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• Java Champion Stephen Chin on New Features and Functionality in JavaFX

  - by janice.heiss(at)oracle.com

  In an Oracle Technology Network interview, Java Champion Stephen Chin, Chief Agile Methodologist for GXS, and one of the most prolific and innovative JavaFX developers, provides an update on the rapidly developing changes in JavaFX.Chin expressed enthusiasm about recent JavaFX developments:"There is a lot to be excited about -- JavaFX has a new API face. All the JavaFX 2.0 APIs will be exposed via Java classes that will make it much easier to integrate Java server and client code. This also opens up some huge possibilities for JVM language integration with JavaFX." Chin also spoke about developments in Visage, the new language project created to fill the gap left by JavaFX Script:"It's a domain-specific language for writing user interfaces, which addresses the needs of UI developers. Visage takes over where JavaFX Script left off, providing a statically typed, declarative language with lots of features to make UI development a pleasure.""My favorite language features from Visage are the object literal syntax for quickly building scene graphs and the bind keyword for connecting your UI to the backend model. However, the language is built for UI development from the top down, including subtle details like null-safe dereferencing for exception-less code."Read the entire article.

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• Polygonal Triangulation - algorithm with O(n log n) complexity

  - by Arthur Wulf White

  I wish to triangulate a polygon I only have the outline of (p0, p1, p2 ... pn) like described in this question: polygon triangulation algorithm and this webpage: http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~godfried/teaching/cg-projects/97/Ian/algorithm2.html I do not wish to learn the subject and have a deep understanding of it at the moment. I only want to see an effective algorithm that can be used out of the box. The one described in the site seems to be of somewhat high complexity O(n) for finding one ear. I heard this could be done in O(n log n) time. Is there any well known easy to use algorithm that I can translate port to use in my engine that runs with somewhat reasonable complexity? The reason I need to triangulate is that I wish to feel out a 2d-outline and render it 3d. Much like we fill out a 2d-outline in paint. I could use sprites. This would not serve cause I am planning to play with the resulting model on the z-axis, giving it different heights in the different areas. I would love to try the books that were mentioned, although I suspect that is not the answer most readers are hoping for when they read this Q & A format. Mostly I like to see a code snippet I can cut and paste with some modifications and start running.

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• SQLAuthority News – Happy Deepavali and Happy News Year

  - by pinaldave

  Diwali or Deepavali is popularly known as the festival of lights. It literally means “array of light” or “row of lamps“. Today we build a small clay maps and fill it with oil and light it up. The significance of lighting the lamp is the triumph of good over evil. I work every single day in a year but today I am spending my time with family and little one. I make sure that my daughter is aware of our culture and she learns to celebrate the festival with the same passion and values which I have. Every year on this day, I do not write a long blog post but rather write a small post with various SQL Tips and Tricks. After reading them you should quickly get back to your friends and family – it is the most important festival day. Here are a few tips and tricks: Take regular full backup of your database Avoid cursors if they can be replaced by set based process Keep your index maintenance script handy and execute them at intervals Consider Solid State Drive (SDD) for crucial database and tempdb placement Update statistics for OLTP transactions at intervals I guess that’s it for today. If you still have more time to learn. Here are few things you should consider. Get FREE Books by Sign up for tomorrow’s webcast by Rick Morelan Watch SQL in Sixty Seconds Series – FREE SQL Learning Read my earlier 2300+ articles Well, I am sure that will keep you busy for the rest of the day! Happy Diwali to All of You! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• Using local DNS and public DNS during site development

  - by ChrisFM

  I'm a web designer and I often develop new sites for existing businesses. Sometimes I find it useful to point my DNS address (for my personal computer) to the development servers local DNS (instead of Googles 8.8.8.8 or the default isp's address). I like this as it let's me see that the new site's internal links, etc, operate before switching over the authorative DNS from the old site. However outgoing links (Like a Google map) would not route with my local dns. The first thing I thought was, oh I just need to fill out my DNS directory with Google and every other domain I might need to link to, wait... that sounds insane. I was wondering if anyone could give me insight into a better way or more functional way to get use local DNS addresses when they're available and public supplied DNS address when they are not? Kinda like a DNS to 'roll-over'? Or maybe a completely different approach to development all together. Thanks in advance for your insight. All the best!

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• Is Learning C++ Through The Qt Framework Really Learning C++

  - by user866190

  The problem I have, is that most of the C++ books I read spend almost forever on syntax and the basics of the language, e.g. for and loops while, arrays, lists, pointers, etc. But they never seem to build anything that is simple enough to use for learning, yet practical enough to get you to understand the philosophy and power of the language. Then I stumbled upon QT which is an amazing library! But working through the demos they have, it seems like I am now in the reverse dilemma. I feel like the rich man's son driving round in a sports car subsidized by the father. Like I could build fantastic software, but have no clue what's going on under the hood. As an example of my dilemma take the task of building a simple web browser. In pure C++, I wouldn't even know where to start, yet with the Qt library it can be done within a few lines on code. I am not complaining about this. I am just wondering how to fill the knowledge void between the basic structure of the language and the high level interface that the Qt framework provides?

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• Visual Studio LightSwitch: Yes, these are the droids you&rsquo;re looking for

  - by Jim Duffy

  With all the news and focus on the new features coming in Silverlight 5 I thought I’d take a few minutes to remind folks about the work that Microsoft has done on LightSwitch since the applications created by LightSwitch are Silverlight applications. LightSwitch makes it easier for non-coders to build business applications and easier for coders to maintain them. For those not familiar with LightSwitch, it is a new tool that provides a easier and quicker way for coder and non-coder types alike to create line-of-business applications for the desktop, the web, and the cloud. The target audience for this tool are those power-user types who create Access applications for their organization. While those Access applications fill an immediate need, they typically aren’t very scalable, extendable and/or maintainable by the development staff of the organization. LightSwitch creates applications based on technologies built into Visual Studio thus making it easier for corporate developers to extend and maintain them. LightSwitch is currently in beta but it will ultimately become a new addition to the Visual Studio line of products. Go ahead and download the beta to get a better idea of what the product can do for your organization. The LightSwitch Developer Center contains links to download the beta links to instructional videos links to tutorials links to the LightSwitch Training Kit Another quality resource for LightSwitch information is the Visual Studio LightSwitch Team Blog. My good friend Beth Massi is on the LightSwitch team and has additional valuable content on her blog. Have a day.

