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• Silverlight Cream for May 12, 2010 -- #860

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Miroslav Miroslavov(-2-), Mike Snow(-2-, -3-), Paul Sheriff, Fadi Abdelqader, Jeremy Likness, Marlon Grech, and Victor Gaudioso. Shoutouts: Andy Beaulieu has a cool WP7 game up and is looking for opinions/comments: Droppy Pop: A Windows Phone 7 Game Karl Shifflett has code and video tutorials up for the app he wrote for the WPF LOB tour he just did: Stuff – WPF Line of Business Using MVVM Video Tutorial From SilverlightCream.com: Flipping panels I had missed this 3rd part of the CompleteIT explanation. In this post Miroslav Miroslavov describes the page flipping they're doing. Great explanation and all the code included. Flying objects against you The 4th part of the CompleteIT explanation is blogged by Miroslav Miroslavov where he is discussing the screen elements 'flying toward' the user. Silverlight Tip of the Day #17 – Double Click Mike Snow's Tip of the Day 17 is showing how to implement mouse double-clicks either for an individual control or for an entire app. Silverlight Tip of the Day #18 – Elastic Scrolling In Mike Snow's Tip of the Day 18, he's talking about and showing some 'elastic' scrolling in his image viewer application. He's asking for opinions and suggestions. Silverlight Tip of the Day #19 – Using Bing Maps in Silverlight Mike Snow's Tips are getting more elaborate :) ... Number 19 is about using the BingMap control in your Silverlight app. Control to Control Binding in WPF/Silverlight Paul Sheriff demonstrates control to control binding... saving a bunch of code behind in the process. Project included. Your First Step to the Silverlight Voice/Video Chatting Client/Server Fadi Abdelqader has a post up at CodeProject using the WebCam and Mic features of Silverlight 4 to setup a voice & video chatting app. MVVM Coding by Convention (Convention over Configuration) Jeremy Likness discusses Convention over Configuration and gives up some good MVVM nuggets along the way... check out his nice long post and grab the source for the project too... and also check out the external links he has in there. MEFedMVVM changes >> from cool to cooler Marlon Grech has refactored MEFedMVVM, and in addition is working with other MVVM framework folks to use some of the same MEF techniques in theirs... code on CodePlex New Silverlight Video Tutorial: How to Create a Silverlight Paging System to Load new Pages In Victor Gaudioso's latest video tutorial he builds a ContentHolder UserControl that will load any page on demand into your MainPage.xaml Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Simple heart container script for 2D game (Unity)?

  - by N1ghtshade3

  I'm attempting to create a simple mobile game (C#) that involves a simple three-heart life system. After searching for hours online, many of the solutions use OnGUI (which is apparently horrible for performance) and the rest are too complicated for me to understand and add to my code. The other solutions involve using a single texture and just hiding part of it when damage is taken. In my game, however, the player should be able to go over three hearts (for example, every 100 points). Sebastian Lague's Zelda-Style Health is what I'm looking for, but even though it's a tutorial there is way too much going on that I don't need or can't customize to fit in mine. What I have so far is a script called HealthScript.cs which contains a variable lives. I have another script, PlayerPhysics.cs which calls HealthScript and subtracts a life when an enemy is hit. The part I don't get is actually drawing the hearts. I think I understand what needs to happen, I just am not experienced enough with Unity to know how. The Start function should draw three (or whatever lives is set to) hearts in the top right corner. Since the game should be resolution-independent to accommodate the various sizes of Android devices, I'd rather use scaling rather than PixelInset. When the player hits an enemy as detected by PlayerPhysics.cs, it should subtract from lives. I think that I have this working using this.GetComponent<HealthScript>().lives -= 1 but I'm not sure if it actually works. This should trigger a redraw of the hearts so that there are now two hearts. The same principle would apply for adding hearts when a score is reached, except when lives > maxHeartsPerRow, the new hearts should be drawn below the old ones. I realise I don't have much code to show but believe me; I've tried for quite some time to figure this out and have little to show for it. Any help at all would be welcome; it seems like it shouldn't take that much code to put an image on the screen for each life there is, but I haven't found anything yet. Thanks!

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• Extensible Metadata in Oracle IRM 11g

  - by martin.abrahams

  Another significant change in Oracle IRM 11g is that we now use XML to create the tamperproof header for each sealed document. This article explains what this means, and what benefit it offers. So, every sealed file has a metadata header that contains information about the document - its classification, its format, the user who sealed it, the name and URL of the IRM Server, and much more. The IRM Desktop and other IRM applications use this information to formulate the request for rights, as well as to enhance the user experience by exposing some of the metadata in the user interface. For example, in Windows explorer you can see some metadata exposed as properties of a sealed file and in the mouse-over tooltip. The following image shows 10g and 11g metadata side by side. As you can see, the 11g metadata is written as XML as opposed to the simple delimited text format used in 10g. So why does this matter? The key benefit of using XML is that it creates the opportunity for sealing applications to use custom metadata. This in turn creates the opportunity for custom classification models to be defined and enforced. Out of the box, the solution uses the context classification model, in which two particular pieces of metadata form the basis of rights evaluation - the context name and the document's item code. But a custom sealing application could use some other model entirely, enabling rights decisions to be evaluated on some other basis. The integration with Oracle Beehive is a great example of this. When a user adds a document to a Beehive workspace, that document can be automatically sealed with metadata that represents the Beehive security model rather than the context model. As a consequence, IRM can enforce the Beehive security model precisely and all rights configuration can actually be managed through the Beehive UI rather than the IRM UI. In this scenario, IRM simply supports the Beehive application, seamlessly extending Beehive security to all copies of workspace documents without any additional administration. Finally, I mentioned that the metadata header is tamperproof. This is obviously to stop a rogue user modifying the metadata with a view to gaining unauthorised access - reclassifying a board document to a less sensitive classifcation, for example. To prevent this, the header is digitally signed and can only be manipulated by a suitably authorised sealing application.

