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• Next Generation Mobile Clients for Oracle Applications & the role of Oracle Fusion Middleware

  - by Manish Palaparthy

  Oracle Enterprise Applications have been available with modern web browser based interfaces for a while now. The web browsers available in smart phones no longer require special markup language such as WML since the processing power of these handsets is quite near to that of a typical personal computer. Modern Mobile devices such as the IPhone, Android Phones, BlackBerry, Windows 8 devices can now render XHTML & HTML quite well. This means you could potentially use your mobile browser to access your favorite enterprise application. While the Mobile browser would render the UI, you might find it difficult to use it due to the formatting & Presentation of the Native UI. Smart phones offer a lot more than just a powerful web browser, they offer capabilities such as Maps, GPS, Multi touch, pinch zoom, accelerometers, vivid colors, camera with video, support for 3G, 4G networks, cloud storage, NFC, streaming media, tethering, voice based features, multi tasking, messaging, social networking web browsers with support for HTML 5 and many more features.  While the full potential of Enterprise Mobile Apps is yet to be realized, Oracle has published a few of its applications that take advantage of the above capabilities and are available for the IPhone natively. Here are some of them Iphone Apps  Oracle Business Approvals for Managers: Offers a highly intuitive user interface built as a native mobile application to conveniently access pending actions related to expenses, purchase requisitions, HR vacancies and job offers. You can even view BI reports related to the worklist actions. Works with Oracle E-Business Suite Oracle Business Indicators : Real-time secure access to OBI reports. Oracle Business Approvals for Sales Managers: Enables sales executives to review key targeted tasks, access relevant business intelligence reports. Works with Siebel CRM, Siebel Quote & Order Capture. Oracle Mobile Sales Assistant: CRM application that provides real-time, secure access to the information your sales organization needs, complete frequent tasks, collaborate with colleagues and customers. Works with Oracle CRMOracle Mobile Sales Forecast: Designed specifically for the mobile business user to view key opportunities. Works with Oracle CRM on demand Oracle iReceipts : Part of Oracle PeopleSoft Expenses, which allows users to create and submit expense lines for cash transactions in real-time. Works with Oracle PeopleSoft expenses Now, we have seen some mobile Apps that Oracle has published, I am sure you are intrigued as to how develop your own clients for the use-cases that you deem most fit. For that Oracle has ADF Mobile ADF Mobile You could develop Mobile Applications with the SDK available with the smart phone platforms!, but you'd really have to be a mobile ninja developer to develop apps with the rich user experience like the ones above. The challenges really multiply when you have to support multiple mobile devices. ADF Mobile framework is really handy to meet this challenge ADF Mobile can in be used to Develop Apps for the Mobile browser : An application built with ADF Mobile framework installs on a smart device, renders user interface via HTML5, and has access to device services. This means the programming model is primarily web-based, which offers consistency with other enterprise applications as well as easier migration to new platforms. Develop Apps for the Mobile Client (Native Apps): These applications have access to device services, enabling a richer experience for users than a browser alone can offer. ADF mobile enables rapid and declarative development of rich, on-device mobile applications. Developers only need to write an application once and then they can deploy the same application across multiple leading smart phone platforms. Oracle SOA Suite Although the Mobile users are using the smart phone apps, and actual transactions are being executed in the underlying app, there is lot of technical wizardry that is going under the surface. All of this key technical components to make 1. WebService calls 2. Authentication 3. Intercepting Webservice calls and adding security credentials to the request 4. Invoking the services of the enterprise application 5. Integrating with the Enterprise Application via the Adapter is all being implemented at the SOA infrastructure layer.  As you can see from the above diagram. The key pre-requisites to mobile enable an Enterprise application are The core enterprise application Oracle SOA Suite ADF Mobile

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• Tablet design guide, Endeca patterns now available

  - by JuergenKress

  UX Direct, an Oracle program that offers consultants, partners, and customers the same scientifically proven and reusable user experience best practices that Oracle uses to build Oracle Applications, recently added links to a new design guide for creating tablet-based solutions for enterprise applications, and to the recently published Endeca User Interface Design Pattern Library. The tablet design guide is available from the UX Direct Home page. Tap the button under “Latest patterns & tools” for “Oracle Applications UX Tablet Guide.” It provides basic help for designers, developers, and project managers trying to approach tablet design and testing from an enterprise point of view. To hear what developers are saying about it, follow the links from this post on the User Experience Assistance blog. The newly released Endeca User Interface Design Pattern Library is also available from the UX Direct Home page and from a post on the User Experience Assistance blog. It describes principled ways to solve common user interface (UI) design problems related to search, faceted navigation, and discovery. The link between Simplified UI and Oracle UX strategy, plus content you can share on the cloud, ADf, tailoring, and more Simplified User Interface in Oracle Fusion Applications Fronts Oracle Cloud Offerings This new article on Simplified UI has just been posted on Usable Apps. Learn about the three themes - simplicity, mobility, and extensibility – that Simplified UI embodies. These same principles are guiding the development of the next generation of the Oracle user experience. Oracle's Applications User Experience Strategy: One Cloud User Experience, with Optimized UIs Where and How You Want This podcast from Misha Vaughan, Director, User Experience, is now available on the Oracle University Knowledge Center. It is available for partners and Oracle employees at this iLearning Link. Oracle Partner Builds User Experience That Hits Right Note for New Employees This new article on the Usable Apps website explores the experience of consultants at IntraSee as they implement a PeopleSoft onboarding process for Invesco, a global asset management company. The Feng Shui of Fusion This article in Oracle Scene is from Grant Ronald, Director of Product Management, on the Tools of Fusion: Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle ADF. Hands-On Workshop with Fusion Applications and ADF UX Desktop Design Patterns This post on the Voice of User Experience, or VoX, blog from Misha Vaughan describes a new kind of workshop for partners and a handful of internal Oracle sales folks on extending Oracle Fusion Applications and building custom applications with Application Development Framework (ADF) while maintaining the Oracle user experience. To learn more about the content that was delivered during this three-day workshop, visit the Usable Apps blog. Recent posts from a new blog series take a look at several of the topics discussed during the workshop. Applications User Experience Fundamentals Visual Design for any Enterprise User Interface / Art School in a Box Wireframing / Blueprinting Usable Applications Concepts. Tailoring videos This blog post from Richard Bingham, Applications Architect, on the Fusion Applications Developer Relations blog provides links to several videos that show many customization and development tasks using the Oracle Fusion Applications platform. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: UX,Architecture,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Is this simple XOR encrypted communication absolutely secure?

  - by user3123061

  Say Alice have 4GB USB flash memory and Peter also have 4GB USB flash memory. They once meet and save on both of memories two files named alice_to_peter.key (2GB) and peter_to_alice.key (2GB) which is randomly generated bits. Then they never meet again and communicate electronicaly. Alice also maintains variable called alice_pointer and Peter maintains variable called peter_pointer which is both initially set to zero. Then when Alice needs to send message to Peter they do: encrypted_message_to_peter[n] = message_to_peter[n] XOR alice_to_peter.key[alice_pointer + n] Where n i n-th byte of message. Then alice_pointer is attached at begining of the encrypted message and (alice_pointer + encrypted message) is sent to Peter and then alice_pointer is incremented by length of message (and for maximum security can be used part of key erased) Peter receives encrypted_message, reads alice_pointer stored at beginning of message and do this: message_to_peter[n] = encrypted_message_to_peter[n] XOR alice_to_peter.key[alice_pointer + n] And for maximum security after reading of message also erases used part of key. - EDIT: In fact this step with this simple algorithm (without integrity check and authentication) decreases security, see Paulo Ebermann post below. When Peter needs to send message to Alice they do analogical steps with peter_to_alice.key and with peter_pointer. With this trivial schema they can send for next 50 years each day 2GB / (50 * 365) = cca 115kB of encrypted data in both directions. If they need more data to send, they simple use larger memory for keys for example with today 2TB harddiscs (1TB keys) is possible to exchange next 50years 60MB/day ! (thats practicaly lots of data for example with using compression its more than hour of high quality voice communication) It Seems to me there is no way for attacker to read encrypted message without keys even if they have infinitely fast computer. because even with infinitely fast computer with brute force they get ever possible message that can fit to length of message, but this is astronomical amount of messages and attacker dont know which of them is actual message. I am right? Is this communication schema really absolutely secure? And if its secure, has this communication method its own name? (I mean XOR encryption is well-known, but whats name of this concrete practical application with use large memories at both communication sides for keys? I am humbly expecting that this application has been invented someone before me :-) ) Note: If its absolutely secure then its amazing because with today low cost large memories it is practicaly much cheeper way of secure communication than expensive quantum cryptography and with equivalent security! EDIT: I think it will be more and more practical in future with lower a lower cost of memories. It can solve secure communication forever. Today you have no certainty if someone succesfuly atack to existing ciphers one year later and make its often expensive implementations unsecure. In many cases before comunication exist step where communicating sides meets personaly, thats time to generate large keys. I think its perfect for military communication for example for communication with submarines which can have installed harddrive with large keys and military central can have harddrive for each submarine they have. It can be also practical in everyday life for example for control your bank account because when you create your account you meet with bank etc.

