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• Which things instantly ring alarm bells when looking at code? [closed]

  - by FinnNk

  I attended a software craftsmanship event a couple of weeks ago and one of the comments made was "I'm sure we all recognize bad code when we see it" and everyone nodded sagely without further discussion. This sort of thing always worries me as there's that truism that everyone thinks they're an above average driver. Although I think I can recognize bad code I'd love to learn more about what other people consider to be code smells as it's rarely discussed in detail on people's blogs and only in a handful of books. In particular I think it'd be interesting to hear about anything that's a code smell in one language but not another. I'll start off with an easy one: Code in source control that has a high proportion of commented out code - why is it there? was it meant to be deleted? is it a half finished piece of work? maybe it shouldn't have been commented out and was only done when someone was testing something out? Personally I find this sort of thing really annoying even if it's just the odd line here and there, but when you see large blocks interspersed with the rest of the code it's totally unacceptable. It's also usually an indication that the rest of the code is likely to be of dubious quality as well.

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• People != Resources

  - by eddraper

  Ken Tabor’s blog post “They Are not Resources – We Are People” struck a chord with me.  I distinctly remember hearing the term “resources” within the context of “people” for the first time back in the late 90’s.  I was in a meeting at Compaq and a manager had been faced with some new scope for an IT project he was managing.  His response was that he needed more “resources” in order to get the job done.  As I knew the timeline for the project was fixed and the process for acquiring additional funding would almost certainly extend beyond his expected delivery date, I wondered what he meant.  After the meeting, I asked him what he meant… his response was that he needed some more “bodies” to get the job done.  For a minute, my mind whirred… why is it so difficult to simply say “people?”  This particular manager was neither a bad person nor a bad manager… quite the contrary.  I respected him quite a bit and still do.  Over time, I began to notice that he was what could be termed an “early adopter” of many “Business speak” terms – such as “sooner rather than later,” “thrown a curve,” “boil the ocean” etcetera.  Over time, I’ve discovered that much of this lexicon can actually be useful, though cliché and overused.  For example, “Boil the ocean” does serve a useful purpose in distilling a lot of verbiage and meaning into three simple words that paint a clear mental picture.  The term “resources” would serve a similar purpose if it were applied to the concept of time, funding, or people.  The problem is that this never happened.  “Resources”, “bodies”, “ICs” (individual contributors)… this is what “people” have become in the IT business world.  Why?  We’re talking about simple word choices here.  Why have human beings been deliberately dehumanized and abstracted in this manner? What useful purpose does it serve other than to demean and denigrate?

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• What's wrong with circular references?

  - by dash-tom-bang

  I was involved in a programming discussion today where I made some statements that basically assumed axiomatically that circular references (between modules, classes, whatever) are generally bad. Once I got through with my pitch, my coworker asked, "what's wrong with circular references?" I've got strong feelings on this, but it's hard for me to verbalize concisely and concretely. Any explanation that I may come up with tends to rely on other items that I too consider axioms ("can't use in isolation, so can't test", "unknown/undefined behavior as state mutates in the participating objects", etc.), but I'd love to hear a concise reason for why circular references are bad that don't take the kinds of leaps of faith that my own brain does, having spent many hours over the years untangling them to understand, fix, and extend various bits of code. Edit: I am not asking about homogenous circular references, like those in a doubly-linked list or pointer-to-parent. This question is really asking about "larger scope" circular references, like libA calling libB which calls back to libA. Substitute 'module' for 'lib' if you like. Thanks for all of the answers so far!

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• Graphics hardware warning when updating to 14.04

  - by pacomet

  As I use Ubuntu at work I just update only LTS versions but now I'm not sure if I can/should. As my computer is now ten years old I would change if was mine but as it is owned by my employer I have to work with it. It's not a bad one, it runs fine (this was not true when still had Windows on it ;-). When updating to 14.04, it warns about possible bad/slow performance with Unity 3D so I stop updating as I am at work, not my own computer. As I understand from http://askubuntu.com/a/438958/25305 Nvidia Geforce FX 5500 graphics card is still supported in 14.04. Now, in 12.04, I have driver version 173 and unity 2d runs fine for me. output of /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation OpenGL renderer string: GeForce FX 5500/AGP/SSE2 OpenGL version string: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 173.14.39 Not software rendered: yes Not blacklisted: no GLX fbconfig: yes GLX texture from pixmap: yes GL npot or rect textures: yes GL vertex program: yes GL fragment program: yes GL vertex buffer object: yes GL framebuffer object: yes GL version is 1.4+: yes Unity 3D supported: no Should I update? Is it better to stay with 12.04? Thanks

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• Is version history really sacred or is it better to rebase?

  - by dukeofgaming

  I've always agreed with Mercurial's mantra, however, now that Mercurial comes bundled with the rebase extension and it is a popular practice in git, I'm wondering if it could really be regarded as a "bad practice", or at least bad enough to avoid using. In any case, I'm aware of rebasing being dangerous after pushing. OTOH, I see the point of trying to package 5 commits in a single one to make it look niftier (specially at in a production branch), however, personally I think would be better to be able to see partial commits to a feature where some experimentation is done, even if it is not as nifty, but seeing something like "Tried to do it way X but it is not as optimal as Y after all, doing it Z taking Y as base" would IMHO have good value to those studying the codebase and follow the developers train of thought. My very opinionated (as in dumb, visceral, biased) point of view is that programmers like rebase to hide mistakes... and I don't think this is good for the project at all. So my question is: have you really found valuable to have such "organic commits" (i.e. untampered history) in practice?, or conversely, do you prefer to run into nifty well-packed commits and disregard the programmers' experimentation process?; whichever one you chose, why does that work for you? (having other team members to keep history, or alternatively, rebasing it).