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• ZTE USB Modem AC2736, connection not possible in Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS

  - by Fredo

  It's a long post but nearly covers all my experiments and changes I did to my NM. Hope the information is complete and if there are still question, more information can be provided. I've a ZTE AC2736 USB Modem (CDMA modem) which worked fine in Ubuntu 10.04 /11.10. I recently switched to 12.04.1 (precise pangolin). after the switch the first issue I faced was to connect to internet using my USB modem (ISP: Reliance Brand: Netconnect). Tried to run the drivers provided by Reliance but they are old and won't support Kernel 2.6.30 above. since the code was not downloaded with ISO image (of 12.04) i couldn't compile the files provided in such driver. lsusb does detect it as Modem with output similar to 19d2:fff1 ZTE CDMA technologies inc. (or similar as i didn't note it down) If it is detected as USB storage it shows 19d2:fff5 (as per few online forums, i may be wrong here). I used the network Manager and configured the modem to dial #777 (default) and the ISP provided username:password combination. It tries to connect to internet (3-4 times automatically)but fails to get online. once I was able to connect in the monring hours and the message was flashed 'registered on CDMA home network'. I was able to run an update. the kernel was updated with 3.0.2 -pae OR something similar (can find out if required). I surfed the net for about 2 hours later before restarting. After the restart, again the Modem was not able to get me online. I kept trying for many times. I tried changing the setting in NM. One evening after dark I was able to connect to network with same message flash 'registered on CDMA home network' (the message was similar, i'm not precise here,sorry). I was able to surf the net for nearly 3 hours before I switched off my Laptop. I'm not able to get online after that day, It's been 3 days now. I'll try the observered theory of late/early hours sometime soon as mentioned below. Laptop configuration : Make: Lenovo Model: B480 Processor: Intel B950 RAM: 4G DDR3 HDD: 500 G Broadcom Wireless/Bluetooth/Ethernet LAN OS: FreeDOS / Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (dualboot) Kernel 3.0.2-pae Obeservation : I'm able to connect to internet in those hours when generally the speed is high (low usage by other network (wireless) users). like in early mornings or late nights. This is strange as connection should not be dependent on bandwidth usage. Any help would be appraciated to fix this issue. before I decide to cahnge the OS or ISP.

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• Torchlight Black Screen and doesn't show up

  - by Lelouch Reyiz

  When I open it in full screen I get a black screen that covers whole screen,in windowed mode middle of screen.Here is a video: https://copy.com/fvrGw7QIJ8Z0 Terminal Output: alperen@alperen-Inspiron-N5010 /usr/local/games/Torchlight $ ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64 Creating resource group General Creating resource group Internal Creating resource group Autodetect SceneManagerFactory for type 'DefaultSceneManager' registered. Registering ResourceManager for type Material Registering ResourceManager for type Mesh Registering ResourceManager for type Skeleton MovableObjectFactory for type 'ParticleSystem' registered. OverlayElementFactory for type Panel registered. OverlayElementFactory for type BorderPanel registered. OverlayElementFactory for type TextArea registered. Registering ResourceManager for type Font ArchiveFactory for archive type FileSystem registered. ArchiveFactory for archive type Zip registered. FreeImage version: 3.13.1 This program uses FreeImage, a free, open source image library supporting all common bitmap formats. See http://freeimage.sourceforge.net for details Supported formats: bmp,ico,jpg,jif,jpeg,jpe,jng,koa,iff,lbm,mng,pbm,pbm,pcd,pcx,pgm,pgm,png,ppm,ppm,ras,tga,targa,tif,tiff,wap,wbmp,wbm,psd,cut,xbm,xpm,gif,hdr,g3,sgi,exr,j2k,j2c,jp2,pfm,pct,pict,pic,bay,bmq,cr2,crw,cs1,dc2,dcr,dng,erf,fff,hdr,k25,kdc,mdc,mos,mrw,nef,orf,pef,pxn,raf,raw,rdc,sr2,srf,arw,3fr,cine,ia,kc2,mef,nrw,qtk,rw2,sti,drf,dsc,ptx,cap,iiq,rwz DDS codec registering Registering ResourceManager for type HighLevelGpuProgram Registering ResourceManager for type Compositor MovableObjectFactory for type 'Entity' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'Light' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'BillboardSet' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'ManualObject' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'BillboardChain' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'RibbonTrail' registered. Loading library lib64/OGRE/RenderSystem_GL Installing plugin: GL RenderSystem OpenGL Rendering Subsystem created. Plugin successfully installed Loading library lib64/OGRE/Plugin_ParticleFX Installing plugin: ParticleFX Particle Emitter Type 'Point' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Box' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Ellipsoid' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Cylinder' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Ring' registered Particle Emitter Type 'HollowEllipsoid' registered Particle Affector Type 'LinearForce' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourFader' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourFader2' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourImage' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourInterpolator' registered Particle Affector Type 'Scaler' registered Particle Affector Type 'Rotator' registered Particle Affector Type 'DirectionRandomiser' registered Particle Affector Type 'DeflectorPlane' registered Plugin successfully installed Loading library lib64/OGRE/Plugin_OctreeSceneManager Installing plugin: Octree & Terrain Scene Manager Plugin successfully installed *-*-* OGRE Initialising *-*-* Version 1.6.5 (Shoggoth) terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::out_of_range' what(): basic_string::substr Error: signal: 6 ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN10LinuxUtils13crash_handlerEi+0x25)[0x17eb6f5] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(+0x37000)[0x7fc647877000] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(gsignal+0x39)[0x7fc647876f89] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(abort+0x148)[0x7fc64787a398] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(_ZN9__gnu_cxx27__verbose_terminate_handlerEv+0x155)[0x7fc6481826b5] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0x5e836)[0x7fc648180836] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0x5e863)[0x7fc648180863] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0x5eaa2)[0x7fc648180aa2] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(_ZSt20__throw_out_of_rangePKc+0x67)[0x7fc6481d25d7] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0xbe3d3)[0x7fc6481e03d3] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN11CFileSystem21buildMassiveDataGroupEv+0x453)[0x1617805] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN11CFileSystemC1Eb+0x14be)[0x16145ae] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN22CMasterResourceManagerC1EP9CSettings+0x41a)[0xfe1d0a] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN5CGame5setupEb+0x79a)[0x73ceaa] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN5CGame5beginEPv+0x28d)[0x73b839] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(main+0x649)[0x146dbe4] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xf5)[0x7fc647861ec5] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64[0x739ca9]

