C8:3A:35:34:C1:60 Channel:6 Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6) Quality=22/70 Signal level=-88 dBm Encryption key:on ESSID:"Tenda" Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s 18 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s Mode:Master Extra:tsf=000001336e70ffdd Extra: Last beacon: 716ms ago IE: Unknown: 000554656E6461 IE: Unknown: 010882848B961224486C IE: Unknown: 030106 IE: Unknown: 32040C183060 IE: Unknown: 0706434E20010D10 IE: Unknown: 33082001020304050607 IE: Unknown: 33082105060708090A0B IE: Unknown: DD270050F204104A0001101044000101104700102880288028801880A880C83A3534C160103C000101 IE: Unknown: 050400010000 IE: Unknown: 2A0106 IE: Unknown: 2D1AEC0117FFFF0000000000000000000000000000000C0000000000 IE: Unknown: 3D1606000500000000000000000000000000000000000000 IE: Unknown: 7F0101 IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1 Group Cipher : CCMP Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP Authentication Suites (1) : PSK Preauthentication Supported IE: Unknown: DD180050F2020101000003A4000027A4000042435E0062322F00 IE: Unknown: 0B05010089127A IE: Unknown: DD1E00904C33EC0117FFFF0000000000000000000000000000000C0000000000 IE: Unknown: DD1A00904C3406000500000000000000000000000000000000000000 IE: Unknown: DD07000C4304000000 Cell 03 - Address: 00:1E:73:C8:62:BF Channel:6 Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6) Quality=47/70 Signal level=-63 dBm Encryption key:on ESSID:"\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00" Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s 36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s Mode:Master Extra:tsf=000000cb3bac614e Extra: Last beacon: 1064ms ago IE: Unknown: 00110000000000000000000000000000000000 IE: Unknown: 010482848B96 IE: Unknown: 030106 IE: Unknown: 050C010200000000000000000000 IE: Unknown: 0706484B20010B1E IE: Unknown: 2A0107 IE: Unknown: 32080C1218243048606C IE: Unknown: DD070050F202000100

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• A Guide to Fusion SCM at Oracle OpenWorld 2012

  - by Pam Petropoulos

  Are you attending next week’s Oracle OpenWorld 2012 conference? Then you won’t want to miss the Fusion SCM activities and customer presenters from leading companies like Boeing and Fideltronik. Below you’ll find a day by day guide of the various Fusion SCM sessions, demos and activities during OpenWorld 2012, September 30 – October 4 in San Francisco, CA. Tuesday, October 2 All of the Fusion SCM sessions during OpenWorld will take place in various rooms at Moscone West, a convenience you are sure to appreciate, as will your feet.   The first session at 10:15 – 11:15 am (Moscone West, Room 2006), entitled “Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management: Overview, Strategy, Customer Experiences, and Roadmap”, provides an overview of Fusion Supply Chain Management applications and will discuss Fusion SCM strategy, future roadmap, and highlights of customer examples. The next session at 11:45 am – 12:45 pm (Moscone West, Room 2022), entitled “Enabling Trusted Enterprise Product Data with Oracle Fusion Product Hub”, may be the session for you if you’re struggling with achieving consistent, high-quality product data that provides significant business value. This session will discuss how Oracle Fusion Product Hub and Oracle Enterprise Data Quality can help you to achieve this vision. A customer presenter from Fideltronik will share their experiences with Oracle Fusion Product Hub. At the end of the day unwind at the Supply Chain Management customer reception from 6:00 – 8:00 pm at the Roe Lounge, located at 651 Howard Street. Registration is required. Click here for details. Wednesday, October 3 Wednesday is a busy day with three Fusion SCM sessions on the agenda. Start your day at 10:15 am at the “Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management: Customer Adoption and Experiences” session (Moscone West, Room 2003).  This must see session will showcase customer speakers from The Boeing Company and Fideltronik, each of whom will share their company’s experiences in selecting and implementing Fusion SCM applications. If you’re wondering how Fusion SCM applications can co-exist with your existing Oracle applications, then you’ll want to sit in on the 3:30 pm session entitled “Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management: Coexistence with Other Oracle Applications” (Moscone West, Room 2003). Stick around until 5:00 pm for the final Fusion SCM session of the day entitled “Responsive Fulfillment with Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management” (Moscone West, Room 2001).  This session will showcase Oracle Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration and Oracle Fusion Global Order Promising and how they are changing the way companies manage order fulfillment in environments. In addition to discussing the current business challenges, product capabilities, value propositions, industry applicability, and future roadmap this session will also feature a customer presenter from The Boeing Company. Thursday, October 4 If you are a retail customer we highly recommend that you attend the final Fusion SCM session of the week at 12:45 pm, entitled “Multichannel Fulfillment Excellence in the Direct-to-Consumer Market” (Moscone West, Room 2024).  Retailers will learn how they can transform their supply chains to meet the ever-increasing demands of buy anywhere/get anywhere cross-channel requirements with Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration and Oracle Fusion Product Hub. Throughout the week, you’ll also want to visit the Fusion SCM demo pods at the Demogrounds in Moscone West so you can see demos of these Fusion applications. Visit pod W-005 for Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration, W-008 for Fusion Inventory and Cost Management, and W-006 for Fusion Product Hub. Click here for the Demogrounds map. A reminder that you can also pre-register for these sessions to secure your spot. Visit the Schedule Builder to pre-enroll for these sessions. Finally, you'll also want to check out the Fusion SCM FocusOn document which includes additional keynote and general sessions that you may want to attend throughout the week.   We look forward to seeing you in San Francisco next week.

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• Unity 3d support for multiple X-screens

  - by stewbond

  I've installed Ubuntu 12.04 this weekend and have had problems getting Unity3d to work with my triple monitor set-up. I've installed the latest nVidia drivers for my 2 nVidia video cards and have used NVIDIA X Server Settings to configure everything. If I stick each monitor on a separate X screen, all but the primary X screen will appear white and the cursor will be a black X. I can start a terminal on this screen but cannot drag other windows to it. If I kill the "Nautilus" process, the white background disappears and I see my desktop background, but my cursor is still an X and I still cannot drag windows to it. If I enable TwinView, I can get one screen on two monitors to work properly, but the white screen remains on my third monitor. In addition, I don't like using TwinView because my full-screen applications get stretched. My current solution is to "Enable Xinerama", use all separate X screens and revert to Unity2d. I'd love a solution to this as Ubuntu 12.10 is not planned to support Unity-2d and prefer the aesthetics of 3d anyways. I can provide Xorg.conf for all configurations and any other suggested diagnostic information. Below is my closest-to-working xorg.conf: # nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings # nvidia-settings: version 295.33 (buildd@zirconium) Fri Mar 30 13:38:49 UTC 2012 Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Layout0" Screen 0 "Screen0" RightOf "Screen2" Screen 1 "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0" Screen 2 "Screen2" 0 0 InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" Option "Xinerama" "1" EndSection Section "Files" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "kbd" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "Microvitec PLC MV191" HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor1" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "CRT-1" HorizSync 28.0 - 55.0 VertRefresh 43.0 - 72.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor2" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "Microvitec PLC MV191" HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor3" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "Microvitec PLC MV191" HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device0" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce GTS 450" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Screen 0 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device1" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce 9500 GT" BusID "PCI:2:0:0" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device2" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce GTS 450" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Screen 1 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device3" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce GTS 450" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Screen 2 EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Device0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "0" Option "metamodes" "DFP-0: 1280x1024_75 +0+0; DFP-0: 1280x1024 +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen1" Device "Device1" Monitor "Monitor1" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "0" Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen2" Device "Device2" Monitor "Monitor2" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "0" Option "metamodes" "DFP-2: 1280x1024_75 +0+0; DFP-2: nvidia-auto-select +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen3" Device "Device3" Monitor "Monitor3" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "0" Option "metamodes" "DFP-2: nvidia-auto-select +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Extensions" Option "Composite" "Disable" EndSection Other people have had similar issues. I haven't been successful at any of the few suggestions submitted. Can not get Dual Monitors to work on Different GPUs http://askubuntu.com/questions/30412/3-monitors-with-2-video-cards-not-working?rq=1 How to get second display to work alongside primary display? http://askubuntu.com/questions/148007/multiple-monitors-only-work-with-unity-2d/201086#201086 xorg.conf and Unity3D?

