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• Pros and Cons of Facebook's React vs. Web Components (Polymer)

  - by CletusW

  What are the main benefits of Facebook's React over the upcoming Web Components spec and vice versa (or perhaps a more apples-to-apples comparison would be to Google's Polymer library)? According to this JSConf EU talk and the React homepage, the main benefits of React are: Decoupling and increased cohesion using a component model Abstraction, Composition and Expressivity Virtual DOM & Synthetic events (which basically means they completely re-implemented the DOM and its event system) Enables modern HTML5 event stuff on IE 8 Server-side rendering Testability Bindings to SVG, VML, and <canvas> Almost everything mentioned is being integrated into browsers natively through Web Components except this virtual DOM concept (obviously). I can see how the virtual DOM and synthetic events can be beneficial today to support old browsers, but isn't throwing away a huge chunk of native browser code kind of like shooting yourself in the foot in the long term? As far as modern browsers are concerned, isn't that a lot of unnecessary overhead/reinventing of the wheel? Here are some things I think React is missing that Web Components will care of. Correct me if I'm wrong. Native browser support (read "guaranteed to be faster") Write script in a scripting language, write styles in a styling language, write markup in a markup language. Style encapsulation using Shadow DOM React instead has this, which requires writing CSS in JavaScript. Not pretty. Two-way binding

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• Should I avoid or embrace asking questions of other developers on the job?

  - by T.K.

  As a CS undergraduate, the people around me are either learning or are paid to teach me, but as a software developer, the people around me have tasks of their own. They aren't paid to teach me, and conversely, I am paid to contribute. When I first started working as a software developer co-op, I was introduced to a huge code base written in a language I had never used before. I had plenty of questions, but didn't want to bother my co-workers with all of them - it wasted their time and hurt my pride. Instead, I spent a lot of time bouncing between IDE and browser, trying to make sense of what had already been written and differentiate between expected behavior and symptoms of bugs. I'd ask my co-workers when I felt that the root of my lack of understanding was an in-house concept that I wouldn't find on the internet, but aside from that, I tried to confine my questions to lunch hours. Naturally, there were occasions where I wasted time trying to understand something in code on the internet that had, at its heart, an in-house concept, but overall, I felt I was productive enough during my first semester, contributing about as much as one could expect and gaining a pretty decent understanding of large parts of the product. I was wondering what senior developers felt about that mindset. Should new developers ask more questions to get to speed faster, or should they do their own research for themselves? I see benefits to both mindsets, and anticipate a large variety of responses, but I figure new developers might appreciate your answers without thinking to ask this question.

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• How do I get my Intel HD graphics to work alongside my HD7850, as my second(HDMI out) monitor?

  - by AlexTes

  Title says it all. Further info: Motherboard: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Pro3/ Processor: http://ark.intel.com/products/65520/Intel-Core-i5-3570K-Processor-%286M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz%29 So currently my main screen is running on my HD7850. Got drivers from the amd website. I have looked through dozens of questions here. I'm about to try booting Ubuntu from a stick and seeing if the xorg-edgers drivers might help. When booting, all action goes down on the very screen I'm trying to get to work.*EDIT never mind this. Seems to be special boot magic. As the screen only displays whiteline errors once the gui of ubuntu has kicked in and everything graphic is happening through my graphics card again. Connected through HDMI(motherboard)-DVI. So unless having multiple displays is a huge deal the solution hopefully isn't that complicated. I just feel I'm missing something simple. If this really is complicated, I should probably just hook up the display to my graphics card. My CPU is usually the one chilling out though so I'd like to try to get that to work. Also just because I don't want to buy an extra cable and this set up makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Tell me what to try or look up, I'll be most appreciative. Thank you! **UPDATE The x-swat ppa installed some intel stuff. Booting with one monitor plugged into the motherboard gives nothing. Doing it with the pc already on gives the purple "Ubuntu" with 5 dots boot/shutdown screen.

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• How to structure reading of commands given at a(n interactive) CLI prompt?

  - by Anto

  Let's say I have a program called theprogram (the marketing team was on strike when the product was to be named). I start that program by typing, perhaps not surprisingly, the program name as a command into a command prompt. After that, I get into a loop (from the users standpoint, an interactive command-line prompt), where one command will be read from the user, and depending on what command was given, the program will execute some instructions. I have been doing something like the following (in C-like pseudocode): main_loop{ in=read_input(); if(in=="command 1") do_something(); else if(in=="command 2") do_something_else(); ... } (In a real program, I would probably encapsulate more things into different procedures, this is just an example.) This works well for a small amount of commands, but let's say you have 100, 1000 or even 10 000 of them (the manual would be huge!). It is clearly a bad idea to have 10 000 ifs and else ifs after each other, for instance, the program would be hard to read, hard to maintain, contain a lot of boilerplate code... Yeah, you don't want to do that, so what approach would you recommend me to use (I will probably never use 10 000 commands in a program, but the solution should, at least preferably, be able to scale to that kind of massive (?) problems. The solution doesn't have to allow for arguments to the commands)?

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• Why does my system slow down or freeze when there is heavy disk activity?

  - by user72270

  Im a first-time user to Ubuntu-12.04 with WUBI installation. My NoteBook Information : Dell vostro 3450 : i5 2410m, 3 gb ram, intel hd3000, amd 6630m hybrid. Surfing and playing games works flawlessly, however, I'm having huge problems when installing applications and generally copying and moving files. When doing so, system is significantly slower and freezes quite often (Firefox gets bluish, sometimes even black n white). I would say that Ubuntu allocates too much resources on file transfers and installing, but even these tasks are very slow. Here is very specific example : today, i tried to move 6 GB file from win 7 installation. It was good at first, i jumped to firefox but after a while firefox started to randomly turn bluish and mouse was randomly stopping working. It was gradually worse and worse and it got to a point when firefox black n whited and mouse wasn't working at all. I raged and went for some meal, when i got back screen was black. It probably unlogged me due to inactivity, when i pushed random button to bring screen to life i had to wait few minutes to let it show me only my screen background. No log in screen, just background and working mouse. NoteBook fan was working at 100 % so I assumed that file transfer was going on and I left it to work. Nothing then changed for a full hour so I hard rebooted it. File transfer unsuccessful, It transfered hardly 2 gigs. Is this normal ? What to do in these situations ? It didn't let me load system manager and not even terminal. Thanks.

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• Why is heap size fixed on JVMs?