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• how to fully unit test functions and their internal validation

  - by Patrick

  I am just now getting into formal unit testing and have come across an issue in testing separate internal parts of functions. I have created a base class of data manipulation (i.e.- moving files, chmodding file, etc) and in moveFile() I have multiple levels of validation to pinpoint when a moveFile() fails (i.e.- source file not readable, destination not writeable). I can't seem to figure out how to force a couple particular validations to fail while not tripping the previous validations. Example: I want the copying of a file to fail, but by the time I've gotten to the actual copying, I've checked for everything that can go wrong before copying. Code Snippit: (Bad code on the fifth line...) // if the change permissions is set, change the file permissions if($chmod !== null) { $mod_result = chmod($destination_directory.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$new_filename, $chmod); if($mod_result === false || $source_directory.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$source_filename == '/home/k...../file_chmod_failed.qif') { DataMan::logRawMessage('File permissions update failed on moveFile [ERR0009] - ['.$destination_directory.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$new_filename.' - '.$chmod.']', sfLogger::ALERT); return array('success' => false, 'type' => 'Internal Server Error [ERR0009]'); } } So how do I simulate the copy failing. My stop-gap measure was to perform a validation on the filename being copied and if it's absolute path matched my testing file, force the failure. I know this is very bad to put testing code into the actual code that will be used to run on the production server but I'm not sure how else to do it. Note: I am on PHP 5.2, symfony, using lime_test(). EDIT I am testing the chmodding and ensuring that the array('success' = false, 'type' = ..) is returned

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• In MVC, why can't a model create a view?

  - by MUY Belgium

  I have a web application written in Perl with a controller, some "views" and some "Models". Each "Model" is corresponding to one "View". The controller (one file) creates an Model object corresponding to each view (view is a CGI argument) then retrieve the view from the module it has just created. Indeed, this should be bad thing but can you argue a bit more about it. My first idea was that since the object "Model" depends upon the "view", then the "model" is actually a view. But also the fact that ALL the cgi parameters are passed to the Model causes the "Model" to become not truelly a view but to loose all interest, since it is only related to the current implementation of the web apps. On other words, that the "Model" keep model but loose its "comprehensiveness" ("Model" is not easily understandable). I'm am quite new in project analysis, so please do not be too harsh. Why is this bad? I have made a prototype with the main structures I have understood of this web application, made as short as possible. #Model.pm package Model; import { # this requires an attribute called "view" # and this require an argument which is the cgi params } ... #View1.pm package View1; ... #Model1.pm package ModelView1 ; base Model; use View1; sub new { my $class = shift; my $arg = shift; Model::DoSomething($arg); $self->view = new View1($arg); ... } #controller.cgi my $model = 0; ... $model = new Model1( cgi_param => params() ); #there is severall models here ... print $model->get_view()->get_html();

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• Ternary and Artificial Intelligence

  - by user2957844

  Not much of a programmer myself, however I have been thinking about the future of AI. If a fully functional AI is programmed in a binary environment as is used in current computing, would that create a bit of a black and white personality? As in just yes/no, on/off, 1/0? I will use the Skynet computer from the Terminator series as a bad analogy; it is brought online and comes to the conclusion that humanity should just be destroyed so the problem is resolved, basically its only options were; fire the missiles or not. (The films do not really go into what its moves would be after doing such a thing, but that goes into the realms of AI evolution so does not really fit with this question.) It may also have been badly programmed. Now, the human mind has been akin to a ternary system which allows our "out of the box" thinking along with all the other wonderful things our minds can do. So, would it not be more prudent to create a functional ternary system and program an AI using it so the resulting personality would be able to benefit from the third "maybe" (so to speak) option? I understand that in binary there are ways to get around the whole yes/no etc. way of things, however the basic operations are still just 1's and 0's. Again with using the above bad Skynet analogy; if it could have had that third "maybe" option as part of its core system, it may have decided to not launch due to being able to make sense of the intricacies of human nature and the politics of such a move etc. In effect, my question is; Would an AI benefit more from ternary computing as opposed to binary due to the inclusion of -1, or 2, dependent on the system ("maybe," as I call it)?

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• What is a good way to refactor a large, terribly written code base by myself? [closed]

  - by AgentKC

  Possible Duplicate: Techniques to re-factor garbage and maintain sanity? I have a fairly large PHP code base that I have been writing for the past 3 years. The problem is, I wrote this code when I was a terrible programmer and now it's tens of thousands of lines of conditionals and random MySQL queries everywhere. As you can imagine, there are a ton of bugs and they are extremely hard to find and fix. So I would like a good method to refactor this code so that it is much more manageable. The source code is quite bad; I did not even use classes or functions when I originally wrote it. At this point, I am considering rewriting the whole thing. I am the only developer and my time is pretty limited. I would like to get this done as quickly as possible, so I can get back to writing new features. Since rewriting the code would take a long time, I am looking for some methods that I can use to clean up the code as quickly as possible without leaving more bad architecture that will come back to haunt me later. So this is the basic question: What is a good way for a single developer to take a fairly large code base that has no architecture and refactor it into something with reasonable architecture that is not a nightmare to maintain and expand?

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• recovering raid 0 hard disk

  - by Hiawatha

  I bumped to a huge (for me) problem. I was running dual boot system (win 7 / linux) and at some point I decided to test fedora ( I am new in Linux ). My hard disk conf: 3 hard disks each 1 TB, 2 set to raid 0 with windows running on it and 1 for linux. After installing it from live usb I found out that windows 7 is not in grub anymore and while booting shows raid error. I installed back Ubuntu and ran Disk Utility and checked now I have one disks (raid 0) failed (READ) error. First has 5 bad sectors and second has 1 bad sector. And now I dont know what to do and how to repair. further I dont know which data i could provide to get help. I tried ntfsfix and got this output: Mounting volume... NTFS signature is missing. FAILED Attempting to correct errors... NTFS signature is missing. FAILED Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument NTFS signature is missing. Trying the alternate boot sector Unrecoverable error Volume is corrupt. You should run chkdsk. #sudo ntfs-3g -o force,rw /dev/sdb /media/windows NTFS signature is missing. Failed to mount '/dev/sdb': Invalid argument The device '/dev/sdb' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?