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• The most challenging part of blogging about OpenWorld is…

  - by Irem Radzik

  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;} ...not knowing where to start. Do I talk about the great presentations from our partners and executives in our keynote sessions; do I write about the music festival, or many great sessions we had in the Data integration track? A short blog can never do justice. For now I will stick to our data integration sessions for those who could not attend with so many other sessions running concurrently. And in the coming weeks we will be writing more about what we talked in our sessions and what we learned from our customers and partners. For today, I will give some of the key highlights from Data Integration sessions that took place on Wednesday and Thursday of last week  On Wednesday, GoldenGate was highlighted in multiple Database and Data Integration sessions. I found particularly the session about Oracle’s own use of GoldenGate for its large E-Business Suite implementation for supply chain management and service contract management very interesting. In 2011, Oracle implemented a new operational reporting system using GoldenGate real-time data replication to an operational data store that leverages data from E-Business Suite.The results are very impressive. Data freshness improved by 2,210X while report run performance improved by 60X. For more information on this implementation and its results please see the white paper: Real-Time Operational Reporting for E-Business Suite via GoldenGate Replication to an Operational Data Store Other sessions that provided very rich content were: "Best Practices for Conflict Detection and Resolution in Oracle GoldenGate for Active/Active", "Tuning and Troubleshooting Oracle GoldenGate on Oracle Database", "Next-Generation Data Integration on Oracle Exadata" and "Accelerate Oracle Data Integrator with Advanced Features, SOA, Groovy, SDK, and XML". Below is a slide presented by Stephan Haisley in the Tuning and Troubleshooting Oracle GoldenGate session. If you missed them during OpenWorld, I highly recommend downloading the slides. We will continue to blog about these topics and related resources. .

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• Ubuntu 11.04 and 10.04 hang with black screen while installing from USB disk

  - by Bill

  I've been trying to install Ubuntu 11.04 from a USB flash stick and each time I try to boot from the USB key one of two things happen: A) The screen that asks you what you would like to do (e.g. run Ubuntu from the USB key or install it) shows up and the countdown to the default option starts to count down but as soon as I either touch the keyboard (sometimes I press enter or the arrow keys to select an option) or the countdown gets to zero the screen just locks up and nothing happens no matter how long I wait. B) When I boot from the USB key the screen will flicker for a second and then go black with a flashing white underscore at the top left corner of the screen. Again it doesn't matter how long I wait, nothing happens and pressing keys doesn't do a thing. The very first time I tried to install it I got a terminal-like screen that said something about a directory called 'casper' having an error of some sort. I have tried installing from USB using both 11.04 and 10.10. I'm about to try 10.04. I have read tons of forum posts about this but so far I haven't seen anything in the solutions that apply to me. My intention is to dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I must keep Windows as I am required to use Visual Studio for one of my college courses. Right now I'm using Wubi but I really want a full install. I can't use LVPM because it doesn't work with the version of Wubi I used. So now I'm thinking my best bet is to try to get a clean install working. I'd also convert Wubi to a full install too but there's no solution as far as I've read. So could someone tell me a reason why this is happening or if there's something I can do to get around the problem? I'm using a Gateway LT2802u netbook with and Intel Atom N455 processor, 1GB RAM, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 graphics card, and a 250GB HDD. I don't have anything on my current Wubi install that I can't replace so keep in mind when answering that I don't care if I lose my current settings and files from Wubi. Thanks everyone! UPDATE I just answered my own question so in case anyone else is having this same problem using similar hardware, do the following: When I first tried installing 11.04 I used the recommended universal installer tool to create the USB live/installation disk. That caused the original problem. Note that I had already downloaded the 11.04 ISO and did not use the included downloader from the USB creator. After that failed I used the same USB creator but had it download 10.10 for me. It also failed with the same issue. I repeated this process with unetbootin as well for both versions. Finally, I downloaded the Ubuntu 10.04 ISO and used the recommended USB creator once again. There was an error while creating the USB live install so I reformatted the USB key as FAT32 and tried again. It created the USB key. I then booted from the USB flash drive and selected "Install Ubuntu" (exact wording was different). It worked! It took me through the process that you see shown in pictures on the Ubuntu website. I let it create the appropriate partitions for me and it simply worked. I did get a few errors while the system tried to restart after it installed. It hung on a terminal-like screen but I pressed ENTER and it restarted. I booted into Windows 7, it checked the disks as it sensed that I messed with a partition, then it booted into Windows normally. Now I'm going to uninstall Wubi and update my new full install of Ubuntu! I'm excited to get the benefits of a full install now. So in the end, hopefully someone can learn from what I did.

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• Project structure: where to put business logic

  - by Mister Smith

  First of all, I'm not asking where does business logic belong. This has been asked before and most answers I've read agree in that it belongs in the model: Where to put business logic in MVC design? How much business logic should be allowed to exist in the controller layer? How accurate is "Business logic should be in a service, not in a model"? Why put the business logic in the model? What happens when I have multiple types of storage? However people disagree in the way this logic should be distributed across classes. There seem to exist three major currents of thought: Fat model with business logic inside entity classes. Anemic model and business logic in "Service" classes. It depends. I find all of them problematic. The first option is what most Fowlerites stick to. The problem with a fat model is that sometimes a business logic funtion is not only related to a class, and instead uses a bunch of other classes. If, for example, we are developing a web store, there should be a function that calcs an order's total. We could think of putting this function inside the Order class, but what actually happens is that the logic needs to use different classes, not only data contained in the Order class, but also in the User class, the Session class, and maybe the Tax class, Country class, or Giftcard, Payment, etc. Some of these classes could be composed inside the Order class, but some others not. Sorry if the example is not very good, but I hope you understand what I mean. Putting such a function inside the Order class would break the single responsibility principle, adding unnecesary dependences. The business logic would be scattered across entity classes, making it hard to find. The second option is the one I usually follow, but after many projects I'm still in doubt about how to name the class or classes holding the business logic. In my company we usually develop apps with offline capabilities. The user is able to perform entire transactions offline, so all validation and business rules should be implemented in the client, and then there's usually a background thread that syncs with the server. So we usually have the following classes/packages in every project: Data model (DTOs) Data Access Layer (Persistence) Web Services layer (Usually one class per WS, and one method per WS method). Now for the business logic, what is the standard approach? A single class holding all the logic? Multiple classes? (if so, what criteria is used to distribute the logic across them?). And how should we name them? FooManager? FooService? (I know the last one is common, but in our case it is bad naming because the WS layer usually has classes named FooWebService). The third option is probably the right one, but it is also devoid of any useful info. To sum up: I don't like the first approach, but I accept that I might have been unable to fully understand the Zen of it. So if you advocate for fat models as the only and universal solution you are welcome to post links explaining how to do it the right way. I'd like to know what is the standard design and naming conventions for the second approach in OO languages. Class names and package structure, in particular. It would also be helpful too if you could include links to Open Source projects showing how it is done. Thanks in advance.

