Search Results

Search found 6258 results on 251 pages for 'power coder'.

Page 69/251 | < Previous Page | 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76  | Next Page >

• Installing SubText with Web PI

  - by Ben Griswold

  SubText is the engine behind our company blog. With the goal of ensuring a smooth transition between the main website and the blogs, I spent some time tightening up the styles for the aggregate and individual blogs last week.  This required a custom SubText skin and lot of css tweaking. Though I’ve previously had the SubText source running on my machine, there was no need to update or rebuild the solution in my current case so just went ahead with a local installation using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer (Web PI).  I just checked the SubText box, provided answers to a few key setup questions (admin user credentials, SubText database, etc) and I was up and running in minutes.   Once the setup was complete, I was asked if I’d like to launch SubText.  The SubText Installation Wizard picked up where Web PI left off and the setup couldn’t have been easier.  Web PI provides quick and easy installs for lots of goodies.  Check it out.

  Read the article

• Streaming Netflix Media with My Wii

  - by Ben Griswold

  Late last year, I wrote about Streaming Media with my Sony Blu-ray Disc Player. I am still digging the Blu-ray player setup but guess what showed up in the mail yesterday?   That’s right!  A free Netflix disc which now let’s me instantly watch TV episodes and movies via my Wii console.  I popped the disc into the console and in less than 2 minutes the brain-numbingly simple activation was complete.  (Full-disclosure: I already had my Wi-Fi connection configured, but I’m confident that the Netflix installation disc would have helpfully walked me through this additional step if need be.) As it turns out, the Wii Netflix UI offers far more options than what one gets with the Blu-ray setup.  Not only can I view my Instant Queue, but there’s a list of recently watched movies, a list of recommended titles by category, the star rating system, movies information and nearly everything you find on the web.  I reread Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability on a flight back from Orlando on Wednesday, so my current view of the world may be a little skewed but, the brilliance of Netflix Wii’s user interface is undeniable. It’s not like the Blu-ray navigation is complicated but the Wii navigation feels familiar and intuitive. How intuitive?  Well, you won’t find a single bit of help text on any of the Wii screens – just a simple and obvious point-and-click navigation system.  And the UI is really pretty (which is still very important if you ask me) and so easy it became fun. Did I mention the media streaming works!  Yep, we watched 2 half-hour kid videos yesterday without any streaming issues at all.  If you have a Netflix account and a Wii, order your disc and give it a go. It’s good stuff.

  Read the article

• My Mother Bought a Droid

  - by Ben Griswold

  I converted to iPhone two years ago when I left my former employer and my Blackberry behind. The truth is I half-heartedly purchased my iPhone. It was a great looking device, but as far as I was concerned, it was a mere toy compared to my Blackberry.  I remember hiding the toy in my briefcase when attending business meetings because I didn’t consider it to be professional enough.  I’ve since owned all three generations of the iPhone and, well, iPhone seems to have caught on. I still miss the click of the Blackberry keyboard and the blinking red light letting me know that someone/something requires my attention, but I’m officially an iPhone fanboy now.  My mom called last weekend and asked if she should buy an iPhone. I talked her ear off about everything I love about iPhone. I went on for about twenty minutes. I couldn’t help myself. I mentioned everything from my podcast subscriptions to the application which manages my workouts.  I went as far as to say that someday all smart phones will be referred to as iPhones just like all tissues are referred to as Kleenex and all sodas are referred to as Cokes.  I was really on a roll and then I stopped. I had to…the call dropped.  There I was, strategically standing in the far corner of my backyard where I get the most reliable AT&T reception and the call drops in middle of my iPhone pitch.  Folks, I don’t care how good a salesperson you are, it’s tough to recover from a situation like this.   I dialed my mom back and jokingly asked if she was planning to make calls with her new phone. I explained that AT&T is bound to provide better service eventually but I’m not sure she should wait. After all, I have troubles with the network in San Diego and I can only image how bad it would be for her in Western Massachusetts. Mom called back a few days later exclaiming, “I bought a Droid! I love this phone! I haven’t done anything with it but make phone calls, but I love it.”  I had to laugh.  My mom made the right call (pun intended.)  The iPhone is an amazing device, but owners are constantly reminded that its core function (it’s a phone, remember?) is subpar.  If you love gadgets, you’re probably enthralled by iPhone’s many bells and whistles and, relatively speaking, the terrible phone service might not amount to much.  (Maybe it amounts to a rant on your blog.) The overall iPhone offering is so attractive that consumers are willing to wait for AT&T to straighten up their act or wait until Apple grants a choice of carriers.  But I don’t see either of these remedies coming soon. In the interim, I’m willing to take my iPhone for what it is and just continue to enjoy my favorite features while pretending that poor coverage isn’t a big deal. With any luck, more and more reasonable folks will recognize that Android Phones are legitimate players in the smart phone space, they will buy loads of them and there will become plenty of functional phones to borrow when my “phone” is showing zero bars.  Heck, I’m already covered when I visit my mom.