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• Which is the best way to catch an expiring domain name? [closed]

  - by newspeak

  I know a similar question has been asked, but I really don't know what to do. There is this .com domain which is currently on redemption period and should likely be available again within a month. I was wondering which is the best way to get it at a reasonable price. I don't think it's a highly valuable domain, it shows to have very bad ranking and has 0 exact same searches according to adwords. Why it is valuable to me is very simple: I have a project responding to this name. I already own the .net domain and would love to have the .com. I discovered the domain was going to be available thanks to an email I received by a backorder site. I did some research and these guys have a bad reputation on the web. I did further research and found that more reputable (at least in theory) companies should be the likes of snapnames, pool, namejet, godaddy, etc. I am a bit suspicious using these drop cathing services: What if they shill bids? What if they make it go into auction even if I'm the only person interested? What if I raise attention and interest to the domain by backordering? I just would rather wait for it to be deleted and available again to register it manually. It is really not an interesting domain name, and I don't think anyone would care to have it. But what if the domain is already being watched by the domain industry sharks? I did a whois research and my desired domain nameserves point to domcollect.com, which appears to be an auction site. What if I decide to wait for manual registration and I miss the chance to get it? I'm willing to spend the 60/70$ fees these sites require, but not really more than that. Suggestions? Thank you very much. I'm a bit confused and undecided.

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• ?????Exadata????

  - by Liu Maclean(???)

  ??check Exadata Image & OS versions , GI & DB patches sundiag exacheck cellserv ==> imageinfo dbhost ==> /usr/local/bin/imagehistory Also check the version of the switch. Login to Switch and execute the following command [root@myswitch-1 sbin]# version [root@dmorlsw-ib2 sbin]# cd /usr/local/bin [root@dmorlsw-ib2 bin]# ls -lrt version -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 20356 Apr 4 2011 version Output will look as below. [root@dmorlsw-ib2 ~]# version SUN DCS 36p version: 1.3.3-2 Build time: Apr 4 2011 11:15:19 SP board info: Manufacturing Date: 2009.05.05 Serial Number: "NCD3X0178" Hardware Revision: 0x0006 Firmware Revision: 0x0102 BIOS version: NOW1R112 BIOS date: 04/24/2009 ib8# cat /sys/class/infiniband/is4_0/fw_ver 7.2.300 ib8 # cat /sys/class/dmi/id/bios_version NOW1R112 ib8 # nm2version NM2-36p version: 1.0.1-1 Build time: Sep 14 2009 12:52:51 ComExpress info: Manufacturing Date: 2009.08.19 Serial Number: Hardware Revision: 0x0006 Firmware Revision: 0x0102 { case `uname` in Linux ) ILOM="/usr/bin/ipmitool sunoem cli" ;; SunOS ) ILOM="/opt/ipmitool/bin/ipmitool sunoem cli" ;; esac ; ImageInfo="/opt/oracle.cellos/imageinfo" ; uname -srm ; head -1 /etc/*release ; uptime | cut -d, -f1 ; $ILOM "show /SP system_description system_identifier" | grep = ; $ImageInfo -activated -node -status -ver | grep -v ^$ ; } | tee /tmp/ExaInfo.log $GRID_HOME/OPatch/opatch lsinv -all -oh $GRID_HOME | tee /tmp/OPatchInv.log $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch/opatch lsinv -all | tee -a /tmp/OPatchInv.log cat /tmp/ExaInfo.log Linux 2.6.18-128.1.16.0.1.el5 x86_64 ==> /etc/enterprise-release <== Enterprise Linux Enterprise Linux Server release 5.3 (Carthage) ==> /etc/redhat-release <== Enterprise Linux Enterprise Linux Server release 5.3 (Carthage) 20:37:56 up 458 days system_description = SUN FIRE X4170 SERVER, ILOM v3.0.6.10.b, r52264 system_identifier = Sun Oracle Database Machine Active image version: 11.2.1.2.3 Active image activated: XXXX-XX-XX 12:27:12 +0800 Active image status: success Active node type: COMPUTE Inactive image version: undefined FileName: OPatchInv.log ---------------- ... Oracle Home       : /u01/app/11.2.0/grid Central Inventory : /u01/app/oraInventory   from           : /etc/oraInst.loc OPatch version    : 11.2.0.1.2 OUI version       : 11.2.0.1.0 OUI location      : /u01/app/11.2.0/grid/oui ... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- List of Oracle Homes:   Name                                       Location   Ora11g_gridinfrahome1         /u01/app/11.2.0/grid   OraDb11g_home1                  /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Installed Top-level Products (1): Oracle Grid Infrastructure                                           11.2.0.1.0 ... Interim patches (2) : Patch  9524394      : applied on Thu Jun 03 20:46:05 CST 2010 ... {TRACKING BUG FOR 11.2.0.1 DB MACHINE BUNDLE PATCH 3} Patch  9455587      : applied on Fri Apr 02 18:27:47 CST 2010 ... {MERGE REQUEST ON TOP OF 11.2.0.1.0 FOR BUGS 8483425 8667622 8702731 8730804} Rac system comprising of multiple nodes  Local node = dbserv01  Remote node = dbserv02  Remote node = dbserv03  Remote node = dbserv04 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OPatch succeeded. ... Oracle Home       : /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 ... Oracle Database 11g                                                  11.2.0.1.0 ... Interim patches (5) : Patch  8888434      : applied on Sat Jan 08 00:27:33 CST 2011 ... {AIX-ASM-CF: LMHB TERMINATE INSTANCE WHEN OFFLINE ONE FAILGROUP IN ASM DG} Patch  8730312      : applied on Thu Jun 03 21:30:03 CST 2010 ... {FWD MERGE FOR BASE BUG 8715387 FOR 12G} Patch  9502717      : applied on Thu Jun 03 21:25:54 CST 2010 ... {LMS HIT ORA-600 [KJBLDRMNEXTPKEY:SEEN] AND CRASHED THE INSTANCE} { + same 2 as GI above} ?? cell server Cache Policy cell08# MegaCli64 -LDInfo -Lall -aALL | grep 'Current Cache Policy' Current Cache Policy: WriteThrough, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU cell09# MegaCli64 -LDInfo -Lall -aALL | grep 'Current Cache Policy' Current Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Default Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Current Cache Policy: WriteThrough, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Cache policy is in WB Would recommend proactive  battery repalcement. Example : a. /opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli/MegaCli64 -LDGetProp  -Cache -LALL -aALL ####( Will list the cache policy) b. /opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli/MegaCli64 -LDSetProp  -WB  -LALL -aALL ####( Will try to change teh policy from xx to WB)     So policy Change to WB will not come into effect immediately     Set Write Policy to WriteBack on Adapter 0, VD 0 (target id: 0) success     Battery capacity is below the threshold value ??cell BBU??????: cell08# /opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli/MegaCli64 -AdpBbuCmd -GetBbuStatus -a0 BBU status for Adapter: 0 BatteryType: iBBU Voltage: 4061 mV Current: 0 mA Temperature: 36 C BBU Firmware Status: Charging Status : None Voltage : OK Temperature : OK Learn Cycle Requested : No Learn Cycle Active : No Learn Cycle Status : OK Learn Cycle Timeout : No I2c Errors Detected : No Battery Pack Missing : No Battery Replacement required : No Remaining Capacity Low : Yes Periodic Learn Required : No Battery state: GasGuageStatus: Fully Discharged : No Fully Charged : Yes Discharging : Yes Initialized : Yes Remaining Time Alarm : No Remaining Capacity Alarm: No Discharge Terminated : No Over Temperature : No Charging Terminated : No Over Charged : No Relative State of Charge: 99 % Charger System State: 49168 Charger System Ctrl: 0 Charging current: 0 mA Absolute state of charge: 21 % Max Error: 2 % Exit Code: 0x00 ????BBU ??: dcli -g ~/cell_group -l root -t '{ uname -srm ; head -1 /etc/*release ; uptime | cut -d, -f1 ; imagehistory ; ipmitool sunoem cli "show /SP system_description system_identifier" | grep = ; ipmitool sunoem cli "show /SP/policy FLASH_ACCELERATOR_CARD_INSTALLED /opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli/MegaCli64 -AdpBbuCmd -GetBbuStatus -a0 | egrep -i 'BBU|Battery|Charge:|Fully|Low|Learn' ; }' | tee /tmp/ExaInfo.log Target cells: ['cellserv01', 'cellserv02', 'cellserv03', 'cellserv04', 'cellserv05', 'cellserv06', 'cellserv07'] cellserv01: Linux 2.6.18-128.1.16.0.1.el5 x86_64 cellserv01: ==> /etc/enterprise-release <== cellserv01: Enterprise Linux Enterprise Linux Server release 5.3 (Carthage) cellserv01: cellserv01: ==> /etc/redhat-release <== cellserv01: Enterprise Linux Enterprise Linux Server release 5.3 (Carthage) cellserv01: 01:17:39 up 635 days cellserv01: Version : 11.2.1.2.1 cellserv01: Image activation date : 2011-03-25 11:59:34 -0800 cellserv01: Imaging mode : fresh cellserv01: Imaging status : success cellserv01: cellserv01: Version : 11.2.1.2.3 cellserv01: Image activation date : 2011-04-13 12:15:46 +0800 cellserv01: Imaging mode : patch cellserv01: Imaging status : success cellserv01: cellserv01: Version : 11.2.1.2.6 cellserv01: Image activation date : 2011-05-27 23:08:22 +0800 cellserv01: Imaging mode : patch cellserv01: Imaging status : success cellserv01: cellserv01: system_description = SUN FIRE X4275 SERVER, ILOM v3.0.6.10.b, r52264 cellserv01: system_identifier = Sun Oracle Database Machine cellserv01: Connected. Use ^D to exit. cellserv01: -> show /SP/policy FLASH_ACCELERATOR_CARD_INSTALLED cellserv01: show: No matching properties found. cellserv01: cellserv01: -> Session closed cellserv01: Disconnected cellserv01: BBU status for Adapter: 0 cellserv01: BatteryType: iBBU cellserv01: BBU Firmware Status: cellserv01: Learn Cycle Requested : No cellserv01: Learn Cycle Active : No cellserv01: Learn Cycle Status : OK cellserv01: Learn Cycle Timeout : No cellserv01: Battery Pack Missing : No cellserv01: Battery Replacement required : No cellserv01: Remaining Capacity Low : Yes cellserv01: Periodic Learn Required : No cellserv01: Battery state: cellserv01: Fully Discharged : No cellserv01: Fully Charged : Yes cellserv01: Relative State of Charge: 99 % cellserv01: Absolute state of charge: 21 % dcli -l root -g /root/all_group '/opt/MegaRAID/MegAaCli/MegaCli64 -AdpBbuCmd -a0' > BBU.out check ipmi: dcli -g ~/cell_group -l root -t '{ > ipmitool sunoem cli "show /SP/policy FLASH_ACCELERATOR_CARD_INSTALLED" | grep = ; MegaCli64 -LDInfo -Lall -aALL | grep 'Current Cache Policy' ; }' | tee /tmp/ExaCells.log