  - by themel

  Can anyone explain to me why JVMs (I didn't check too many, but I've never seen one that didn't do it that way) need to run on a fixed heap size? I know it's easier to implement on a simple contiguous heap, but the Sun JVM is now over a decade old, so I'd expect them to have had time to improve this. Needing to define the maximum memory size of your program at startup time seems such a 1960s thing to do, and then there are the bad interactions with OS virtual memory management (GC retrieving swapped out data, inability to determine how much memory the Java process is really using from the OS side, huge amounts of VM space wasted (I know, you don't care on your fancy 48bit machines...)). I also guess that the various sad attempts to build small operating systems inside the JVM (EE application servers, OSGi) are at least partially to blame on this circumstance, because running multiple Java processes on a system invariably leads to wasted resources because you have to give each of them the memory it might have to use at peak. Surprisingly, Google didn't yield the storms of outrage over this that I would expect, but they may just have been buried under the millions of people finding out about fixed heap size and just accepting it for a fact.

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• A new day has dawned in my SharePoint world.

  - by SPTales

  Until I started working with SharePoint, I never thought I would be blogging.  I am usually a pretty private individual, but this thing called the SharePoint community pulls you in and makes you feel like you should be a part of it, contributing to it and giving something back.  So here I am blogging for the first time – and so begins my tale. I started my work life as a Systems admin, but was given a chance to start working with SharePoint 2007 back in - ironically enough - January of 2007.  It has been downhill from there or uphill depending on your perspective!  I jumped in with both feet and haven’t looked back.  Lucky for me Microsoft gave us a new version to work with.  A new job a couple years ago gave me the chance to work with that new version.  Now I spend my days weaving a tale of SharePoint for a Sales based organization. So why this blog?  To give something back. I spend most days toggling between administration, InfoPath, Branding and design, HTML, JQuery, and XSLT depending on the need.  The blog will detail these projects and solutions as best I can.  Hopefully they will be of use to someone who may be trying to accomplish similar things, just as many of the blogs that I have referenced over the last 5 years have been a huge help and resource for me.

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• C++ Parallel Asynchonous task

  - by Doodlemeat

  I am currently building a randomly generated terrain game where terrain is created automatically around the player. I am experiencing lag when the generated process is active, as I am running quite heavy tasks with post-processing and creating physics bodies. Then I came to mind using a parallel asynchronous task to do the post-processing for me. But I have no idea how I am going to do that. I have searched for C++ std::async but I believe that is not what I want. In the examples I found, a task returned something. I want the task to change objects in the main program. This is what I want: // Main program // Chunks that needs to be processed. // NOTE! These chunks are already generated, but need post-processing only! std::vector<Chunk*> unprocessedChunks; And then my task could look something like this, running like a loop constantly checking if there is chunks to process. // Asynced task if(unprocessedChunks.size() > 0) { processChunk(unprocessedChunks.pop()); } I know it's not far from easy as I wrote it, but it would be a huge help for me if you could push me at the right direction. In Java, I could type something like this: asynced_task = startAsyncTask(new PostProcessTask()); And that task would run until I do this: asynced_task.cancel();

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• Handling timeout in network application

  - by user2175831

  How can I handle timeouts in a network application. I'm implementing a provisioning system on a Linux server, the code is huge so I'm going to put the algorithm, it works as like this Read provisioning commands from file Send it to another server using TCP Save the request in hash. Receive the response then if successful response received then remove request from hash if failed response received then retry the message The problem I'm in now is when the program didn't receive the response for a timeout reason then the request will be waiting for a response forever and won't be retried. And please note that I'll be sending hundreds of commands and I have to monitor the timeout commands for all of them. I tried to use timer but that didn't help because I'll end up with so many waiting timers and I'm not sure if this is a good way of doing this. The question is how can I save the message in some data structure and check to remove or retry it later when there is no response from the other end? Please note that I'm willing to change the algorithm to anything you suggest that could deal with the timeouts.

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• What do you consider standard job perks? [closed]

  - by reseter

  What does a company need to offer you (apart from a fat pay cheque) for you to work for them? I am aware of this question, which is from an employer's perspective. I am interested in your views as employees. To get the discussion started, here is a list off the top of my head (not in any particular order): High-end computer with a huge screen or two. The best software tool money can buy as per Joel's test). That isn't too much to ask given many of the best tools are free (think git). Flexibility is a bonus- if a particular platform/ piece of software is not absolutely required, I would like to pick my OS and IDE. A quality chair Quiet workspace. Open plan is fine as long as there are meeting rooms so that there is no constant chatter going on around me. Spacious workspace. I would rather have more than three inches between my mouse and the person next to me's keyboard. Food and drink at work. Many companies these days have fruit baskets, biscuits, etc available to their employees, some even offer free lunch. Education. If my employer wants my skills to stay up-to-date, they should at the very least understand I need time to learn. If they want to pay for my books and conference registration fees, I am more than happy to accept. Other options include organizing internal knowledge exchange days or inviting speakers from outside. Flexible hours/ option to work from home is a bonus

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• How do I get any number of links to space evenly? [migrated]

  - by Aerodynamo

  Alright, so here is the situation... Say I have a navbar for a site, and I allow users to change the number of links they want on this navbar. This means they could have 3, 5, 10, etc. What I want to do is make it so that if one link is up, it only takes up, say, 1/5th of the space on the navbar. If I weren't using borders, I might do something like: width: 18%; padding: 0 1%; However, I have two problems with this: 1) For 4 buttons, that's fine that it doesn't fill up the whole row. It would look ugly if the links were too wide... but when I have 6 or 7 buttons, it's got huge overflow! 2) Since I have borders, I can't use a percentage value for the borders or the widths, because I can't properly estimate how much of the percentage it will be. Now, I know I don't have to use percentage values, but what I would ideally prefer is that the first button is the smallest possible size necessary for all the other buttons to fit properly, meaning that if I have 950px and 6 links, the first link can be about 150px while the others are 160px... that's fine. I want all the other buttons on the navbar to be equally sized, regardless of how many links there are. I also need for it to accept a border... I figure the way to do this is to put a border in the nested div, so that way it doesn't effect the overall width of the button? This is all well and good, but I'm still plagued by the issue of not being able to design a dynamic site using the style I want if I can't get all the nav buttons to fit the width properly. Are there some js tricks I could use? I don't even know... Thanks

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• What is a suitable way to correct this program? [closed]

  - by lamwaiman1988

  Possible Duplicate: How to deal with huge changes to a data specification? As described in this question, I need to modified a 4800 line c program to fulfill the new functional specification. However I have no idea of HOW to do it. Background: There is a updated version of a header file which the program depends on. I've speculated the changes and found that at least 30 critical changes are present. With the new header file, the c program cannot even compile. The error is too much that the compile said "too much error" and don't list every one. Unlike normal modification which can be easily test, this has no way to test without overcoming the 30 critical changes. For example, there would be no point to run the modified program with the old header file. On the other hand, with the new header file, the program can't run until I've covered every one of the 30 critical changes scattered in the new header file so that I can't even verify the correctness of each modification until there is no more compilation error. Do you have any idea to deal with this situation?