  Read the article

• Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff

  - by The Geek

  Yesterday Microsoft announced the release candidate of Internet Explorer 9, which is very close to the final product. Here’s a screenshot tour of the most interesting new stuff, as well as answers to your questions. The most important question is should you install this version? And the answer is absolutely yes. Even if you don’t use IE, it’s better to have a newer, more secure version on your PC. What’s New Under the Hood in Release Candidate vs Beta? If you want to see the full list of changes with all the original marketing detail, you can read Microsoft’s Beauty of the Web page, but here’s the highlights that you might be interested in. Improved Performance – they’ve made a lot of changes, and it really feels faster, especially when using more intensive web apps like Gmail. Power Consumption Settings – since the JavaScript engine in any browser uses a lot of CPU power, they’ve now integrated it into the power settings, so if you’re on battery it will use less CPU, and save battery life. This is really a great change. UI Changes – The tab bar can now be moved below the address bar (see below for more), they’ve shaved some pixels off the design to save space, and now you can toggle the Menu bar to be always on. Pinned Sites – now you can pin multiple pages to a single taskbar button. Very useful if you always use a couple web apps together. You can also pin a site in InPrivate mode. FlashBlock and AdBlock are Integrated (sorta) – there’s a new ActiveX filtering that lets you enable plug-ins only for sites you trust. There’s also a tracking protection list that can block certain content (which can obviously be used to block ads). Geolocation – while a lot of privacy conscious people might complain about this, if you use your laptop while traveling, it’s really useful to have geo-located features when using Google Maps, etc. Don’t worry, it won’t leak your privacy by default. WebM Video – Yeah, Google recently removed H.264 from Chrome, but Microsoft has added Google’s WebM video format to Internet Explorer. Keep reading for more about using the new features Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines The 50 Faces of Mario Death [Infographic] Clean Up Google Calendar’s Interface in Chrome and Iron The Rise and Fall of Kramerica? [Seinfeld Video] GNOME Shell 3 Live CDs for OpenSUSE and Fedora Available for Testing Picplz Offers Special FX, Sharing, and Backup of Your Smartphone Pics BUILD! An Epic LEGO Stop Motion Film [VIDEO]

  Read the article

• How to Organize a Programming Language Club

  - by Ben Griswold

  I previously noted that we started a language club at work.  You know, I searched around but I couldn’t find a copy of the How to Organize a Programming Language Club Handbook. Maybe it’s sold out?  Yes, Stack Overflow has quite a bit of information on how to learn and teach new languages and there’s also a good number of online tutorials which provide language introductions but I was interested in group learning.  After   two months of meetings, I present to you the Unofficial How to Organize a Programming Language Club Handbook.  1. Gauge interest. Start by surveying prospects. “Excuse me, smart-developer-whom-I-work-with-and-I-think-might-be-interested-in-learning-a-new-coding-language-with-me. Are you interested in learning a new language with me?” If you’re lucky, you work with a bunch of really smart folks who aren’t shy about teaching/learning in a group setting and you’ll have a collective interest in no time.  Simply suggesting the idea is the only effort required.  If you don’t work in this type of environment, maybe you should consider a new place of employment.  2. Make it official. Send out a “Welcome to the Club” email: There’s been talk of folks itching to learn new languages – Python, Scala, F# and Haskell to name a few.  Rather than taking on new languages alone, let’s learn in the open.  That’s right.  Let’s start a languages club.  We’ll have everything a real club needs – secret handshake, goofy motto and a high-and-mighty sense that we’re better than everybody else. T-shirts?  Hell YES!  Anyway, I’ve thrown this idea around the office and no one has laughed at me yet so please consider this your very official invitation to be in THE club. [Insert your ideas about how the club might be run, solicit feedback and suggestions, ask what other folks would like to get out the club, comment about club hazing practices and talk up the T-shirts even more. Finally, call out the languages you are interested in learning and ask the group for their list.] 3.  Send out invitations to the first meeting.  Don’t skimp!  Hallmark greeting cards for everyone.  Personalized.  Hearts over the I’s and everything.  Oh, and be sure to include the list of suggested languages with vote count.  Here the list of languages we are interested in: Python 5 Ruby 4 Objective-C 3 F# 2 Haskell 2 Scala 2 Ada 1 Boo 1 C# 1 Clojure 1 Erlang 1 Go 1 Pi 1 Prolog 1 Qt 1 4.  At the first meeting, there must be cake.  Lots of cake. And you should tackle some very important questions: Which language should we start with?  You can immediately go with the top vote getter or you could do as we did and designate each person to provide a high-level review of each of the proposed languages over the next two weeks.  After all presentations are completed, vote on the language. Our high-level review consisted of answers to a series of questions. Decide how often and where the group will meet.  We, for example, meet for a brown bag lunch every Wednesday.  Decide how you’re going to learn.  We determined that the best way to learn is to just dive in and write code.  After choosing our first language (Python), we talked about building an application, or performing coding katas, but we ultimately choose to complete a series of Project Euler problems.  We kept it simple – each member works out the same two problems each week in preparation of a code review the following Wednesday. 5.  Code, Review, Learn.  Prior to the weekly meeting, everyone uploads their solutions to our internal wiki.  Each Project Euler problem has a dedicated page.  In the meeting, we use a really fancy HD projector to show off each member’s solution.  It is very important to use an HD projector.  Again, don’t skimp!  Each code author speaks to their solution, everyone else comments, applauds, points fingers and laughs, etc.  As much as I’ve learned from solving the problems on my own, I’ve learned at least twice as much at the group code review.  6.  Rinse. Lather. Repeat.  We’ve hosted the language club for 7 weeks now.  The first meeting just set the stage.  The next two meetings provided a review of the languages followed by a first language selection.  The remaining meetings focused on Python and Project Euler problems.  Today we took a vote as to whether or not we’re ready to switch to another language and/or another problem set.  Pretty much everyone wants to stay the course for a few more weeks at least.  Until then, we’ll continue to code the next two solutions, review and learn. Again, we’ve been having a good time with the programming language club.  I’m glad it got off the ground.  What do you think?  Would you be interested in a language club?  Any suggestions on what we might do better?