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• UEFI Dual-Boot - Ubuntu 12.04.3 + Windows 8.1 (One GPT HDD)

  - by swafbrother

  UEFI Dual-Boot - Ubuntu 12.04.3 + Windows 8.1 (One GPT HDD) Hello, I'm having trouble setting up a dual-boot (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and Windows 8.1) in my ASUS K55VM laptop's hard drive disk (500 GB). I was mostly following tutorials for doing this, but at some point something has gone wrong. Up to now, I have followed these steps: I formatted my HDD into GPT. I clean-installed Windows 8.1. I didn't prevent Windows from choosing the partitions to use and it created these partitions: A Recovery partition (sda1). An EFI System Partition (sda2). A Microsoft Reserved Partition (sda3). A Windows Data Partition or C drive (sda4). I reduced the Windows Data Partition via Windows' Disk Management. I made a bootable USB Stick with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS from ISO, using Universal USB Installer. I created these partitions for Ubuntu: A Boot partition, mounted at /boot (sda5). A Root partition, mounted at / (sda6). A Swap partition (sda7). In Device for boot loader installation I chose: /dev/sda. Then, when I rebooted, it went straight into Ubuntu. So I installed Boot-Repair, and clicked on Recommended Repair. It automatically did its job without asking for anything. I rebooted and Grub showed up, with a lot of options. At this point I had a decent dual-boot setup; Ubuntu and both Windows entries worked fine: Ubuntu. Windows Boot UEFI Loader. Windows UEFI bkpbootmgfw.efi. I executed this command: sudo grub-install --force /dev/sda5. Then I tried to make Windows 8.1's Boot Manager the main boot manager, so that I could choose which OS to boot into from a menu. I downloaded EasyBCD on Windows. It showed 2 Ubuntu entries and 1 Windows entry. I went into BCD Deployment tab and clicked on Write MBR. At this point, I went into BIOS and made Windows Boot Manager the first boot option. When I rebooted, I got a black screen with the message efidisk read error, and then (I guess) it switched to the next boot option, which is Ubuntu, resulting in Grub showing up. From Grub, Ubuntu entry is working and so are both Windows entries. If I choose Ubuntu, it normally boots into Ubuntu. But if I choose Windows, it goes into Windows' boot manager. In Windows' boot manager, a menu shows up: Ubuntu. Ubuntu. Windows 8.1. If I choose Windows, it boots into Windows without any problem. If I choose Ubuntu, it boots into Grub (back to step 14). Here's my BootInfo Summary: http://paste.ubuntu.com/6698171/ Windows Boot Manager is clearly not working as expected; I can't directly boot into it and I can't boot into it from BIOS either (efidisk read error again). If I want to boot into Windows I need to boot into Grub first, which is the opposite of what I wanted. I need help at this point. What is the best thing I can do? Is there a more reliable and/or simpler way of acomplishing a satisfying dual-boot for this situation? Can someone provide a way for going back to step 8, where I had a more efficient dual-boot setup? If only I could undo what I did with Easy BCD and skip Windows' Boot Menu... Can someone provide a way to fix this mess? Thanks in advance and sorry for the length of this, I wanted to be exhaustive.

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• ADF Enterprise Application Development - Made Simple (Book Review)

  - by Frank Nimphius

    Sten E. Vesterli wrote the "Oracle ADF Enterprise Application Development – Made Simple" book published by Packt Publishing in 2011 http://www.packtpub.com/oracle-adf-enterprise-application-development/book A common question on OTN, but also when talking to clients or customers is about where and how to start your ADF application development. Especially when the current programming background is not in Java, but 4 GL or PLSQL, developers often look for answers to the following questions: · How long does it take to learn Oracle ADF ? · How long does it take to replace a Forms application with ADF ? · How many developers do I need? · Do I need to know Java to use ADF and if yes, how good do I need to know this? · How do I structure my programming files, organizing them in JDeveloper work spaces, projects and libraries? · What is best practices for naming Java packages and how to void naming conflicts in ADF in general? · How many Application Modules do I need or should I create? · How to test applications? Sten Vesterli answers all of the above questions and more in his book http://www.packtpub.com/oracle-adf-enterprise-application-development/book , which makes it great value add to the 3 existing Oracle ADF books. In order of complexity (which also is the order in which reading the available Oracle ADF books makes sense), in my opinion, Sten's book should come second – though it also is useful to those that are already more advanced with Oracle ADF. So if you are absolutely new to Oracle ADF, then the order of books to read to get you up on an expert level should be: 1. Grant Ronald; "Quick Start Guide to Oracle Fusion Development: Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle ADF" (McGraw Hill 2010) 2. Sten Vesterli; "Oracle ADF Enterprise Application Development – Made Simple" (Packt Publishing 2011) 3. Duncan Mills, Peter Koletzke; " Oracle JDeveloper 11g Handbook: A Guide to Fusion Web Development" (McGraw Hill 2009) 4. Frank Nimphius, Lynn Munsinger; " Oracle Fusion Developer Guide: Building Rich Internet Applications with Oracle ADF Business Components and Oracle ADF Faces" (McGraw Hill 2010) If you are not new to Oracle ADF and Orace JDeveloper, then buy Sten Vesterli's book anyway. It is worth it and you want to have it on your book shelf. See below the table of content to get a better idea of what this book covers: · Chapter 1: The ADF Proof of Concept · Chapter 2: Estimating the Effort · Chapter 3: Getting Organized · Chapter 4: Productive Teamwork · Chapter 5: Prepare to Build · Chapter 6: Building the Enterprise Application · Chapter 7: Testing your Application · Chapter 8: Look and Feel · Chapter 9: Customizing the Functionality · Chapter 10: Securing your ADF Application · Chapter 11: Package and Deliver · Appendix: Internationalization The book is written with a lot of good humor, which makes the read very enjoyable (from a geek's perspective, of course). My favorite quote – just in case you are interested - is from page 97, when Sten talks about getting organized: " Stop sending e-mails to your team. Just stop it. E-mail is so last century.…" So true, so true! This quote's runner up is the "boss key" on page 128 where Sten talks about productivity and how Oracle Team Productivity Center (TPC) can help you with this. Quotes like these stick to your brains and make sure you never forget. Go for it!

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• How to create (via installer script) a task that will install my bash script so it runs on DE startup?