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• Vista/7: How to get glass color?

  - by Ian Boyd

  How do you use DwmGetColorizationColor? The documentation says it returns two values: a 32-bit 0xAARRGGBB containing the color used for glass composition a boolean parameter that is true "if the color is an opaque blend" (whatever that means) Here's a color that i like, a nice puke green: You can notice the color is greeny, and the translucent title bar (against a white background) shows the snot color very clearly: i try to get the color from Windows: DwmGetColorizationColor(dwCcolorization, bIsOpaqueBlend); And i get dwColorization: 0x0D0A0F04 bIsOpaqueBlend: false According to the documentation this value is of the format AARRGGBB, and so contains: AA: 0x0D (13) RR: 0x0A (10) GG: 0x0F (15) BB: 0x04 (4) This supposedly means that the color is (10, 15, 4), with an opacity of ~5.1%. But if you actually look at this RGB value, it's nowhere near my desired snot green. Here is (10, 15, 4) with zero opacity (the original color), and (10,15,4) with 5% opacity against a white/checkerboard background: So the question is: How to get glass color in Windows Vista/7? i tried using DwmGetColorizationColor, but that doesn't work very well. A person with same problem, but a nicer shiny picture to attract you squirrels: So, it boils down to – DwmGetColorizationColor is completely unusable for applications attempting to apply the current color onto an opaque surface. i love this guy's screenshots much better than mine. Using his screenshots as a template, i made up a few more sparklies: For the last two screenshots, the alpha blended chip is a true partially transparent PNG, blending to your browser's background. Cool! (i'm such a geek) Edit 2: Had to arrange them in rainbow color. (i'm such a geek) Edit 3: Well now i of course have to add Yellow. Undocumented/Unsupported/Fragile Workarounds There is an undocumented export from DwmApi.dll at entry point 137, which we'll call DwmGetColorizationParameters: HRESULT GetColorizationParameters_Undocumented(out DWMCOLORIZATIONPARAMS params); struct DWMCOLORIZATIONPARAMS { public UInt32 ColorizationColor; public UInt32 ColorizationAfterglow; public UInt32 ColorizationColorBalance; public UInt32 ColorizationAfterglowBalance; public UInt32 ColorizationBlurBalance; public UInt32 ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity; public UInt32 ColorizationOpaqueBlend; } We're interested in the first parameter: ColorizationColor. We can also read the value out of the registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM ColorizationColor: REG_DWORD = 0x6614A600 So you pick your poison of creating appcompat issues. You can rely on an undocumented API (which is bad, bad, bad, and can go away at any time) use an undocumented registry key (which is also bad, and can go away at any time) See also Is there a list of valid parameter combinations for GetThemeColor / Visual Styles API How does Windows change Aero Glass color? DWM - Colorization Color Handling Using DWMGetColorizationColor Retrieving Aero Glass base color for opaque surface rendering i've been wanting to ask this question for over a year now. i always knew that it's impossible to answer, and that the only way to get anyone to actually pay attention is to have colorful screenshots; developers are attracted to shiny things. But on the downside it means i had to put all kinds of work into making the lures.