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• Looking ahead at 2011-with Paul Greenberg

  - by divya.malik

  It is almost the end of 2010, rather unbelievable how fast this year has gone by. It is always interesting to read what our CRM gurus have to say about the coming year. So here is CRM luminary, Paul Greenberg’s  forecast for 2011. Mobile CRM growth accelerates. CRM and “Social” companies continue to integrate their capabilities as a few suites begin to emerge. Social “rankings”, as a measure of customer engagement, will become a standard public measure. Analytics exhibits the most significant growth of any area with Customer Insight apps leading the way. Marketing apps mature with social marketing becoming an integral part of the application offering. Customer service begins to redefine itself with greater emphasis on service communities, web self-service and customer knowledge capture. Knowledge management replaces enterprise content management as a core requirement for large businesses. Customer experience reasserts itself loudly as the core of CRM and SCRM - This one is kind of a no-brainer in a way. Co-creation and customer driven product innovation becomes more than just an advanced idea. Microsoft Azure emerges as a true cloud provider at the level of Amazon as cloud computing considers its rise to becoming a primary technology infrastructure. Application marketplaces will become commonplace as companies look to platform providers to fill ecosystem needs, not just CRM. I do encourage you to read the details of his forecasts, that are split into two blog posts. For Part I click here and for Part II, click here. Technorati Tags: oracle,siebel CRM,scrm,paul greenberg

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• Resize Image thru Slider in Silverlight

  - by Sayre Collado

  Hello Guys, I've been playing with slider on silverlight. Now the result is this, a simple resizing image thru slider.  The Image below is the default size of my sample. And the second Image below are the result when the slider slide to right and top. The xaml layout are very simple: <Slider Minimum="80" Maximum="238" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Name="sldBottom" Width="246" Margin="27,226,27,1" /> <Slider Height="212" Minimum="80" Maximum="209" Name="sldRight" Width="28" Orientation="Vertical" Margin="271,9,1,29" /> <Image HorizontalAlignment="Center" Name="image1" Stretch="Fill" VerticalAlignment="Center" Source="/GBLOgs2;component/Images/logosai.JPG" Height="{Binding ElementName=sldRight,Path=Value}" Width="{Binding ElementName=sldBottom,Path=Value}" /> The Image1 Height are depending to the maximum value of sldRight and its value same with the situation of Image1 Width. The Image1 Height/Width = {Binding ElementName="NAME OF THE SLIDER", Path="THE VALUE OF SLIDER"}. When you slide the slider the image will resize. And thats all. Happy Programming.

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• A Gentle .NET touch to Unix Touch

  - by lavanyadeepak

  A Gentle .NET touch to Unix Touch The Unix world has an elegant utility called 'touch' which would modify the timestamp of the file whose path is being passed an argument to  it. Unfortunately, we don't have a quick and direct such tool in Windows domain. However, just a few lines of code in C# can fill this gap to embrace and rejuvenate any file in the file system, subject to access ACL restrictions with the current timestamp.   using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.IO; namespace LavanyaDeepak.Utilities { class Touch { static void Main(string[] args) { if (args.Length < 1) { Console.WriteLine("Please specify the path of the file to operate upon."); return; } if (!File.Exists(args[0])) { try { FileAttributes objFileAttributes = File.GetAttributes(args[0]); if ((objFileAttributes & FileAttributes.Directory) == FileAttributes.Directory) { Console.WriteLine("The input was not a regular file."); return; } } catch { } Console.WriteLine("The file does not seem to be exist."); return; } try { File.SetLastWriteTime(args[0], DateTime.Now); Console.WriteLine("The touch completed successfully"); } catch (System.UnauthorizedAccessException exUnauthException) { Console.WriteLine("Unable to touch file. Access is denied. The security manager responded: " + exUnauthException.Message); } catch (IOException exFileAccessException) { Console.WriteLine("Unable to touch file. The IO interface failed to complete request and responded: " + exFileAccessException.Message); } catch (Exception exGenericException) { Console.WriteLine("Unable to touch file. An internal error occured. The details are: " + exGenericException.Message); } } } }

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• Filling in PDF Forms with ASP.NET and iTextSharp

  The Portable Document Format (PDF) is a popular file format for documents. PDF files are a popular document format for two primary reasons: first, because the PDF standard is an open standard, there are many vendors that provide PDF readers across virtually all operating systems, and many proprietary programs, such as Microsoft Word, include a "Save as PDF" option. Consequently, PDFs server as a sort of common currency of exchange. A person writing a document using Microsoft Word for Windows can save the document as a PDF, which can then be read by others whether or not they are using Windows and whether or not they have Microsoft Word installed. Second, PDF files are self-contained. Each PDF file includes its complete text, fonts, images, input fields, and other content. This means that even complicated documents with many images, an intricate layout, and with user interface elements like textboxes and checkboxes can be encapsulated in a single PDF file. Due to their ubiquity and layout capabilities, it's not uncommon for a websites to use PDF technology. For example, when purchasing goods at an online store you may be offered the ability to download an invoice as a PDF file. PDFs also support form fields, which are user interface elements like textboxes, checkboxes, comboboxes, and the like. These form fields can be entered by a user viewing the PDF or, with a bit of code, they can be entered programmatically. This article is the first in a multi-part series that examines how to programmatically work with PDF files from an ASP.NET application using iTextSharp, a .NET open source library for PDF generation. This installment shows how to use iTextSharp to open an existing PDF document with form fields, fill those form fields with user-supplied values, and then save the combined output to a new PDF file. Read on to learn more! Read More >

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• .Net to Oracle Connectivity using ODBC .NET