  - by MountainX

  I've been reading for the last couple hours about Upstart, .xinitrc, .xsessions, rc.local, /etc/init.d/, /etc/xdg/autostart, @reboot in crontab and so many other things that I'm totally confused! Here is my bash script. It should start/run after the desktop environment is started and it should continue to run at all times until logout/shutdown. It should start again on reboot. Any time the DE is running, it should run. #!/bin/bash while true; do if [[ -s ~/.updateNotification.txt ]]; then read MSG < ~/.updateNotification.txt kdialog --title 'The software has been updated' --msgbox "$MSG" cat /dev/null > ~/.updateNotification.txt fi sleep 3600 done exit 0 I know zero about using Upstart, but I understand that Upstart is one way to handle this. I'll consider other approaches but most of the things I've been reading about are too complex for me. Furthermore, I can't figure out which approach will meet my requirements (which I'll detail below). There are two steps in my question: How to automatically start the script above, as described above. How to "install" that Upstart task via a bash script (i.e., my "installer"). I assume (or hope) that step 2 is almost trivial once I understand step 1. I have to support all flavors of Ubuntu desktops. Therefore, the kdialog call above will be replaced. I'm considering easybashgui for this. (Or I could use zenity on gnome DE's.) My requirements are: The setup process (installation) must be done via a bash script. I cannot use the GUI method described in the Ubuntu doc AddingProgramToSessionStartup, for example. I must be able to script/automate the setup (installing) process using bash. Currently, it is as simple as having the bash installer script copy the above script into /home/$USER/.kde/Autostart/ The setup process must be universal across Ubuntu derivatives including Unity and KDE and gnome desktops. The same setup script (installer) should run on Linux Mint, Kubuntu, Xbuntu (basically any flavor of Ubuntu and major derivatives such as Linux Mint). For example, we cannot continue to put a script file in /home/$USER/.kde/Autostart/ because that exists only on KDE. The above script should work for each of the limited flavors we use. Hence our interest in using easybashgui instead of kdialog or zenity. See below. The installed monitoring script should only be started after the desktop is started since it will display a GUI message to the user if the update is found. The monitoring script (above) should run without root privileges, of course. But the installer (bash script) can be run as root. I'm not a real developer or a sysadmin. This is a part time volunteer thing for me, so it needs to be easy/simple. I can write bash scripts and I can program a little, but I know nothing about Upstart or systemd, for example. And, unfortunately, my job doesn't give me time to become an expert on init systems or much of anything else related to development and sysadmin. So I have to stick with simple solutions. The easybashgui version of the script might look like this: #!/bin/bash source easybashgui while true; do if [[ -s ~/.updateNotification.txt ]]; then read MSG < ~/.updateNotification.txt message "$MSG" cat /dev/null > ~/.updateNotification.txt fi sleep 3600 done exit 0

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• Java Hint in NetBeans for Identifying JOptionPanes

  - by Geertjan

  I tend to have "JOptionPane.showMessageDialogs" scattered through my code, for debugging purposes. Now I have a way to identify all of them and remove them one by one, since some of them are there for users of the application so shouldn't be removed, via the Refactoring window: Identifying instances of code that I'm interested in is really trivial: import org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints.ErrorDescription; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.ConstraintVariableType; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.ErrorDescriptionFactory; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.Hint; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.HintContext; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.TriggerPattern; import org.openide.util.NbBundle.Messages; @Hint( displayName = "#DN_ShowMessageDialogChecker", description = "#DESC_ShowMessageDialogChecker", category = "general") @Messages({ "DN_ShowMessageDialogChecker=Found \"ShowMessageDialog\"", "DESC_ShowMessageDialogChecker=Checks for JOptionPane.showMes" }) public class ShowMessageDialogChecker { @TriggerPattern(value = "$1.showMessageDialog", constraints = @ConstraintVariableType(variable = "$1", type = "javax.swing.JOptionPane")) @Messages("ERR_ShowMessageDialogChecker=Are you sure you need this statement?") public static ErrorDescription computeWarning(HintContext ctx) { return ErrorDescriptionFactory.forName( ctx, ctx.getPath(), Bundle.ERR_ShowMessageDialogChecker()); } } Stick the above class, which seriously isn't much code at all, in a module and run it, with this result: Bit trickier to do the fix, i.e., add a bit of code to let the user remove the statement, but I looked in the NetBeans sources and used the System.out fix, which does the same thing:  import com.sun.source.tree.BlockTree; import com.sun.source.tree.StatementTree; import com.sun.source.util.TreePath; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.Iterator; import java.util.List; import org.netbeans.api.java.source.CompilationInfo; import org.netbeans.api.java.source.WorkingCopy; import org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints.ErrorDescription; import org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints.Fix; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.ConstraintVariableType; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.ErrorDescriptionFactory; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.Hint; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.HintContext; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.JavaFix; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.TriggerPattern; import org.openide.util.NbBundle.Messages; @Hint( displayName = "#DN_ShowMessageDialogChecker", description = "#DESC_ShowMessageDialogChecker", category = "general") @Messages({ "DN_ShowMessageDialogChecker=Found \"ShowMessageDialog\"", "DESC_ShowMessageDialogChecker=Checks for JOptionPane.showMes" }) public class ShowMessageDialogChecker { @TriggerPattern(value = "$1.showMessageDialog", constraints = @ConstraintVariableType(variable = "$1", type = "javax.swing.JOptionPane")) @Messages("ERR_ShowMessageDialogChecker=Are you sure you need this statement?") public static ErrorDescription computeWarning(HintContext ctx) { Fix fix = new FixImpl(ctx.getInfo(), ctx.getPath()).toEditorFix(); return ErrorDescriptionFactory.forName( ctx, ctx.getPath(), Bundle.ERR_ShowMessageDialogChecker(), fix); } private static final class FixImpl extends JavaFix { public FixImpl(CompilationInfo info, TreePath tp) { super(info, tp); } @Override @Messages("FIX_ShowMessageDialogChecker=Remove the statement") protected String getText() { return Bundle.FIX_ShowMessageDialogChecker(); } @Override protected void performRewrite(TransformationContext tc) throws Exception { WorkingCopy wc = tc.getWorkingCopy(); TreePath statementPath = tc.getPath(); TreePath blockPath = tc.getPath().getParentPath(); while (!(blockPath.getLeaf() instanceof BlockTree)) { statementPath = blockPath; blockPath = blockPath.getParentPath(); if (blockPath == null) { return; } } BlockTree blockTree = (BlockTree) blockPath.getLeaf(); List<? extends StatementTree> statements = blockTree.getStatements(); List<StatementTree> newStatements = new ArrayList<StatementTree>(); for (Iterator<? extends StatementTree> it = statements.iterator(); it.hasNext();) { StatementTree statement = it.next(); if (statement != statementPath.getLeaf()) { newStatements.add(statement); } } BlockTree newBlockTree = wc.getTreeMaker().Block(newStatements, blockTree.isStatic()); wc.rewrite(blockTree, newBlockTree); } } } Aside from now being able to use "Inspect & Refactor" to identify and fix all instances of JOptionPane.showMessageDialog at the same time, you can also do the fixes per instance within the editor:

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• NHibernate 3.0 and FluentNHibernate, how to get up and running&hellip;.