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• China’s Better Life Selects Oracle® Retail to Support Hypermarket Growth

  - by user801960

  On Monday, China’s first multi-format retailer, Better Life Commercial Chain Share Co. announced that it has selected a broad selection of Oracle solutions including specific Oracle Retail applications to support the growth of its hypermarket operations. Better Life currently operates 186 hypermarkets, department stores, consumer electronics stores, as well as entertainment and real estate operations across Southern China. The company’s expansion strategy for its hypermarket business is integral to its overall plan for rapid growth in an increasingly competitive market and after evaluating Oracle and SAP, Better Life identified a range of Oracle solutions including components of Oracle Retail Merchandising Operations Management, Oracle Retail Merchandise Planning and Optimization, and Oracle Retail In-Store Operations as key enablers to optimizing its operations. The Oracle Retail offering will help Better Life to create a consolidated view of product, price, inventory and associated back office information that facilitates improved fulfilment of customer demand.  These solutions will also provide a better understanding of inventory from buying through store transactions, delivering actionable insight with which it can make smarter, more profitable decisions around planning, forecasting and replenishment. You can read the full blog post here: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1680357

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• Why Software Sucks...and What You Can Do About It – book review

  - by DigiMortal

      How do our users see the products we are writing for them and how happy they are with our work? Are they able to get their work done without fighting with cool features and crashes or are they just switching off resistance part of their brain to survive our software? Yeah, the overall picture of software usability landscape is not very nice. Okay, it is not even nice. But, fortunately, Why Software Sucks...and What You Can Do About It by David S. Platt explains everything. Why Software Sucks… is book for software users but I consider it as a-must reading also for developers and specially for their managers whose politics often kills all usability topics as soon as they may appear. For managers usability is soft topic that can be manipulated the way it is best in current state of project. Although developers are not UI designers and usability experts they are still very often forced to deal with these topics and this is how usability problems start (of course, also designers are able to produce designs that are stupid and too hard to use for users, but this blog here is about development). I found this book to be very interesting and funny reading. It is not humor book but it explains you all so you remember later very well what you just read. It took me about three evenings to go through this book and I am still enjoying what I found and how author explains our weird young working field to end users. I suggest this book to all developers – while you are demanding your management to hire or outsource usability expert you are at least causing less pain to end users. So, go and buy this book, just like I did. And… they thanks to mr. Platt :) There is one book more I suggest you to read if you are interested in usability - Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition by Steve Krug. Editorial review from Amazon Today’s software sucks. There’s no other good way to say it. It’s unsafe, allowing criminal programs to creep through the Internet wires into our very bedrooms. It’s unreliable, crashing when we need it most, wiping out hours or days of work with no way to get it back. And it’s hard to use, requiring large amounts of head-banging to figure out the simplest operations. It’s no secret that software sucks. You know that from personal experience, whether you use computers for work or personal tasks. In this book, programming insider David Platt explains why that’s the case and, more importantly, why it doesn’t have to be that way. And he explains it in plain, jargon-free English that’s a joy to read, using real-world examples with which you’re already familiar. In the end, he suggests what you, as a typical user, without a technical background, can do about this sad state of our software—how you, as an informed consumer, don’t have to take the abuse that bad software dishes out. As you might expect from the book’s title, Dave’s expose is laced with humor—sometimes outrageous, but always dead on. You’ll laugh out loud as you recall incidents with your own software that made you cry. You’ll slap your thigh with the same hand that so often pounded your computer desk and wished it was a bad programmer’s face. But Dave hasn’t written this book just for laughs. He’s written it to give long-overdue voice to your own discovery—that software does, indeed, suck, but it shouldn’t. Table of contents Acknowledgments xiii Introduction Chapter 1: Who’re You Calling a Dummy? Where We Came From Why It Still Sucks Today Control versus Ease of Use I Don’t Care How Your Program Works A Bad Feature and a Good One Stopping the Proceedings with Idiocy Testing on Live Animals Where We Are and What You Can Do Chapter 2: Tangled in the Web Where We Came From How It Works Why It Still Sucks Today Client-Centered Design versus Server-Centered Design Where’s My Eye Opener? It’s Obvious—Not! Splash, Flash, and Animation Testing on Live Animals What You Can Do about It Chapter 3: Keep Me Safe The Way It Was Why It Sucks Today What Programmers Need to Know, but Don’t A Human Operation Budgeting for Hassles Users Are Lazy Social Engineering Last Word on Security What You Can Do Chapter 4: Who the Heck Are You? Where We Came From Why It Still Sucks Today Incompatible Requirements OK, So Now What? Chapter 5: Who’re You Looking At? Yes, They Know You Why It Sucks More Than Ever Today Users Don’t Know Where the Risks Are What They Know First Milk You with Cookies? Privacy Policy Nonsense Covering Your Tracks The Google Conundrum Solution Chapter 6: Ten Thousand Geeks, Crazed on Jolt Cola See Them in Their Native Habitat All These Geeks Who Speaks, and When, and about What Selling It The Next Generation of Geeks—Passing It On Chapter 7: Who Are These Crazy Bastards Anyway? Homo Logicus Testosterone Poisoning Control and Contentment Making Models Geeks and Jocks Jargon Brains and Constraints Seven Habits of Geeks Chapter 8: Microsoft: Can’t Live With ’Em and Can’t Live Without ’Em They Run the World Me and Them Where We Came From Why It Sucks Today Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t We Love to Hate Them Plus ça Change Growing-Up Pains What You Can Do about It The Last Word Chapter 9: Doing Something About It 1. Buy 2. Tell 3. Ridicule 4. Trust 5. Organize Epilogue About the Author