  - by SAMIR BHOGAYTA

  You can use the new ODBC .NET Data Provider that works with the ODBC Oracle7.x driver or higher. You need to have MDAC 2.6 or later installed and then download ODBC .NET from the MS Web Site http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?url=/code/sample.asp?url=/msdn-files/027/001/668/msdncompositedoc.xml&frame=true. MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Component) 2.7 contains core component, including the Microsoft SQL server and Oracle OLE Database provider and ODBC driver. Insta ...You can use the new ODBC .NET Data Provider that works with the ODBC Oracle7.x driver or higher. You need to have MDAC 2.6 or later installed and then download ODBC .NET from the MS Web Site http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?url=/code/sample.asp?url=/msdn-files/027/001/668/msdncompositedoc.xml&frame=true. MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Component) 2.7 contains core component, including the Microsoft SQL server and Oracle OLE Database provider and ODBC driver. Install ODBC .NET from the MS Web Site http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?URL=/downloads/sample.asp?url=/msdn-files/027/001/943/msdncompositedoc.xml Create a DSN, using either Microsoft ODBC for Oracle or Oracle supplied Driver if the Oracle client software is loaded. here for eq. TrailDSN. While creating DSN give user name along with passward for eq. scott/tiger. using Microsoft .Data.Odbc; private void Form1_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { try { OdbcConnection myconnection= new OdbcConnection ("DSN=TrialDSN"); OdbcDataAdapter myda = new OdbcDataAdapter ("Select * from EMP", myconnection); DataSet ds= new DataSet (); myda.Fill(ds, "Table"); dataGrid1.DataSource = ds ; } catch(Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show (ex.Message ); } }

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• DRM Tallyrand - The New User Interface

  - by russ.bishop

  I received word recently that the Tallyrand (11.1.2.0) build is out of our hands. I'm not sure when it will hit eDelivery, but if it hasn't already it should happen soon. For this post, I want to really quickly show the new user interface. The login screen: When you login, you are browsing versions and hierarchies. Note that Unicode is fully supported: The UI attempts to provide context-sensitive links where possible; notice here that an unloaded version is selected, so the UI shows a link. Clicking the link automatically brings up this Load Version dialog. This same thing applies elsewhere in the UI when you attempt to perform an action with an unloaded version: Here is browsing a hierarchy, with the property grid and context menu displayed (though you can hide the property grid anytime you like to provide more room): Worried about drag and drop? Don't! We support it even though this is a browser app. Also notice the Relationships feature on the right displaying a node's ancestors: Where possible, we try to present the available options, rather than just throwing up an "OK/Cancel" dialog (which most users never read anyway): Context-sensitive shortcuts automatically fill-in the context based on the currently selected node. For example, if you want to run a query using the selected node as the root, you can just click that query in the Shortcuts tab. In this screenshot, clicking Model After would model the selected node: This is just for starters. There is much more to cover, on both the client and server. For example, all communication channels are now configurable (no more DCOM). You can pick the ports, the encoding (binary or XML), and the transport mechanism (TCP, TCP over SSL, or SOAP over HTTP). All the relevant WS-* standards are also supported, eg: WS-Security, etc. Plus new features (besides the web client and unicode support). I hope to cover as much of these things as I can in the coming months. If you have specific requests, comment on this post and I'll try to cover them.

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• Weblogic domain scale up using EM Grid Control 11gR1