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

  - by Derek

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

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• Remote synchronization

  - by Tomas Mysik

  Hi all, today we would like to show you another improvement we have prepared for NetBeans 7.2. Today, let's talk a little bit about remote synchronization. If you already use our simple (S)FTP client, this enhancement could be useful for you. Simply right click on Source Files and select Synchronize. Please notice that the remote synchronization works better only on the whole project (it means that the Source Files must be selected). The Synchronize action is also available on individual files (more files can be selected at once) but the suggested operation (download, upload etc.) does not work so precisely. Also please notice that the suggested operations are not 100% reliable since the timestamps provided by FTP servers are not exact. Once the remote files (their names and paths only, of course) are fetched, the main dialog appears: As you can see, NetBeans tries to suggest you operations (upload, download etc.) which should be done for each individual file of your project. If you are interested only in some particular changes, you can simply filter the list: Since we have a file conflict, we need to resolve it first. Fortunately this is very easy because we just select the desired file and click the Diff button . The remote version of our file is downloaded and compared with the local version. The resut is displayed in the dialog where you can easily apply and/or refuse the remote changes or even simply type manually to the local version of the selected file: Once we are done with our changes, the operation for the selected file changes to Upload and the file is marked with * (since we made some changes). Please notice that if you now click the Cancel button, in fact no changes are done in our local file. As you can see, if we have one or more files selected, we can change their operation to: no operation (file won't be synchronized) download upload delete (both local and remote file) reset (the operation is resetted to the original one suggested by NetBeans and also all changes done via Diff action are discarded) Now we are ready to synchronize our project. NetBeans will show us the synchronization summary (this dialog can be omitted, see the Show Summary checkbox on the previous image). The synchronization itself starts and we can see its progress and of course its result. As always, all the operations can be reviewed in the Output window. That's all for today, as always, please test it and report all the issues or enhancements you find in NetBeans BugZilla (component php, subcomponent FTP support).

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• Create Shortcuts for Your Favorite or Most Used Folders in Ubuntu

  - by Asian Angel

  Do you have certain folders that you access often each day but are only available through the Places Menu or Nautilus? See how easy it is to create shortcuts for your desktop and taskbar with our quick tutorial. To get started open Nautilus and locate the folders that you want to make new shortcuts for. For our example we chose Ubuntu One. Right click on the chosen folder and select Make Link. Your new shortcut will appear with the text Link to “Folder Name” and an Arrow Shortcut Marker attached. If you are happy with your new shortcut as is, then drag it to your desktop or taskbar as desired. We created the shortcut twice in our example…once for the desktop and once for the taskbar. For our example we decided to customize the taskbar shortcut a bit. To customize your shortcut right click on the shortcut and select Properties. Note: The desktop shortcut is limited on the amount you can customize it (name change and addition of up to four emblems to the folder). From here you can rename the shortcut and change the icon as desired. A quick name change and new icon made a huge improvement in how our taskbar shortcut looked. Note: The link for the icon we used is shown below. A little touch-up to our desktop shortcut and both are looking good. Download the Ubuntu Cloud Icon *Icon is 128*128 pixels and comes in .png format. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Macs Don’t Make You Creative! So Why Do Artists Really Love Apple? MacX DVD Ripper Pro is Free for How-To Geek Readers (Time Limited!) HTG Explains: What’s a Solid State Drive and What Do I Need to Know? How to Get Amazing Color from Photos in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Learn To Adjust Contrast Like a Pro in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Have You Ever Wondered How Your Operating System Got Its Name? Create Shortcuts for Your Favorite or Most Used Folders in Ubuntu Create Custom Sized Thumbnail Images with Simple Image Resizer [Cross-Platform] Etch a Circuit Board using a Simple Homemade Mixture Sync Blocker Stops iTunes from Automatically Syncing The Journey to the Mystical Forest [Wallpaper] Trace Your Browser’s Roots on the Browser Family Tree [Infographic]

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• Preview Links and Images in Google Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  Anyone who has used the CoolPreviews extension in Firefox knows how wonderful that preview window can be. Now you can get the same kind of functionality in Chrome with the ezLinkPreview extension. Note: Extension will not work on websites containing “frame buster” code (navigation to the actual URL will occur). Before Normally if you want to have a better look at a particular webpage the only option you have is to go ahead and open it in a new tab or window. But it would certainly be nice to be able to take a quick “sneak peek” before-hand… After As soon as you have finished installing the extension everything is ready to go…just refresh any pages open prior to installation and enjoy the preview goodness. When you hover your mouse near any link you will notice a small “Preview Button” appear with the letters “EZ” inside. A closer look at the “Preview Button”. Click on the “Preview Button” to open the popup window. Now you can get a very good idea of whether the page is worth visiting or not. Here is a closer look at the popup window. Notice that you can see the URL for the webpage and access a convenient set of buttons on the right side (Open to new tab, Pin to keep overlay open, and Close). You can even resize the window as desired to best suit your needs (you can actually grab any of the four corners to resize the popup window). It is also possible to open a “preview window” inside the popup window…you can see the “Preview Button” here… If you have Chrome maximized you can enjoy using a large sized “preview window”. Now that is nice! For those who may be curious you can see that ezLinkPreview works nicely with images too. Conclusion The ezLinkPreview extension provides a quick and simple way to preview links and/or images while you are browsing. If you are looking for similar functionality in Firefox then be sure to read our article on CoolPreviews here. Links Download the ezLinkPreview extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Google Image Search Quick FixSubscribe to RSS Feeds in Chrome with a Single ClickFind a Website’s Actual Location with Chrome FlagsHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default BrowserEnable Auto-Paging Goodness in Google Chrome TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job?

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• BPM ADF Task forms. Checking whether the current user is in a BPM Swimlane

  - by Christopher Karl Chan

  @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --Focus So this blog entry will focus on BPM Swimlane roles and users from a ADF context. So we have an ADF Task Details Form and we are in the process of making it richer and dynamic in functionality. A common requirement could be to dynamically show different areas based on the user logged into the workspace. Perhaps even we want to know even what swim-lane role the user belongs to. It is is a little bit harder to achieve then one thinks unless you know the trick. The Challenge The tricky part here is that the ADF Task Details Form is in fact part of a separate J2EE application to the main workspace. So if you try to use Java or Expression Language to get the logged in user you will only find anonymous and none of the BPM Roles you will be expecting. So what to do? The Magic First add the BC4J Security library to your view project. Then Restart JDeveloper. Now find the web.xml file in the view project of your ADF Task Details Application and look for the JpsFilter section. Then add in the following section. <init-param> <param-name>application.name</param-name> <param-value>OracleBPMProcessRolesApp</param-value></init-param> This will link your application to that of the BPM workspace. Then in your dynamic part of your ADF form you can now check whether the user logged into the BPM Workspace belongs in a BPM swim-lane in any BPM process. The best way to do this is by using expression language in the JSF page itself. Here I am simply changing the rendered flag to either true or false and thereby hiding or showing a section. Perhaps you are re-using the same form for a task in an approver swim-lane and ordinary user swimlane. So we only want the approver to see this field. So call the built in function to check if the user is a member of the BPM swim-lane role. The name of the role must be of the syntax BPMProject.RoleName <af:outputText value="This will only be rendered when the user is part of the BPM Swimlane Role rendered="#{securityContext.userInRole['BPMProjectName.Rolename']}"/> Now you must redeploy your ADF Task Form project Now (in the image above) the text will ONLY get rendered in the Task Details Form only if the user logged into the workspace is a member of the swimlane Unsecure of the BPM project SimpleTask