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• What Counts For a DBA: Ego

  - by Louis Davidson

  Leaving aside, for a second, Freud’s psychoanalytical definitions, the term “ego” generally refers to a person’s sense of self, and their self-esteem. In casual usage, however, it usually appears in the adjectival form, “egotistical” (most often followed by “jerk”). You don’t need to be a jerk to be a DBA; humility is important. However, ego is important too. A good DBA needs a certain degree of self-esteem…a belief and pride in what he or she can do better than anyone else can. The ideal DBA needs to be humble enough to admit when they are wrong but egotistical enough to know when they are right, and to stand up for that knowledge and make their voice heard. In most organizations, the DBA team is seriously outnumbered by headstrong developers and clock driven managers, and “great” DBAs will often be outnumbered by…well…the not so great. In order to be heard in this environment, a DBA will not only need to be very skilled, but will also need a healthy dose of ego. As Freud might have put it, the unconscious desire of the DBA (the id) is for iron-fist control over their databases, and code that runs in them. However, the ego moderates this desire, seeking to “satisfy the id in realistic ways that, in the long term, bring benefit rather than grief“. In other words, the ego understands the need to exert a measure of control and self-belief, but also to tolerate and play nicely with developers and other DBAs. The trick, naturally, is learning how to be heard when it is important, but also to make everyone around you welcome that input, even when you have to be bold to make the “I know what I am talking about, and you…well…not so much” decisions. Consider a baseball team, bottom of the ninth inning of the championship game, man on first and down one run. Almost anyone on that team will have the ability to hit a home run, but only one or two will have the iron belief that they can pull it off in this critical, end-game situation. The player you need in this situation is the one who has passionately gone the extra mile preparing for just this moment, is bursting at the seams with self-confidence, and can look the coach in the eye and state, boldly, “Put me in, I am your best bet“. Likewise, on those occasions when high customer demand coincides with copious system errors, and panic is bubbling just beneath the surface, you don’t need the minimally qualified support person, armed with the “reboot and hope” technique (though that sometimes works!). You need the DBA who steps up and says, “Put me in” and has the skill and tenacity to back up those words and to fix the pinpoint and fix the problem, whatever it takes, while keeping customers and managers happy. Of course, the egotistical DBA will happily spend hours telling you how great they are at their job, and how brilliantly they put out a previous fire, and this is no guarantee that they can deliver. However, if an otherwise-humble DBA looks you in the eye and says, “I can do it”, then hear them out. Sometimes, this burst of ego will be exactly what’s required.

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• Welcome to the Oracle Retail International Blog

  - by sarah.taylor(at)oracle.com

  Welcome to the first post of the new Oracle Retail International Blog. Retail is an international business and today's successful retailers view themselves in the context of a global market. A niche fashion business in Tokyo will learn marketing strategies from the luxury brands of Milan, an independent grocer in Oslo will source the same global brands as a supermarket in Oklahoma, and every retailer in the world will measure their multi-channel operation against the international e-commerce giant Amazon.  Why? Because today's customer is a global customer with unparalleled expectations on choice, price and service. Today's consumers have access to more information on retail than ever before. Technology allows people to shop from their home, their office or from the phone in their pocket, wherever they are and at whatever time suits them. Customers are using the web to search for products and promotions. They are also using the web to develop their voice in commenting on products and services that have delighted or disappointed. In an information rich industry, this customer element creates a new world of data. The best retailers are developing eagle eyes for reading customer activity and turning it into profitable decisions. Ultimately, whether you choose to compete or shop on price, service, product innovation, excellent operations or all of the above - the international world of retail has become an inspiration for all - retailer and consumer alike.  Retail as an industry is growing and diversifying at a faster rate than ever before. Yet it is still the customer who picks the winners and the losers on the retail field. Economic circumstances transform the rules, but it is still the customer who dictates the game, the pace, the price, and the perception of the brand. Wise retailers never rest on their laurels. They are always shopping for ideas on how to improve and differentiate the offer at every touch point to meet the customer's needs better than anyone else and to gain each customer's loyalty at a time when loyalty can be cheap. With this blog, I hope that we might provide a hub for discussion around what unifies retail and how technology supports both the retailer and customer experience. Despite the competitive nature of this market, we hope that this will provide an opportunity to share experiences and lessons learnt with a view that knowledge can only help this industry to grow and develop. At Oracle we've been supporting retailers for many years. Many of us have worked within retail organisations all over the world, myself included. With this in mind, I don't feel it is too bold a statement to say that Oracle understands retail. We wouldn't be so heavily integrated in some of the biggest and most well-known names in retail if we didn't. With this blog, we intend to create a community of international retailers that can exchange ideas and experiences, debate collective challenges and drive a better understanding of this continually evolving industry. Events such as the World Retail Congress and NRF's Big Show bring enormous value to the retail industry providing platforms for discussion and learning but they happen once a year. We wanted to create a platform for discussion on a different level and that like retail, is always on. We hope not only to bring commitment to being not only the infrastructure that brings all of their systems together within a retail business, but an infrastructure that supports the industry internationally to grow and flourish through creating a platform for networking, discussion, creativity, vision and strategy. Please feel free to ask questions or comment using the comments functionality.  You might also want to visit our other Oracle Retail social media sites: Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/oracleretail YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/user/oracleretail Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/oracleretailInsight-Driven Retailing Blog - http://blogs.oracle.com/retail/

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• Moving the Oracle User Experience Forward with the New Release 7 Simplified UI for Oracle Sales Cloud

  - by mvaughan

  By Kathy Miedema, Oracle Applications User ExperienceIn September 2013, Release 7 for Oracle Cloud Applications became generally available for Oracle Sales Cloud and HCM Cloud. This significant release allowed the Oracle Applications User Experience (UX) team to finally talk freely about Simplified UI, a user experience project in the works since Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Simplified UI represents the direction that the Oracle user experience – for all of its enterprise applications – is heading. Oracle’s Apps UX team began by building a Simplified UI for sales representatives. You can find that today in Release 7, and it was demoed extensively during OpenWorld 2013 in San Francisco. This screenshot shows how Opportunities appear in the new Simplified UI for Oracle Sales Cloud, a user interface built for sales reps.Analyst Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of Nucleus Research, saw Simplified UI at Oracle Openworld 2013 and talked about it with CRM Buyer in “Oracle Revs Its Cloud Engines for a Better Customer Experience.” Wettemann said there are distinct themes to the latest release: "One is usability. Oracle Sales Cloud, for example, is designed to have zero training for onboarding sales reps, which it does," she explained. "It is quite impressive, actually -- the intuitive nature of the application and the design work they have done with this goal in mind."The software uses as few buttons and fields as possible, she pointed out. "The sales rep doesn't have to ask, 'what is the next step?' because she can see what it is."In fact, there are three themes driving the usability that Wettemann noted. They are simplicity, mobility, and extensibility, and we write more about them on the Usable Apps web site. These three themes embody the strategy for Oracle’s cloud applications user experiences.  Simplified UI for Oracle Sales CloudIn developing a Simplified UI for Oracle Sales Cloud, Oracle’s UX team concentrated on the tasks that sales reps need to do most frequently, and are most important. “Knowing that the majority of their work lives are spent on the road and on the go, they need to be able to quickly get in and qualify and convert their leads, monitor and progress their opportunities, update their customer and contact information, and manage their schedule,” Jeremy Ashley, Vice President of the Applications UX team, said.Ashley said the Apps UX team has a good reason for creating a Simplified UI that focuses on self-service. “Sales people spend the day selling stuff,” he said. “The only reason they use software is because the company wants to track what they’re doing.” Traditional systems of tracking that information include filling in a spreadsheet of leads or sales. Oracle wants to automate this process for the salesperson, and enable that person to keep everyone who needs to know up-to-date easily and quickly. Simplified UI addresses that problem by providing light-touch input.  “It has to be useful to the salesperson,” Ashley said about the Sales Cloud user experience. Simplified UI can tell sales reps about key opportunities, or provide information about a contact in just a click or two. Customer information is accessible quickly and easily with Simplified UI for the Oracle Sales Cloud.Simplified UI for Sales Cloud can also be extended easily, Ashley said. Users usually just need to add various business fields or create and modify analytical reports. The way that Simplified UI is constructed allows extensibility to happen by hiding or showing a few necessary fields. The Settings user interface, starting in release 7, allows for the simple configuration of the most important visual elements. “With Sales cloud, we identified a need to make the application useful and very simple,” Ashley said. Simplified UI meets that need. Where can you find out more?To find out more about the simplified UI and Oracle’s ongoing investment in applications user experience innovations, come to one of our sessions at a user group conference near you. Stay tuned to the Voice of User Experience (VoX) blog – the next post will be about Simplified UI and HCM Cloud.