  - by dmitry.nefedkin(at)oracle.com

  As you know a weblogic domain consists of set of servers running independently or in a cluster mode, sharing the distributed resources. And in most environments weblogic  cluster consists of multiple managed servers running simultaneously and working together to provide increased scalability and reliability.  These servers can run on the same machine, or be located on different machines.  It's a common task to increase a cluster's capacity by adding new machines to the cluster to host the new server instances.  You can do it by manually installing weblogic binaries to the new host and use pack/unpack commands to add a managed server to this new host.  But with Enterprise Manager Grid Control 11gR1 (EMGC) there is  another way - Fusion Middleware Domain Scale Up  procedure. I'm going to show you how it works.Here is a picture of  my medrec_oradb weblogic domain, what is registered in EMGC. It contains an admin server and a cluster MedRecCluster with  the single managed server MS1. Both admin and managed servers are on the same host oel46-vmware, it's a virtual machine with OEL 4.6 that runs inside our Oracle VM infrastructure.  And here are the application deployments, note that couple of applications are deployed to the cluster.First of all I have to prepare a new machine that will host new managed sever of my cluster. I created new VM with OEL 5.4 using the corresponding Oracle VM template available in Oracle E-Delivery site for Oracle Linux and Oracle VM and named it wls1032. Next step is to install Oracle EM Grid Control 11gR1 Agent to this new host.  You can download it from the OTN page and install it manually,  or you can use Agent Installation Deployment procedure available in EMGC  (Deployments->Agent Installation->Install Agent). Anyway, when you agent is up and running on the new machine, you will see it in EMGC Console in the Targets->Hosts subtab.Now we are ready to scale up our weblogic domain. Click the Deployments tab in Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control, and then click Deployment Procedure. Select a Fusion Middleware Domain Scale Up procedure from the list, and click Schedule Deployment. The first page of the FMW Domain Scale Up Wizard is displayed and you can proceed with the deployment process.Select the domain from list, enter the working directory on the admin server host, and also fill the weblogic credentials for the administration server console and the OS credentials for the  admin server host.  Click Next button.  The next step allows you to configure you domain, to add a new manager server to the cluster you should select the cluster in the tree and click Add Server button. Select the newly added server in a tree, choose the target host and  enter the configuration details of your managed server. You can also add new machine and node manager details.  Please note that you cannot change the values in  Domain Location and Fusion Middleware Home fields, so these locations on the target host will be the same as for the admin server host.   Working directory on the target host should have enough free space to store FMW home binaries and domain configuration files.  In my experience the working directories should have at least 3 Gb of free space.  The last thing you should fill is the OS credentials for the target host. The next steps allows you to schedule the execution of the procedure, it is started immediately in my example. The last step is just a review the configuration for the domain scale up. Click Submit to launch the process. You can track the status of the procedure execution by selecting Deployments->Deployment Procedures->Procedure Completion Status in the EMGC Console.As you can see in the picture below, the procedure consists of the many steps, and I'm going to share my experience about the issues that I had at some of the steps. Please keep in mind that you can always continue the execution from the last successfully completed step by clicking Retry button.Check OUI Prerequisites  step may fail if the target host does  not pass prerequisites checks for Weblogic Server installation such as amount of RAM, linux packages installed, etc. Create FMW Clone Archive step may fail if you do not have enough free space in the working directory on the administration server host.Transfer cloning archive to targets  step  may fail if the EMGC agents on the admin server host or on target host are not secured.   You should secure the agent by issuing ./emctl secure agent  command from $AGENT_HOME/bin directory and entering the agent registration password.Both Transfer cloning archive to targets and Apply Clone at target hosts steps may fail if you do not have enough free space in the working directory on the target host. The most complicated issue I had on the Run Inventory Collection  step. The step failed and I noticed that the agent on the target server is also failed with the following error in the $AGENT_HOME/sysman/log/emagent.trc  log file:2010-12-28 11:50:34,310 Thread-2838952848 ERROR upload: Failed to upload file A0000008.xml: Fatal Error.Response received: 500|ORA-20603: The timezone of the multiagent target (/Farm_Localhost_MedRec_medrec_oradb/medrec_oradb,weblogic_domain)is not consistent with the timezone (America/Los_Angeles) reported by other agents.2010-12-28 11:50:34,310 Thread-2838952848 ERROR upload: 1 Failure(s) in a row or XML error for A0000008.xml, retcode = -6, we give up2010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-2838952848 WARN  upload: FxferSend: received fatal error in header from repository: https://oel46-vmware:1159/em/uploadFATAL_ERROR::500|ORA-20603: The timezone of the multiagent target (/Farm_Localhost_MedRec_medrec_oradb/medrec_oradb,weblogic_domain)is not consistent with the timezone (America/Los_Angeles) reported by other agents.2010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-2838952848 ERROR upload: number of fatal error exceeds the limit 32010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-2838952848 ERROR upload: agent will shutdown now2010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-2838952848 ERROR : Signalled to Exit with status 55. Too many fatal upload failures2010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-2838952848 ERROR upload: 1 Failure(s) in a row or XML error for A0000008.xml, retcode = -6, we give up2010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-3044607680 ERROR main: EMAgent abnormal terminatingI checked the timezone of my domain target inside EMGC repositoryselect timezone_regionfrom mgmt_targets where target_type = 'weblogic_domain'  and display_name = 'medrec_oradb'"TIMEZONE_REGION""America/Los_Angeles"Then checked the timezone of my agents and indeed, they differedselect target_name, timezone_region from mgmt_targets where type_display_name = 'Agent'"TARGET_NAME"    "TIMEZONE_REGION""oel46-vmware:3872"    "America/Los_Angeles""wls1032.imc.fors.ru:3872"    "America/New_York"So I had to change the timezone on the wls1032 host and propagate this changes to the agent and to the EMGC repository. Here was the steps:issued system-config-date command on wls1032.imc.fors.ru  and set timezone to "America/Los_Angeles"propagated the changes to the agent bu executing ./emctl resetTZ agent  command from $AGENT_HOME/bin directoryconnected to EMGC repository as sysman and executed the following PL/SQL block:   begin      mgmt_target.set_agent_tzrgn('wls1032.imc.fors.ru:3872','America/Los_Angeles');      commit;   end;After that I had to clear the pending uploads on wls1032.imc.fors.ru:  rm -r $AGENT_HOME/sysman/emd/state/*  rm -r $AGENT_HOME/sysman/emd/collection/*  rm -r $AGENT_HOME/sysman/emd/upload/*  rm $AGENT_HOME/sysman/emd/lastupld.xml  rm $AGENT_HOME/sysman/emd/agntstmp.txt  $AGENT_HOME/bin/emctl start agent  $AGENT_HOME/bin/emctl clearstate agentThe last part of this solution was to resync the agent in EMGC console by clicking Agent Resynchronization button (please leave "Unblock agent on successful completion of agent resynchronization" checkbox checked in the next screen).After that I issued ./emctl upload command from $AGENT_HOME/bin on the wls1032 host,  and my previous error disappeared,  but I catched another one: EMD upload error: Failed to upload file A0000004.xml: HTTP error.Response received: ERROR-400|Data will be rejected for upload from agent 'https://wls1032.imc.fors.ru:3872/emd/main/', max size limit for direct load exceeded [7544731/5242880]So the uploading XML file size was 7 Mb, and the limit on OMS was 5 Mb.  To increase the max file size limit to 20 Mb I had to connect to the OMS host and execute the following commands from $OMS_HOME/bin directory: ./emctl set property -name em.loader.maxDirectLoadFileSz -value 20971520 -module emoms ./emctl stop oms ./emctl start omsAfter that I issued ./emctl upload command from $AGENT_HOME/bin on the wls1032 one more time and it completed successfully.   The agent uploaded the configuration information to the EMGC  repository and I was able to see the results of my weblogic domain scale-up in EMGC Console.DeploymentsSo, now the weblogic cluster contains 2 managed servers located on the different hosts. This powerful feature of the Enterprise Manager Grid Control  is a part of  the WebLogic Server Management Pack Enterprise Edition.

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• Are there any font rendering libraries for games development that support hinting?

  - by Richard Fabian

  I've used angel code's bitmap font generator quite a bit and though it's very good, I wondered if there would be a way of using the hinting information to provide a better readable result by using hinting to provide differing thickness based on size/pixel coverage. I imagine any solution would have to use the distance field tech presented in the valve paper on smoothing fonts while maintaining or reducing asset size. (http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=494612) but I haven't found any demos of it being used with hinting information turned on or included in the field gradients in any way. Another way of looking at this is whether there are any font bitmap generators that will output mipmaps that still maintain their readability in the face of pixel size. I think the lower mip levels would try to guarantee fill and space where it is necessary to maintain readability/topology over maintaining style/form (the point of hinting). In response to "Is there a reason you can't just render the size you want", the problem lies in the fact that font rasterisers currently don't render in 3D, and hinting information would be important in different amounts due to the pixel density being different along different axes, even differing in importance along the length of a string due to the size reducing over distance. For example, I only want horizontal hinting in a texture that is viewed from the side, and only really want vertical hinting in a font that is viewed from below or above. This isn't meant to be a renderer that tries to render a perfect outline as accurately as possible, as hinting distorts the reality of the font, instead this is meant to be a rendering solution for quite static scenes, but scenes that have 3D transformed and warped text layout. In this case the legibility is important, more important than the accuracy of representation of the polygon shape.