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• XNA Notes 001

  - by George Clingerman

  Just a quick recap of things I noticed going on in or around the XNA community this past week. I’m sure there’s a lot I missed (it’s a pretty big community with lots of different parts to it) but these where the things I caught that I thought were pretty cool. The XNA Team Michael Klucher gave a list of books every gamer should read. http://twitter.com/#!/mklucher/status/22313041135673344 Shawn Hargreaves posted Nelxon Studio posting about a cheatsheet for converting 3.1 to 4.0 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2011/01/04/xna-3-1-to-4-0-cheat-sheet.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter XNA Game Studio won the Frontline award for Programming Tool by GameDev magazine! Congrats to the XNA team! http://www.gdmag.com/homepage.htm XNA MVPs In January several MVPs were up for re-election, Jim Perry, Andy ‘The ZMan’ Dunn, Glenn Wilson and myself were all re-award a Microsoft MVP award for their contributions to the XNA/DirectX communities. https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=XNA%2fDirectX A movement to get Michael McLaughlin an MVP award has started and you can join in too! http://twitter.com/#!/theBigDaddio/status/22744458621620224 http://www.xnadevelopment.com/MVP/MichaelMcLaughlinMVP.txt Don’t forget you can nominate ANYONE for a MVP award, that’s how they work. https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpbecoming  XNA Developers James Silva of Ska Studios hit 9,200 sales of ZP2KX and recommends you listen to Infected Mushroom. http://twitter.com/#!/Jamezila/status/22538865357094912 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infected_Mushroom Noogy creator of the upcoming XBLA title Dust an Elysian tail posts some details into his art creation. http://noogy.com/image/statue/statue.html Xbox LIVE Indie Game News Microsoft posts acknowledging there was an issue with the sales data that has been addressed and apologized for not posting about it sooner. http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/71347/436154.aspx#436154 Winter Uprising sales still chugging along and being updated by Xalterax (by those developers willing to actually share sales numbers. Thanks for sharing guys, much appreciated!) http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/70147.aspx Don’t forget about Dream Build Play coming up in February! http://www.dreambuildplay.com/Main/Home.aspx The Best Xbox LIVE Indie Games December Edition comes out on NeoGaf http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=414485 The Greatest XBox LIVE Indie Games of 2010 on DealSpwn – Congrats to DrMistry and MStarGames for his #1 spot with his massive XBLIG Space Pirates From Tomorrow! http://www.dealspwn.com/xbligoty-2010/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Dealspwn+%28Dealspwn%29 XNA Game Development The future of XACT and WP7 has finally been confirmed and we finally know what our options are for looping audio seamlessly on WP7. http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/61826/436639.aspx#436639  Super Mario 3 Design Notes is an interesting read for XBLIG developers, giving some insight to the training that natural occurs for players as they start playing the game. Good things for XBLIG developers to think about. http://www.significant-bits.com/super-mario-bros-3-level-design-lessons

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• SQL – Contest to Get The Date – Win USD 50 Amazon Gift Cards and Cool Gift

  - by Pinal Dave

  If you are a regular reader of this blog – you will find no issue at all in resolving this puzzle. This contest is based on my experience with NuoDB. If you are not familiar with NuoDB, here are few pointers for you. Step by Step Guide to Download and Install NuoDB – Getting Started with NuoDB Quick Start with Admin Sections of NuoDB – Manage NuoDB Database Quick Start with Explorer Sections of NuoDB – Query NuoDB Database In today’s contest you have to answer following questions: Q 1: Precision of NOW() What is the precision of the NuoDB’s NOW() function, which returns current date time? Hint: Run following script on NuoDB Console Explorer section: SELECT NOW() AS CurrentTime FROM dual; Here is the image. I have masked the area where the time precision is displayed. Q 2: Executing Date and Time Script When I execute following script - SELECT 'today' AS Today, 'tomorrow' AS Tomorrow, 'yesterday' AS Yesterday FROM dual; I will get the following result:   NOW – What will be the answer when we execute following script? and WHY? SELECT CAST('today' AS DATE) AS Today, CAST('tomorrow' AS DATE) AS Tomorrow, CAST('yesterday'AS DATE) AS Yesterday FROM dual; HINT: Install NuoDB (it takes 90 seconds). Prizes: 2 Amazon Gifts 2 Limited Edition Hoodies (US resident only)   Rules: Please leave an answer in the comments section below. You must answer both the questions together in a single comment. US resident who wants to qualify to win NuoDB apparel please mention your country in the comment. You can resubmit your answer multiple times, the latest entry will be considered valid. Last day to participate in the puzzle is June 24, 2013. All valid answer will be kept hidden till June 24, 2013. The winner will be announced on June 25, 2013. Two Winners will get USD 25 worth Amazon Gift Card. (Total Value = 25 x 2 = 50 USD) The winner will be selected using a random algorithm from all the valid answers. Anybody with a valid email address can take part in the contest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: NuoDB

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• Desktop Fun: Happy New Year Wallpaper Collection [Bonus Edition]