  - by DesigningCode

  First up. Its actually really easy. I’m not very religious about my DB tech, I don’t really care, I just want something that works.  So I’m happy to consider all options if they provide an advantage, and recently I was considering jumping from NHibernate to EF 4.0.  However before ditching NHibernate and jumping to EF 4.0 I thought I should try the head version of NHibernates trunk and the Head version of FluentNHibernate. I currently have a “Repository / Unit of Work” Framework built up around these two techs.  All up it makes my life pretty simple for dealing with databases.   The problem is the current release of NHibernate + the Linq provider wasn’t too hot for our purposes.  Especially trying to plug it into older VB.NET code.   The Linq provider spat the dummy with VB.NET lambdas.  Mainly because in C# Query().Where(l => l.Name.Contains("x") || l.Name.Contains("y")).ToList(); is not the same as the VB.NET Query().Where(Function(l) l.Name.Contains("x") Or l.Name.Contains("y")).ToList VB.NET seems to spit out … well…. something different :-) so anyways… Compiling your own version of NHibernate and FluentNHibernate.  It’s actually pretty easy! First you’ll need to install tortisesvn NAnt and Git if you don’t already have them.  NHibernate first step, get the subversion trunk https://nhibernate.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/nhibernate/trunk/ into a directory somewhere.  eg \thirdparty\nhibernate Then use NAnt to build it.   (if you open the .sln it will show errors in that  AssemblyInfo.cs doesn’t exist ) to build it, there is a .txt document with sample command line build instructions,  I simply used :- NAnt -D:project.config=release clean build >output-release-build.log *wait* *wait* *wait* and ta da, you will have a bin directory with all the release dlls. FluentNHibernate This was pretty simple. there’s instructions here :- http://wiki.fluentnhibernate.org/Getting_started#Installation basically, with git, create a directory, and you issue the command git clone git://github.com/jagregory/fluent-nhibernate.git and wait, and soon enough you have the source. Now, from the bin directory that NHibernate spit out, take everything and dump it into the subdirectory “fluent-nhibernate\tools\NHibernate” Now, to build, you can use rake….which a ruby build system, however you can also just open the solution and build.   Which is what I did.  I had a few problems with the references which I simply re-added using the new ones.  Once built, I just took all the NHibnerate dlls, and the fluent ones and replaced my existing NHibernate / Fluent and killed off the old linq project. All I had to change is the places that used  .Linq<T>  and replace them with .Query<T>  (which was easy as I had wrapped it already to isolate my code from such changes) and hey presto, everything worked.  Even the VB.NET linq calls. I need to do some more testing as I’ve only done basic smoke tests, but its all looking pretty good, so for now, I will stick to NHibernate!

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• SharePoint 2013 Developer Ramp-Up - Part 1

  Today I had a little spare time during the morning hours and I decided that after checking MVA that I'm going to query the available course material over at Pluralsight. Wow, thanks to fantastic corporations and acquisitions there are lots of courses available. Nicely split by SharePoint version as well as particular interest group. Additionally, I found a couple of online blogs and community sites that I'm going to visit regularly during the next couple of weeks. Today's resource(s) Of course, I'm "all in" for the latest developer resources: SharePoint 2013 Developer Ramp-Up - Part 1 - Understanding the Platform and Developer Experience SharePoint 2013 Developer Ramp-Up - Part 2 SharePoint 2013 Developer Ramp-Up - Part 3 SharePoint 2013 Developer Ramp-Up - Part 4 SharePoint 2013 Developer Ramp-Up - Part 5 SharePoint 2013 Developer Ramp-Up - Part 6 I guess, I'm going to stick to the Pluralsight library until the end of this week. We'll see... Anyway, apart from the video material I came across a couple of other websites which I'd like to list here, too. That's mainly for personal reference instead of bookmarking in the browser, I'll use my own blog for that purpose. Atkinson's SharePoint Blog Düsseldorfer Jung Doerflers SharePoint Blog SharePoint Community Absolute SharePoint The links are in no preferential order and I added them as soon as I found them. Most probably, I'm going to report about specific articles from those resources during this challenge. So, stay tuned and I try to provide more details on certain topics. Takeaway First contact with the 'real stuff' in order to get an idea about software development in Microsoft SharePoint and beyond. Unfortunately and as already expected, the marketing department over at Microsoft seemed to have nothing better to do than to invent new names and baptise literally the same product with every release. Luckily, the release cycles between versions have been three years (roughly) - 2007, 2010, and 2013. Nonetheless, there will be a lot of version-specfic issues to tackle during this learning phase. Especially, when it's about historical expressions like 'WSS'* like I had it yesterday... It's going to be exciting and demanding to catch up with roughly 6-7 years of development and changes. Okay, let's face it. * WSS stands for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 which forms the 'core engine' of SharePoint 2007. Part 1 of Andrew Connell's series on SharePoint 2013 for developers provides a brief history and overview of the various product names and their relation to the actual SharePoint version. I guess, I might create a cheat-sheet or something comparable in order to reduce the level of confusion while reading through other material: SharePoint 2007 (aka SharePoint v3 aka SharePoint 12) Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 .NET Framework 3.0, 32-bit or 64-bit OS SharePoint 2010 (aka SharePoint v4 aka SharePoint 14) Microsoft SharePoint Foundation (SPF) 2010 Microsoft SharePoint Server (SPS) 2010 .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, 64-bit OS only SharePoint 2013 Microsoft SharePoint Foundation (SPF) 2013 Microsoft SharePoint Server (SPS) 2013 .NET Framework 4.5, 64-bit OS only After this quick excursion it is getting more interesting. SharePoint 2013 has a number of Development Practices and Techniques under the hood, and it will be quite a decision process depending on the task requirements to choose the correct path to go. At the moment, the following two options seem to be my future fields of operation: Client-Side Object Model (CSOM) REST API and OData syntax As part of my job assignment, I see myself developing within Visual Studio 2012/2013. Most probably the client development in C# will be using CSOM but of course I'll keep an eye on the REST API, too. JavaScript has quite a momentum since a while and it would a shame to ignore this type of opportunity and possibilities.

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• Getting Started with StreamInsight 2.1