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• Make Efficient Use of Tab Bar Space by Customizing Tab Width in Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  Does your Tab Bar fill up too quickly while browsing with Firefox? Then get ready to make efficient use of Tab Bar space and reduce the amount of tab scrolling with the Custom Tab Width extension for Firefox. The default settings for the extension are 100/250 and we set ours for 50/100. As you can see in the screenshot above our tabs took up a lot less room with just one quick adjustment. Simply choose the desired minimum and maximum widths, click OK, and enjoy the extra room on the Tab Bar! Note: Works with Firefox 4.0b3 – 4.0.* Install the Custom Tab Width Extension (Mozilla Add-ons) [via Lifehacker] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC What Can Super Mario Teach Us About Graphics Technology? Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is Released: But Should You Install It? How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Make Efficient Use of Tab Bar Space by Customizing Tab Width in Firefox See the Geeky Work Done Behind the Scenes to Add Sounds to Movies [Video] Use a Crayon to Enhance Engraved Lettering on Electronics Adult Swim Brings Their Programming Lineup to iOS Devices Feel the Chill of the South Atlantic with the Antarctica Theme for Windows 7 Seas0nPass Now Offers Untethered Apple TV Jailbreaking

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• Edit in desktop application with DataGridView

  - by SAMIR BHOGAYTA

  private void DataGridView_CellContentClick(object sender, DataGridViewCellEventArgs e) { if (e.ColumnIndex == 0) { string s = DataGridView.Rows[e.RowIndex].Cells[1].FormattedValue.ToString(); srno = Convert.ToInt16(s); FormName objFrm = new FormName(s); objFrm.MdiParent = this.MdiParent; objFrm.Show(); } } //Into the New Form public FormName(string id) { uid = id; i = Convert.ToInt16(id); InitializeComponent(); } //Get Detail As per id public void GetDetail() { string detail = "SELECT fieldname1,fieldname2 FROM TableName where PrimaryKeyField = "+id+""; DataSet ds = new DataSet(); ds = (DataSet)prm.RetriveData(detail); } //RetriveData Function public object RetriveData(string query) { // If you have sql connection use SqlConnection OleDbConnection con = new OleDbConnection(constr); OleDbDataAdapter drap = new OleDbDataAdapter(query, con); con.Open(); DataSet ds = new DataSet(); drap.Fill(ds); con.Close(); return ds; }

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• Depth interpolation for z-buffer, with scanline

  - by Twodordan

  I have to write my own software 3d rasterizer, and so far I am able to project my 3d model made of triangles into 2d space: I rotate, translate and project my points to get a 2d space representation of each triangle. Then, I take the 3 triangle points and I implement the scanline algorithm (using linear interpolation) to find all points[x][y] along the edges(left and right) of the triangles, so that I can scan the triangle horizontally, row by row, and fill it with pixels. This works. Except I have to also implement z-buffering. This means that knowing the rotated&translated z coordinates of the 3 vertices of the triangle, I must interpolate the z coordinate for all other points I find with my scanline algorithm. The concept seems clear enough, I first find Za and Zb with these calculations: var Z_Slope = (bottom_point_z - top_point_z) / (bottom_point_y - top_point_y); var Za = top_point_z + ((current_point_y - top_point_y) * Z_Slope); Then for each Zp I do the same interpolation horizontally: var Z_Slope = (right_z - left_z) / (right_x - left_x); var Zp = left_z + ((current_point_x - left_x) * Z_Slope); And of course I add to the zBuffer, if current z is closer to the viewer than the previous value at that index. (my coordinate system is x: left - right; y: top - bottom; z: your face - computer screen;) The problem is, it goes haywire. The project is here and if you select the "Z-Buffered" radio button, you'll see the results... (note that the rest of the options before "Z-Buffered" use the Painter's algorithm to correctly order the triangles. I also use the painter's algorithm -only- to draw the wireframe in "Z-Buffered" mode for debugging purposes) PS: I've read here that you must turn the z's into their reciprocals (meaning z = 1/z) before you interpolate. I tried that, and it appears that there's no change. What am I missing? (could anyone clarify, precisely where you must turn z into 1/z and where to turn it back?)

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• Can mediatomb VLC profile transcode audio as MP3 rather than mpga ?

  - by djangofan

  In the /etc/mediatomb/config.xml, can mediatomb VLC profile transcode audo as MP3 rather than mpga ? My Sony GoogleTV wont render streamed .avi files files with a mpga audio in them. The original files are Divx encoded with 128kbs MP3 audio but mediatomb is transcoding them. How can I change this? Any ideas? Can I turn off the audio and video transcoding somehow? I need some ideas to try. <profile name="vlcprof" enabled="yes" type="external"> <mimetype>video/mpeg</mimetype> <agent command="vlc" arguments="-I dummy %in --sout #transcode{venc=ffmpeg,vcodec=mp2v,vb=4096,fps=25,aenc=ffmpeg,acodec=mpga,ab=192,samplerate=44100,channels=2}:standard{access=file,mux=ps,dst=%out} vlc:quit"/> <buffer size="10485760" chunk-size="131072" fill-size="2621440"/> <accept-url>yes</accept-url> <first-resource>yes</first-resource> </profile> I know that that MP3 encoding support is external to FFmpeg and must be configured appropriately, but I have no idea how to handle that. I would guess I can work around that by somehow telling ffmpeg to not transcode the audio stream? Also, should I create a separate vlcprof entry for video/avi ? Can you create more than one profile for VLC in the config.xml for mediatomb?

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• Get Ready to Meet Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 at OpenWorld

  - by Irem Radzik

    Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2 could not come at a better time. At Oracle OpenWorld 2012 we have a great set of sessions and demos for Oracle GoldenGate users: deep dives into the new features of Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2, as well as great customer presentations from Comcast, Bank of America, Turk Telekom, Ticketmaster, St. Jude Medical Center, and more. Here are 3 must-attend sessions for GoldenGate users and for those who want to get to know GoldenGate’s capabilities: Real-World Zero-Downtime Operations with Oracle GoldenGate: Customer Panel Oct 1st 1:45 PM Moscone West – 3005 Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2 New Features Oct 1st 3:15 PM Moscone West – 3005 Real-World Operational Reporting with Oracle GoldenGate: Customer Panel Oct 2nd 11:45 AM Moscone West - 3005 For a full list of GoldenGate and data integration sessions, please check out our Focus-On for Data Integration. Similar to last year, Hands-on-Labs will be available for those who want to experience the power of GoldenGate first hand. One of these instructor-led sessions provides “Deep Dive into Oracle GoldenGate” will be held on Thursday Oct 4th 11:15am at Marriott Marquis - Salon ½. I expect the spots will fill out fast in this session. Oracle GoldenGate Demos will be running Monday through Wednesday in Moscone South in both Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion Middleware sections of the Oracle demo grounds. We will be showcasing: Monitoring Oracle GoldenGate for End-to-End Visibility Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 New Features Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2: Real-Time, Transactional Database Replication Oracle GoldenGate Veridata Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture If you are not able to attend OpenWorld, you should not miss this week’s live webcast introducing Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2. On Wednesday the webcast will present the new features of GoldenGate and attendees will have a long, live Q&A panel session with the PM team.  I also recommend checking out the resources for GoldenGate to download new white papers. The whole team is looking forward to sharing with you the latest and greatest features of GoldenGate at the launch webcast and at OpenWorld.