  - by Asian Angel

  As this year draws to a close, it is a time to reflect back on what we have done this year and to look forward to the new one. To help commemorate the event we have put together a bonus size edition of Happy New Year wallpapers for your desktops. Extra Note: We made a special effort to find wallpapers for this collection without the year “printed” on them, thus allowing for reuse as desired and/or needed beyond the 2010 – 2011 holiday. Note: Click on the picture to see the full-size image—these wallpapers vary in size so you may need to crop, stretch, or place them on a colored background in order to best match them to your screen’s resolution. For more New Year’s desktop goodness be sure to check out our Happy New Year icon & font packs collection (link at bottom)! Note: This wallpaper will need to be placed on a larger white background in order to increase the height. Note: This wallpaper will need to be placed on a larger background in order to increase the width and height. Note: This wallpaper comes in multiple sizes and will need to be downloaded as a zip file. Note: This wallpaper comes in multiple sizes and will need to be downloaded as a zip file. Note: The download size for the original version of this wallpaper is 15 MB. Note: The download size for the original version of this wallpaper is 15 MB. More Happy New Year Fun Desktop Fun: Happy New Year Icon and Font Packs For more wallpapers be certain to see our great collections in the Desktop Fun section. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? HTG Explains: Why Does Photo Paper Improve Print Quality? The Outdoor Lights Scene from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation [Video] The Famous Home Alone Pizza Delivery Scene [Classic Video] Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Theme for Windows 7 Cardinal and Rabbit Sharing a Tree on a Cold Winter Morning Wallpaper An Alternate Star Wars Christmas Special [Video] Sunset in a Tropical Paradise Wallpaper

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• ADF Code Guidelines

  - by Chris Muir

  During Oracle Open World 2012 the ADF Product Management team announced a new OTN website, the ADF Architecture Square.  While OOW represents a great opportunity to let customers know about new and exciting developments, the problem with making announcements during OOW however is customers are bombarded with so many messages that it's easy to miss something important. So in this blog post I'd like to highlight as part of the ADF Architecture Square website, one of the initial core offerings is a new document entitled ADF Code Guidelines. Now the title of this document should hopefully make it obvious what the document contains, but what's the purpose of the document, why did Oracle create it? Personally having worked as an ADF consultant before joining Oracle, one thing I noted amongst ADF customers who had successfully deployed production systems, that they all approached software development in a professional and engineered way, and all of these customers had their own guideline documents on ADF best practices, conventions and recommendations.  These documents designed to be consumed by their own staff to ensure ADF applications were "built right", typically sourced their guidelines from their team's own expert learnings, and the huge amount of ADF technical collateral that is publicly available.  Maybe from manuals and whitepapers, presentations and blog posts, some written by Oracle and some written by independent sources. Now this is all good and well for the teams that have gone through this effort, gathering all the information and putting it into structured documents, kudos to them.  But for new customers who want to break into the ADF space, who have project pressures to deliver ADF solutions without necessarily working on assembling best practices, creating such a document is understandably (regrettably?) a low priority.  So in recognising this hurdle, at Oracle we've devised the ADF Code Guidelines.  This document sets out ADF code guidelines, practices and conventions for applications built using ADF Business Components and ADF Faces Rich Client (release 11g and greater).  The guidelines are summarized from a number of Oracle documents and other 3rd party collateral, with the goal of giving developers and development teams a short circuit on producing their own best practices collateral. The document is not a final production, but a living document that will be extended to cover new information as discovered or as the ADF framework changes. Readers are encouraged to discuss the guidelines on the ADF EMG and provide constructive feedback to me (Chris Muir) via the ADF EMG Issue Tracker. We hope you'll find the ADF Code Guidelines useful and look forward to providing updates in the near future. Image courtesy of paytai / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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• Getting up and started with the Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta 2

  - by mbcrump

  Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta 2 was released on 6/29/2011. Are you ready for it? If not then let my guide help you get your system prepared and go through a few new features. Download links: Web Installer of Windows Phone 7.1 Beta 2 SDK ISO Image of Windows Phone 7.1 Beta 2 SDK - (723 MB) To get started you are going to need to remove the previous version of your Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta 1.   This kicks off the process of uninstalling the Beta.   Once it is uninstalled then you are going to want to grab the bits from: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26648. The only thing your interested in here is the vm_web2.exe.   Make sure before you start that Zune is not running or you will get this error message like this one and have to restart from scratch. Now just go through your normal Install Screens. It should be installed and ready to go: A couple of things to note: 1) When creating a new phone application you now have several new templates to choose from as shown below. I welcome this addition because I’m a firm believer that we need more templates in order to get more people started. 2) Once you select an application template you can now pick which version of the Windows Phone platform that you wish to target: 3) If you created a WP7 7.1 Beta 1 project that it will still work properly in WP7 7.1 Beta 2. 4) You now have access to the search app icon. Once pressed then you will see something like this: 5) Under Settings –> Applications. You now have background tasks. 6) You will notice that the Web Browser looks a little different with the URL now located at the bottom of the screen and completely removing the “add”, “favorites” and “tabs” icon. Those icons are now moved to the menu bar.   That is it for my “Getting up and going with the Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta 2”. I hope you enjoyed it and please feel free to subscribe to my feed or follow me on Twitter.   Subscribe to my feed

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• ray collision with rectangle and floating point accuracy

  - by phq

  I'm trying to solve a problem with a ray bouncing on a box. Actually it is a sphere but for simplicity the box dimensions are expanded by the sphere radius when doing the collision test making the sphere a single ray. It is done by projecting the ray onto all faces of the box and pick the one that is closest. However because I'm using floating point variables I fear that the projected point onto the surface might be interpreted as being below in the next iteration, also I will later allow the sphere to move which might make that scenario more likely. Also the bounce coefficient might be as low as zero, making the sphere continue along the surface. So my naive solution is to project not only forwards but backwards to catch those cases. That is where I got into problems shown in the figure: In the first iteration the first black arrow is calculated and we end up at a point on the surface of the box. In the second iteration the "back projection" hits the other surface making the second black arrow bounce on the wrong surface. If there are several boxes close to each other this has further consequences making the sphere fall through them all. So my main question is how to handle possible floating point accuracy when placing the sphere on the box surface so it does not fall through. In writing this question I got the idea to have a threshold to only accept back projections a certain amount much smaller than the box but larger than the possible accuracy limitation, this would only cause the "false" back projection when the sphere hit the box on an edge which would appear naturally. To clarify my original approach, the arrows shown in the image is not only the path the sphere travels but is also representing a single time step in the simulation. In reality the time step is much smaller about 0.05 of the box size. The path traveled is projected onto possible sides to avoid traveling past a thinner object at higher speeds. In normal situations the floating point accuracy is not an issue but there are two situations where I have the concern. When the new position at the end of the time step is located very close to the surface, very unlikely though. When using a bounce factor of 0, here it happens every time the sphere hit a box. To add some loss of accuracy, the motivation for my concern, is that the sphere and box are in different coordinate systems and thus the sphere location is transformed for every test. This last one is why I'm not willing to stand on luck that one floating point value lying on top of the box always will be interpreted the same. I did not know voronoi regions by name, but looking at it I'm not sure how it would be used in a projection scenario that I'm using here.