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• So You Want to Be a Social Media Director

  - by Mike Stiles

  Do you want to be a Social Media Director? Some say the title is already losing its relevance; that social should be a basic skill that is required and used no matter what your position is inside the enterprise. I suppose that’s visionary, and a fun thing for thought leaders to say. But in the vast majority of business organizations, we’re so far away from that reality that the thought of not having someone driving social’s implementation and guiding its proper usage conjures up images of anarchy. That said, social media has become so broad, so catch-all, and so extended across business functions, that today’s Social Media Director, depending on the size of their staff, must make jacks-of-all-trades look like one-trick-ponies. Just as the purview of the CMO has grown all-encompassing, the disciplines required of their heads of social are stacking up. Master of Content Every social pipeline you build must stay filled, with quantity and quality. Content takes time, and the job never stops. Never. And no, it’s not true that anybody can write. Master of Customer Experience You must have a passion for hearing from customers and making them really happy. Master of PR You must know how to communicate and leverage the trust you’ve built when crises strike. Couldn’t hurt to be a Master of Politics. Master of Social Technology So many social management tools on the market. You have to know what social tech ecosystem makes sense and avoid piecemeal point solutions. Master of Business Development Social for selling and prospecting is hot, and you have to know how to use social to do it. Master of Analytics Nothing else matters if you can’t prove social is helping the brand. That’s right, creative content guy has to also be a math and stats geek. Good luck with that. Master of Paid Media You’ve got to learn the language, learn the tactics, learn the vendors and learn how to measure results. Master of Education Guess who gets to teach everyone who has no clue how to use social for business. Master of Personal Likability You’ll be leading the voice, tone, image and personality of the brand. If you don’t instinctively know how to be liked by actual people, the brand will be starting from a deficit. How deep must you go in this parade of masteries? Again, that depends on your employer’s maturity level in social. Serious players recognize these as distinct disciplines requiring true experts for maximum effect. Less serious players will need you to execute personally in many of these areas. Do the best you can, and try to grow quickly at each. If you’re the sole person executing all social…well…you’re in the game of managing expectations and trying to socially educate your employer. The good news is, you should be making a certifiable killing. If you’re alone and your salary is modest, time to understand how many brands out there crave what you’ve mastered. Not to push back against thought leaders, but the need for brand social leadership has not gone away…not even a little bit. @mikestiles @oraclesocialPhoto: Stefan Wagner, freeimages.com

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• Standards Corner: Preventing Pervasive Monitoring

  - by independentid

   Phil Hunt is an active member of multiple industry standards groups and committees and has spearheaded discussions, creation and ratifications of industry standards including the Kantara Identity Governance Framework, among others. Being an active voice in the industry standards development world, we have invited him to share his discussions, thoughts, news & updates, and discuss use cases, implementation success stories (and even failures) around industry standards on this monthly column. Author: Phil Hunt On Wednesday night, I watched NBC’s interview of Edward Snowden. The past year has been tumultuous one in the IT security industry. There has been some amazing revelations about the activities of governments around the world; and, we have had several instances of major security bugs in key security libraries: Apple's ‘gotofail’ bug  the OpenSSL Heartbleed bug, not to mention Java’s zero day bug, and others. Snowden’s information showed the IT industry has been underestimating the need for security, and highlighted a general trend of lax use of TLS and poorly implemented security on the Internet. This did not go unnoticed in the standards community and in particular the IETF. Last November, the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) met in Vancouver Canada, where the issue of “Internet Hardening” was discussed in a plenary session. Presentations were given by Bruce Schneier, Brian Carpenter,  and Stephen Farrell describing the problem, the work done so far, and potential IETF activities to address the problem pervasive monitoring. At the end of the presentation, the IETF called for consensus on the issue. If you know engineers, you know that it takes a while for a large group to arrive at a consensus and this group numbered approximately 3000. When asked if the IETF should respond to pervasive surveillance attacks? There was an overwhelming response for ‘Yes'. When it came to 'No', the room echoed in silence. This was just the first of several consensus questions that were each overwhelmingly in favour of response. This is the equivalent of a unanimous opinion for the IETF. Since the meeting, the IETF has followed through with the recent publication of a new “best practices” document on Pervasive Monitoring (RFC 7258). This document is extremely sensitive in its approach and separates the politics of monitoring from the technical ones. Pervasive Monitoring (PM) is widespread (and often covert) surveillance through intrusive gathering of protocol artefacts, including application content, or protocol metadata such as headers. Active or passive wiretaps and traffic analysis, (e.g., correlation, timing or measuring packet sizes), or subverting the cryptographic keys used to secure protocols can also be used as part of pervasive monitoring. PM is distinguished by being indiscriminate and very large scale, rather than by introducing new types of technical compromise. The IETF community's technical assessment is that PM is an attack on the privacy of Internet users and organisations. The IETF community has expressed strong agreement that PM is an attack that needs to be mitigated where possible, via the design of protocols that make PM significantly more expensive or infeasible. Pervasive monitoring was discussed at the technical plenary of the November 2013 IETF meeting [IETF88Plenary] and then through extensive exchanges on IETF mailing lists. This document records the IETF community's consensus and establishes the technical nature of PM. The draft goes on to further qualify what it means by “attack”, clarifying that  The term is used here to refer to behavior that subverts the intent of communicating parties without the agreement of those parties. An attack may change the content of the communication, record the content or external characteristics of the communication, or through correlation with other communication events, reveal information the parties did not intend to be revealed. It may also have other effects that similarly subvert the intent of a communicator.  The past year has shown that Internet specification authors need to put more emphasis into information security and integrity. The year also showed that specifications are not good enough. The implementations of security and protocol specifications have to be of high quality and superior testing. I’m proud to say Oracle has been a strong proponent of this, having already established its own secure coding practices. 

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• Working for free?

  - by Jonny

  I came across this article Work for Free that got me thinking. The goal of every employer is to gain more value from workers than the firm pays out in wages; otherwise, there is no growth, no advance, and no advantage for the employer. Conversely, the goal of every employee should be to contribute more to the firm than he or she receives in wages, and thereby provide a solid rationale for receiving raises and advancement in the firm. I don't need to tell you that the refusenik didn't last long in this job. In contrast, here is a story from last week. My phone rang. It was the employment division of a major university. The man on the phone was inquiring about the performance of a person who did some site work on Mises.org last year. I was able to tell him about a remarkable young man who swung into action during a crisis, and how he worked three 19-hour days, three days in a row, how he learned new software with diligence, how he kept his cool, how he navigated his way with grace and expertise amidst some 80 different third-party plug-ins and databases, how he saw his way around the inevitable problems, how he assumed responsibility for the results, and much more. What I didn't tell the interviewer was that this person did all this without asking for any payment. Did that fact influence my report on his performance? I'm not entirely sure, but the interviewer probably sensed in my voice my sense of awe toward what this person had done for the Mises Institute. The interviewer told me that he had written down 15 different questions to ask me but that I had answered them all already in the course of my monologue, and that he was thrilled to hear all these specifics. The person was offered the job. He had done a very wise thing; he had earned a devotee for life. The harder the economic times, the more employers need to know what they are getting when they hire someone. The job applications pour in by the buckets, all padded with degrees and made to look as impressive as possible. It's all just paper. What matters today is what a person can do for a firm. The resume becomes pro forma but not decisive under these conditions. But for a former boss or manager to rave about you to a potential employer? That's worth everything. What do you think? Has anyone here worked for free? If so, has it benefited you in any way? Why should(nt) you work for free (presuming you have the money from other means to keep you going)? Can you share your experience? Me, I am taking a year out of college and haven't gotten a degree yet so that's probably why most of my job applications are getting ignored. So im thinking about working for free for the experience?

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• Day 5 - Tada! My Game Menu Screen Graphics

  - by dapostolov

  So, tonight I took some time to mash up some graphics for my game menu screen. My artistic talent sucks...but here goes nothing...voila, my menu screen!! The Menu Screen The screen above is displaying 4 sprites, even though it looks like maybe 7... I guess one of the first things for me to test in the future is ... is it more memory efficient (and better frame rate) to draw one big background image OR tp paint the screen black, and place each sprite in set locations? To display the 4 sprites above, I borrowed my code from yesterday ... I know, tacky, but...I wanted to see it, feel it. Do you feel it? FEEL IT! (homer voice & shakes fist) Note: the menu items won't scale properly as it stands with this code, well pretty much they do nothing except look pretty... Paint.Net & Google Fun So how did I create that image above? Well, to create the background and 3 menu items I used Paint.Net. Basically, I scoured Google images for: a stone doorway, a stone pillar, an old book, a wizards hat, and...that's it pretty much it! I'll let you type in those searches and see if you can locate the images I used. I know, bad developer...but I figured since I modified the images considerably it doesn't count...well for a personal project it shouldn't count...*shrug* Anyhow, I extracted each key assest I wanted from each image and applied lots of matting, blurring, color changes, glow effects and such. Then, using my vivid imagination I placed / composed each of the layered assets into the mashed up the "scene" above. Pretty cool, eh? Hey, did you know, the cool mist effect is actually a fire rendition in Paint.net? I set it to black & white with opacity set next to nothing. I'm also very proud of the yellow "light" in the stone doorway. I drew that in and then applied gausian blur to it to give it the effect of light creeping out around the door and into the room...heheh. So did I achieve the dark, mysterious ritual as I stated in my design doc? I think I had a great stab at it! Maybe down the road I can get a real artist to crank out some quality graphics for the game... =) So, What's Next? Well, I don't have that animated brazier yet...however, I thought it would be even cooler if I can get that door pulsing that yellow light and it would be extremely cool to have the smoke / mist moving across the screen! Make the creative ideas stop!! (clutches head) haha! I'm having great fun working on this project =) I recommend others giving something like this a try, it's really fulfilling. OK. Tomorrow... I think I'm going to start creating some game / menu objects as per the design doc, maybe even get a custom mouse cursor up on the screen and handle a couple of mouse events, and lastly, maybe a feature to toggle a framerate display... D.