  Read the article

• Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework Review

  - by Ben Griswold

  Early in my career, when I wanted to learn a new technology, I’d sit in the bookstore aisle and I’d work my way through each of the available books on the given subject.  Put in enough time in a bookstore and you can learn just about anything. I used to really enjoy my time in the bookstore – but times have certainly changed.  Whereas books used to be the only place I could find solutions to my problems, now they may be the very last place I look.  I have been working with the ASP.NET MVC Framework for more than a year.  I have a few projects and a couple of major deployments under my belt and I was able to get up to speed with the framework without reading a single book*.  With so many resources at our fingertips (podcasts, screencasts, blogs, stackoverflow, open source projects, www.asp.net, you name it) why bother with a book? Well, I flipped through Steven Sanderson’s Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework a few months ago. And since it is prominently displayed in my co-worker’s office, I tend to pick it up as a reference from time to time.  Last week, I’m not sure why, I decided to read it cover to cover.  Man, did I eat this book up.  Granted, a lot of what I read was review, but it was only review because I had already learned lessons by piecing the puzzle together for myself via various sources. If I were starting with ASP.NET MVC (or ASP.NET Web Deployment in general) today, the first thing I would do is buy Steven Sanderson’s Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework and read it cover to cover. Steven Sanderson did such a great job with this book! As much as I appreciated the in-depth model, view, and controller talk, I was completely impressed with all the extra bits which were included.  There a was nice overview of BDD, view engine comparisons, a chapter dedicated to security and vulnerabilities, IoC, TDD and Mocking (of course), IIS deployment options and a nice overview of what the .NET platform and C# offers.  Heck, Sanderson even include bits about webforms! The book is fantastic and I highly recommend it – even if you think you’ve already got your head around ASP.NET MVC.  By the way, procrastinators may be in luck.  ASP.NET MVC V2 Framework can be pre-ordered.  You might want to jump right into the second edition and find out what Sanderson has to say about MVC 2. * Actually, I did read through the free bits of Professional ASP.NET MVC 1.0.  But it was just a chapter – albeit a really long chapter.

  Read the article

• Project Euler 53: Ruby

  - by Ben Griswold

  In my attempt to learn Ruby out in the open, here’s my solution for Project Euler Problem 53.  I first attempted to solve this problem using the Ruby combinations libraries. That didn’t work out so well. With a second look at the problem, the provided formula ended up being just the thing to solve the problem effectively. As always, any feedback is welcome. # Euler 53 # http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&id=53 # There are exactly ten ways of selecting three from five, # 12345: 123, 124, 125, 134, 135, 145, 234, 235, 245, # and 345 # In combinatorics, we use the notation, 5C3 = 10. # In general, # # nCr = n! / r!(n-r)!,where r <= n, # n! = n(n1)...321, and 0! = 1. # # It is not until n = 23, that a value exceeds # one-million: 23C10 = 1144066. # In general: nCr # How many, not necessarily distinct, values of nCr, # for 1 <= n <= 100, are greater than one-million timer_start = Time.now # There's no factorial method in Ruby, I guess. class Integer # http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Factorial#Ruby def factorial (1..self).reduce(1, :*) end end def combinations(n, r) n.factorial / (r.factorial * (n-r).factorial) end answer = 0 100.downto(3) do |c| (2).upto(c-1) { |r| answer += 1 if combinations(c, r) > 1_000_000 } end puts answer puts "Elapsed Time: #{(Time.now - timer_start)*1000} milliseconds"