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• HTG Reviews the CODE Keyboard: Old School Construction Meets Modern Amenities

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  There’s nothing quite as satisfying as the smooth and crisp action of a well built keyboard. If you’re tired of  mushy keys and cheap feeling keyboards, a well-constructed mechanical keyboard is a welcome respite from the $10 keyboard that came with your computer. Read on as we put the CODE mechanical keyboard through the paces. What is the CODE Keyboard? The CODE keyboard is a collaboration between manufacturer WASD Keyboards and Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror (the guy behind the Stack Exchange network and Discourse forum software). Atwood’s focus was incorporating the best of traditional mechanical keyboards and the best of modern keyboard usability improvements. In his own words: The world is awash in terrible, crappy, no name how-cheap-can-we-make-it keyboards. There are a few dozen better mechanical keyboard options out there. I’ve owned and used at least six different expensive mechanical keyboards, but I wasn’t satisfied with any of them, either: they didn’t have backlighting, were ugly, had terrible design, or were missing basic functions like media keys. That’s why I originally contacted Weyman Kwong of WASD Keyboards way back in early 2012. I told him that the state of keyboards was unacceptable to me as a geek, and I proposed a partnership wherein I was willing to work with him to do whatever it takes to produce a truly great mechanical keyboard. Even the ardent skeptic who questions whether Atwood has indeed created a truly great mechanical keyboard certainly can’t argue with the position he starts from: there are so many agonizingly crappy keyboards out there. Even worse, in our opinion, is that unless you’re a typist of a certain vintage there’s a good chance you’ve never actually typed on a really nice keyboard. Those that didn’t start using computers until the mid-to-late 1990s most likely have always typed on modern mushy-key keyboards and never known the joy of typing on a really responsive and crisp mechanical keyboard. Is our preference for and love of mechanical keyboards shining through here? Good. We’re not even going to try and hide it. So where does the CODE keyboard stack up in pantheon of keyboards? Read on as we walk you through the simple setup and our experience using the CODE. Setting Up the CODE Keyboard Although the setup of the CODE keyboard is essentially plug and play, there are two distinct setup steps that you likely haven’t had to perform on a previous keyboard. Both highlight the degree of care put into the keyboard and the amount of customization available. Inside the box you’ll find the keyboard, a micro USB cable, a USB-to-PS2 adapter, and a tool which you may be unfamiliar with: a key puller. We’ll return to the key puller in a moment. Unlike the majority of keyboards on the market, the cord isn’t permanently affixed to the keyboard. What does this mean for you? Aside from the obvious need to plug it in yourself, it makes it dead simple to repair your own keyboard cord if it gets attacked by a pet, mangled in a mechanism on your desk, or otherwise damaged. It also makes it easy to take advantage of the cable routing channels in on the underside of the keyboard to  route your cable exactly where you want it. While we’re staring at the underside of the keyboard, check out those beefy rubber feet. By peripherals standards they’re huge (and there is six instead of the usual four). Once you plunk the keyboard down where you want it, it might as well be glued down the rubber feet work so well. After you’ve secured the cable and adjusted it to your liking, there is one more task  before plug the keyboard into the computer. On the bottom left-hand side of the keyboard, you’ll find a small recess in the plastic with some dip switches inside: The dip switches are there to switch hardware functions for various operating systems, keyboard layouts, and to enable/disable function keys. By toggling the dip switches you can change the keyboard from QWERTY mode to Dvorak mode and Colemak mode, the two most popular alternative keyboard configurations. You can also use the switches to enable Mac-functionality (for Command/Option keys). One of our favorite little toggles is the SW3 dip switch: you can disable the Caps Lock key; goodbye accidentally pressing Caps when you mean to press Shift. You can review the entire dip switch configuration chart here. The quick-start for Windows users is simple: double check that all the switches are in the off position (as seen in the photo above) and then simply toggle SW6 on to enable the media and backlighting function keys (this turns the menu key on the keyboard into a function key as typically found on laptop keyboards). After adjusting the dip switches to your liking, plug the keyboard into an open USB port on your computer (or into your PS/2 port using the included adapter). Design, Layout, and Backlighting The CODE keyboard comes in two flavors, a traditional 87-key layout (no number pad) and a traditional 104-key layout (number pad on the right hand side). We identify the layout as traditional because, despite some modern trapping and sneaky shortcuts, the actual form factor of the keyboard from the shape of the keys to the spacing and position is as classic as it comes. You won’t have to learn a new keyboard layout and spend weeks conditioning yourself to a smaller than normal backspace key or a PgUp/PgDn pair in an unconventional location. Just because the keyboard is very conventional in layout, however, doesn’t mean you’ll be missing modern amenities like media-control keys. The following additional functions are hidden in the F11, F12, Pause button, and the 2×6 grid formed by the Insert and Delete rows: keyboard illumination brightness, keyboard illumination on/off, mute, and then the typical play/pause, forward/backward, stop, and volume +/- in Insert and Delete rows, respectively. While we weren’t sure what we’d think of the function-key system at first (especially after retiring a Microsoft Sidewinder keyboard with a huge and easily accessible volume knob on it), it took less than a day for us to adapt to using the Fn key, located next to the right Ctrl key, to adjust our media playback on the fly. Keyboard backlighting is a largely hit-or-miss undertaking but the CODE keyboard nails it. Not only does it have pleasant and easily adjustable through-the-keys lighting but the key switches the keys themselves are attached to are mounted to a steel plate with white paint. Enough of the light reflects off the interior cavity of the keys and then diffuses across the white plate to provide nice even illumination in between the keys. Highlighting the steel plate beneath the keys brings us to the actual construction of the keyboard. It’s rock solid. The 87-key model, the one we tested, is 2.0 pounds. The 104-key is nearly a half pound heavier at 2.42 pounds. Between the steel plate, the extra-thick PCB board beneath the steel plate, and the thick ABS plastic housing, the keyboard has very solid feel to it. Combine that heft with the previously mentioned thick rubber feet and you have a tank-like keyboard that won’t budge a millimeter during normal use. Examining The Keys This is the section of the review the hardcore typists and keyboard ninjas have been waiting for. We’ve looked at the layout of the keyboard, we’ve looked at the