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• &ldquo;My life at Oracle&rdquo;

  - by cristian.condurache(at)oracle.com

  Hello everybody! My name is Eva and I currently work in Oracle Italy as Sales Programs Manager for the Technology Sales organization. Since 2009, I also proudly represent the Oracle Education Foundation within my country as the Ambassador for Italy. My career path in this amazing company began 5 years ago as a fresh graduate: after various years studying abroad, in Germany and Ireland mainly, I was looking for a valuable and concrete opportunity which could fulfill my energetic spirit. I wanted to develop myself inside a stimulating and “fast” business environment.. and here came Oracle and I really couldn’t ask for anything better!  THE PARTNER EXPERIENCE The first department I had the chance to work into was the Alliances and Channels organization, where I had the opportunity to join a brilliant team of great and visionary guys. I began having the responsibility to analyze and rationalize the portfolio of Oracle business partners and to identify potential cross-area solutions, which had to be highlighted both on the local market and internationally: this ended up with the implementation of the “Partner Community” model, a business environment of selected Oracle partners, specialized on the different technology focus areas. This new concept was then recognized as an EMEA Best Practice and replicated internationally. Having the opportunity to strengthen day after day strategic relationships with several business partners and study the market positioning of their technology solutions, I was given the role to develop the “Oracle Partner Network Innovation Award” in Italy: the EMEA competition encouraging and rewarding proven and successful technology innovations, creating high value for our common customers and generating new business potential. Several Italian partner solutions won different prizes and I decided that it was worth collecting all those valuable projects, winners and short-listed, inside two specific books in order also to provide them an international market visibility: OPN Innovation Award Booklet 2007 and OPN Innovation Award Booklet 2008 Inside the Alliances and Channels department I really had the opportunity to do    amazing things, like for example working side-by-side with one of the most exceptional teams in Oracle I have ever worked with: the EMEA Recruitment Team. Together, in fact, we conceived a brand new business initiative for our partners, called “Oracle Campus Joint Program”. This program was awarded as an EMEA Best Practice and acknowledged by both Italian public institutions and press media. Italy   is currently running its 5th edition.   Briefly, the “Oracle Campus Joint Program” aims at facing the growing issue of lack of  technology competences and skills on the market. By identifying a specific technology area and developing an intensive 4-6 week Oracle University training course and by collaborating with important academic institutes, international “gurus” and professionals, our business partners are able to benefit from a pool of brilliant top talented young consultants and offer them a significant career opportunity. BUSINESS BUT NOT ONLY: THE NO-PROFIT EXPERIENCE OF ORACLE Currently my mission in Oracle is to continue driving the implementation of strategic business development and sales programs for the entire Oracle Technology stack, involving both partners and the end-customers. But as a completely distinguished role from the day-today business, I’m also honored to represent in Italy the charity global organization founded by Oracle - the Oracle Education Foundation - and drive its corporate citizenship and marketing programs. Oracle Education Foundation is an independent charitable organization funded by Oracle and is dedicated to helping students develop 21st century skills through project learning and the use of technology. It provides “ThinkQuest” as a free program to primary and secondary (K12) schools. Just some significant numbers: today 548,000 students/teachers in 47 countries use ThinkQuest and the Oracle Education Foundation partners with 40+ no-profit or government organizations globally. ABOUT MYSELF AND MY INTERESTS About myself…I’m very enthusiastic and positive, trying always to transform difficult issues in challenging opportunities. My day usually begins very early in the morning with running, swimming or when I need to collect some “zen” energies with a yoga session or better with a long walk with my dog. I definitely love animals and generally speaking I’m very keen on environmental issues and try, as much as I can, to carry out a healthy and “planet respectful” lifestyle. My thirst for knowledge pushed me some time ago to begin a new personal challenge: I decided to enroll, dedicating a good part of my free time, for a second university degree: I chose “Neuroeconomics”, an innovative academic path which combines psychology, economics, and neuroscience and studies how people make decisions and the role of the brain when people evaluate these decisions, categorizing risks and rewards and generally interacting with each other. I’ve been very glad to talk about my experience in this article, as working for Oracle is something very stimulating. This company ensures you the opportunity to face new challenges, work with highly talented people and be professionally highlighted also globally. Motivation, good results and innovation is always pursued, recognized and fully supported. Thanks and wish you all an amazing career! If you have any question please contact [email protected]. For our job opportunities, please look at http://campus.oracle.com.   Technorati Tags: EMEA,Oracle Partners,Oracle Campus,Oracle Education,experience,EMEA Recruitment Team

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• Connect Microsoft Excel To SQL Azure Database

  A number of people have found my post about getting started with SQL Azure pretty useful. But, it's all worthless if it doesn't add up to user value. Database are like potential energy in physics-it's a promise that something could be put in motion. Users actually making decisions based on analysis is analogous to kinetic energy in physics. It's the fulfillment of the promise of potential energy. So what does this have to with Office 2010? In Excel 2010 we made it truly easy to connect to a SQL Azure...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Where do we put "asking the world" code when we separate computation from side effects?

  - by Alexey

  According to Command-Query Separation principle, as well as Thinking in Data and DDD with Clojure presentations one should separate side effects (modifying the world) from computations and decisions, so that it would be easier to understand and test both parts. This leaves an unanswered question: where relatively to the boundary should we put "asking the world"? On the one hand, requesting data from external systems (like database, extental services' APIs etc) is not referentially transparent and thus should not sit together with pure computational and decision making code. On the other hand, it's problematic, or maybe impossible to tease them apart from computational part and pass it as an argument as because we may not know in advance which data we may need to request.