  Read the article

• Project Euler 51: Ruby

  - by Ben Griswold

  In my attempt to learn Ruby out in the open, here’s my solution for Project Euler Problem 51.  I know I started back up with Python this week, but I have three more Ruby solutions in the hopper and I wanted to share. For the record, Project Euler 51 was the second hardest Euler problem for me thus far. Yeah. As always, any feedback is welcome. # Euler 51 # http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&id=51 # By replacing the 1st digit of *3, it turns out that six # of the nine possible values: 13, 23, 43, 53, 73, and 83, # are all prime. # # By replacing the 3rd and 4th digits of 56**3 with the # same digit, this 5-digit number is the first example # having seven primes among the ten generated numbers, # yielding the family: 56003, 56113, 56333, 56443, # 56663, 56773, and 56993. Consequently 56003, being the # first member of this family, is the smallest prime with # this property. # # Find the smallest prime which, by replacing part of the # number (not necessarily adjacent digits) with the same # digit, is part of an eight prime value family. timer_start = Time.now require 'mathn' def eight_prime_family(prime) 0.upto(9) do |repeating_number| # Assume mask of 3 or more repeating numbers if prime.count(repeating_number.to_s) >= 3 ctr = 1 (repeating_number + 1).upto(9) do |replacement_number| family_candidate = prime.gsub(repeating_number.to_s, replacement_number.to_s) ctr += 1 if (family_candidate.to_i).prime? end return true if ctr >= 8 end end false end # Wanted to loop through primes using Prime.each # but it took too long to get to the starting value. n = 9999 while n += 2 next if !n.prime? break if eight_prime_family(n.to_s) end puts n puts "Elapsed Time: #{(Time.now - timer_start)*1000} milliseconds"

  Read the article

• Introduction to Lean Software Development and Kanban Systems – Defer Commitment and Decide As Late A

  - by Ben Griswold

  In this post, we’ll continue the series by concentrating on Principle #4: Defer Commitment and Decide As Late As Possible.   In the next part of the series, we’ll dive into Principle #5: Deliver As Fast As Possible. And I am going to be a little obnoxious about listing my Lean and Kanban references with every series post.  The references are great and they deserve this sort of attention.  

  Read the article

• Language Club – Battle of the Dynamic Languages

  - by Ben Griswold

  After dedicating the last eight weeks to learning Ruby, it’s time to move onto another language.  I really dig Ruby.  I really enjoy its dynamism and expressiveness and always-openness and it’s been the highlight of our coding club for me so far. But that’s just my take on the language.  I know a lot of coders who’s stomachs turn with the mere thought of Ruby.  They say it’s Ruby’s openness which has them feeling uneasy.  I’d say “write a bunch of tests and get over it,” but I figure there must be more to it than always open classes and possible method collisions. Yes, there’s something else to it alright. The folks who didn’t fall head over heals for Ruby are already in love with Python.  You might remember that Python was the first language we tackled in our coding club.  My time with Python was okay but it didn’t feel as natural to me as Ruby.  But let’s say we started with Ruby and then moved onto Python.  Would I see Python in a different light right now.  Might I even prefer Python over Ruby?  I suppose it’s possible but it’s pretty tough to test that theory – unless we visit Python for a second time. That’s right. The language club is going to focus on Python again and in my attempt to learn Python – yet again – in the open, I’ll be posting my solutions here just as I did for Ruby.  We don’t always have second chances so I going about this relearning with two primary goals in mind:  First, I’m going to use IronPython and the IronPython tools which provide a Python code editor, a file-based project system, and an interactive Python interpreter, all inside Visual Studio 2010.  As a note, the IronPython tools are now part of the main IronPython installer which is Version 2.7 Alpha 1 (not the latest stable version, 2.6.1) and I’d be crazy not to use them.  Second, I’d like to make sure I’m still learning Python without a complete MS skew so I’m going to run my code through Eclipse using the PyDev plugin as well.  Heck, I might use IDLE too. I already have this setup on my machine so it’s no big deal. Okay, that’s it for now.  I worked on the first ten Euler problems last night and the solutions will be posted shortly. Wish me luck.

  Read the article

• ASP.NET Meta Keywords and Description

  - by Ben Griswold

  Some of the ASP.NET 4 improvements around SEO are neat.  The ASP.NET 4 Page.MetaKeywords and Page.MetaDescription properties, for example, are a welcomed change.  There’s nothing earth-shattering going on here – you can now set these meta tags via your Master page’s code behind rather than relying on updates to your markup alone.  It isn’t difficult to manage meta keywords and descriptions without these ASP.NET 4 properties but I still appreciate the attention SEO is getting.  It’s nice to get gentle reminder via new coding features that some of the more subtle aspects of one’s application deserve thought and attention too.  For the record, this is how I currently manage my meta: <meta name="keywords"     content="<%= Html.Encode(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Meta.Keywords"]) %>" /> <meta name="description"     content="<%= Html.Encode(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Meta.Description"]) %>" /> All Master pages assume the same keywords and description values as defined by the application settings.  Nothing fancy. Nothing dynamic. But it’s manageable.  It works, but I’m looking forward to the new way in ASP.NET 4.