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• Sign up Today for User Feedback Sessions at Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne 2012

  - by Lionel Dubreuil

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 You’re Invited to Sign Up for Oracle Usability Feedback Sessions SIGN UP TODAY to get the most from your conference experience by participating in a usability feedback session where your expertise will help Oracle develop outstanding products and solutions. The Oracle User Experience team is conducting a Usability Evaluation on publishing and accessing Oracle Enterprise Repository content when building SOA projects in JDeveloper. We are asking Developers and Architects who build or integrate applications using SOA Suite to take a look at the interaction between JDeveloper with the Enterprise Repository.  We are looking for feedback on the interaction between JDeveloper and Oracle Enterprise Repository so that we may improve the User Interface in a future release. The feedback sessions will be conducted during the Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne Conferences, at the Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco, CA. Sessions will last 1 hour and will be held on Monday, October 1 through Wednesday, October 3, 2012. This event fills up quickly, and space is limited. If you are interested in participating, please send an email to [email protected] with the following information: Identification Name: _________________________________ Company Name:  _________________________ Job Title: Email: Phone Number (work, mobile, include country code): Which conference are you attending? _____Oracle OpenWorld _____JavaOne Have you ever participated in usability activities with Oracle or any of its subsidiaries? ____Yes; specify __________________________________________________ ____No Are you currently using JDeveloper? ____Yes ; specify version(s): _______________________________ ____No How long have you used JDeveloper? ____ Less than 1 year ____ 1 - 2 years ____ 3 - 4 years ____ 4 + years Are you currently using SOA features in JDeveloper? ____Yes ____No How long have you used SOA features in JDeveloper? ____ Less than 1 year ____ 1 - 2 years ____ 3 - 4 years ____ 4 + years How often do you use SOA features in JDeveloper? ____ Daily ____ 2 - 3 times a week ____ Once a week  ____ Once a month or less Briefly describe the types of SOA tasks you use JDeveloper to perform: _____________________________________ _____________________________________ Please list your availability If you know your availability; please let me know which day you would prefer to participate, Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Limited sessions are available on each day, and each session lasts 1 hour. Thank you for taking the time to complete this questionnaire.  It will help us match you to the best suited feedback session. Once we receive your email, we will contact you to set up a time and day for participation. You'll find more information about our on-site lab on the VoX (Voice of User Experience) blog, and on our Events page at Usable Apps. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}

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• Insurers Pushed to Transform Their Business

  - by Calvin Glenn

  Everyone in the P&C industry has heard it “We can’t do it.” “Nobody wants to do it.” “We can’t afford to do it.”  Unfortunately, what they’re referencing are the reasons many insurers are still trying to maintain their business processing on legacy policy administration systems, attempting to bide time until there is no other recourse but to give in, bite the bullet, and take on the monumental task of replacing an entire policy administration system (PAS). Just the thought of that project sends IT, Business Users and Management reeling. However, is that fear real?  It is a bit daunting when one realizes that a complete policy administration system replacement will touch most every function an insurer manages, from quoting and rating, to underwriting, distribution, and even customer service. With that, everyone has heard at least one horror story around a transformation initiative that has far exceeded budget and the promised implementation / go-live timeline.    But, does it have to be that hard?  Surely, in the age where a person can voice-activate their DVR to record a TV program from a cell phone, there has to be someone somewhere who’s figured out how to simplify this process. To be able to help insurers, of all sizes, transform and grow their business while also delivering on their overall objectives of providing speed to market, straight-through-processing for applications, quoting, underwriting, and simplified product development. Maybe we’re looking too hard and the answer is simple and straight-forward. Why replace the entire machine when all it really needs is a new part…a single enterprise rating system? This core, modular piece of the policy administration system is the foundation of product development and rate management that enables insurers to provide the right product at the right price to the right customer through the best channels at any given moment in time. The real benefit of a single enterprise rating system is the ability to deliver enhanced business capabilities, such as improved product management, streamlined underwriting, and speed to market. With these benefits, carriers have accomplished a portion of their overall transformation goal. Furthermore, lessons learned from the rating project can be applied to the bigger, down-the-road PAS project to support the successful completion of the overall transformation endeavor. At the recent Oracle OpenWorld Conference in San Francisco, information was shared with attendees about a recent “go-live” project from an Oracle Insurance Tier 1 insurer who did what is proposed above…replaced just the rating portion of their legacy policy administration system with Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting.  This change provided the insurer greater flexibility to set rates that better reflect risk while enabling the company to support its market segment strategy. Using the Oracle Insurance Insbridge enterprise rating solution, the insurer was able to reduce processing time for agents and underwriters, gained the ability to support proprietary rating models and improved pricing accuracy.      There is mounting pressure on P&C insurers to produce growth and show net profitability in the midst of modest overall industry growth, large weather-related losses and intensifying competition for market share.  Insurers are also being asked to improve customer service, offer a differentiated value proposition and simplify insurance processes.  While the demands are many there is an easy answer…invest in and update the most mission critical application in your arsenal, the single enterprise rating system. Download the Podcast to listen to “Stand-Alone Rating Engine - Leading Force Behind Core Transformation Projects in the P&C Market,” a podcast originally recorded in October 2013. Related Resources: White Paper: Stand-Alone Rating Engine: Leading Force Behind Core Transformation Projects in the P&C Market Webcast On Demand: Stand-Alone Rating Engine and Core Transformation for P&C Insurers Don’t forget to keep up with us year-round: Facebook: www.facebook.com/oracleinsurance Twitter: www.twitter.com/oracleinsurance YouTube: www.youtube.com/oracleinsurance

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• Customer Interaction Group (NL) becomes the first Oracle EMEA partner that Achieves OPN Specialization for Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Oracle Recognizes Customer Interaction Group for Expertise in Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Customer Interaction Group, specialists in customer contact and a Gold level member of Oracle® PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced it has achieved OPN Specialized status for Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service. To achieve OPN Specialized status, Oracle partners are required to meet a stringent set of requirements that are based on the needs and priorities of the customer and partner community. By achieving a Specialized distinction, Customer Interaction Group has been recognized by Oracle for its expertise in delivering services specifically around Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service through competency development, business results and proven success.   “As valued Oracle partner it is very important to us to achieve this specialization. With this recognition we guarantee our customers professionalism in each project, from advisory tasks to complex implementations. This allows Customer Interaction Group not only a deepening realization towards optimizing customer interaction, but also to service delivery through various media channels. As a result, our customers are able to service their customers on a higher level” says Hanjo Huizing, CEO of Customer Interaction Group. “Oracle congratulates The Customer Interaction Group with becoming specialized Oracle RightNow partner. Oracle’s Specialization Program is a trusted status and brand, which allows our most experienced and committed partners to differentiate themselves in the marketplace and gain a competitive edge by spotlighting their strengths and special skills” said Richard Lefebvre, head of the Oracle EMEA CRM&CX Partner Community. In today’s competitive markets, successful businesses can successfully stand out by offering their customers good customer service combined with excellent accessibility. Our mission is to help businesses configure and optimize the full range of customer contact. We have the knowledge, experience and tools to develop practical and innovative solutions for customer interaction processes. Our customers as fonq.nl (web department store) and CitizenM (hotels) are working successfully with Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service. They both serve their customers not only in The Netherlands but also in a lot of countries in Europe. Our focus is on the delivery of excellent customer service at a lower cost. Our objective is to increase return on customer contact and to give customers a positive experience. About Customer Interaction Group Customer Interaction Group specializes in delivering and optimizing customer interaction solutions for voice, web, and social interactions. Armed with the knowledge, experience and solutions, they provide solutions and consulting services to companies seeking to deliver superior customer experiences. The core method and approach of Customer Interaction Group is to translate business problems and processes into practical interaction solutions. Based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, The Customer Interaction Group serves customers all over Europe. Follow us on Twitter @CustIntGroup, Facebook.com/custintgroup, linkedin.com/company/customer-interaction-group or visit our website www.custintgroup.com About Oracle PartnerNetwork Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized is the latest version of Oracle's partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialized offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle's growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specializations. Specializations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success. To find out more visit http://www.oracle.com/partners.

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• What You Can Learn from the NFL Referee Lockout

  - by Christina McKeon

  American football is a lot like religion. The fans are devoted followers that take brand loyalty to a whole new level. These fans that worship their teams each week showed that they are powerful customers whose voice has an impact. Yesterday, these fans proved that their opinion could force the hand of a large and powerful institution. With a three-month NFL referee lockout that seemed like it was nowhere close to resolution, the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks competed last Monday night. For those of you that might have been out of the news cycle the past few days, Green Bay lost the game due to a controversial call that many experts and analysts agree should have resulted in Green Bay winning the game. Outrage ensued. The NFL had pulled replacement referees from the high school ranks, and these replacements did not have the knowledge and experience to handle high intensity NFL games. Fans protested about their customer experience. Their anger-filled rants were heard in social media, in the headlines of newspapers, on radio, and on national TV. Suddenly, the NFL was moved to reach an agreement with the referees. That agreement was reached late in the night on Wednesday with many believing that the referees had the upper hand forcing the owners into submission. Some might argue that the referees benefited, not the fans. Since the fans wanted qualified and competent referees, I would say the fans did benefit. The referees are scheduled to return to the field this Sunday, so the fans got what they wanted. What can you learn from this negative customer experience? Customers are in control. NFL owners thought they were controlling this situation with the upper hand over referees. The owners figured out they weren’t in control when their fans reacted negatively. Customers can make or break you more now than ever before, which is why it is more important to connect with them, engage them in a personal manner, and create rewarding relationships. Protect your brand. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, the NFL put their brand and each team’s brand at risk with replacement referees. Think about each business decision you make, and how it may impact your brand at different points in time. A decision that results in a gain today could result in a larger loss down the road. Customer experience matters. The NFL likely foresaw declining revenues in ticket sales, merchandising, advertising, and other areas if the lockout continued. While fans primarily spoke with their minds in the days following the Green Bay debacle, their wallets would be the next things to speak. Customer experience directly affects your success and is one of the few areas where you can differentiate your business. What would you do if your brand got such negative attention? Would you be prepared to navigate such stormy waters? Would you be able to prevent such a fiasco? If you don’t have a good answer to these questions, consider joining us October 3-5, 2012 at the Oracle Customer Experience Summit in San Francisco. You’ll have the opportunity to learn even more about customer experience from industry experts such as best-selling author Seth Godin, Paul Hagen and Kerry Bodine from Forrester Research, Inc., George Kembel from the Stanford d.School, Bruce Temkin of The Temkin Group, and Gene Alvarez from Gartner Inc.. There will also be plenty of your peers and customer experience experts available for networking and discussions.