general construction of it, but what about the actual keys? There are a wide variety of keyboard construction techniques but the vast majority of modern keyboards use a rubber-dome construction. The key is floated in a plastic frame over a rubber membrane that has a little rubber dome for each key. The press of the physical key compresses the rubber dome downwards and a little bit of conductive material on the inside of the dome’s apex connects with the circuit board. Despite the near ubiquity of the design, many people dislike it. The principal complaint is that dome keyboards require a complete compression to register a keystroke; keyboard designers and enthusiasts refer to this as “bottoming out”. In other words, the register the “b” key, you need to completely press that key down. As such it slows you down and requires additional pressure and movement that, over the course of tens of thousands of keystrokes, adds up to a whole lot of wasted time and fatigue. The CODE keyboard features key switches manufactured by Cherry, a company that has manufactured key switches since the 1960s. Specifically the CODE features Cherry MX Clear switches. These switches feature the same classic design of the other Cherry switches (such as the MX Blue and Brown switch lineups) but they are significantly quieter (yes this is a mechanical keyboard, but no, your neighbors won’t think you’re firing off a machine gun) as they lack the audible click found in most Cherry switches. This isn’t to say that they keyboard doesn’t have a nice audible key press sound when the key is fully depressed, but that the key mechanism isn’t doesn’t create a loud click sound when triggered. One of the great features of the Cherry MX clear is a tactile “bump” that indicates the key has been compressed enough to register the stroke. For touch typists the very subtle tactile feedback is a great indicator that you can move on to the next stroke and provides a welcome speed boost. Even if you’re not trying to break any word-per-minute records, that little bump when pressing the key is satisfying. The Cherry key switches, in addition to providing a much more pleasant typing experience, are also significantly more durable than dome-style key switch. Rubber dome switch membrane keyboards are typically rated for 5-10 million contacts whereas the Cherry mechanical switches are rated for 50 million contacts. You’d have to write the next War and Peace  and follow that up with A Tale of Two Cities: Zombie Edition, and then turn around and transcribe them both into a dozen different languages to even begin putting a tiny dent in the lifecycle of this keyboard. So what do the switches look like under the classicly styled keys? You can take a look yourself with the included key puller. Slide the loop between the keys and then gently beneath the key you wish to remove: Wiggle the key puller gently back and forth while exerting a gentle upward pressure to pop the key off; You can repeat the process for every key, if you ever find yourself needing to extract piles of cat hair, Cheeto dust, or other foreign objects from your keyboard. There it is, the naked switch, the source of that wonderful crisp action with the tactile bump on each keystroke. The last feature worthy of a mention is the N-key rollover functionality of the keyboard. This is a feature you simply won’t find on non-mechanical keyboards and even gaming keyboards typically only have any sort of key roller on the high-frequency keys like WASD. So what is N-key rollover and why do you care? On a typical mass-produced rubber-dome keyboard you cannot simultaneously press more than two keys as the third one doesn’t register. PS/2 keyboards allow for unlimited rollover (in other words you can’t out type the keyboard as all of your keystrokes, no matter how fast, will register); if you use the CODE keyboard with the PS/2 adapter you gain this ability. If you don’t use the PS/2 adapter and use the native USB, you still get 6-key rollover (and the CTRL, ALT, and SHIFT don’t count towards the 6) so realistically you still won’t be able to out type the computer as even the more finger twisting keyboard combos and high speed typing will still fall well within the 6-key rollover. The rollover absolutely doesn’t matter if you’re a slow hunt-and-peck typist, but if you’ve read this far into a keyboard review there’s a good chance that you’re a serious typist and that kind of quality construction and high-number key rollover is a fantastic feature.  The Good, The Bad, and the Verdict We’ve put the CODE keyboard through the paces, we’ve played games with it, typed articles with it, left lengthy comments on Reddit, and otherwise used and abused it like we would any other keyboard. The Good: The construction is rock solid. In an emergency, we’re confident we could use the keyboard as a blunt weapon (and then resume using it later in the day with no ill effect on the keyboard). The Cherry switches are an absolute pleasure to type on; the Clear variety found in the CODE keyboard offer a really nice middle-ground between the gun-shot clack of a louder mechanical switch and the quietness of a lesser-quality dome keyboard without sacrificing quality. Touch typists will love the subtle tactile bump feedback. Dip switch system makes it very easy for users on different systems and with different keyboard layout needs to switch between operating system and keyboard layouts. If you’re investing a chunk of change in a keyboard it’s nice to know you can take it with you to a different operating system or “upgrade” it to a new layout if you decide to take up Dvorak-style typing. The backlighting is perfect. You can adjust it from a barely-visible glow to a blazing light-up-the-room brightness. Whatever your intesity preference, the white-coated steel backplate does a great job diffusing the light between the keys. You can easily remove the keys for cleaning (or to rearrange the letters to support a new keyboard layout). The weight of the unit combined with the extra thick rubber feet keep it planted exactly where you place it on the desk. The Bad: While you’re getting your money’s worth, the $150 price tag is a shock when compared to the $20-60 price tags you find on lower-end keyboards. People used to large dedicated media keys independent of the traditional key layout (such as the large buttons and volume controls found on many modern keyboards) might be off put by the Fn-key style media controls on the CODE. The Verdict: The keyboard is clearly and heavily influenced by the needs of serious typists. Whether you’re a programmer, transcriptionist, or just somebody that wants to leave the lengthiest article comments the Internet has ever seen, the CODE keyboard offers a rock solid typing experience. Yes, $150 isn’t pocket change, but the quality of the CODE keyboard is so high and the typing experience is so enjoyable, you’re easily getting ten times the value you’d get out of purchasing a lesser keyboard. Even compared to other mechanical keyboards on the market, like the Das Keyboard, you’re still getting more for your money as other mechanical keyboards don’t come with the lovely-to-type-on Cherry MX Clear switches, back lighting, and hardware-based operating system keyboard layout switching. If it’s in your budget to upgrade your keyboard (especially if you’ve been slogging along with a low-end rubber-dome keyboard) there’s no good reason to not pickup a CODE keyboard. Key animation courtesy of Geekhack.org user Lethal Squirrel.       