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• And the Winners of Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards in Data Integration are…

  - 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; 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;} At OpenWorld, we announced the winners of Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards 2012. Raymond James and Morrison Supermarkets were selected for the data integration category for their innovative use of Oracle’s data integration products and the great results they have achieved. In this blog I would like to briefly introduce you to these award winning projects. Raymond James is a diversified financial services company, which provides financial planning, wealth management, investment banking, and asset management. They are using Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Data Integrator to feed their operational data store (ODS), which supports application services across the enterprise. A major requirement for their project was low data latency, as key decisions are made based on the data in the ODS. They were able to fulfill this requirement due to the Oracle Data Integrator’s integrated solution with Oracle GoldenGate. Oracle GoldenGate captures changed data from different systems including Oracle Database, HP NonStop and Microsoft SQL Server into a single data store on SQL Server 2008. Oracle Data Integrator provides data transformations for the ODS. Leveraging ODI’s integration with GoldenGate, Raymond James now sees a 9 second median latency (from source commit to ODS target commit). The ODS solution delivers high quality, accurate data for consuming applications such as Raymond James’ next generation client and portfolio management systems as well as real-time operational reporting. It enables timely information for making better decisions. There are more benefits Raymond James achieved with this implementation of Oracle’s data integration solution. The software developers and architects of this solution, Tim Garrod and Ryan Fonnett, have told us during their presentation at OpenWorld that they also reduced application complexity significantly while improving developer productivity through trusted operational services. They were able to utilize CDC to generate alerts for business users, and for applications (for example for cache hydration mechanisms). One cool innovation example among many in this project is that using ODI's flexible architecture, Tim and Ryan could build 24/7 self-healing processes. And these processes have hardly failed. Integration processes fixes the errors itself. Pretty amazing; and a great solution for environments that need such reliability and availability. (You can see Tim and Ryan’s photo with the Innovation Award above.) The other winner of this year in the data integration category, Morrison Supermarkets, is the UK’s 4th largest grocery retailer. The company has been migrating all their legacy applications on to a new-world application set based on Oracle and consolidating all BI on to a single Oracle platform. The company recently implemented Oracle Exadata as the data warehouse engine and uses Oracle Business Intelligence EE. Their goal with deploying GoldenGate and ODI was to provide BI data to the enterprise in a way that it also supports operational decision making requirements from a wide range of Oracle based ERP applications such as E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Oracle Retail Suite. They use GoldenGate’s log-based change data capture capabilities and Oracle Data Integrator to populate the Oracle Retail Data Model. The electronic point of sale (EPOS) integration solution they built processes over 80 million transactions/day at busy periods in near real time (15 mins). It provides valuable insight to Retail and Commercial teams for both intra-day and historical trend analysis. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, the right data integration platform can transform the business. Here is another example: The point-of-sale integration enabled the grocery chain to optimize its stock management, leading to another award: Morrisons won the Grocer 33 award in 2012 - beating all other major UK supermarkets in product availability. Congratulations, Morrisons,on another award! Celebrating the innovation and the success of our customers with Oracle’s data integration products was definitely a highlight of Oracle OpenWorld for me. I look forward to hearing more from Raymond James, Morrisons, and the other customers that presented their data integration projects at OpenWorld, on how they are creating more value for their organizations.

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• Ahk script and C++ communication [closed]

  - by Tony

  I wish to use the fuctions of autohotkey within a C++ program. I am currently running my scripts triggered by the c++ program- I just run them as a .bat file. This works well but the problem is that I cannot return values from the script to the c++ program. I wish to be able to read the position of the mouse from the script and make decisions based upon this in my C++ program. My scripts do quite complex things- so doing this in autohotkey is the best solution for me- I have knowledge of C, but little of C++. I have read about the Autohotkey .DLL - I know how to trigger it but not how to read values from it. If anyone could instruct me or even post example code of a .dll being loaded and a value sent to a script and a value returned- I would be eternally grateful!! I have spent hours on this and to no avail!!

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• Chrome Apps Office Hours: Storage API Deep Dive

  Chrome Apps Office Hours: Storage API Deep Dive Ask and vote for questions at: goo.gl Join us next week as we take a deeper dive into the new storage APIs available to Chrome Packaged Apps. We've invited Eric Bidelman, author of the HTML5 File System API book to join Paul Kinlan, Paul Lewis, Pete LePage and Renato Dias for our weekly Chrome Apps Office Hours in which we will pick apart some of the sample Chrome Apps and explain how we've used the storage APIs and why we made the decisions we did. From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 0 0 ratings Time: 00:00 More in Science & Technology

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• Why does Clojure neglect the uniform access principle?

  - by Alexey

  My background is Ruby, C#, JavaScript and Java. And now I'm learning Clojure. What makes me feel uncomfortable about the later is that idiomatic Clojure seems to neglect the Uniform access principle (wiki, c2) and thus to a certain degree encapsulation as well by suggesting to use maps instead of some sort of "structures" or "classes". It feels like step back. So a couple of questions, if anyone informed: Which other design decisions/concerns it conflicted with and why it was considered less important? Did you have the same concern as well and how it end up when you switched from a language supporting UAP by default (Ruby, Eiffel, Python, C#) to Clojure?

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• Who broke the build?