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• How to solve conflicts with another programmer..

  - by Tio

  Hi all.. I've read this question, but I think it doesn't really applies in my case.. I started to work at new company about 2 months ago with the position of senior web developer, there was already one programmer there, my position is above his, but I'm not his boss.. I don't tell him what to do.. Since the day I started to work at the company, I managed to implement a kind of a test server which he refuses to use, implemented a project management tool which he refuses to use also, and I'm in the process of implementing version control using mercurial ( damn Mercurial that's giving me so much headaches ), which he is going to use.. He is a nice guy, but just the other day we had a big discussion about "best practices", and "coding standards".. for me it's absolutely necessary to have this two things, at the place I'm currently working... otherwise it's not going to work.. This discussion, basically revolved about using short tags and the echo shortcut, and how we shouldn't use it anymore ( because I sometimes use short tags ).. this went for about 15 minutes, until I finally dropped the subject because I had work to do.. and of course he didn't budge even a millimeter, he's continuing to use short tags, and the echo shortcut and he not even cares about what I think.. When I mentioned that we are a team, he told me: "We are not a team, you work on your projects and I work on mine".. Let's just say, that the switch in my brain flipped, I raised my voice, and I told him that he was going nuts.. this was the most improper way to deal it with, I know, but there are certain things that can't be said to me.. The question here, is how do I deal with this? I want, to implement more changes on our work workflow, and I know that it's going to be a pain, with him always complaining and saying things like this.. Our boss is going to intervene in a few days, I talked to him today, the other programmer send him an email the day we had the discussion complaining.. Just to clarify, when I talk about implementing changes, I just don't appear at work, the next day with a sheet of paper, and say: "This is our we are doing things from now on! And there is no discussion.." For example, when I was trying to implement the project management tool, I took the time to talk to everybody that was going to be involved in it, to see what they think about it.. everyone was positive except him, he responded that it was just a mean to control us even more.. Does anyone has any idea on how to deal with this? PS: Truth to be told, I didn't start the best way with him, in the 4º day of work at the company, I found a really bad piece of code on our custom CMS, one of those things that I only expect to find in code produced by a programmer that has only 1 month of training in programming, and I talked to my boss about it... he showed up at the time I saw that piece of code, he saw my face and asked about it, so I told him.. I know the worst thing that can be said to a programmer is saying that their code is awful, but I've already learned that my code isn't the best of the world, so I take criticism in a completely different way now.. maybe he doesn't..

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• XNA Multiplayer Games and Networking

  - by JoshReuben

  ·        XNA communication must by default be lightweight – if you are syncing game state between players from the Game.Update method, you must minimize traffic. That game loop may be firing 60 times a second and player 5 needs to know if his tank has collided with any player 3 and the angle of that gun turret. There are no WCF ServiceContract / DataContract niceties here, but at the same time the XNA networking stack simplifies the details. The payload must be simplistic - just an ordered set of numbers that you would map to meaningful enum values upon deserialization.   Overview ·        XNA allows you to create and join multiplayer game sessions, to manage game state across clients, and to interact with the friends list ·        Dependency on Gamer Services - to receive notifications such as sign-in status changes and game invitations ·        two types of online multiplayer games: system link game sessions (LAN) and LIVE sessions (WAN). ·        Minimum dev requirements: 1 Xbox 360 console + Creators Club membership to test network code - run 1 instance of game on Xbox 360, and 1 on a Windows-based computer   Network Sessions ·        A network session is made up of players in a game + up to 8 arbitrary integer properties describing the session ·        create custom enums – (e.g. GameMode, SkillLevel) as keys in NetworkSessionProperties collection ·        Player state: lobby, in-play   Session Types ·        local session - for split-screen gaming - requires no network traffic. ·        system link session - connects multiple gaming machines over a local subnet. ·        Xbox LIVE multiplayer session - occurs on the Internet. Ranked or unranked   Session Updates ·        NetworkSession class Update method - must be called once per frame. ·        performs the following actions: o   Sends the network packets. o   Changes the session state. o   Raises the managed events for any significant state changes. o   Returns the incoming packet data. ·        synchronize the session à packet-received and state-change events à no threading issues   Session Config ·        Session host - gaming machine that creates the session. XNA handles host migration ·        NetworkSession properties: AllowJoinInProgress , AllowHostMigration ·        NetworkSession groups: AllGamers, LocalGamers, RemoteGamers   Subscribe to NetworkSession events ·        GamerJoined ·        GamerLeft ·        GameStarted ·        GameEnded – use to return to lobby ·        SessionEnded – use to return to title screen   Create a Session session = NetworkSession.Create(         NetworkSessionType.SystemLink,         maximumLocalPlayers,         maximumGamers,         privateGamerSlots,         sessionProperties );   Start a Session if (session.IsHost) {     if (session.IsEveryoneReady)     {        session.StartGame();        foreach (var gamer in SignedInGamer.SignedInGamers)        {             gamer.Presence.PresenceMode =                 GamerPresenceMode.InCombat;   Find a Network Session AvailableNetworkSessionCollection availableSessions = NetworkSession.Find(     NetworkSessionType.SystemLink,       maximumLocalPlayers,     networkSessionProperties); availableSessions.AllowJoinInProgress = true;   Join a Network Session NetworkSession session = NetworkSession.Join(     availableSessions[selectedSessionIndex]);   Sending Network Data var packetWriter = new PacketWriter(); foreach (LocalNetworkGamer gamer in session.LocalGamers) {     // Get the tank associated with this player.     Tank myTank = gamer.Tag as Tank;     // Write the data.     packetWriter.Write(myTank.Position);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.TankRotation);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.TurretRotation);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.IsFiring);     packetWriter.Write(myTank.Health);       // Send it to everyone.     gamer.SendData(packetWriter, SendDataOptions.None);     }   Receiving Network Data foreach (LocalNetworkGamer gamer in session.LocalGamers) {     // Keep reading while packets are available.     while (gamer.IsDataAvailable)     {         NetworkGamer sender;          // Read a single packet.         gamer.ReceiveData(packetReader, out sender);          if (!sender.IsLocal)         {             // Get the tank associated with this packet.             Tank remoteTank = sender.Tag as Tank;              // Read the data and apply it to the tank.             remoteTank.Position = packetReader.ReadVector2();             …   End a Session if (session.AllGamers.Count == 1)         {             session.EndGame();             session.Update();         }   Performance •        Aim to minimize payload, reliable in order messages •        Send Data Options: o   Unreliable, out of order -(SendDataOptions.None) o   Unreliable, in order (SendDataOptions.InOrder) o   Reliable, out of order (SendDataOptions.Reliable) o   Reliable, in order (SendDataOptions.ReliableInOrder) o   Chat data (SendDataOptions.Chat) •        Simulate: NetworkSession.SimulatedLatency , NetworkSession.SimulatedPacketLoss •        Voice support – NetworkGamer properties: HasVoice ,IsTalking , IsMutedByLocalUser

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• Get Fanatical About Your Followers

  - by Mike Stiles

  In the fourth of our series of discussions with Aberdeen’s Trip Kucera, we touch on what fans of your brand have come to expect in exchange for their fandom. Spotlight: Around the Oracle Social office, we live for football. So when we think of a true “fan” of a brand, something on the level of a football fan is what comes to mind. But are brands trying to invest fans on that same level? Trip: Yeah, if you’re a football fan, this is definitely your time of year. And if you’ve been to any NFL games recently, especially if you hadn’t been for a few years previously, you may have noticed that from the cup holders to in-stadium Wi-Fi, there’s an increasing emphasis being placed on “fan-focused” accommodations. That’s what they’re known as in the stadium business. Spotlight: How are brands doing in that fan-focused arena? Trip: Remember fan is short for “fanatical.” Brands can definitely learn from the way teams have become fanatical about their fans, or in the social media world, their followers. Many companies consider a segment of their addressable social audience as true fans; I’ve even heard the term “super-fans” used. So just as fans know and can tell you nearly everything about their favorite team, our research shows that there’s a lot value from getting to know your social audience—your followers—at a deeper level. Spotlight: So did your research show there’s a lot to be gained by making fandom a two-way street? Trip: Aberdeen’s new social relationship management research suggests that companies should develop capabilities to better analyze their social audience at a more granular level. Countless “ripped from the headlines” examples, from “United Breaks Guitars” to the most recent British Airways social fiasco we talked about a few weeks ago show how social can magnify the impact of a single customer voice. Spotlight: So how do the companies who are executing social most successfully do that? Trip: Leaders, which are the top-performing companies in Aberdeen’s study, are showing the value of identifying and categorizing your social audience. You should certainly treat every customer as if they have 10,000 followers, because they just might, but you can also proactively engage with high-value customer and high-value influencers. Getting back to the football analogy, it’s like how teams strive to give every guest a great experience, but they really roll out the red carpet for those season ticket and luxury box holders. Spotlight: I’m not allowed in luxury boxes, so you’ll have to tell me what that’s like. But what is the brand equivalent of rolling out the red carpet? Trip: Leaders are nearly three times more likely than Followers to have a process in place that identifies key social influencers for engagement, and more than twice as likely to identify customer advocates for social outreach. This is the kind of knowledge that gives companies the ability to better target social messaging and promotions like we talked about in our last discussion, as well as a basis for understanding how to measure the impact of their social media programs. I’ll give you an example. I hosted an event at one of my favorite restaurants recently. I had mentioned them in a Tweet several weeks before the event, and on the day of the event, they Tweeted out that they were looking forward to seeing me that evening for the event. It’s a small thing, but it had a big impact and I’d certainly go back as a result. Spotlight: So what specifically can brands use and look at to determine where their potential super-fans are? Trip: Social graph analysis, which looks at both the demographic/psychographic trends as well as the behavioral connections, can surface important brand value. Aberdeen’s PR and Brand Management research indicated that top-performing companies are more than three times more likely than Followers to both determine demographic trends through social listening (44% vs. 13%), and to identify meaningful customer segments through social (44% vs. 12%). This kind of brand-level insight can complement and enrich traditional market research. But perhaps even more importantly, it can serve as an early warning system for customer experience failures. @mikestilesPhoto: freedigitalphotos.net