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• An easy way to create Side by Side registrationless COM Manifests with Visual Studio

  - by Rick Strahl

  Here's something I didn't find out until today: You can use Visual Studio to easily create registrationless COM manifest files for you with just a couple of small steps. Registrationless COM lets you use COM component without them being registered in the registry. This means it's possible to deploy COM components along with another application using plain xcopy semantics. To be sure it's rarely quite that easy - you need to watch out for dependencies - but if you know you have COM components that are light weight and have no or known dependencies it's easy to get everything into a single folder and off you go. Registrationless COM works via manifest files which carry the same name as the executable plus a .manifest extension (ie. yourapp.exe.manifest) I'm going to use a Visual FoxPro COM object as an example and create a simple Windows Forms app that calls the component - without that component being registered. Let's take a walk down memory lane… Create a COM Component I start by creating a FoxPro COM component because that's what I know and am working with here in my legacy environment. You can use VB classic or C++ ATL object if that's more to your liking. Here's a real simple Fox one: DEFINE CLASS SimpleServer as Session OLEPUBLIC FUNCTION HelloWorld(lcName) RETURN "Hello " + lcName ENDDEFINE Compile it into a DLL COM component with: BUILD MTDLL simpleserver FROM simpleserver RECOMPILE And to make sure it works test it quickly from Visual FoxPro: server = CREATEOBJECT("simpleServer.simpleserver") MESSAGEBOX( server.HelloWorld("Rick") ) Using Visual Studio to create a Manifest File for a COM Component Next open Visual Studio and create a new executable project - a Console App or WinForms or WPF application will all do. Go to the References Node Select Add Reference Use the Browse tab and find your compiled DLL to import  Next you'll see your assembly in the project. Right click on the reference and select Properties Click on the Isolated DropDown and select True Compile and that's all there's to it. Visual Studio will create a App.exe.manifest file right alongside your application's EXE. The manifest file created looks like this: xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"? assembly xsi:schemaLocation="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1 assembly.adaptive.xsd" manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns:asmv1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" xmlns:asmv2="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2" xmlns:asmv3="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3" xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" xmlns:co.v1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:clickonce.v1" xmlns:co.v2="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:clickonce.v2" xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" assemblyIdentity name="App.exe" version="1.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="x86" type="win32" / file name="simpleserver.DLL" asmv2:size="27293" hash xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2" dsig:Transforms dsig:Transform Algorithm="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:HashTransforms.Identity" / dsig:Transforms dsig:DigestMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#sha1" / dsig:DigestValuepuq+ua20bbidGOWhPOxfquztBCU=dsig:DigestValue hash typelib tlbid="{f10346e2-c9d9-47f7-81d1-74059cc15c3c}" version="1.0" helpdir="" resourceid="0" flags="HASDISKIMAGE" / comClass clsid="{af2c2811-0657-4264-a1f5-06d033a969ff}" threadingModel="Apartment" tlbid="{f10346e2-c9d9-47f7-81d1-74059cc15c3c}" progid="simpleserver.SimpleServer" description="simpleserver.SimpleServer" / file assembly Now let's finish our super complex console app to test with: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Text; namespace ConsoleApplication1 {     class Program     {         static voidMain(string[] args)         { Type type = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("simpleserver.simpleserver",true); dynamic server = Activator.CreateInstance(type); Console.WriteLine(server.HelloWorld("rick")); Console.ReadLine(); } } } Now run the Console Application… As expected that should work. And why not? The COM component is still registered, right? :-) Nothing tricky about that. Let's unregister the COM component and then re-run and see what happens. Go to the Command Prompt Change to the folder where the DLL is installed Unregister with: RegSvr32 -u simpleserver.dll      To be sure that the COM component no longer works, check it out with the same test you used earlier (ie. o = CREATEOBJECT("SimpleServer.SimpleServer") in your development environment or VBScript etc.). Make sure you run the EXE and you don't re-compile the application or else Visual Studio will complain that it can't find the COM component in the registry while compiling. In fact now that we have our .manifest file you can remove the COM object from the project. When you run run the EXE from Windows Explorer or a command prompt to avoid the recompile. Watch out for embedded Manifest Files Now recompile your .NET project and run it… and it will most likely fail! The problem is that .NET applications by default embeds a manifest file into the compiled EXE application which results in the externally created manifest file being completely ignored. Only one manifest can be applied at a time and the compiled manifest takes precedency. Uh, thanks Visual Studio - not very helpful… Note that if you use another development tool like Visual FoxPro to create your EXE this won't be an issue as long as the tool doesn't automatically add a manifest file. Creating a Visual FoxPro EXE for example will work immediately with the generated manifest file as is. If you are using .NET and Visual Studio you have a couple of options of getting around this: Remove the embedded manifest file Copy the contents of the generated manifest file into a project manifest file and compile that in To remove an embedded manifest in a Visual Studio project: Open the Project Properties (Alt-Enter on project node) Go down to Resources | Manifest and select | Create Application without a Manifest   You can now add use the external manifest file and it will actually be respected when the app runs. The other option is to let Visual Studio create the manifest file on disk and then explicitly add the manifest file into the project. Notice on the dialog above I did this for app.exe.manifest and the manifest actually shows up in the list. If I select this file it will be compiled into the EXE and be used in lieu of any external files and that works as well. Remove the simpleserver.dll reference so you can compile your code and run the application. Now it should work without COM registration of the component. Personally I prefer external manifests because they can be modified after the fact - compiled manifests are evil in my mind because they are immutable - once they are there they can't be overriden or changed. So I prefer an external manifest. However, if you are absolutely sure nothing needs to change and you don't want anybody messing with your manifest, you can also embed it. The option to either is there. Watch for Manifest Caching While working trying to get this to work I ran into some problems at first. Specifically when it wasn't working at first (due to the embedded schema) I played with various