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• How do I reconfigure my GLES frame buffer after a rotation?

  - by Panda Pajama

  I am implementing interface rotation for my GLES based game for iOS, written in Xamarin.iOS with OpenTK. I am detecting the rotation by overriding WillRotate, in my UIViewController, and I correctly re-setup all of my projection matrices. However, when drawing a sprite, the image looks a bit blurrier on the landscape version compared to the portrait version, as you can see in the following closeups magnified 10x. Portrait (before rotating) Landscape (after rotating) In both cases, I'm using the same texture with the same sampler, the same shader, and the same GL state. I just changed the order of the parameters in the projection matrix, so the resulting sizes should be exactly the same pixelwise. Since this could be thought of as a window resize, I suppose that the framebuffer has to be recreated to the new size. When working on desktop apps on Direct3D11 (SharpDX), I would have to call swapChain.ResizeBuffers() to do this. I have tried setting AutoResize = true in my iPhoneOSGameView, but then the framebuffer gets clipped as I rotate the interface, and then everything disappears when rotating the interface again. I'm not doing anything strange, my framebuffer initialization is pretty vanilla: int scaling = (int)UIScreen.MainScreen.Scale; DeviceWidth = (int)UIScreen.MainScreen.Bounds.Width * scaling; DeviceHeight = (int)UIScreen.MainScreen.Bounds.Height * scaling; Size = new System.Drawing.Size((int)(DeviceWidth), (int)(DeviceHeight)); Bounds = new System.Drawing.RectangleF(0, 0, DeviceWidth, DeviceHeight); Frame = new System.Drawing.RectangleF(0, 0, DeviceWidth, DeviceHeight); ContextRenderingApi = EAGLRenderingAPI.OpenGLES2; AutoResize = true; LayerRetainsBacking = true; LayerColorFormat = EAGLColorFormat.RGBA8; I get inconsistent results when changing Size, Bounds and Frame on my CreateFrameBuffer override, but since the documentation is so incomplete (it has nothing on Bounds and Frame), I have resorted to randomly changing stuff here and there without really knowing what is going on. There is a similar question which has no answers. However, I don't know if they're experiencing the same problem as I am. Is my supposition that recreating the framebuffer is necessary, correct? If so, does anybody know how to do it correctly in OpenTK for Xamarin.iOS?

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• When following SRP, how should I deal with validating and saving entities?

  - by Kristof Claes

  I've been reading Clean Code and various online articles about SOLID lately, and the more I read about it, the more I feel like I don't know anything. Let's say I'm building a web application using ASP.NET MVC 3. Let's say I have a UsersController with a Create action like this: public class UsersController : Controller { public ActionResult Create(CreateUserViewModel viewModel) { } } In that action method I want to save a user to the database if the data that was entered is valid. Now, according to the Single Responsibility Principle an object should have a single responsibility, and that responsibility should be entirely encapsulated by the class. All its services should be narrowly aligned with that responsibility. Since validation and saving to the database are two separate responsibilities, I guess I should create to separate class to handle them like this: public class UsersController : Controller { private ICreateUserValidator validator; private IUserService service; public UsersController(ICreateUserValidator validator, IUserService service) { this.validator = validator; this.service= service; } public ActionResult Create(CreateUserViewModel viewModel) { ValidationResult result = validator.IsValid(viewModel); if (result.IsValid) { service.CreateUser(viewModel); return RedirectToAction("Index"); } else { foreach (var errorMessage in result.ErrorMessages) { ModelState.AddModelError(String.Empty, errorMessage); } return View(viewModel); } } } That makes some sense to me, but I'm not at all sure that this is the right way to handle things like this. It is for example entirely possible to pass an invalid instance of CreateUserViewModel to the IUserService class. I know I could use the built in DataAnnotations, but what when they aren't enough? Image that my ICreateUserValidator checks the database to see if there already is another user with the same name... Another option is to let the IUserService take care of the validation like this: public class UserService : IUserService { private ICreateUserValidator validator; public UserService(ICreateUserValidator validator) { this.validator = validator; } public ValidationResult CreateUser(CreateUserViewModel viewModel) { var result = validator.IsValid(viewModel); if (result.IsValid) { // Save the user } return result; } } But I feel I'm violating the Single Responsibility Principle here. How should I deal with something like this?

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• Help, i cant reference my vars!

  - by SystemNetworks

  I have a sub-class(let's call it sub) and it contains all the function of an object in my game. In my main class(Let's call it main), i connect my sub to main. (Example sub Code: s = new sub(); Then I put my sub function at the update method. Code: s.myFunc(); Becuase in my sub, i have booleans, integers, float and more. The problem is that I don't want to connect my main class to use my main's int, booleans and others. If i connect it, it will have a stack overflow. This is what I put in my sub: Code: package javagame; import org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer; import org.newdawn.slick.Graphics; import org.newdawn.slick.Input; import org.newdawn.slick.state.StateBasedGame; public class Armory { package javagame; import org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer; import org.newdawn.slick.Graphics; import org.newdawn.slick.Input; import org.newdawn.slick.state.StateBasedGame; public class Store { public Integer wood; public Float probePositionX; public Float probePositionY; public Boolean StoreOn; public Boolean darkBought; public Integer money; public Integer darkEnergy; public Integer lifeLeft; public Integer powerLeft; public void darkStores(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg, GameContainer gc2) { Input input1 = gc.getInput(); //Player need wood to enter(200) If not there will be an error. if(wood>=200) { //Enter Store! if(input1.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_Q)) { //Player must be in this cord! if((probePositionX>393 && probePositionX<555) && (probePositionY< 271 && probePositionY>171)) { //The Store is On StoreOn=true; } } } } } In my main (update function) I put: Code: s.darkBought = darkBought; s.darkEnergy = darkEnergy; s.lifeLeft = lifeLeft; s.money = money; s.powerLeft = powerLeft; s.probePositionX = probePositionX; s.probePositionY = probePositionY; s.StoreOn = StoreOn; s.wood = wood; s.darkStores(gc, sbg, gc); The problem is when I go to the place, and I press q, nothing shows up. It should show another image. Is there anything wrong???

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• How can I implement collision detection for these tiles?