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• Why Apple’s New SDK Limitation is So Offensive

  - by TStewartDev

  I am not an Apple fanboy, nor have I ever been. However, I have owned a Mac, an iPod, and an iPhone in my lifetime, and for more than a decade, I have defended Apple against the untruths that the haters so enjoy spewing. I encouraged my wife to buy a MacBook when she needed a new laptop two years ago, and I often recommend them to my friends and relatives. I have proudly and happily used my first generation iPhone for nearly three years. Now, for the first time in well over ten years, I find myself ready to swear off Apple and encourage everyone I know to do the same. I was disappointed when Apple wouldn't allow native apps, but I still bought the iPhone. I've stomached their ambiguous app approval process even though it's apparent that Steve may just reject your app because he doesn't like you or feels threatened by you (I'm still lamenting the rejection of the Google Voice app). But, as a developer, I can no longer tolerate Apple's terms and the kind of totalitarian control they indicate Apple wants. In case you are not already familiar, Apple has dictated in their OS 4.0 SDK license agreement (the now infamous Section 3.3.1) that all apps developed for the iPhone must be coded in C, C++, or Objective C, and moreover, that using any cross-compiling platforms is a violation of the agreement. For those of you who aren't developers, let me try to illustrate why this angers those of us who are. Imagine you're a professional writer. You've had articles published in some journals and magazines, and you've got a couple popular books out there, too. You've got an idea for a new book, and so you take it to your publisher. Your publisher agrees that it's a good idea. "But," says the publisher, "we want to hold our books to a tighter standard so that our readers get the experience we want them to have. Therefore, from now on, all our writers may only use words from this list of the 10,000 most common English words. Furthermore, if you cite any other works or quote anyone, they must comply with that same list, or you'll have to rewrite the entire work as well in case our readers want to look up your citation." What do you do? If your work is a children's book, this probably isn't a big deal to you. If it's an autobiography, textbook, or even a novel, though, you're going to have a lot of trouble describing your content with only common words. It's going to take you longer to complete your book, too, since you'll be looking up less common words frequently to see if you can use them. You could always go to another publisher, but this one has the best ability to distribute your book. The next largest distributor can only do a quarter as much. You could abandon the project altogether, but then everyone loses. Isn't this a silly scenario? Who would put such a limitation on writers? Yet this is very much what Apple is doing. They are using their dominant position in the market to coerce developers to write their apps exclusively for the iPhone OS by making it too expensive to write for multiple platforms. It is at least a threefold attack, striking at Adobe who is set to release a compiler that lets Flash source be compiled to iPhone binaries; striking at Google whose Android platform stands the best chance at the moment of providing serious competition to the iPhone; and reinforcing their own strong position by keeping popular apps exclusively to iPhone. And while developers are already very upset about this, the sad fact is that most of us will cave and give in to Apple because consumers don't know any better. They will continue to buy Apple's toy forcing developers to play Apple's maniacal game in order to make any money, at least until Steve Jobs decides he doesn't like them or he intends to release a competing application (bye-bye OpenFeint). Apple has been kept in check on the desktop front by a very dominant Microsoft, but I'm afraid that their success with iPods, iTunes, and iPhones has created a monster that we may have to bear until it is slain by an anti-trust suit or dies with the retirement of Steve Jobs.

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• Why I switch from Asana.com

  - by Anirudha

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/anirugu/archive/2013/10/24/why-i-switch-from-asana.com.aspxI used Asana.com from 1-2 years. have nice experience to use it. it’s not so easy. When I started using it it’s make many confusion. Now I switch from it.   When I first time see I really didn’t understand how to make a private list. There is a icon on top click on it and make it private. After doing that I still not sure if this is working. There is a lot of confusion made that time. I discuss too much to figure out small small things. The UI is interesting but so hard to understand.  What I am looking for is just a list that I can hold private. I would like to share it only if I put them shared and put email address of person to hold them same list. Few days ago I see that My Win8 phone have a app that call Microsoft OneNote. The good thing of this MS app is that I can record my voice in the app. If someone want to make a list for future then he just need to say and this can be recorded.  This is awesome when you feel that Mobile keypad is just not so fast as a normal regular keyboard.   Google docs are another good option to handle this thing. Just make a word file and use it. share it with friend with many option. One best thing is this app have very simply UI then any other apps.   One more alternative is https://trello.com which you hear from joel on their blog http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2011/09/13.html There are many html5 and browser based, mobile based app. Many of them support multi platform feature. this means you can have them from PC to your Pocket. One good thing we all wanted is offline. if you are not online thing will be saved and push back to server when you will be online.   The biggest problem with some apps are they are attractive easy but hard to learn. Their one feature are not clearly defined what he does. This make frustration and confusion to user. When app are not simple to use people start stop trying to learn it. That’s all the problem I have with asana.com If you don’t want to try anything then what about Sticky Notes that is part of Windows 7. This app are still usable since you can store the text on it. If you know any good app to make a task list that provide access from tablet/mobile then put comment here. In the whole world of app there is a lot of app for doing this same thing differently. I mention few of them here. I hope this is nice to describe it.   Thanks for read my post.

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• Communication software wanted: email, sms, IM, phone calls [closed]

  - by user63835

  I am searching for a software solution that integrates / unifies my communication. I use email, instant messaging, SMS and phone. I would like to get all emails, SMS, instant messaging dialogs and meta-data about phone calls into one application. Important is that I can access all past communication with one application. There should be a global address-book to map the communication data to persons or organizations. I want all the communication data in one place to access and backup it easily. The software solution is not required to be multi-user application or server application. It is just for one user (me) only, but server or multi-user applications are not excluded. I may run it on a server hardware. It should run on Linux (Lubuntu / Ubuntu prefered). Free and OpenSource software is prefered. It would be nice if I could perform new communication (like writing a new email, sms, etc.) with one application, but that is not a must have requirement. I could also work with different applications dedicated for different types of communication like IM-application for IM and email-application for email, if all that communication data from the specialized applications will be delivered to one single place where I can access and backup it. I have an android phone and currently I am using Google contacts as the address-book. In the long term this may change, to get back the control over my data. I did some Internet search but did not find a nice solution, yet. If I am looking for unified messaging and unified communication, am I on the right track? The current Thunderbird version has IM functionality integrated. Did not try it, yet. For SMS it may be possible to use an app to send every SMS (incoming and outgoing) as an email, but I am not sure if those SMS-emails can be mapped to an address-book contact. I don't remember exactly, but isn't there a Google android app (I think Google voice) integrating SMS into google services? But in Germany this function has not been released, yet. Maybe a groupware solution would solve the requirements, but I don't have much experience with it. As communication possibilites are groing, I am woundering that there seems to be such a big gap of solutions. I can't believe I am the only one who would like solution, better integrating all the communication channels more easily. If you know a software solution that solves these requirements (partly) I would be glad if you tell me about it. Thanks in advance.

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• Layer 3 switch routing

  - by Yoshiwaan

  I need help moving over to using our layer 3 switch as the inter vlan routing device rather than our cisco router. I've mostly got it working but I've got stuck near the end and need some advice (I think I just need a bit of education on the subject really). Cur I have a Dell PowerConnect 7048 connecting to a Cisco 1841 router. I've got a few key excerpts from the configs to provide the key information. On the powerconnect I have the following: ip routing ip default-gateway 172.31.14.1 ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 172.31.14.1 253 ! interface vlan 1 ip address 172.31.14.254 255.255.255.0 exit interface vlan 2 ip address 172.31.19.254 255.255.255.0 exit interface vlan 4 ip address 172.31.16.254 255.255.255.0 ! interface Gi1/0/1 description 'Link to L7Router01' switchport mode trunk switchport trunk allowed vlan except 3,7-4093 exit ! and on the Cisco the following: interface FastEthernet0/0 ip address 172.31.14.1 255.255.255.0 ip nat inside ip virtual-reassembly ! interface FastEthernet0/0.2 description Accounts VLAN encapsulation dot1Q 2 ip address 172.31.19.1 255.255.255.0 ip nat inside ip virtual-reassembly ! interface FastEthernet0/0.4 description Voice VLAN encapsulation dot1Q 4 ip address 172.31.16.1 255.255.255.0 ip nat inside ip virtual-reassembly ! So what I'm doing is moving clients over so that their default gateway is a 172.31.x.254 address rather than a 172.31.x.1 address. This works great for inter-vlan routing, I have no issues with this. The switch can also access the router no worries, and users on the 172.31.14.0/24 network can access all interfaces and sub-interfaces on the router, including 172.31.14.1. They can also access all of the interfaces that the router connects off to, no worries there. The problem I have is that users on the 172.31.16.0/24 and 172.31.19.0/24 subnets cannot access either 172.31.14.1 or any of the subnets the router connects to. They can, however, connect to BOTH of the sub interfaces on the router from either subnet. What am I missing here? Why can't the vlans connect to the non-sub interface on the router? Are tagged packets being sent to this interface?