different manifest layouts in different files etc.. There are a number of different ways to actually represent manifest files including offloading to separate folder (more on that later). A few times I made deliberate errors in the schema file and I found that regardless of what I did once the app failed or worked no amount of changing of the manifest file would make it behave differently. It appears that Windows is caching the manifest data for a given EXE or DLL. It takes a restart or a recompile of either the EXE or the DLL to clear the caching. Recompile your servers in order to see manifest changes unless there's an outright failure of an invalid manifest file. If the app starts the manifest is being read and caches immediately. This can be very confusing especially if you don't know that it's happening. I found myself always recompiling the exe after each run and before making any changes to the manifest file. Don't forget about Runtimes of COM Objects In the example I used above I used a Visual FoxPro COM component. Visual FoxPro is a runtime based environment so if I'm going to distribute an application that uses a FoxPro COM object the runtimes need to be distributed as well. The same is true of classic Visual Basic applications. Assuming that you don't know whether the runtimes are installed on the target machines make sure to install all the additional files in the EXE's directory alongside the COM DLL. In the case of Visual FoxPro the target folder should contain: The EXE  App.exe The Manifest file (unless it's compiled in) App.exe.manifest The COM object DLL (simpleserver.dll) Visual FoxPro Runtimes: VFP9t.dll (or VFP9r.dll for non-multithreaded dlls), vfp9rENU.dll, msvcr71.dll All these files should be in the same folder. Debugging Manifest load Errors If you for some reason get your manifest loading wrong there are a couple of useful tools available - SxSTrace and SxSParse. These two tools can be a huge help in debugging manifest loading errors. Put the following into a batch file (SxS_Trace.bat for example): sxstrace Trace -logfile:sxs.bin sxstrace Parse -logfile:sxs.bin -outfile:sxs.txt Then start the batch file before running your EXE. Make sure there's no caching happening as described in the previous section. For example, if I go into the manifest file and explicitly break the CLSID and/or ProgID I get a detailed report on where the EXE is looking for the manifest and what it's reading. Eventually the trace gives me an error like this: INFO: Parsing Manifest File C:\wwapps\Conf\SideBySide\Code\app.EXE.     INFO: Manifest Definition Identity is App.exe,processorArchitecture="x86",type="win32",version="1.0.0.0".     ERROR: Line 13: The value {AAaf2c2811-0657-4264-a1f5-06d033a969ff} of attribute clsid in element comClass is invalid. ERROR: Activation Context generation failed. End Activation Context Generation. pinpointing nicely where the error lies. Pay special attention to the various attributes - they have to match exactly in the different sections of the manifest file(s). Multiple COM Objects The manifest file that Visual Studio creates is actually quite more complex than is required for basic registrationless COM object invokation. The manifest file can be simplified a lot actually by stripping off various namespaces and removing the type library references altogether. Here's an example of a simplified manifest file that actually includes references to 2 COM servers: xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"? assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0" assemblyIdentity name="App.exe" version="1.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="x86" type="win32" / file name="simpleserver.DLL" comClass clsid="{af2c2811-0657-4264-a1f5-06d033a969ff}" threadingModel="Apartment" progid="simpleserver.SimpleServer" description="simpleserver.SimpleServer" / file file name = "sidebysidedeploy.dll" comClass clsid="{EF82B819-7963-4C36-9443-3978CD94F57C}" progid="sidebysidedeploy.SidebysidedeployServer" description="SidebySideDeploy Server" threadingModel="apartment" / file assembly Simple enough right? Routing to separate Manifest Files and Folders In the examples above all files ended up in the application's root folder - all the DLLs, support files and runtimes. Sometimes that's not so desirable and you can actually create separate manifest files. The easiest way to do this is to create a manifest file that 'routes' to another manifest file in a separate folder. Basically you create a new 'assembly identity' via a named id. You can then create a folder and another manifest with the id plus .manifest that points at the actual file. In this example I create: App.exe.manifest A folder called App.deploy A manifest file in App.deploy All DLLs and runtimes in App.deploy Let's start with that master manifest file. This file only holds a reference to another manifest file: App.exe.manifest xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"? assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0" assemblyIdentity name="App.exe" version="1.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="x86" type="win32" / dependency dependentAssembly assemblyIdentity name="App.deploy" version="1.0.0.0" type="win32" / dependentAssembly dependency assembly   Note this file only contains a dependency to App.deploy which is another manifest id. I can then create App.deploy.manifest in the current folder or in an App.deploy folder. In this case I'll create App.deploy and in it copy the DLLs and support runtimes. I then create App.deploy.manifest. App.deploy.manifest xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"? assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0" assemblyIdentity name="App.deploy" type="win32" version="1.0.0.0" / file name="simpleserver.DLL" comClass clsid="{af2c2811-0657-4264-a1f5-06d033a969ff}" threadingModel="Apartment" progid="simpleserver.SimpleServer" description="simpleserver.SimpleServer" / file file name="sidebysidedeploy.dll" comClass clsid="{EF82B819-7963-4C36-9443-3978CD94F57C}" threadingModel="Apartment" progid="sidebysidedeploy.SidebysidedeployServer" description="SidebySideDeploy Server" / file assembly   In this manifest file I then host my COM DLLs and any support runtimes. This is quite useful if you have lots of DLLs you are referencing or if you need to have separate configuration and application files that are associated with the COM object. This way the operation of your main application and the COM objects it interacts with is somewhat separated. You can see the two folders here:   Routing Manifests to different Folders In theory registrationless COM should be pretty easy in painless - you've seen the configuration manifest files and it certainly doesn't look very complicated, right? But the devil's in the details. The ActivationContext API (SxS - side by side activation) is very intolerant of small errors in the XML or formatting of the keys, so be really careful when setting up components, especially if you are manually editing these files. If you do run into trouble SxsTrace/SxsParse are a huge help to track down the problems. And remember that if you do have problems that you'll need to recompile your EXEs or DLLs for the SxS APIs to refresh themselves properly. All of this gets even more fun if you want to do registrationless COM inside of IIS :-) But I'll leave that for another blog post…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in COM  .NET  FoxPro   Tweet (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Designing for the future