  Read the article

• Project Euler 10: (Iron)Python

  - by Ben Griswold

  In my attempt to learn (Iron)Python out in the open, here’s my solution for Project Euler Problem 10.  As always, any feedback is welcome. # Euler 10 # http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&id=10 # The sum of the primes below 10 is 2 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 17. # Find the sum of all the primes below two million. import time start = time.time() def primes_to_max(max): primes, number = [2], 3 while number < max: isPrime = True for prime in primes: if number % prime == 0: isPrime = False break if (prime * prime > number): break if isPrime: primes.append(number) number += 2 return primes primes = primes_to_max(2000000) print sum(primes) print "Elapsed Time:", (time.time() - start) * 1000, "millisecs" a=raw_input('Press return to continue')

  Read the article

• Streaming Media with Sony Blu-ray Disc Player

  - by Ben Griswold

  The best gift under the tree this year? A Sony Blu-ray Disc player: The BDP-N460 allows you to instantly stream thousands of movies, videos and music from the largest selection of leading content providers including Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, YouTube™, Slacker® Radio and many, many more. Plus, enjoy the ultimate in high-definition entertainment and watch Blu-ray Disc movies in Full HD 1080p quality with HD audio. The BDP-N460 includes built-in software that makes it easy to connect this player to your existing wireless network.  So I did… I paired the disc player with the recommended Linksys Wireless Ethernet Bridge (WET-610N) and I was streaming the last season of Lost episodes in no time. Really cool. Highly recommended.

  Read the article

• libimobiledevice wants to remove all my other packages

  - by Dror Cohen

  When running the command sudo apt-get remove libimobiledevice2 I get: The following packages will be REMOVED: ... gdm gdm-guest-session gnome-power-manager gnome-session gnome-session-bin gvfs-backends indicator-power indicator-session kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard libgpod-common libgpod4 libimobiledevice2 nautilus-share ubuntu-desktop upower` Is it really nessecary to remove all of my KDE and Gnome packages? The source of the problem is that the installed oneric package doesn't recognize my ios 5.1 - so I wanted to switch to the latest and greatest (1.0.7 and if that's not good enough I'll go to the dev version 1.1.2). I'm using oneric 64bit.

  Read the article

• Introduction to Lean Software Development and Kanban Systems – Build Integrity and Quality In

  - by Ben Griswold

  In this post, we’ll continue the series by concentrating on Principle #3: Build Integrity and Quality In.   In the next part of the series, we’ll dive into Principle #4: Defer Commitment and Decide As Late As Possible. And I am going to be a little obnoxious about listing my Lean and Kanban references with every series post.  The references are great and they deserve this sort of attention.  

  Read the article

• Custom Profile Provider with Web Deployment Project

  - by Ben Griswold

  I wrote about implementing a custom profile provider inside of your ASP.NET MVC application yesterday. If you haven’t read the article, don’t sweat it.  Most of the stuff I write is rubbish anyway. Since you have joined me today, though, I might as well offer up a little tip: you can run into trouble, like I did, if you enable your custom profile provider inside of an application which is deployed using a Web Deployment Project.  Everything will run great on your local machine and you’ll probably take an early lunch because you got the code running in no time flat and the build server is happy and all tests pass and, gosh, maybe you’ll just cut out early because it is Friday after all.  But then the first user hits the integration machine and, that’s right, yellow screen of death. Lucky you, just as you’re walking out the door, the user kindly sends the exception message and stack trace: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: type Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Stack Trace: [ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: type] System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic) +2796915 System.Web.Profile.ProfileBase.CreateMyInstance(String username, Boolean isAuthenticated) +76 System.Web.Profile.ProfileBase.Create(String username, Boolean isAuthenticated) +312 User error?  Not this time. Damn! One hour later… you notice the harmless “Treat as library component (remove the App_Code.compiled file)” setting on the Output Assemblies Tab of your Web Deployment Project. You have no idea why, but you uncheck it.  You test and everything works great both locally and on the integration machine.  Application users think you’re the best and you’re still going to catch the last half hour of happy hour.  Happy Friday.