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• Email delivery management grievances

  - by joxl

  The question I have may be more of principle than anything else, but here's my dilemma. I manage an email system for a small company (about 20 email users). We own a plain-letter .com domain name through Network Solutions. Our email service is hosted by Google Apps. Recently (Feb. 2011) we've been having customers report that they aren't getting our emails. Upon further investigation it seems that the failed emails are all to a common (well known) domain. We have not received any bounce messages for the emails. We've also contacted a few of the intended recipients, who have reported that the messages are not in their spam box; they simply did not receive anything. In these cases we re-sent the same email to an alternate address on another domain, which was successful received. One customer contacted their email provider about the issue. The provider recommended that we submit a form to be white-listed by their domain. Here's where my problem begins. I feel like this is heading down a slippery slope. Doesn't this undermine the very principle of email? If this is the appropriate action to take in these situations where will it end? In theory (following this model) it could be argued that eventually one will first need to "whitelist" (or more appropriately termed "authenticate") themselves with an email host before actually sending any messages. More to this point, what keeps the "bad" spammers from doing the same thing...? We've just gone full circle. I know avoiding anti-spam measures is a big cat-and-mouse game, but I think this is the wrong way of "patching" the problem. Email standards say that messages should not just disappear silently. I have a problem supporting a model that says "you must do < this to make sure your emails aren't ignored". I have a notion to call the provider and voice my complaint, although I have a feeling it will probably fall on deaf ears. Am I missing something here? Is this an acceptable approach to email spam problems? What should I do?

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• I am having a problem of class cast exception. Can anyone please help me out?

  - by Piyush

  This is my code: package com.example.userpage; import android.app.Activity; import android.content.Intent; import android.os.Bundle; import android.view.View; import android.widget.Button; import android.widget.EditText; import android.widget.TextView; public class UserPage extends Activity { String tv,tv1; EditText name,pass; TextView x,y; /** Called when the activity is first created. */ @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.main); Button button = (Button) findViewById(R.id.widget44); button.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(View v) { name.setText(" "); pass.setText(" "); } }); x = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.widget46); y = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.widget47); name = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.widget41); pass = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.widget42); Button button1 = (Button) findViewById(R.id.widget45); button1.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(View v) { tv= name.getText().toString(); tv1 = pass.getText().toString(); x.setText(tv); y.setText(tv1); } }); } } And this is my log cat: 02-16 12:24:30.488: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(973): >>>>>>>>>>>>>> AndroidRuntime START <<<<<<<<<<<<<< 02-16 12:24:30.488: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(973): CheckJNI is ON 02-16 12:24:31.208: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(973): --- registering native functions --- 02-16 12:24:33.498: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(973): Shutting down VM 02-16 12:24:33.537: DEBUG/dalvikvm(973): Debugger has detached; object registry had 1 entries 02-16 12:24:33.537: INFO/AndroidRuntime(973): NOTE: attach of thread 'Binder Thread #3' failed 02-16 12:24:34.917: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(981): >>>>>>>>>>>>>> AndroidRuntime START <<<<<<<<<<<<<< 02-16 12:24:34.927: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(981): CheckJNI is ON 02-16 12:24:35.617: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(981): --- registering native functions --- 02-16 12:24:38.029: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Starting activity: Intent { act=android.intent.action.MAIN cat=[android.intent.category.LAUNCHER] flg=0x10000000 cmp=com.example.userpage/.UserPage } 02-16 12:24:38.129: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(981): Shutting down VM 02-16 12:24:38.160: DEBUG/dalvikvm(981): Debugger has detached; object registry had 1 entries 02-16 12:24:38.168: INFO/AndroidRuntime(981): NOTE: attach of thread 'Binder Thread #3' failed 02-16 12:25:12.028: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(990): >>>>>>>>>>>>>> AndroidRuntime START <<<<<<<<<<<<<< 02-16 12:25:12.038: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(990): CheckJNI is ON 02-16 12:25:12.708: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(990): --- registering native functions --- 02-16 12:25:15.178: DEBUG/dalvikvm(176): GC_EXPLICIT freed 114 objects / 5880 bytes in 115ms 02-16 12:25:15.318: DEBUG/PackageParser(67): Scanning package: /data/app/vmdl25170.tmp 02-16 12:25:15.588: INFO/PackageManager(67): Removing non-system package:com.example.userpage 02-16 12:25:15.597: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Force stopping package com.example.userpage uid=10036 02-16 12:25:15.648: INFO/Process(67): Sending signal. PID: 916 SIG: 9 02-16 12:25:15.877: INFO/UsageStats(67): Unexpected resume of com.android.launcher while already resumed in com.example.userpage 02-16 12:25:17.028: WARN/InputManagerService(67): Window already focused, ignoring focus gain of: com.android.internal.view.IInputMethodClient$Stub$Proxy@4400ecf8 02-16 12:25:17.928: DEBUG/PackageManager(67): Scanning package com.example.userpage 02-16 12:25:17.949: INFO/PackageManager(67): Package com.example.userpage codePath changed from /data/app/com.example.userpage-1.apk to /data/app/com.example.userpage-2.apk; Retaining data and using new 02-16 12:25:17.987: INFO/PackageManager(67): /data/app/com.example.userpage-2.apk changed; unpacking 02-16 12:25:18.037: DEBUG/installd(35): DexInv: --- BEGIN '/data/app/com.example.userpage-2.apk' --- 02-16 12:25:18.737: DEBUG/dalvikvm(997): DexOpt: load 81ms, verify 112ms, opt 6ms 02-16 12:25:18.768: DEBUG/installd(35): DexInv: --- END '/data/app/com.example.userpage-2.apk' (success) --- 02-16 12:25:18.799: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Force stopping package com.example.userpage uid=10036 02-16 12:25:18.808: WARN/PackageManager(67): Code path for pkg : com.example.userpage changing from /data/app/com.example.userpage-1.apk to /data/app/com.example.userpage-2.apk 02-16 12:25:18.839: WARN/PackageManager(67): Resource path for pkg : com.example.userpage changing from /data/app/com.example.userpage-1.apk to /data/app/com.example.userpage-2.apk 02-16 12:25:18.868: DEBUG/PackageManager(67): Activities: com.example.userpage.UserPage 02-16 12:25:19.297: INFO/installd(35): move /data/dalvik-cache/data@[email protected]@classes.dex -> /data/dalvik-cache/data@[email protected]@classes.dex 02-16 12:25:19.297: DEBUG/PackageManager(67): New package installed in /data/app/com.example.userpage-2.apk 02-16 12:25:19.598: DEBUG/dalvikvm(67): GC_FOR_MALLOC freed 7979 objects / 516856 bytes in 246ms 02-16 12:25:20.498: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Force stopping package com.example.userpage uid=10036 02-16 12:25:20.708: DEBUG/dalvikvm(129): GC_EXPLICIT freed 124 objects / 5672 bytes in 157ms 02-16 12:25:21.838: DEBUG/dalvikvm(67): GC_EXPLICIT freed 4208 objects / 236264 bytes in 419ms 02-16 12:25:21.918: WARN/RecognitionManagerService(67): no available voice recognition services found 02-16 12:25:22.127: INFO/installd(35): unlink /data/dalvik-cache/data@[email protected]@classes.dex 02-16 12:25:22.478: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(990): Shutting down VM 02-16 12:25:22.488: DEBUG/dalvikvm(990): Debugger has detached; object registry had 1 entries 02-16 12:25:22.588: INFO/AndroidRuntime(990): NOTE: attach of thread 'Binder Thread #3' failed 02-16 12:25:24.137: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1003): >>>>>>>>>>>>>> AndroidRuntime START <<<<<<<<<<<<<< 02-16 12:25:24.147: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1003): CheckJNI is ON 02-16 12:25:24.817: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1003): --- registering native functions --- 02-16 12:25:27.450: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Starting activity: Intent { act=android.intent.action.MAIN cat=[android.intent.category.LAUNCHER] flg=0x10000000 cmp=com.example.userpage/.UserPage } 02-16 12:25:27.628: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1003): Shutting down VM 02-16 12:25:27.780: INFO/AndroidRuntime(1003): NOTE: attach of thread 'Binder Thread #3' failed 02-16 12:25:28.018: DEBUG/dalvikvm(1003): Debugger has detached; object registry had 1 entries 02-16 12:25:28.148: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Start proc com.example.userpage for activity com.example.userpage/.UserPage: pid=1010 uid=10036 gids={} 02-16 12:25:30.308: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1010): Shutting down VM 02-16 12:25:30.308: WARN/dalvikvm(1010): threadid=1: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x4001d800) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): FATAL EXCEPTION: main 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.example.userpage/com.example.userpage.UserPage}: java.lang.ClassCastException: android.widget.TextView 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2663) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2679) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2300(ActivityThread.java:125) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:2033) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4627) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:868) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:626) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): Caused by: java.lang.ClassCastException: android.widget.TextView 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at com.example.userpage.UserPage.onCreate(UserPage.java:35) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1047) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2627) 02-16 12:25:30.388: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1010): ... 11 more 02-16 12:25:30.438: WARN/ActivityManager(67): Force finishing activity com.example.userpage/.UserPage 02-16 12:25:31.088: WARN/ActivityManager(67): Activity pause timeout for HistoryRecord{43f164f8 com.example.userpage/.UserPage} 02-16 12:25:32.588: DEBUG/dalvikvm(292): GC_EXPLICIT freed 46 objects / 2240 bytes in 6282ms 02-16 12:25:35.267: INFO/Process(1010): Sending signal. PID: 1010 SIG: 9 02-16 12:25:35.468: WARN/InputManagerService(67): Window already focused, ignoring focus gain of: com.android.internal.view.IInputMethodClient$Stub$Proxy@43e60a90 02-16 12:25:35.900: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Process com.example.userpage (pid 1010) has died. 02-16 12:25:38.278: DEBUG/dalvikvm(176): GC_EXPLICIT freed 172 objects / 12280 bytes in 127ms 02-16 12:25:43.011: WARN/ActivityManager(67): Activity destroy timeout for HistoryRecord{43f164f8 com.example.userpage/.UserPage} 02-16 12:28:12.698: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1019): >>>>>>>>>>>>>> AndroidRuntime START <<<<<<<<<<<<<< 02-16 12:28:12.711: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1019): CheckJNI is ON 02-16 12:28:13.367: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1019): --- registering native functions --- 02-16 12:28:15.998: DEBUG/dalvikvm(176): GC_EXPLICIT freed 114 objects / 5888 bytes in 183ms 02-16 12:28:16.539: DEBUG/PackageParser(67): Scanning package: /data/app/vmdl25171.tmp 02-16 12:28:16.867: INFO/PackageManager(67): Removing non-system package:com.example.userpage 02-16 12:28:16.867: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Force stopping package com.example.userpage uid=10036 02-16 12:28:17.277: DEBUG/PackageManager(67): Scanning package com.example.userpage 02-16 12:28:17.308: INFO/PackageManager(67): Package com.example.userpage codePath changed from /data/app/com.example.userpage-2.apk to /data/app/com.example.userpage-1.apk; Retaining data and using new 02-16 12:28:17.328: INFO/PackageManager(67): /data/app/com.example.userpage-1.apk changed; unpacking 02-16 12:28:17.367: DEBUG/installd(35): DexInv: --- BEGIN '/data/app/com.example.userpage-1.apk' --- 02-16 12:28:18.357: DEBUG/dalvikvm(1026): DexOpt: load 85ms, verify 114ms, opt 6ms 02-16 12:28:18.398: DEBUG/installd(35): DexInv: --- END '/data/app/com.example.userpage-1.apk' (success) --- 02-16 12:28:18.428: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Force stopping package com.example.userpage uid=10036 02-16 12:28:18.438: WARN/PackageManager(67): Code path for pkg : com.example.userpage changing from /data/app/com.example.userpage-2.apk to /data/app/com.example.userpage-1.apk 02-16 12:28:18.477: WARN/PackageManager(67): Resource path for pkg : com.example.userpage changing from /data/app/com.example.userpage-2.apk to /data/app/com.example.userpage-1.apk 02-16 12:28:18.477: DEBUG/PackageManager(67): Activities: com.example.userpage.UserPage 02-16 12:28:18.977: INFO/installd(35): move /data/dalvik-cache/data@[email protected]@classes.dex -> /data/dalvik-cache/data@[email protected]@classes.dex 02-16 12:28:18.988: DEBUG/PackageManager(67): New package installed in /data/app/com.example.userpage-1.apk 02-16 12:28:19.528: DEBUG/dalvikvm(67): GC_FOR_MALLOC freed 6733 objects / 459728 bytes in 211ms 02-16 12:28:20.138: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Force stopping package com.example.userpage uid=10036 02-16 12:28:20.368: DEBUG/dalvikvm(129): GC_EXPLICIT freed 892 objects / 48744 bytes in 175ms 02-16 12:28:21.317: WARN/RecognitionManagerService(67): no available voice recognition services found 02-16 12:28:22.827: DEBUG/dalvikvm(67): GC_EXPLICIT freed 3877 objects / 241128 bytes in 452ms 02-16 12:28:22.979: INFO/installd(35): unlink /data/dalvik-cache/data@[email protected]@classes.dex 02-16 12:28:23.277: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1019): Shutting down VM 02-16 12:28:23.307: DEBUG/dalvikvm(1019): Debugger has detached; object registry had 1 entries 02-16 12:28:23.328: INFO/AndroidRuntime(1019): NOTE: attach of thread 'Binder Thread #3' failed 02-16 12:28:24.989: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1032): >>>>>>>>>>>>>> AndroidRuntime START <<<<<<<<<<<<<< 02-16 12:28:24.989: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1032): CheckJNI is ON 02-16 12:28:25.888: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1032): --- registering native functions --- 02-16 12:28:28.588: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Starting activity: Intent { act=android.intent.action.MAIN cat=[android.intent.category.LAUNCHER] flg=0x10000000 cmp=com.example.userpage/.UserPage } 02-16 12:28:28.888: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1032): Shutting down VM 02-16 12:28:28.997: DEBUG/dalvikvm(1032): Debugger has detached; object registry had 1 entries 02-16 12:28:29.038: INFO/AndroidRuntime(1032): NOTE: attach of thread 'Binder Thread #3' failed 02-16 12:28:30.417: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Start proc com.example.userpage for activity com.example.userpage/.UserPage: pid=1039 uid=10036 gids={} 02-16 12:28:32.588: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(1039): Shutting down VM 02-16 12:28:32.598: WARN/dalvikvm(1039): threadid=1: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x4001d800) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): FATAL EXCEPTION: main 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.example.userpage/com.example.userpage.UserPage}: java.lang.ClassCastException: android.widget.TextView 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2663) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2679) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2300(ActivityThread.java:125) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:2033) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4627) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:868) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:626) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): Caused by: java.lang.ClassCastException: android.widget.TextView 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at com.example.userpage.UserPage.onCreate(UserPage.java:34) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1047) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2627) 02-16 12:28:32.648: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(1039): ... 11 more 02-16 12:28:32.698: WARN/ActivityManager(67): Force finishing activity com.example.userpage/.UserPage 02-16 12:28:32.967: DEBUG/dalvikvm(292): GC_EXPLICIT freed 46 objects / 2240 bytes in 6840ms 02-16 12:28:33.247: WARN/ActivityManager(67): Activity pause timeout for HistoryRecord{43ee7b70 com.example.userpage/.UserPage} 02-16 12:28:36.947: INFO/Process(1039): Sending signal. PID: 1039 SIG: 9 02-16 12:28:37.017: INFO/ActivityManager(67): Process com.example.userpage (pid 1039) has died. 02-16 12:28:37.128: WARN/InputManagerService(67): Window already focused, ignoring focus gain of: com.android.internal.view.IInputMethodClient$Stub$Proxy@43e872f8 02-16 12:28:42.087: DEBUG/dalvikvm(176): GC_EXPLICIT freed 156 objects / 11488 bytes in 145ms 02-16 12:28:45.391: WARN/ActivityManager(67): Activity destroy timeout for HistoryRecord{43ee7b70 com.example.userpage/.UserPage} 02-16 12:28:47.177: DEBUG/SntpClient(67): request time failed: java.net.SocketException: Address family not supported by protocol