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• iOS: Using Jenkins for nightly internal builds (TestFlight), plus frequent client builds

  - by Amy Worrall

  I'm an iOS dev, working for a small agency. I'm currently on a few smaller projects where I'm the only developer. We recently acquired a Jenkins server, but each project is left to fend for themselves as for how to use it. I'd like to use it for making and distributing builds. My ideal would be: Every commit is built as a single IPA that is placed in a HTTP-accessible location. (It only needs to keep the latest one, otherwise the disk would fill up — some of our apps are 500MB or more.) Once a day it makes a build, signs it with our internal provisioning profile, tacks a build number onto the end of the version number, and sends it to our internal TestFlight team. When manually prompted, it builds the latest commit, gives it a manually specified version number, signs it with the client's provisioning profile and sends it to TestFlight. I'm pretty new to Jenkins. The developer who set up the server is running it on one of our projects, so I know it has the right stuff installed to do Xcode builds. I believe he's only using it to run unit tests though, not to do any of the code signing, IPA creation or TestFlight stuff. So my questions: I've listed three distinct kinds of build. How does Jenkins cope with that? I see there's a "build triggers" section in the config for a Jenkins project, but it doesn't seem to mention different types of build. Should I just set up multiple Jenkins projects, called "App X (continuous)", "App X (nightly)" and "App X (client)"? How do I specify the provisioning profile through Jenkins? If there isn't a way, I guess I could make different configurations in the Xcode project… Has anyone else used Jenkins to actually do the release (i.e. build and push to TestFlight) of beta builds of their apps? Is it a good idea? Or should I continue just doing it manually?

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• Getting started with Access Services —Part1

  - by ybbest

  In SharePoint2010, we can publish the access database to SharePoint and make the access database accessible to users using SharePoint site. Today, I’d like to show you how to publish the access database to SharePoint. 1. Open the access2010 and click New>>Sample templates 2. And then select Issues Web Database (you can select any web database here, I choose the Issues Web Database here) 3. The next step is to publish this access database to SharePoint, you can do so by going to File>>  Save & Publish>> Publish to Access Services 4. Finally, fill in the details of the SharePoint site and site name and publish the database to SharePoint2010.If you need to publish the access database to https SharePoint site, check my previous blog here. 5. You will see the “publish succeeded” 6. Navigate to the site you will see now your Access Database is available online.

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• What is a good way to store tilemap data?

  - by Stephen Tierney

  I'm developing a 2D platformer with some uni friends. We've based it upon the XNA Platformer Starter Kit which uses .txt files to store the tile map. While this is simple it does not give us enough control and flexibility with level design. Some examples: for multiple layers of content multiple files are required, each object is fixed onto the grid, doesn't allow for rotation of objects, limited number of characters etc. So I'm doing some research into how to store the level data and map file. This concerns only the file system storage of the tile maps, not the data structure to be used by the game while it is running. The tile map is loaded into a 2D array, so this question is about which source to fill the array from. Reasoning for DB: From my perspective I see less redundancy of data using a database to store the tile data. Tiles in the same x,y position with the same characteristics can be reused from level to level. It seems like it would simple enough to write a method to retrieve all the tiles that are used in a particular level from the database. Reasoning for JSON/XML: Visually editable files, changes can be tracked via SVN a lot easier. But there is repeated content. Do either have any drawbacks (load times, access times, memory etc) compared to the other? And what is commonly used in the industry? Currently the file looks like this: .................... .................... .................... .................... .................... .................... .................... .........GGG........ .........###........ .................... ....GGG.......GGG... ....###.......###... .................... .1................X. #################### 1 - Player start point, X - Level Exit, . - Empty space, # - Platform, G - Gem

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• Oracle Solaris 11 ZFS Lab for Openworld 2012