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  I recently sent round a list of broken builds at SSW and asked for them to be fixed or deleted if they are not being used. My colleague Peter came back with a couple of questions which I love as it tells me that at least one person reads my email I think first we need to answer a couple of other questions related to builds in general.   Why do we want the build to pass? Any developer can pick up a project and build it Standards can be enforced Constant quality is maintained Problems in code are identified early What could a failed build signify? Developers have not built and tested their code properly before checking in. Something added depends on a local resource that is not under version control or does not exist on the target computer. Developers are not writing tests to cover common problems. There are not enough tests to cover problems. Now we know why, lets answer Peters questions: Where is this list? (can we see it somehow) You can normally only see the builds listed for each project. But, you have a little application called “Build Notifications” on your computer. It is installed when you install Visual Studio 2010. Figure: Staring the build notification application on Windows 7. Once you have it open (it may disappear into your system tray) you should click “Options” and select all the projects you are involved in. This application only lists projects that have builds, so don’t worry if it is not listed. This just means you are about to setup a build, right? I just selected ALL projects that have builds. Figure: All builds are listed here In addition to seeing the list you will also get toast notification of build failure’s. How can we get more info on what broke the build? (who is interesting too, to point the finger but more important is what) The only thing worse than breaking the build, is continuing to develop on a broken build! Figure: I have highlighted the users who either are bad for braking the build, or very bad for not fixing it. To find out what is wrong with a build you need to open the build definition. You can open a web version by double clicking the build in the image above, or you can open it from “Team Explorer”. Just connect to your project and open out the “Builds” tree. Then Open the build by double clicking on it. Figure: Opening a build is easy, but double click it and then open a build run from the list. Figure: Good example, the build and tests have passed Figure: Bad example, there are 133 errors preventing POK from being built on the build server. For identifying failures see: Solution: Getting Silverlight to build on Team Build 2010 RC Solution: Testing Web Services with MSTest on Team Build Finding the problem on a partially succeeded build So, Peter asked about blame, let’s have a look and see: Figure: The build has been broken for so long I have no idea when it was broken, but everyone on this list is to blame (I am there too) The rest of the history is lost in the sands of time, there is no way to tell when the build was originally broken, or by whom, or even if it ever worked in the first place. Build should be protected by the team that uses them and the only way to do that is to have them own them. It is fine for me to go in and setup a build, but the ownership for a build should always reside with the person who broke it last. Conclusion This is an example of a pointless build. Lets be honest, if you have a system like TFS in place and builds are constantly left broken, or not added to projects then your developers don’t yet understand the value. I have found that adding a Gated Check-in helps instil that understanding of value. If you prevent them from checking in without passing that basic quality gate of “your code builds on another computer” then it makes them look more closely at why they can’t check-in. I have had builds fail because one developer had a “d” drive, but the build server did not. That is what they are there to catch.   If you want to know what builds to create and why I wrote a post on “Do you know the minimum builds to create on any branch?”   Technorati Tags: TFS2010,Gated Check-in,Builds,Build Failure,Broken Build

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• Backpacks and Booth Paint: TechEd 2012

  - by The Un-T Guy

  Arriving in the parking lot of the Orange County Convention Center, I immediately knew I was in the right place. As far as the eye could see, the acres of asphalt were awash in backpacks, quirky (to be kind) outfits, and bad haircuts. This was the place. This was Microsoft Mecca v2012 for geeks and nerds, the Central Florida event of the year, a gathering of high tech professionals whose skills I both greatly respect and, frankly, fear a little. I was wholly and completely out of element, a dork in a vast sea of geek jumbo. It like was wearing dockers and a golf shirt walking into a RenFaire, but one with really crappy costumes and no turkey legs...save those attached to some of the attendees. Of course the corporate whores...errrr, vendors were in place, ready to parlay the convention's fre-nerd-ic energy into millions of dollars by convincing the big-brained and under-sexed in the crowd (i.e., virtually all of them...present company excluded, of course) that their product or service was the only thing standing between them and professional success, industry fame, and clear skin. "With KramTech 2012," they seemed to scream, "you will be THE ROCK STAR of your company's IT department!" As car shows and tattoo parlors learned long ago, Tech companies seem to believe that the best way to attract the attention of this crowd is through the hint of the promise of sex. They recruit and deploy an army of "sales reps" whose primary qualifications appear to be long hair, short skirts, high heels, and a vagina. Unlike their distant cousins in the car and body art industries, however, this sub-species of booth paint (semi-gloss decoration that adds nothing to the substance of the product) seems torn between committing to being all-out sex objects and recognition that they are in the presence of intelligent, discerning people. People who are smart enough to know exactly what these vendors are doing. Also unlike their distant car show and tattoo shop cousins, these young women (what…are there no gay tech professionals who could use some eye candy?) seem to realize that while IT remains a male-dominated field, there are ever-increasing numbers of intelligent, capable, strong professional women – women who’ve battled to make it in this field through hard work and work performance rather than a hard body and performing after work. This is not to say that all of the young female sales reps are there only because of their physical attributes. Many are competent, intelligent, and driven -- not to mention attractive. They're working hard on the front lines of delivering the next generation of technology. The distinction is pretty clear, however, between these young professionals and the booth paint. The former enthusiastically deliver credible information about the products they’re hawking. The latter are positioned in the aisles, uncomfortably avoiding eye contact as they struggle to operate the badge readers. Surprisingly, not all of the women in attendance seemed to object to the objectification of their younger sisters. One IT professional woman who came of age in the industry (mostly in IT marketing) said, “I have no problem with it. I was a ‘booth babe’ for years and it doesn’t bother me at all.” Others, however, weren’t quite so gracious. One woman I spoke with, an IT manager from Cheyenne, Wyoming, said it was demeaning and frankly, as more and more women grow into IT management positions, not a great marketing idea. “Using these young women is, to me, no different than vendors giving out t-shirts to attract attention. It’s sad because it’s still hard for a woman to be respected in the IT field and this just perpetuates the outdated notion that IT is a male-dominated field.” She went on to say that decisions by vendors to employ these young women in this “inappropriate way” could impact her purchasing decisions. “I might be swayed toward a vendor who has women on staff who are intelligent and dynamic rather than the vendors who use the ‘decoration’ girls.” So in many ways, the IT industry is no different than most other industries as it struggles to maximize performance by finding and developing talent – all of the talent, not just the 50% with a penis. Women in IT, like their brethren, struggle to find their niche in the field, to grow professionally, and reach for the brass ring, struggling to overcome obstacles as they climb the mountain of professional success in a never-ending cycle of economic uncertainty. But as (generally) well-educated and highly-trained professionals, they are probably better positioned than those in many other industries. Beside, they’ve got one other advantage over their non-IT counterparts as they attempt their ascent to the summit: They’ve already got the backpacks.

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• WIF

  - by kaleidoscope

  Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) enables .NET developers to externalize identity logic from their application, improving developer productivity, enhancing application security, and enabling interoperability. It is a framework for implementing claims-based identity in your applications. With WIF one can create more secure applications by reducing custom implementations and using a single simplified identity model based on claims. Windows Identity Foundation is part of Microsoft's identity and access management solution built on Active Directory that also includes: · Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 (formerly known as "Geneva" Server): a security token service for IT that issues and transforms claims and other tokens, manages user access and enables federation and access management for simplified single sign-on · Windows CardSpace 2.0 (formerly known as Windows CardSpace "Geneva"): for helping users navigate access decisions and developers to build customer authentication experiences for users. Reference : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/security/aa570351.aspx Geeta

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