  Read the article

• Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby

  - by Ben Griswold

  You’re familiar with O’Reilly’s brilliant Head First Series, right?  Great.  Then you know how every book begins with an explanation of the Head First teaching style and you know the teaching format which Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates developed is based on research in cognitive science, neurobiology and educational psychology and it’s all about making learning visual and conversational and attractive and emotional and it’s highly effective.  Anyway, it’s a great series and you should read every last one of the books. Moving on… I’ve been wanting to learn more about Ruby and Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby has been on my reading list for a while and there was talk about cartoon foxes and other silliness and I figured Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby probably takes the same unorthodox teaching style as the Head First books – and that’s great – so I read the book, in piecemeal, over the last couple of weeks and, well, I figured wrong. Now having read the book, here’s my take on Why’s (Poignant) Guide – it’s very creative and clever and it does a darn good job of introducing one to Ruby.  If you’re interested in Ruby or simply interested, the online book is worth your time.  If you’re thinking (like me) that cartoon foxes will be doing the teaching, that’s simple not the case.  However, the cartoons and the random stories in the sidebar may serve a purpose. Unlike the Head First books where images and captions are used to further explain the teachings, the cartoons and stories in Why’s Guide serve as intermission and offer your brain a brief moment of rest before the next Ruby concept is explained.  It’s not a bad strategy, but definitely not as effective as the Head First techniques.  

  Read the article

• F# in 90 Seconds

  - by Ben Griswold

  I mentioned in a previous post that we’ve started a languages club at the office.  In an effort to decide which language we will first concentrate on, I volunteered to give the rundown on F#.  Rather than providing a summary here, I’ve provided my slide deck for your viewing enjoyment.  There’s nothing special here outside of a some pretty cool characters from The 56 Geeks Project by Scott Johnson and collection of information from my prior functional programming presentations.   Download F# in 90 Seconds

  Read the article

• World Record Batch Rate on Oracle JD Edwards Consolidated Workload with SPARC T4-2

  - by Brian

  Oracle produced a World Record batch throughput for single system results on Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Day-in-the-Life benchmark using Oracle's SPARC T4-2 server running Oracle Solaris Containers and consolidating JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle WebLogic servers and the Oracle Database 11g Release 2. The workload includes both online and batch workload. The SPARC T4-2 server delivered a result of 8,000 online users while concurrently executing a mix of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Long and Short batch processes at 95.5 UBEs/min (Universal Batch Engines per minute). In order to obtain this record benchmark result, the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle WebLogic and Oracle Database 11g Release 2 servers were executed each in separate Oracle Solaris Containers which enabled optimal system resources distribution and performance together with scalable and manageable virtualization. One SPARC T4-2 server running Oracle Solaris Containers and consolidating JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle WebLogic servers and the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 utilized only 55% of the available CPU power. The Oracle DB server in a Shared Server configuration allows for optimized CPU resource utilization and significant memory savings on the SPARC T4-2 server without sacrificing performance. This configuration with SPARC T4-2 server has achieved 33% more Users/core, 47% more UBEs/min and 78% more Users/rack unit than the IBM Power 770 server. The SPARC T4-2 server with 2 processors ran the JD Edwards "Day-in-the-Life" benchmark and supported 8,000 concurrent online users while concurrently executing mixed batch workloads at 95.5 UBEs per minute. The IBM Power 770 server with twice as many processors supported only 12,000 concurrent online users while concurrently executing mixed batch workloads at only 65 UBEs per minute. This benchmark demonstrates more than 2x cost savings by consolidating the complete solution in a single SPARC T4-2 server compared to earlier published results of 10,000 users and 67 UBEs per minute on two SPARC T4-2 and SPARC T4-1. The Oracle DB server used mirrored (RAID 1) volumes for the database providing high availability for the data without impacting performance. Performance Landscape JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Day in the Life (DIL) Benchmark Consolidated Online with Batch Workload System Rack Units BatchRate(UBEs/m) Online Users Users /Units Users /Core Version SPARC T4-2 (2 x SPARC T4, 2.85 GHz) 3 95.5 8,000 2,667 500 9.0.2 IBM Power 770 (4 x POWER7, 3.3 GHz, 32 cores) 8 65 12,000 1,500 375 9.0.2 Batch Rate (UBEs/m) — Batch transaction rate in UBEs per minute Configuration Summary Hardware Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-2 server with 2 x SPARC T4 processors, 2.85 GHz 256 GB memory 4 x 300 GB 10K RPM SAS internal disk 2 x 300 GB internal SSD 2 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Arrays Software Configuration: Oracle Solaris 10 Oracle Solaris Containers JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0.2 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools (8.98.4.2) Oracle WebLogic Server 11g (10.3.4) Oracle HTTP Server 11g Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.1) Benchmark Description JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is an integrated applications suite of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. Oracle offers 70 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne application modules to support a diverse set of business operations. Oracle's Day in the Life (DIL) kit is a suite of scripts that exercises most common transactions of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications, including business processes such as payroll, sales order, purchase order, work order, and manufacturing processes, such as ship confirmation. These are labeled by industry acronyms such as SCM, CRM, HCM, SRM and FMS. The kit's scripts execute transactions typical of a mid-sized manufacturing company. The workload consists of online transactions and the UBE – Universal Business Engine workload of 61 short and 4 long UBEs. LoadRunner runs the DIL workload, collects the user’s transactions response times and reports the key metric of Combined Weighted Average Transaction Response time. The UBE processes workload runs from the JD Enterprise Application server. Oracle's UBE processes come as three flavors: Short UBEs < 1 minute engage in Business Report and Summary Analysis, Mid UBEs > 1 minute create a large report of Account, Balance, and Full Address, Long UBEs > 2 minutes simulate Payroll, Sales Order, night only jobs. The UBE workload generates large numbers of PDF files reports and log files. The UBE Queues are categorized as the QBATCHD, a single threaded queue for large and medium UBEs, and the QPROCESS queue for short UBEs run concurrently. Oracle's UBE process performance metric is Number of Maximum Concurrent UBE processes at transaction rate, UBEs/minute. Key Points and Best Practices Two JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Application Servers, two Oracle WebLogic Servers 11g Release 1 coupled with two Oracle Web Tier HTTP server instances and one Oracle Database 11g Release 2 database on a single SPARC T4-2 server were hosted in separate Oracle Solaris Containers bound to four processor sets to demonstrate consolidation of multiple applications, web servers and the database with best resource utilizations. Interrupt fencing was configured on all Oracle Solaris Containers to channel the interrupts to processors other than the processor sets used for the JD Edwards Application server, Oracle WebLogic servers and the database server. A Oracle WebLogic vertical cluster was configured on each WebServer Container with twelve managed instances each to load balance users' requests and to provide the infrastructure that enables scaling to high number of users with ease of deployment and high availability. The database log writer was run in the real time RT class and bound to a processor set. The database redo logs were configured on the raw disk partitions. The Oracle Solaris Container running the Enterprise Application server completed 61 Short UBEs, 4 Long UBEs concurrently as the mixed size batch workload. The mixed size UBEs ran concurrently from the Enterprise Application server with the 8,000 online users driven by the LoadRunner. See Also SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com OTN JD Edwards EnterpriseOne oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition oracle.com OTN Oracle Fusion Middleware oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement Copyright 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Results as of 09/30/2012.