  - by user12626122

  Preface This is the content from the Oracle Openworld 2012 ZFS lab. It was well attended - the feedback was that it was a little short - thats probably because in writing it I bacame very time-concious after the ASM/ACFS on Solaris extravaganza I ran last year which was almost too long for mortal man to finish in the 1 hour session. Enjoy. Table of Contents Exercise Z.1: ZFS Pools Exercise Z.2: ZFS File Systems Exercise Z.3: ZFS Compression Exercise Z.4: ZFS Deduplication Exercise Z.5: ZFS Encryption Exercise Z.6: Solaris 11 Shadow Migration Introduction This set of exercises is designed to briefly demonstrate new features in Solaris 11 ZFS file system: Deduplication, Encryption and Shadow Migration. Also included is the creation of zpools and zfs file systems - the basic building blocks of the technology, and also Compression which is the compliment of Deduplication. The exercises are just introductions - you are referred to the ZFS Adminstration Manual for further information. From Solaris 11 onward the online manual pages consist of zpool(1M) and zfs(1M) with further feature-specific information in zfs_allow(1M), zfs_encrypt(1M) and zfs_share(1M). The lab is easily carried out in a VirtualBox running Solaris 11 with 6 virtual 3 Gb disks to play with. Exercise Z.1: ZFS Pools Task: You have several disks to use for your new file system. Create a new zpool and a file system within it. Lab: You will check the status of existing zpools, create your own pool and expand it. Your Solaris 11 installation already has a root ZFS pool. It contains the root file system. Check this: root@solaris:~# zpool list NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT rpool 15.9G 6.62G 9.25G 41% 1.00x ONLINE - root@solaris:~# zpool status pool: rpool state: ONLINE scan: none requested config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM rpool ONLINE 0 0 0 c3t0d0s0 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors Note the disk device the root pool is on - c3t0d0s0 Now you will create your own ZFS pool. First you will check what disks are available: root@solaris:~# echo | format Searching for disks...done AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS: 0. c3t0d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 2085 alt 2 hd 255 sec 63> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@0,0 1. c3t2d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@2,0 2. c3t3d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@3,0 3. c3t4d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@4,0 4. c3t5d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@5,0 5. c3t6d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@6,0 6. c3t7d0 <ATA-VBOX HARDDISK-1.0 cyl 1534 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32> /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d/disk@7,0 Specify disk (enter its number): Specify disk (enter its number): The root disk is numbered 0. The others are free for use. Try creating a simple pool and observe the error message: root@solaris:~# zpool create mypool c3t2d0 c3t3d0 'mypool' successfully created, but with no redundancy; failure of one device will cause loss of the pool So destroy that pool and create a mirrored pool instead: root@solaris:~# zpool destroy mypool root@solaris:~# zpool create mypool mirror c3t2d0 c3t3d0 root@solaris:~# zpool status mypool pool: mypool state: ONLINE scan: none requested config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM mypool ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c3t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c3t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors Back to topExercise Z.2: ZFS File Systems Task: You have to create file systems for later exercises. You can see that when a pool is created, a file system of the same name is created: root@solaris:~# zfs list NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool 86.5K 2.94G 31K /mypool Create your filesystems and mountpoints as follows: root@solaris:~# zfs create -o mountpoint=/data1 mypool/mydata1 The -o option sets the mount point and automatically creates the necessary directory. root@solaris:~# zfs list mypool/mydata1 NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool/mydata1 31K 2.94G 31K /data1 Back to top Exercise Z.3: ZFS Compression Task:Try out different forms of compression available in ZFS Lab:Create 2nd filesystem with compression, fill both file systems with the same data, observe results You can see from the zfs(1) manual page that there are several types of compression available to you, set with the property=value syntax: compression=on | off | lzjb | gzip | gzip-N | zle Controls the compression algorithm used for this dataset. The lzjb compression algorithm is optimized for performance while providing decent data compression. Setting compression to on uses the lzjb compression algorithm. The gzip compression algorithm uses the same compression as the gzip(1) command. You can specify the gzip level by using the value gzip-N where N is an integer from 1 (fastest) to 9 (best compression ratio). Currently, gzip is equivalent to gzip-6 (which is also the default for gzip(1)). Create a second filesystem with compression turned on. Note how you set and get your values separately: root@solaris:~# zfs create -o mountpoint=/data2 mypool/mydata2 root@solaris:~# zfs set compression=gzip-9 mypool/mydata2 root@solaris:~# zfs get compression mypool/mydata1 NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE mypool/mydata1 compression off default root@solaris:~# zfs get compression mypool/mydata2 NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE mypool/mydata2 compression gzip-9 local Now you can copy the contents of /usr/lib into both your normal and compressing filesystem and observe the results. Don't forget the dot or period (".") in the find(1) command below: root@solaris:~# cd /usr/lib root@solaris:/usr/lib# find . -print | cpio -pdv /data1 root@solaris:/usr/lib# find . -print | cpio -pdv /data2 The copy into the compressing file system takes longer - as it has to perform the compression but the results show the effect: root@solaris:/usr/lib# zfs list NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool 1.35G 1.59G 31K /mypool mypool/mydata1 1.01G 1.59G 1.01G /data1 mypool/mydata2 341M 1.59G 341M /data2 Note that the available space in the pool is shared amongst the file systems. This behavior can be modified using quotas and reservations which are not covered in this lab but are covered extensively in the ZFS Administrators Guide. Back to top Exercise Z.4: ZFS Deduplication The deduplication property is used to remove redundant data from a ZFS file system. With the property enabled duplicate data blocks are removed synchronously. The result is that only unique data is stored and common componenents are shared. Task:See how to implement deduplication and its effects Lab: You will create a ZFS file system with deduplication turned on and see if it reduces the amount of physical storage needed when we again fill it with a copy of /usr/lib. root@solaris:/usr/lib# zfs destroy mypool/mydata2 root@solaris:/usr/lib# zfs set dedup=on mypool/mydata1 root@solaris:/usr/lib# rm -rf /data1/* root@solaris:/usr/lib# mkdir /data1/2nd-copy root@solaris:/usr/lib# zfs list NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool 1.02M 2.94G 31K /mypool mypool/mydata1 43K 2.94G 43K /data1 root@solaris:/usr/lib# find . -print | cpio -pd /data1 2142768 blocks root@solaris:/usr/lib# zfs list NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool 1.02G 1.99G 31K /mypool mypool/mydata1 1.01G 1.99G 1.01G /data1 root@solaris:/usr/lib# find . -print | cpio -pd /data1/2nd-copy 2142768 blocks root@solaris:/usr/lib#zfs list NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT mypool 1.99G 1.96G 31K /mypool mypool/mydata1 1.98G 1.96G 1.98G /data1 You could go on creating copies for quite a while...but you get the idea. Note that deduplication and compression can be combined: the compression acts on metadata. Deduplication works across file systems in a pool and there is a zpool-wide property dedupratio: root@solaris:/usr/lib# zpool get dedupratio mypool NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE mypool dedupratio 4.30x - Deduplication can also be checked using "zpool list": root@solaris:/usr/lib# zpool list NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT mypool 2.98G 1001M 2.01G 32% 4.30x ONLINE - rpool 15.9G 6.66G 9.21G 41% 1.00x ONLINE - Before moving on to the next topic, destroy that dataset and free up some space: root@solaris:~# zfs destroy mypool/mydata1 Back to top Exercise Z.5: ZFS Encryption Task: Encrypt sensitive data. Lab: Explore basic ZFS encryption. This lab only covers the basics of ZFS Encryption. In particular it does not cover various aspects of key management. Please see the ZFS Adminastrion Manual and the zfs_encrypt(1M) manual page for more detail on this functionality. Back to top root@solaris:~# zfs create -o encryption=on mypool/data2 Enter passphrase for 'mypool/data2': ******** Enter again: ******** root@solaris:~# Creation of a descendent dataset shows that encryption is inherited from the parent: root@solaris:~# zfs create mypool/data2/data3 root@solaris:~# zfs get -r encryption,keysource,keystatus,checksum mypool/data2 NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE mypool/data2 encryption on local mypool/data2 keysource passphrase,prompt local mypool/data2 keystatus available - mypool/data2 checksum sha256-mac local mypool/data2/data3 encryption on inherited from mypool/data2 mypool/data2/data3 keysource passphrase,prompt inherited from mypool/data2 mypool/data2/data3 keystatus available - mypool/data2/data3 checksum sha256-mac inherited from mypool/data2 You will find the online manual page zfs_encrypt(1M) contains examples. In particular, if time permits during this lab session you may wish to explore the changing of a key using "zfs key -c mypool/data2". Exercise Z.6: Shadow Migration Shadow Migration allows you to migrate data from an old file system to a new file system while simultaneously allowing access and modification to the new file system during the process. You can use Shadow Migration to migrate a local or remote UFS or ZFS file system to a local file system. Task: You wish to migrate data from one file system (UFS, ZFS, VxFS) to ZFS while mainaining access to it. Lab: Create the infrastructure for shadow migration and transfer one file system into another. First create the file system you want to migrate root@solaris:~# zpool create oldstuff c3t4d0 root@solaris:~# zfs create oldstuff/forgotten Then populate it with some files: root@solaris:~# cd /var/adm root@solaris:/var/adm# find . -print | cpio -pdv /oldstuff/forgotten You need the shadow-migration package installed: root@solaris:~# pkg install shadow-migration Packages to install: 1 Create boot environment: No Create backup boot environment: No Services to change: 1 DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB) Completed 1/1 14/14 0.2/0.2 PHASE ACTIONS Install Phase 39/39 PHASE ITEMS Package State Update Phase 1/1 Image State Update Phase 2/2 You then enable the shadowd service: root@solaris:~# svcadm enable shadowd root@solaris:~# svcs shadowd STATE STIME FMRI online 7:16:09 svc:/system/filesystem/shadowd:default Set the filesystem to be migrated to read-only root@solaris:~# zfs set readonly=on oldstuff/forgotten Create a new zfs file system with the shadow property set to the file system to be migrated: root@solaris:~# zfs create -o shadow=file:///oldstuff/forgotten mypool/remembered Use the shadowstat(1M) command to see the progress of the migration: root@solaris:~# shadowstat EST BYTES BYTES ELAPSED DATASET XFRD LEFT ERRORS TIME mypool/remembered 92.5M - - 00:00:59 mypool/remembered 99.1M 302M - 00:01:09 mypool/remembered 109M 260M - 00:01:19 mypool/remembered 133M 304M - 00:01:29 mypool/remembered 149M 339M - 00:01:39 mypool/remembered 156M 86.4M - 00:01:49 mypool/remembered 156M 8E 29 (completed) Note that if you had created /mypool/remembered as encrypted, this would be the preferred method of encrypting existing data. Similarly for compressing or deduplicating existing data. The procedure for migrating a file system over NFS is similar - see the ZFS Administration manual. That concludes this lab session.