  - by Roman Schindlauer

  If you're just beginning to get familiar with StreamInsight, you may be looking for a way to get started. What are the basics? How can I get my first StreamInsight application running so I can see how it works? Where is the 'front door' that will get me going? If that describes you, then this blog entry might be just what you need. If you're already a StreamInsight wiz, keep reading anyway - you may find some helpful links here that you weren't aware of. But here's what we'd like from you experienced readers in particular: if you know of other good resources that we missed, please feel free to add them in the comments below. We appreciate you sharing your expertise. The Book The basic documentation for StreamInsight is located in the MSDN Library (Microsoft StreamInsight 2.1). You'll notice that previous versions of StreamInsight are still there (1.2 and 2.0), but if you're just getting started you can stick to the 2.1 section. The documentation has been organized to function as reference material, which is fine after you're familiar with the technology. But if you're trying to learn the basics, you might want to take a different path instead of just starting at the top. The following is one map you can use. What Is StreamInsight? Here is a sequence of topics that should give you a good overview of what StreamInsight is and how it works: Overview answers the question, "what is it?" StreamInsight Server Architecture gives you a quick look at a high-level architectural drawing StreamInsight Concepts lays out an overview of the basic components Deploying StreamInsight Entities to a StreamInsight Server describes the mechanics of how these components work together Getting an Example Running Once you have this background, go ahead and install StreamInsight and get a basic example up and running: Installation download and install the software StreamInsight Examples walk through a set of 3 simple StreamInsight applications that work together to demonstrate what you learned in the topics above; you can copy and paste the code into Visual Studio, compile, and run That's it - you now have a real, functioning StreamInsight system! Now that you have a handle on the basics, you might want to start digging deeper. Digging Deeper Here's a suggested path through the documentation to help you understand the next layer of StreamInsight technologies: Using Event Sources and Event Sinks sources supply data and sinks consume it; this topic gives you an overview of how they work Publishing and Connecting to the StreamInsight Server practical details on how to set up a StreamInsight server A Hitchhiker’s Guide to StreamInsight 2.1 Queries queries are the heart of how StreamInsight performs data analytics, and this whitepaper will help you really understand how they work Using StreamInsight LINQ root through this section for technical details on specific query components Using the StreamInsight Event Flow Debugger in addition to troubleshooting, the debugger is a great way to learn more about what goes on inside a StreamInsight application And Even Deeper Finally, to get a handle on some of the more complex things you can do with StreamInsight, dig into these: Input and Output Adapters adapters can be useful for handling more complex sources and sinks Building Resilient StreamInsight Applications a resilient application is able to recover from system failures Operations this section will help you monitor and troubleshoot a running StreamInsight system The StreamInsight Community As you're designing and developing your StreamInsight solutions, you probably will find it helpful to see working examples or to learn tips and tricks from others. Or maybe you need a place to post a vexing question. Here are some community resources that we have found useful. If you know of others, please add them in the comments below. Code samples and tools Official StreamInsight code samples Introduction to LinqPad Driver for StreamInsight 2.1 - LinqPad is a very useful tool for developing queries The following case studies are based on earlier versions of StreamInsight, but they still are useful examples: Microsoft Media Analytics - real-time monitoring and analytic Edgenet - responding to information from multiple source ICONICS - managing energy usage Blogs Microsoft StreamInsight Ruminations of J.net Richard Seroter's Architecture Musings pluralsight Forums MSDN StreamInsight Forum stackoverflow Training Microsoft StreamInsight Fundamentals (“Introducing StreamInsight” is free) from pluralsight Twitter @streaminsight   You’re a StreamInsight Expert That should get you going. Please add any other resources you have found useful in the comments below.   Regards, The StreamInsight Team

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• Some Original Expressions

  - by Phil Factor

  Guest Editorial for Simple-Talk newsletterIn a guest editorial for the Simple-Talk Newsletter, Phil Factor wonders if we are still likely to find some more novel and unexpected ways of using the newer features of Transact SQL: or maybe in some features that have always been there! There can be a great deal of fun to be had in trying out recent features of SQL Expressions to see if  they provide new functionality.  It is surprisingly rare to find things that couldn’t be done before, but in a different   and more cumbersome way; but it is great to experiment or to read of someone else making that discovery.  One such recent feature is the ‘table value constructor’, or ‘VALUES constructor’, that managed to get into SQL Server 2008 from Standard SQL.  This allows you to create derived tables of up to 1000 rows neatly within select statements that consist of  lists of row values.  E.g. SELECT Old_Welsh, number FROM (VALUES ('Un',1),('Dou',2),('Tri',3),('Petuar',4),('Pimp',5),('Chwech',6),('Seith',7),('Wyth',8),('Nau',9),('Dec',10)) AS WelshWordsToTen (Old_Welsh, number) These values can be expressions that return single values, including, surprisingly, subqueries. You can use this device to create views, or in the USING clause of a MERGE statement. Joe Celko covered  this here and here.  It can become extraordinarily handy to use once one gets into the way of thinking in these terms, and I’ve rewritten a lot of routines to use the constructor, but the old way of using UNION can be used the same way, but is a little slower and more long-winded. The use of scalar SQL subqueries as an expression in a VALUES constructor, and then applied to a MERGE, has got me thinking. It looks very clever, but what use could one put it to? I haven’t seen anything yet that couldn’t be done almost as  simply in SQL Server 2000, but I’m hopeful that someone will come up with a way of solving a tricky problem, just in the same way that a freak of the XML syntax forever made the in-line  production of delimited lists from an expression easy, or that a weird XML pirouette could do an elegant  pivot-table rotation. It is in this sort of experimentation where the community of users can make a real contribution. The dissemination of techniques such as the Number, or Tally table, or the unconventional ways that the UPDATE statement can be used, has been rapid due to articles and blogs. However, there is plenty to be done to explore some of the less obvious features of Transact SQL. Even some of the features introduced into SQL Server 2000 are hardly well-known. Certain operations on data are still awkward to perform in Transact SQL, but we mustn’t, I think, be too ready to state that certain things can only be done in the application layer, or using a CLR routine. With the vast array of features in the product, and with the tools that surround it, I feel that there is generally a way of getting tricky things done. Or should we just stick to our lasts and push anything difficult out into procedural code? I’d love to know your views.

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• Visual Studio 2010 Best Practices

  - by Etienne Tremblay

  I’d like to thank Packt for providing me with a review version of Visual Studio 2010 Best Practices eBook. In fairness I also know the author Peter having seen him speak at DevTeach on many occasions.  I started by looking at the table of content to see what this book was about, knowing that “best practices” is a real misnomer I wanted to see what they were.  I really like the fact that he starts the book by really saying they are not really best practices but actually recommend practices.  As a Team Foundation Server user I found that chapter 2 was more for the open source crowd and I really skimmed it.  The portion on Branching was well documented, although I’m not a fan of the testing branch myself, but the rest was right on. The section on merge remote changes (bring the outside to you) paradigm is really important and was touched on. Chapter 3 has good solid practices on low level constructs like generics and exceptions. Chapter 4 dives into architectural practices like decoupling, distributed architecture and data based architecture.  DTOs and ORMs are touched on briefly as is NoSQL. Chapter 5 is about deployment and is really a great primer on all the “packaging” technologies like Visual Studio Setup and Deployment (depreciated in 2012), Click Once and WIX the major player outside of commercial solutions.  This is a nice section on how to move from VSSD to WIX this is going to be important in the coming years due to the fact that VS 2012 doesn’t support VSSD. In chapter 6 we dive into automated testing practices, including test coverage, mocking, TDD, SpecDD and Continuous Testing.  Peter covers all those concepts really nicely albeit succinctly. Being a book on recommended practices I find this is really good. I really enjoyed chapter 7 that gave me a lot of great tips to enhance my Visual Studio “experience”.  Tips on organizing projects where good.  Also even though I knew about configurations I like that he put that in there so you can move all your settings to another machine, a lot of people don’t know about that. Quick find and Resharper are also briefly covered.  He touches on macros (depreciated in 2012).  Finally he touches on Continuous Integration a very important concept in today’s ALM landscape. Chapter 8 is all about Parallelization, threads, Async, division of labor, reactive extensions.  All those concepts are touched on and again generalized approaches to those modern problems are giving.       Chapter 9 goes into distributed apps, the most used and accepted practice in the industry for .NET projects the chapter tackles concepts like Scalability, Messaging and Cloud (the flavor of the month of distributed apps, although I think this will stick ;-)).  He also looks a protocols TCP/UDP and how to debug distributed apps.  He touches on logging and health monitoring. Chapter 10 tackles recommended practices for web services starting with implementing WCF services, which goes into all sort of goodness like how to host in IIS or self-host.  How to manual test WCF services, also a section on authentication and authorization.  ASP.NET Web services are also touched on in that chapter All in all a good read, nice tips and accepted practices.  I like the conciseness of the subjects and Peter touches on a lot of things in this book and uses a lot of the current technologies flavors to explain the concepts.   Cheers, ET