  - by Fiona

  I am wondering how this would be possible, if at all. In the image below: http://i.stack.imgur.com/d8cO3.png The light brows tiles are ground, while the dark brown is background, so the player can pass over those tiles. Here's the for loops that draws the level: float scale = 1f; for (row = 0; row < currentLevel.Rows; row++) { for (column = 0; column < currentLevel.Columns; column++) { Tile tile = (Tile)currentLevel.GetTile(row, column); if (tile == null) { continue; } Texture2D texture = tile.Texture; spriteBatch.Draw(texture, new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Rectangle( (int)(column * currentLevel.CellSize.X * scale), (int)(row * currentLevel.CellSize.Y * scale), (int)(currentLevel.CellSize.X * scale), (int)(currentLevel.CellSize.Y * scale)), Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Color.White); } } Here's what I have so far to determine where to create a Rectangle: Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Rectangle[,,,] groundBounds = new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Rectangle[?, ?, ?, ?]; int tileSize = 20; int screenSizeInTiles = 30; var tilePositions = new System.Drawing.Point[screenSizeInTiles, screenSizeInTiles]; for (int x = 0; x < screenSizeInTiles; x++) { for (int y = 0; y < screenSizeInTiles; y++) { tilePositions[x, y] = new System.Drawing.Point(x * tileSize, y * tileSize); groundBounds[x, y, tileSize, tileSize] = new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Rectangle(x, y, 20, 20); } } First off, I'm not sure how to initialize the array groundBounds (I don't know how big to make it). Also, I'm not entirely sure how to go about adding information to groundBounds. I want to add a Rectangle for each tile in the level. Preferably I'd only make a Rectangle for those tiles accessible by the player, and not background tiles, but that's for a different day. FYI, the map was made with a freeware program called Realm Factory.

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• HighPoint RocketRAID 62x Controller

  - by TeXnewbie

  I have the subject card recently installed in Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.2.0-31-generic x86_64). See partial lspci -vv listing below (complete listing played havoc with pre tags): 03:00.0 RAID bus controller: HighPoint Technologies, Inc. Device 0622 (rev 01) Subsystem: HighPoint Technologies, Inc. Device 0001 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 32 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11 Region 0: I/O ports at 9c00 [size=8] Region 1: I/O ports at 9800 [size=4] Region 2: I/O ports at 9400 [size=8] Region 3: I/O ports at 9000 [size=4] Region 4: I/O ports at 8c00 [size=16] Region 5: Memory at fdbff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K] Expansion ROM at fdbe0000 [disabled] [size=64K] Capabilities: I followed instructions I found at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RocketRaid to compile the drivers for it, and although performing the process described there seemed to work fine with no noticeable errors, when I rebooted after performing that procedure I could not boot. During dkms steps, I noticed messages indicating that (If next boot fails, revert to initrd.img-3.2.0-31-generic.old-dkms image) update-initramfs................ so I booted using a Ubuntu 12.10 LiveDVD and reverted to the old-dkms initrd.img as suggested above, but this failed to repair the boot problem. Ultimately, I used https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair in Ubuntu-Secure-Remix to fix the boot problem and was able to boot normally again, but now with the newly generated initrd.img in place again (which now boots normally), when I modprobe the rr62x kernel module, I immediately get a hard crash with messages to console about a kernel paging request that seems to have caused the problem. I've tried on multiple occasions now to use the newly built kernel module so as to allow me to use an eSATA port multiplier plugged into the card, but to no avail. Any suggestions on fixes or workarounds (I've read that some of the HighPoint cards (2720SGL) seem to work as a host bus adapter and thus may not need a custom driver, but that seems not to be the case for mine) would be most appreciated. My goal is to use the card as described here and with software RAID mdadm utilities. If necessary, I can hand-copy the console messages after the hard crash into a follow-up message, but I obviously can't do a cut/paste. I'll gladly provide any other details that are needed, but not sure what those would be at this point, so I'll refrain from adding other details for now. Thanks in advance for any help.

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• PCF shadow shader math causing artifacts

  - by user2971069

  For a while now I used PCSS for my shadow technique of choice until I discovered a type of percentage closer filtering. This method creates really smooth shadows and with hopes of improving performance, with only a fraction of texture samples, I tried to implement PCF into my shader. This is the relevant code: float c0, c1, c2, c3; float f = blurFactor; float2 coord = ProjectedTexCoords; if (receiverDistance - tex2D(lightSampler, coord + float2(0, 0)).x > 0.0007) c0 = 1; if (receiverDistance - tex2D(lightSampler, coord + float2(f, 0)).x > 0.0007) c1 = 1; if (receiverDistance - tex2D(lightSampler, coord + float2(0, f)).x > 0.0007) c2 = 1; if (receiverDistance - tex2D(lightSampler, coord + float2(f, f)).x > 0.0007) c3 = 1; coord = (coord % f) / f; return 1 - (c0 * (1 - coord.x) * (1 - coord.y) + c1 * coord.x * (1 - coord.y) + c2 * (1 - coord.x) * coord.y + c3 * coord.x * coord.y); This is a very basic implementation. blurFactor is initialized with 1 / LightTextureSize. So the if statements fetch the occlusion values for the four adjacent texels. I now want to weight each value based on the actual position of the texture coordinate. If it's near the bottom-right pixel, that occlusion value should be preferred. The weighting itself is done with a simple bilinear interpolation function, however this function takes a 2d vector in the range [0..1] so I have to convert my texture coordinate to get the distance from my first pixel to the second one in range [0..1]. For that I used the mod operator to get it into [0..f] range and then divided by f. This code makes sense to me, and for specific blurFactors it works, producing really smooth one pixel wide shadows, but not for all blurFactors. Initially blurFactor is (1 / LightTextureSize) to sample the 4 adjacent texels. I now want to increase the blurFactor by factor x to get a smooth interpolation across maybe 4 or so pixels. But that is when weird artifacts show up. Here is an image: Using a 1x on blurFactor produces a good result, 0.5 is as expected not so smooth. 2x however doesn't work at all. I found that only a factor of 1/2^n produces an good result, every other factor produces artifacts. I'm pretty sure the error lies here: coord = (coord % f) / f; Maybe the modulo is not calculated correctly? I have no idea how to fix that. Is it even possible for pixel that are further than 1 pixel away?