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• Sneak peek at next generation Three MiFi unit – Huawei E585

  - by Liam Westley

  Last Wednesday I was fortunate to be invited to a sneak preview of the next generation Three MiFi unit, the Huawei E585. Many thanks to all those who posted questions both via this blog or via @westleyl on Twitter. I think I made sure I asked every question posed to the MiFi product manager from Three UK, and so here's the answers you were after. What is a MiFi? For those who are wondering, a MiFi unit is a 3G broadband modem combined with a WiFi access point, providing 3G broadband data access to up to five devices simultaneously via standard WiFi connections. What is different? It appears the prime task of enhancing the MiFi was to improve the user experience and user interface, both in terms of the device hardware and within the management software to configure the device.  I think this was a very sensible decision as these areas had substantial room for improvement. Single button operation to switch on, enable WiFi and connect to 3G Improved OELD display (see below), replacing the multi coloured LEDs; including signal strength, SMS notifications, the number of connected clients and data usage Management is via a web based dashboard accessible from any web browser. This is a big win for those running Linux, Mac OS/X, iPad users and, for me, as I can now configure the device from Windows 7 64-bit Charging is via micro USB, the new standard for small USB devices; you cannot use your old charger for the new MiFi unit Automatic reconnection when regaining a signal Improved charging time, which should allow recharging of the device when in use Although subjective, the black and silver design does look more classy than the silver and white plastic of the original MiFi What is the same? Virtually the same size and weight The battery is the same unit as the original MiFi so you’ll have a handy spare if you upgrade Data plans remain the same as the current MiFi, so cheapest price for upgraders will be £49 pay as you go Still only works on 3G networks, with no fallback to GPRS or EDGE There is no specific upgrade path for existing three customers, either from dongle or from the original MiFi My opinion I think three have concentrated on the correct areas of usability and user experience rather than trying to add new whizz bang technology features which aren’t of interest to mainstream users. The one button operation and the improved device display will make it much easier to use when out and about. If the automatic reconnection proves reliable that will remove a major bugbear that I experienced the previous evening when travelling on the First Great Western line from Paddington to Didcot Parkway.  The signal was repeatedly lost as we sped through tunnels and cuttings, and without automatic reconnection is was a real pain to keep pressing the data button on the MiFi to re-establish my data connection. And finally, the web based dashboard will mean I no longer need to resort to my XP based netbook to configure the SSID and password. My everyday laptop runs Windows 7 64-bit which appears to confuse the older 3 WiFi manager which cannot locate the MiFi when connected. Links to other sites, and other images of the device Good first impressions from Ben Smith, http://thereallymobileproject.com/2010/06/3uk-announce-a-new-mifi-with-a-screen/ Also, a round up of other sneak preview posts, http://www.3mobilebuzz.com/2010/06/11/mifi-round-two-your-view/ Pictures Here is a comparison of the old MiFi device next to the new device, complete with OLED display and the Huawei logo now being a prominent feature on the front of the device. One of my fellow bloggers had a Linux based netbook, showing off the web based dashboard complete with Text messages panel to manage SMS. And finally, I never thought that my blog sub title would ever end up printed onto a cup cake, ... and here's some of the other cup cakes ...

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

  - by DigiMortal

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

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