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  User interfaces and user experience design is a fast moving field. It’s something that changes pretty quick: what feels fresh today will look outdated tomorrow. I remember the day I first got a beta version of Windows 95 and I felt swept away by the user interface of the OS. It felt so modern! If I look back now, it feels old. Well, it should: the design is 17 years old which is an eternity in our field. Of course, this is not limited to UI. Same goes for many industries. I want you to think back of the cars that amazed you when you were in your teens (if you are in your teens then this may not apply to you). Didn’t they feel like part of the future? Didn’t you think that this was the ultimate in designs? And aren’t those designs hopelessly outdated today (again, depending on your age, it may just be me)? Let’s review the Win95 design: And let’s compare that to Windows 7: There are so many differences here, I wouldn’t even know where to start explaining them. The general feeling however is one of more usability: studies have shown Windows 7 is much easier to understand for new users than the older versions of Windows did. Of course, experienced Windows users didn’t like it: people are usually afraid of changes and like to stick to what they know. But for new users this was a huge improvement. And that is what UX design is all about: make a product easier to use, with less training required and make users feel more productive. Still, there are areas where this doesn’t hold up. There are plenty examples of designs from the past that are still fresh today. But if you look closely at them, you’ll notice some subtle differences. This differences are what keep the designs fresh. A good example is the signs you’ll find on the road. They haven’t changed much over the years (otherwise people wouldn’t recognize them anymore) but they have been changing gradually to reflect changes in traffic. The same goes for computer interfaces. With each new product or version of a product, the UI and UX is changed gradually. Every now and then however, a bigger change is needed. Just think about the introduction of the Ribbon in Microsoft Office 2007: the whole UI was redesigned. A lot of old users (not in age, but in times of using older versions) didn’t like it a bit, but new users or casual users seem to be more efficient using the product. Which, of course, is exactly the reason behind the changes. I believe that a big engine behind the changes in User Experience design has been the web. In the old days (i.e. before the explosion of the internet) user interface design in Windows applications was limited to choosing the margins between your battleship gray buttons. When the web came along, and especially the web 2.0 where the browsers started to act more and more as application platforms, designers stepped in and made a huge impact. In the browser, they could do whatever they wanted. In the beginning this was limited to the darn blink tag but gradually people really started to think about UX. Even more so: the design of the UI and the whole experience was taken away from the developers and put into the hands of people who knew what they were doing: UX designers. This caused some problems. Everyone who has done a web project in the early 2000’s must have had the same experience: the designers give you a set of Photoshop files and tell you to translate it to HTML. Which, of course, is very hard to do. However, with new tooling and new standards this became much easier. The latest version of HTML and CSS has taken the responsibility for the design away from the developers and placed them in the capable hands of the designers. And that’s where that responsibility belongs, after all, I don’t want a designer to muck around in my c# code just as much as he or she doesn’t want me to poke in the sites style definitions. This change in responsibilities resulted in good looking but more important: better thought out user interfaces in websites. And when websites became more and more interactive, people started to expect the same sort of look and feel from their desktop applications. But that didn’t really happen. Most business applications still have that battleship gray look and feel. Ok, they may use a different color but we’re not talking colors here but usability. Now, you may not be able to read the Dutch captions, but even if you did you wouldn’t understand what was going on. At least, not when you first see it. You have to scan the screen, read all the labels, see how they are related to the other elements on the screen and then figure out what they do. If you’re an experienced user of this application however, this might be a good thing: you know what to do and you get all the information you need in one single screen. But for most applications this isn’t the case. A lot of people only use their computer for a limited time a day (a weird concept for me, but it happens) and need it to get something done and then get on with their lives. For them, a user interface experience like the above isn’t working. (disclaimer: I just picked a screenshot, I am not saying this is bad software but it is an example of about 95% of the Windows applications out there). For the knowledge worker, this isn’t a problem. They use one or two systems and they know exactly what they need to do to achieve their goal. They don’t want any clutter on their screen that distracts them from their task, they just want to be as efficient as possible. When they know the systems they are very productive. The point is, how long does it take to become productive? And: could they be even more productive if the UX was better? Are there things missing that they don’t know about? Are there better ways to achieve what they want to achieve? Also: could a system be designed in such a way that it is not only much more easy to work with but also less tiring? in the example above you need to switch between the keyboard and mouse a lot, something that we now know can be very tiring. The goal of most applications (being client apps or websites on any kind of device) is to provide information. Information is data that when given to the right people, on the right time, in the right place and when it is correct adds value for that person (please, remember that definition: I still hear the statement “the information was wrong” which doesn’t make sense: data can be wrong, information cannot be). So if a system provides data, how can we make sure the chances of becoming information is as high as possible? A good example of a well thought-out system that attempts this is the Zune client. It is a very good application, and I think the UX is much better than it’s main competitor iTunes. Have a look at both: On the left you see the iTunes screenshot, on the right the Zune. As you notice, the Zune screen has more images but less chrome (chrome being visuals not part of the data you want to show, i.e. edges around buttons). The whole thing is text oriented or image oriented, where that text or image is part of the information you need. What is important is big, what’s less important is smaller. Yet, everything you need to know at that point is present and your attention is drawn immediately to what you’re trying to achieve: information about music. You can easily switch between the content on your machine and content on your Zune player but clicking on the image of the player. But if you didn’t know that, you’d find out soon enough: the whole UX is designed in such a way that it invites you to play around. So sooner or later (probably sooner) you’d click on that image and you would see what it does. In the iTunes version it’s harder to find: the discoverability is a lot lower. For inexperienced people the Zune player feels much more natural than the iTunes player, and they get up to speed a lot faster. How does this all work? Why is this UX better? The answer lies in a project from Microsoft with the codename (it seems to be becoming the official name though) “Metro”. Metro is a design language, based on certain principles. When they thought about UX they took a good long look around them and went out in search of metaphors. And they found them. The team noticed that signage in streets, airports, roads, buildings and so on are usually very clear and very precise. These signs give you the information you need and nothing more. It’s simple, clearly understood and fast to understand. A good example are airport signs. Airports can be intimidating places, especially for the non-experienced traveler. In the early 1990’s Amsterdam Airport Schiphol decided to redesign all the signage to make the traveller feel less disoriented. They developed a set of guidelines for signs and implemented those. Soon, most airports around the world adopted these ideas and you see variations of the Dutch signs everywhere on the globe. The signs are text-oriented. Yes, there are icons explaining what it all means for the people who can’t read or don’t understand the language, but the basic sign language is text. It’s clear, it’s high-contrast and it’s easy to understand. One look at the sign and you know where to go. The only thing I don’t like is the green sign pointing to the emergency exit, but since this is the default style for emergency exits I understand why they did this. If you look at the Zune UI again, you’ll notice the similarities. Text oriented, little or no icons, clear usage of fonts and all the information you need. This design language has a set of principles: Clean, light, open and fast Content, not chrome Soulful and alive These are just a couple of the principles, you can read the whole philosophy behind Metro for Windows Phone 7 here. These ideas seem to work. I love my Windows Phone 7. It’s easy to use, it’s clear, there’s no clutter that I do not need. It works for me. And I noticed it works for a lot of other people as well, especially people who aren’t as proficient with computers as I am. You see these ideas in a lot other places. Corning, a manufacturer of glass, has made a video of possible usages of their products. It’s their glimpse into the future. You’ll notice that a lot of the UI in the screens look a lot like what Microsoft is doing with Metro (not coincidentally Corning is the supplier for the Gorilla glass display surface on the new SUR40 device (or Surface v2.0 as a lot of people call it)). The idea behind this vision is that data should be available everywhere where you it. Systems should be available at all times and data is presented in a clear and light manner so that you can turn that data into information. You don’t need a lot of fancy animations that only distract from the data. You want the data and you want it fast. Have a look at this truly inspiring video that made: This is what I believe the future will look like. Of course, not everything is possible, or even desirable. But it is a nice way to think about the future . I feel very strongly about designing applications in such a way that they add value to the user. Designing applications that turn data into information. Applications that make the user feel happy to use them. So… when are you going to drop the battleship-gray designs? Tags van Technorati: surface,design,windows phone 7,wp7,metro