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• Virtual Lab part 2&ndash;Templates, Patterns, Baselines

  - by Geoff N. Hiten

  Once you have a good virtualization platform chosen, whether it is a desktop, server or laptop environment, the temptation is to build “X”.  “X” may be a SharePoint lab, a Virtual Cluster, an AD test environment or some other cool project that you really need RIGHT NOW.  That would be doing it wrong. My grandfather taught woodworking and cabinetmaking for twenty-seven years at a trade school in Alabama.  He was the first instructor hired at that school and the only teacher for the first two years.  His students built tables, chairs, and workbenches so the school could start its HVAC courses.   Visiting as a child, I also noticed many extra “helper” stands, benches, holders, and gadgets all built from wood.  What does that have to do with a virtual lab, you ask?  Well, that is the same approach you should take.  Build stuff that you will use.  Not for solving a particular problem, but to let the Virtual Lab be part of your normal troubleshooting toolkit. Start with basic copies of various Operating Systems.  Load and patch server and desktop OS environments.  This also helps build your collection of ISO files, another essential element of a virtual Lab.  Once you have these “baseline” images, you can use your Virtualization software’s snapshot capability to freeze the image.  Clone the snapshot and you have a brand new fully patched machine in mere moments.  You may have to sysprep some of the Microsoft OS environments if you are going to create a domain environment or experiment with clustering.  That is still much faster than loading and patching from scratch. So once you have a stock of raw materials (baseline images in this case) where should you start.  Again, my grandfather’s workshop gives us the answer.  In the shop it was workbenches and tables to hold large workpieces that made the equipment more useful.  In a Windows environment the same role falls to the fundamental network services:  DHCP, DNS, Active Directory, Routing, File Services, and Storage services.  Plan your internal network setup.  Build out an AD controller with all the features listed.  Make the actual domain an isolated domain so it will not care about where you take it.  Add the Microsoft iSCSI target.  Once you have this single system, you can leverage it for almost any network environment beyond a simple stand-alone system. Having these templates and fundamental infrastructure elements ready to run means I can build a quick lab in minutes instead of hours.  My solutions are well-tested, my processes fully documented with screenshots, and my plans validated well before I have to make any changes to client systems.  the work I put in is easily returned in increased value and client satisfaction.

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• How do I import my first sprites?

  - by steven_desu

  Continuing from this question (new question - now unrelated) So I have a thorough background in programming already (algorithms, math, logic, graphing problems, etc.) however I've never attempted to code a game before. In fact, I've never had anything more than minimal input from a user during the execution of a program. Generally input was given from a file or passed through console, all necessary functions were performed, then the program terminated with an output. I decided to try and get in on the world of game development. From several posts I've seen around gamedev.stackexchange.com XNA seems to be a favorite, and it was recommended to me when I asked where to start. I've downloaded and installed Visual Studio 2010 along with the XNA Framework and now I can't seem to get moving in the right direction. I started out looking on Google for "xna game studio tutorial", "xna game development beginners", "my first xna game", etc. I found lots of crap. The official "Introduction to Game Studio 4.0" gave me this (plus my own train of thought happily pasted on top thanks to MSPaint): http://tinypic.com/r/2w1sgvq/7 The "Get Additional Help" link (my best guess, since there was no "Continue" or "Next" link) lead me to this page: http://tinypic.com/r/2qa0dgx/7 I tried every page. The forum was the only thing that seemed helpful, however searching for "beginner", "newbie", "getting started", "first project", and similar on the forums turned up many threads with specific questions that are a bit above my level ("beginner to collision detection", for instance) Disappointed I returned to the XNA Game Studio home page. Surely their own website would have some introduction, tutorial, or at least a useful link to a community. EVERYTHING on their website was about coding Windows Phone 7.... Everything. http://tinypic.com/r/10eit8i/7 http://tinypic.com/r/120m9gl/7 Giving up on any official documentation after a while, I went back to Google. I managed to locate www.xnadevelopment.com. The website is built around XNA Game Studio 3.0, but how different can 3.0 be from 4.0?.... Apparently different enough. http://tinypic.com/r/5d8mk9/7 http://tinypic.com/r/25hflli/7 Figuring that this was the correct folder, I right-clicked.... http://tinypic.com/r/24o94yu/7 Hmm... maybe by "Add Content Reference" they mean "Add a reference to an existing file (content)"? Let's try it (after all- it's my only option) http://tinypic.com/r/2417eqt/7 At this point I gave up. I'm back. My original goal in my last question was to create a keyboard-navigable 3D world (no physics necessary, no logic or real game necessary). After my recent failures my goal has been revised. I want to display an image on the screen. Hopefully in time I'll be able to move it with the keyboard.

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• Determining cause of random latency and loading issues

  - by Sherwin Flight

  I'm not sure exactly what details to post in regards to my issue, because I'm not sure what is relevant. Prior to the end of September my websites all loaded quickly, in almost all cases. Loading time wasn't usually more than a few seconds. However, since the end of September I noticed a big increase in page loading times. In some cases pages were taking 30 seconds or more to load. I do have a remote monitoring service monitoring some of the sites as well, and the image below shows the response times over the past month. The response times shown at the beginning of this graph were what the usual response times were prior to this issue occurring. You can see that there has been a significant increase in response times from the beginning to the end of this graph. The thing is, the problem is not happening 100% of the time. If I click through the site, or even just keep refreshing the page, about 25% of the time the pages load quickly, the remaining 75% of the time they load slowly. Sometimes the pages take so long to load that they time out, and don't load at all. I have contacted my hosting provider, and they said things at their end was fine. I don't believe the problem is my home internet provider, because all other websites load without a problem. The server is located in Texas, USA. This also raises another interesting point. My remote monitor checks my site from two locations, California, USA, and London, England. As you can see in the chart below the response time is actually shorter when checked from London, which doesn't seem to make sense, since the server is physically closer to the California monitoring location. I would have expected the London monitoring location to have higher response times since they are physically farther away. I should also point out that in some traceroute test I've done it seem like the first connection to the server seems to take the longest, then after that the rest of the page loads quickly. Below is a little chart showing the times for the first connection to the server. So, what could be causing this problem, and what steps can I take to resolve it or at least narrow down the problem? Sending the request to the server was very quick, and receiving the reply back seems pretty quick, but the WAIT time is really long. So it connects, sends the request, but then waits close to 30 seconds before it starts receiving data back. I am also aware that there are things I can do to speed up page loading times, like reducing the number of CSS and JS files used on a page, compressing images, etc. This is not really what the source of the problem is though, because nothing has really changed on the site since before the problem started, and other sites on the same server are loading slowly as well.

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