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

  - by Bob Rhubart

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

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• Barcodes and Bugs

  - by Tim Dexter

  A great mail from Mike at Browning last week. He has been through the ringer getting his BIP barcoding sorted out but he's now out of the woods. Here's the final result. By way of explanation, an excerpt from Mike's email:   This is an example of the GS1_128 carton shipping labels we are now producing with BIP in our web application for our vendors who drop ship products to our dealers. It produces 4 labels per printed page, in PDF format, on peel & stick label paper. Each label has a unique carton number, and a unique carton serial number in the SSCC-18 barcode. This example is for Cabelas (each customer has slightly different GS1-128 label format requirements – custom template for each - a pain!). I am using custom java encoders I wrote for the UPC and SSCC-18 barcodes, and a standard encoder (code128b) for the ShipTo zip barcode. Is there any way yet to get around that SUPER ANNOYING bug when opening the rtf template in MS Word, and it replaces my xsl code text in the barcode fields with gibberish??? Every time I open it I have to re-enter all the xsl code. Not only to be able to read & edit it, but also to get it to work in BIP (BIP doesn’t like the gibberish if I upload the template that has it). Mike's last point, regarding the annoying bug in the template builder, is one that I have experienced occasionally. The development team have looked at it and found it to be an issue with MSWord and not a plugin problem. That's all well and good but how can you get around it? Well, you can take advantage of the font mapping that BIP offers to get the barcodes into the PDF output. As many of you know, getting a barcode font to appear in the PDF output, you need employ the use of the xdo.cfg file in the template builder config directory.You would normally have an entry such as this:         <font family="Code 128" style="normal" weight="normal">        <truetype path="C:\windows\fonts\128R00.TTF" />       </font>to map a barcode font to get it to render in the PDF output when testing from the template builder plugin.   Mike's issue is only present when the formfield is highlighted with a barcode font. The other fields in the template are OK. What you can do to get around the issue is to bend the config entry to get around having to use the barcode font in the template at all. Changing the entry to something like:         <font family="Calibri" style="normal" weight="normal">        <truetype path="C:\windows\fonts\128R00.TTF" />       </font>   Note that we are mapping the Calibri; a humanly readable and non 'erroring' font in the template, to the code 128 barcode font. Where you used to highlight the field with the barcode in MSWord, you now use the Calibri font instead. At run time, BIP will go look for the Calibri font mapping and will drop in the Code128 font. Of course, Calibri is an example; you need to pick a font that you are not going to use any where else in the layout.

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• How to ace Skype Interviews

  - by FelixWehmeyer

  Many companies these days opt to include a Skype interview in the recruitment process, as it comes close to a face-to-face interview without the time and costs involved for both the company and the candidate. In some cases during the recruitment process at Oracle you also might be asked to conduct a Skype interview. To help you get started with this, we researched some websites to give you several tips and tricks. What most of the bloggers say about this topic is collected in this article to help you prepare. It is all about Technology The bit that can make a Skype interview more complicated than a face-to-face or phone interview is the fact you are using additional technology. Always check the video and audio capabilities of your computer to make sure they work properly. Be prepared for connections to be limited during the interview. Using a webcam can also be confusing, if you do not have a lot of experience using it. Make sure you look at the camera and not the monitor to avoid the impression you are looking away. Practice If you do not feel comfortable using the camera, do a mock interview with a friend or family member before you have the actual interview. Be aware that facial impressions or reactions come across differently on a monitor, so make sure to practice how you  come across during the interview. Good lighting in the room also helps you make you look the best for the interviewer. You and your room Dress code, as in any face-to-face interview,is important to think about. Dress the same way as you would for face-to-face interviews and avoid patterns or informal clothing. Another tip,is to be aware of your surroundings. Make sure the room you use looks good on camera, making sure it is neat and tidy, also think about how the walls look behind you. Also make sure you do not get distracted during the interview by anyone or anything, as this will directly have an impact on your interview and your ability to focus and concentrate. What is in a name What goes for any account that you share during the recruitment process, either your email address or Skype name, is to make sure it comes across as professional. Try to avoid using nicknames or strange words in your accounts, stick to using a first name – last name or an abbreviation of the same. If you would like to read more about this topic, have a look at the links below which we used as inspiration for this blog article. 7 Deadly Skype Interview Sins is fun to read and to gives you some good advice to keep in mind. ·         http://www.inc.com/guides/201103/4-tips-for-conducting-a-job-interview-using-skype.html ·         http://blog.simplyhired.com/2012/05/5-tips-to-a-great-skype-interview.html ·         http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/07/11/skype.interview.tips.cb/index.html http://www.ehow.com/how_5648281_prepare-skype-interview.html

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• A story of Murphy&ndash;my technical issues at TechDays Switzerland #chtd

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  I had two sessions at the recent Swiss TechDays. While the first one (Advanced Development for Windows Phone 8) went extremely well (I think), I had a very annoying technical issue in the beginning of my second session. First let me add that I talked to Microsoft about that and I hope they will change a few things in the room assignment for next year. My two sessions were one right after the other, with only 15 minutes break to change room. I don’t mind having two sessions so close from each other, but I would really like them to be in the same room in order to avoid having to move my laptops (plural, that will become important later) and redoing the tech check. That being said, I am guilty of not checking where my talks would be before the day before the conference, and when I did notice, it was too late to change it. After my first session, I quickly moved to the other room and setup my main laptop, a Dell Precision. We tested the video output (VGA) and didn’t notice anything special. The projectors are using a fairly high resolution (kudos to the Basel conference center for not having old school 1024x768 projectors anymore, that makes Blend really hard to demo ;) but since everything went great during the first talk, I was not worried. In fact I even had some time to chat with some early attendees about my Microsoft Surface and the Samsung Slate 7, which I had carried with me in addition to the Precision. I just thought it would be nice to show the hardware that Windows 8 can run on, without thinking any further. When the session started, I immediately noticed that the main screen was not showing anything. I thought I had just forgotten to switch to “duplicate” for the video output, and did that with a quick Win-P. However it didn’t “hold”. After 2 seconds, it reverted back to a black display for my attendees. Then I started to really worry. We tried everything, switching from VGA to HDMI, changing the resolution, setting the projector as primary display, but nothing did the trick. The projector was just refusing to show my screen. Now, to show you how despaired I started to be, I even considered using the “extend” setting (which worked just fine), and to use one of the feedback monitors on the floor but really it was super cumbersome. Eventually, my last resort arrived: I started my Samsung Slate 7, which by chance has Visual Studio 12 and Blend 5 installed, plugged the HDMI projector in the dock (yes, I had the dock with me, which I usually don’t!), connected it to internet (had to enter a long password for that), loaded the source code from my main machine using a USB stick and…. finally started to give my presentation. All in all I think we lost about 10 minutes. Amongst the most horrible minutes of my whole life, truly (yes I am blessed, I didn’t have that many horrible minutes in my life ;) I really want to apologize to my attendees. We joked a bit during the attempts to resolve the issue, the reactions I had after the session were all very nice and sympathetic. Only a handful of people left my session while I was having the issues, and I really don’t blame them (who knew how long the problem would last!!). But still, I probably talked at more than 60 sessions over the years, and this was by far my most painful moment. What did I learn? So what did I learn from this? Well from now on I will always have my slate ready with the latest source code, internet connection and every tool I might need during the presentation. This way, if I detect even a hint that the Precision might not work, I will just switch to the Slate. The experience of presenting on the slate is actually not bad at all, it is just a bit slow for my taste, but it does work. By the way, I will be posting the code and slides for my sessions very soon, I just need to “clean it and zip it”. Stay tuned, and thanks again for your patience in that horrible circumstance. Cheers Laurent   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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• Wisdom Lies in Collaborative Power and Intelligence