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• Stencil mask with AlphaTestEffect

  - by Brendan Wanlass

  I am trying to pull off the following effect in XNA 4.0: http://eng.utah.edu/~brendanw/question.jpg The purple area has 50% opacity. I have gotten pretty close with the following code: public static DepthStencilState AlwaysStencilState = new DepthStencilState() { StencilEnable = true, StencilFunction = CompareFunction.Always, StencilPass = StencilOperation.Replace, ReferenceStencil = 1, DepthBufferEnable = false, }; public static DepthStencilState EqualStencilState = new DepthStencilState() { StencilEnable = true, StencilFunction = CompareFunction.Equal, StencilPass = StencilOperation.Keep, ReferenceStencil = 1, DepthBufferEnable = false, }; ... if (_alphaEffect == null) { _alphaEffect = new AlphaTestEffect(_spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice); _alphaEffect.AlphaFunction = CompareFunction.LessEqual; _alphaEffect.ReferenceAlpha = 129; Matrix projection = Matrix.CreateOrthographicOffCenter(0, _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferWidth, _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferHeight, 0, 0, 1); _alphaEffect.Projection = world.SystemManager.GetSystem<RenderSystem>().Camera.View * projection; } _mask = new RenderTarget2D(_spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice, _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferWidth, _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferHeight, false, SurfaceFormat.Color, DepthFormat.Depth24Stencil8); _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(_mask); _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.Clear(ClearOptions.Target | ClearOptions.Stencil, Color.Transparent, 0, 0); _spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Immediate, null, null, AlwaysStencilState, null, _alphaEffect); _spriteBatch.Draw(sprite.Texture, position, sprite.SourceRectangle,Color.White, 0f, sprite.Origin, 1f, SpriteEffects.None, 0); _spriteBatch.End(); _spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Immediate, null, null, EqualStencilState, null, null); _spriteBatch.Draw(_maskTex, new Vector2(x * _maskTex.Width, y * _maskTex.Height), null, Color.White, 0f, Vector2.Zero, 1f, SpriteEffects.None, 0); _spriteBatch.End(); _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Black); _spriteBatch.Begin(); _spriteBatch.Draw((Texture2D)_mask, Vector2.Zero, null, Color.White, 0f, Vector2.Zero, 1f, SpriteEffects.None, layer/max_layer); _spriteBatch.End(); My problem is, I can't get the AlphaTestEffect to behave. I can either mask over the semi-transparent purple junk and fill it in with the green design, or I can draw over the completely opaque grassy texture. How can I specify the exact opacity that needs to be replace with the green design?

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• Inevitable Corporate Bureaucracy

  - by Ahsan Alam

  Top executives of most smaller organizations want their companies to be different from the larger corporations. They want their organizations smaller in size; but bigger in productivity by eliminating red tapes and corporate bureaucracy. When the company is smaller, people often work like firefighters – taking on new business and technology challenges without thinking about any procedures and guidelines. People also tend to wear many hats to accomplish tasks quickly in order to integrate new businesses. For example, software developers in smaller organizations may take on responsibilities of client interactions, requirements gathering, design and development, code deployment, production support, network infrastructure support, database design and maintenance along with countless other duties. In addition, systems in smaller organizations tend to be loosely guarded. So, people often don't follow many procedures in order to setup environments and implement technical projects. It's not uncommon to change code and deploy without anyone realizing. Similarly, business requirements may also get defined in an informal manner without any type of documentation. As the company grows, everything starts to change significantly impacting people and the overall business process. Suddenly, following procedures become extremely important. Consequently, new roles, guidelines and procedures start to emerge. Everything from business process to technology implementation start to become more and more process oriented. Organizations start to define and document steps, invent procedure to track process and systems level changes, and start restricting access to various systems for security reasons. At the same time, as a growing company start doing businesses with larger clienteles, they are automatically forced to abide by all sorts of industry compliance laws. Moreover, growing companies tend to recruit experienced individuals to fill new roles who usually bring their expertise from larger and more bureaucratic organizations.   Despite the best efforts from the top executives, it seems increased number of procedures and guidelines as well as new recruits automatically contribute to the evolution of corporate bureaucracy. Maybe, corporate bureaucracy is an inevitable side effect of a growing organization.

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