  Read the article

• Technical Screencast Series

  - by Ben Griswold

  Noah and I have started to produce a series of technical screencasts. In the spirit of Dimecasts.net, we’re limiting each episode to ten minutes as we thought the development community could benefit from short, focused episodes. We’re just getting started, but I’m really pleased with our progress and I’m very excited about what’s to come.  The first three episodes are focused on the .NET stack (specifically around Visual Studio Solution Setup, Managing .NET External Dependencies and Working with the ASP.NET Membership Provider) but since we work for a mixed shop of .NET and Java development, I’m sure we’ll eventually introduce all sorts of topics. We’re currently putting together a list of shows. If you have suggestions, please let me know. I plan to post the episodes to johnnycoder as they roll out and who knows?  Maybe your screencast idea will show up next.

  Read the article

• C# Multiple Property Sort

  - by Ben Griswold

  As you can see in the snippet below, sorting is easy with Linq.  Simply provide your OrderBy criteria and you’re done.  If you want a secondary sort field, add a ThenBy expression to the chain.  Want a third level sort?  Just add ThenBy along with another sort expression. var projects = new List<Project>     {         new Project {Description = "A", ProjectStatusTypeId = 1},         new Project {Description = "B", ProjectStatusTypeId = 3},         new Project {Description = "C", ProjectStatusTypeId = 3},         new Project {Description = "C", ProjectStatusTypeId = 2},         new Project {Description = "E", ProjectStatusTypeId = 1},         new Project {Description = "A", ProjectStatusTypeId = 2},         new Project {Description = "C", ProjectStatusTypeId = 4},         new Project {Description = "A", ProjectStatusTypeId = 3}     };   projects = projects     .OrderBy(x => x.Description)     .ThenBy(x => x.ProjectStatusTypeId)     .ToList();   foreach (var project in projects) {     Console.Out.WriteLine("{0} {1}", project.Description,         project.ProjectStatusTypeId); } Linq offers a great sort solution most of the time, but what if you want or need to do it the old fashioned way? projects.Sort ((x, y) =>         Comparer<String>.Default             .Compare(x.Description, y.Description) != 0 ?         Comparer<String>.Default             .Compare(x.Description, y.Description) :         Comparer<Int32>.Default             .Compare(x.ProjectStatusTypeId, y.ProjectStatusTypeId));   foreach (var project in projects) {     Console.Out.WriteLine("{0} {1}", project.Description,         project.ProjectStatusTypeId); } It’s not that bad, right? Just for fun, let add some additional logic to our sort.  Let’s say we wanted our secondary sort to be based on the name associated with the ProjectStatusTypeId.  projects.Sort((x, y) =>        Comparer<String>.Default             .Compare(x.Description, y.Description) != 0 ?        Comparer<String>.Default             .Compare(x.Description, y.Description) :        Comparer<String>.Default             .Compare(GetProjectStatusTypeName(x.ProjectStatusTypeId),                 GetProjectStatusTypeName(y.ProjectStatusTypeId)));   foreach (var project in projects) {     Console.Out.WriteLine("{0} {1}", project.Description,         GetProjectStatusTypeName(project.ProjectStatusTypeId)); } The comparer will now consider the result of the GetProjectStatusTypeName and order the list accordingly.  Of course, you can take this same approach with Linq as well.