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  By Alakh Verma, Director, Platform Technology Solutions   In my recent blog posts, I shared insights on Predictive Analytics (Will Predictive Analytics at 'Speed of Thoughts' Help Businesses?), Real Time Decisions (How critical are Real Time decisions in business today?) and their significance in our lives in general and in businesses today. In the current business paradigm shift- with evolutionary social business, it is paramount that businesses look for wisdom in collaborative power and intelligence and equip their employees with the tools to engage with one another. There is an old time saying that 5 sticks tied together are stronger and unable to break as opposed to an individual stick. We have recently witnessed the power of ordinary people uniting together and fought collaboratively using Facebook and Twitter to topple down dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya—and are threatening absolute rule in Syria. And an India one man’s (Anna Hazare) campaign against corruption went viral, bringing thousands to the streets in support. As anyone who has worked in a sizeable organization knows, there is no guarantee that the organization as a whole will perform efficiently and achieve its goals, even if each employee is individually efficient and every team has a high level of productivity. To achieve enterprise productivity, it is necessary not only for individuals and groups to “do things right” by working productively but also for the enterprise as a whole to “do the right things” - form the right teams, make the right decisions, allocate resources correctly, and effectively coordinate activities across the entire organization. Most organizations fall short of the optimal level of enterprise productivity because of one or more of these reasons, all at a great cost to the business.  They are disconnected from themselves with various parts of the organization unintentionally working at cross-purposes with each other.  Information that exists is not getting shared or reused.  Human talent is not being applied where it is most needed.  The same problems are being solved repeatedly by multiple groups. Intelligent collaboration through automated business processes has the ability to alter the course of any important business activity, with a potentially dramatic impact on the financial performance of the business. Whether it is a simple email exchange, a physical or virtual meeting, a task force, or a large-scale project, the activity is inherently collaborative.  In fact, collaboration can be defined as the work that takes place among people when a business process is not pre-determining how the work should take place. Collaboration is many things: information sharing, brainstorming, problem solving, best practice negotiation, innovation, coordination of activity, alignment of purpose, and so forth.  Collaboration is the “white space” between the business processes; it is the glue that holds an organization together, and the lubricant that allows the machinery to keep running.  Real time search and collaborative capabilities of the right people with the right content supported by defined processes will provide unparallel wisdom in the organization in the most competitive business environment today. Interestingly, technologies such as Oracle WebCenter offer these capabilities in our Web based business transactions and compliment in the overall collaborative intelligence and power to truly transform organizations to social businesses. Looking to learn more about engaging your employees to collaborate together and providing a complete user experience for your customers? You won't want to miss our webcast today! Drive Online Engagement with Intuitive Portals and Websites

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• Bitmap font rendering, UV generation and vertex placement

  - by jack

  I am generating a bitmap, however, I am not sure on how to render the UV's and placement. I had a thread like this once before, but it was too loosely worded as to what I was looking to do. What I am doing right now is creating a large 1024x1024 image with characters evenly placed every 64 pixels. Here is an example of what I mean. I then save the bitmap X/Y information to a file (which is all multiples of 64). However, I am not sure how to properly use this information and bitmap to render. This falls into two different categories, UV generation and kerning. Now I believe I know how to do both of these, however, when I attempt to couple them together I will get horrendous results. For example, I am trying to render two different text arrays, "123" and "njfb". While ignoring the texture quality (I will be increasing the texture to provide more detail once I fix this issue), here is what it looks like when I try to render them. http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/599/badfontrendering.png Now for the algorithm. I am doing my letter placement with both GetABCWidth and GetKerningPairs. I am using GetABCWidth for the width of the characters, then I am getting the kerning information for adjust the characters. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can implement my own bitmap font renderer? I am trying to do this without using external libraries such as angel bitmap tool or freetype. I also want to stick to the way the bitmap font sheet is generated so I can do extra effects in the future. Rendering Algorithm for(U32 c = 0, vertexID = 0, i = 0; c < numberOfCharacters; ++c, vertexID += 4, i += 6) { ObtainCharInformation(fontName, m_Text[c]); letterWidth = (charInfo.A + charInfo.B + charInfo.C) * scale; if(c != 0) { DWORD BytesReq = GetGlyphOutlineW(dc, m_Text[c], GGO_GRAY8_BITMAP, &gm, 0, 0, &mat); U8 * glyphImg= new U8[BytesReq]; DWORD r = GetGlyphOutlineW(dc, m_Text[c], GGO_GRAY8_BITMAP, &gm, BytesReq, glyphImg, &mat); for (int k=0; k<nKerningPairs; k++) { if ((kerningpairs[k].wFirst == previousCharIndex) && (kerningpairs[k].wSecond == m_Text[c])) { letterBottomLeftX += (kerningpairs[k].iKernAmount * scale); break; } } letterBottomLeftX -= (gm.gmCellIncX * scale); } SetVertex(letterBottomLeftX, 0.0f, zFight, vertexID); SetVertex(letterBottomLeftX, letterHeight, zFight, vertexID + 1); SetVertex(letterBottomLeftX + letterWidth, letterHeight, zFight, vertexID + 2); SetVertex(letterBottomLeftX + letterWidth, 0.0f, zFight, vertexID + 3); zFight -= 0.001f; float BottomLeftX = (F32)(charInfo.bitmapXOrigin) / (float)m_BitmapWidth; float BottomLeftY = (F32)(charInfo.bitmapYOrigin + charInfo.charBitmapHeight) / (float)m_BitmapWidth; float TopLeftX = BottomLeftX; float TopLeftY = (F32)(charInfo.bitmapYOrigin) / (float)m_BitmapWidth; float TopRightX = (F32)(charInfo.bitmapXOrigin + charInfo.B - charInfo.C) / (float)m_BitmapWidth; float TopRightY = TopLeftY; float BottomRightX = TopRightX; float BottomRightY = BottomLeftY; SetTextureCoordinate(TopLeftX, TopLeftY, vertexID + 1); SetTextureCoordinate(BottomLeftX, BottomLeftY, vertexID + 0); SetTextureCoordinate(BottomRightX, BottomRightY, vertexID + 3); SetTextureCoordinate(TopRightX, TopRightY, vertexID + 2); /// index setting letterBottomLeftX += letterWidth; previousCharIndex = m_Text[c]; }

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