  Read the article

• Visual Studio 2008 Solution Setup

  - by Ben Griswold

  In this screencast, Noah and I demonstrate preferred practices around .NET solution setup, naming conventions and version control.  I consider this an introductory video.  If you’ve been around the block, you might want to skip this episode but if you’re a .NET/Visual Studio newbie, it may be worth a look.    YouTube - Visual Studio 2008 Solution Setup   This is one of our first screencasts.  Actually it is the very first.  If you have feedback, I’d love to hear it.

  Read the article

• Deploying ASP.NET Web Applications

  - by Ben Griswold

  In this episode, Noah and I explain how to use Web Deployment Projects to deploy your web application. This screencast will get you up and running, but in a future screencast, we discuss more advanced topics like excluding files, swapping out the right config files per environment, and alternate solution configurations.  This screencast (and the next) are based on a write-up I did about ASP.NET Web Application deployment with Web Deployment Projects a while back.  Multi-media knowledge sharing.  You have to love it! This is the first video hosted on Vimeo.  What do you think?

  Read the article

• Are You Using Windows Live Mesh?

  - by Ben Griswold

  Most of the time, I’m the guy who authors the show notes for the Herding Code Podcast.  The workflow is relatively straight-forward: Jon shares the pre-production audio with me, I compete my write up and then ship the notes back to Jon for publishing with the edited audio.  All file sharing is all done with shared folders in the Windows Live Mesh. The director of my kid’s preschool was looking for a way to access her work computer from her home office.  VPN connection?  Remote desktop?  FTP?  Nope. I installed Windows Live Mesh in a matter of minutes, synchronized a number of folders and she was off and running.  (The neat thing is she’s running a PC in the office and a Mac at home.) I was using Dropbox before discovering Mesh. Dropbox is still very cool but I’m in and out of Mesh enough that it’s taken over.  Actually I still have a Dropbox folder – it’s just being synched by Mesh now. If you’re interested in giving Live Mesh a whirl, here’ are the notable links as found on the product’s site: What you need Create your mesh Sync folders Share folders Use your Live Desktop Connect to a remote computer Use a mobile phone Good luck!

  Read the article

• Ubuntu 11.10 - can't adjust brightness on my laptop

  - by Danny

  Using every method possible I'm unable to change my laptop brightness.. It's stuck on super max brightness.. Using the slider in the "screens" window int he control panel doesnt do anything, and using the fn keys doesn't do anything... Some info about my system: laptop is a MSI VR420 Running ubuntu 11.10 video card is an integrated intel card Used to work when I ran ubuntu 10.10 and earlier versions (not sure if it worked out of the box or if I inadvertly fixed it in previous versions while installing lots of other packages) Brightness slider on the "screen" window doesn't do anything, "dim when on battery -power" doesnt do anything When I use the fn+f4/f5 keys to adjust brightness there is a popup showing that its receving the input, but i can only go from between 0 brightness and max brightness.. (that is what the output is showing, the brightness does not change though) when attempting to change the brightness with fn+f4/f5 my dmesg log reports "ACPI: Failed to switch the brightness" Here are some outputs from some terminal commands, not sure if any of this is useful or not.. lspci - http://pastebin.com/EimZSGs3 "ls /sys/class/backlight/*/brightness" will output "/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness" "cat /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness" = 0 (when I use the fn+f4/f5) this will change betwene 0 and, but the actual brightness doesn't change) "cat /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/max_brightness" = 1 "lsmod | grep ^i915" = i915 505108 3 here is the list of things I've tried through searching google..... Edit /etc/default/grub?GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT: acpi_osi=Linux, acpi_backlight=vendor, nomodeset. (as well as several different combinations of these settings being on or off) Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf (file doesn't exist on my system) Edit /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness (file doesn't exist) sudo setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=XX (does nothing) xbacklight -set XX (does nothing) I've tried about everything with no luck... The only thing i haven't tried is adding the ppa that someone suggested here: Unable to change brightness in a Lenovo laptop .... However according to the notes on the ppa.. all of the changes that are in the ppa are now actually apart of 11.10 and the ppa is only for people with 11.04.. Does anyone have any ideas for me? edit:by setting acpi=off in my /etc/default/grub file I was about to get my fn+f4/f5 keys to work, also "dim when display to save power" now makes my laptop dim when on battery power.. the dimness slider however still doesn't do anything.. also xbacklight doesn't do anything stil or any of the other methods... The thing i don't get is why setting acpi=off makes my fn+f4/f5 keys work? Isn't acpi supposed to be enables the backlight to be dimmed? does anyone know what ubuntu is deciding to do behind the scenes when acpi=off? Does anyone know what/if any features I might be losing with it off?

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76  | Next Page >