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• R Package Installation with Oracle R Enterprise

  - by Sherry LaMonica-Oracle

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Programming languages give developers the opportunity to write reusable functions and to bundle those functions into logical deployable entities. In R, these are called packages. R has thousands of such packages provided by an almost equally large group of third-party contributors. To allow others to benefit from these packages, users can share packages on the CRAN system for use by the vast R development community worldwide. R's package system along with the CRAN framework provides a process for authoring, documenting and distributing packages to millions of users. In this post, we'll illustrate the various ways in which such R packages can be installed for use with R and together with Oracle R Enterprise. In the following, the same instructions apply when using either open source R or Oracle R Distribution. In this post, we cover the following package installation scenarios for: R command line Linux shell command line Use with Oracle R Enterprise Installation on Exadata or RAC Installing all packages in a CRAN Task View Troubleshooting common errors 1. R Package Installation BasicsR package installation basics are outlined in Chapter 6 of the R Installation and Administration Guide. There are two ways to install packages from the command line: from the R command line and from the shell command line. For this first example on Oracle Linux using Oracle R Distribution, we’ll install the arules package as root so that packages will be installed in the default R system-wide location where all users can access it, /usr/lib64/R/library.Within R, using the install.packages function always attempts to install the latest version of the requested package available on CRAN:R> install.packages("arules")If the arules package depends upon other packages that are not already installed locally, the R installer automatically downloads and installs those required packages. This is a huge benefit that frees users from the task of identifying and resolving those dependencies.You can also install R from the shell command line. This is useful for some packages when an internet connection is not available or for installing packages not uploaded to CRAN. To install packages this way, first locate the package on CRAN and then download the package source to your local machine. For example:$ wget http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/arules_1.1-2.tar.gz Then, install the package using the command R CMD INSTALL:$ R CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-2.tar.gzA major difference between installing R packages using the R package installer at the R command line and shell command line is that package dependencies must be resolved manually at the shell command line. Package dependencies are listed in the Depends section of the package’s CRAN site. If dependencies are not identified and installed prior to the package’s installation, you will see an error similar to:ERROR: dependency ‘xxx’ is not available for package ‘yyy’As a best practice and to save time, always refer to the package’s CRAN site to understand the package dependencies prior to attempting an installation. If you don’t run R as root, you won’t have permission to write packages into the default system-wide location and you will be prompted to create a personal library accessible by your userid. You can accept the personal library path chosen by R, or specify the library location by passing parameters to the install.packages function. For example, to create an R package repository in your home directory: R> install.packages("arules", lib="/home/username/Rpackages")or$ R CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-2.tar.gz --library=/home/username/RpackagesRefer to the install.packages help file in R or execute R CMD INSTALL --help at the shell command line for a full list of command line options.To set the library location and avoid having to specify this at every package install, simply create the R startup environment file .Renviron in your home area if it does not already exist, and add the following piece of code to it:R_LIBS_USER = "/home/username/Rpackages" 2. Setting the RepositoryEach time you install an R package from the R command line, you are asked which CRAN mirror, or server, R should use. To set the repository and avoid having to specify this during every package installation, create the R startup command file .Rprofile in your home directory and add the following R code to it:cat("Setting Seattle repository")r = getOption("repos") r["CRAN"] = "http://cran.fhcrc.org/"options(repos = r)rm(r) This code snippet sets the R package repository to the Seattle CRAN mirror at the start of each R session. 3. Installing R Packages for use with Oracle R EnterpriseEmbedded R execution with Oracle R Enterprise allows the use of CRAN or other third-party R packages in user-defined R functions executed on the Oracle Database server. The steps for installing and configuring packages for use with Oracle R Enterprise are the same as for open source R. The database-side R engine just needs to know where to find the R packages.The Oracle R Enterprise installation is performed by user oracle, which typically does not have write permission to the default site-wide library, /usr/lib64/R/library. On Linux and UNIX platforms, the Oracle R Enterprise Server installation provides the ORE script, which is executed from the operating system shell to install R packages and to start R. The ORE script is a wrapper for the default R script, a shell wrapper for the R executable. It can be used to start R, run batch scripts, and build or install R packages. Unlike the default R script, the ORE script installs packages to a location writable by user oracle and accessible by all ORE users - $ORACLE_HOME/R/library.To install a package on the database server so that it can be used by any R user and for use in embedded R execution, an Oracle DBA would typically download the package source from CRAN using wget. If the package depends on any packages that are not in the R distribution in use, download the sources for those packages, also.  For a single Oracle Database instance, replace the R script with ORE to install the packages in the same location as the Oracle R Enterprise packages. $ wget http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/arules_1.1-2.tar.gz$ ORE CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-2.tar.gzBehind the scenes, the ORE script performs the equivalent of setting R_LIBS_USER to the value of $ORACLE_HOME/R/library, and all R packages installed with the ORE script are installed to this location. For installing a package on multiple database servers, such as those in an Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) or a multinode Oracle Exadata Database Machine environment, use the ORE script in conjunction with the Exadata Distributed Command Line Interface (DCLI) utility.$ dcli -g nodes -l oracle ORE CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-1.tar.gz The DCLI -g flag designates a file containing a list of nodes to install on, and the -l flag specifies the user id to use when executing the commands. For more information on using DCLI with Oracle R Enterprise, see Chapter 5 in the Oracle R Enterprise Installation Guide.If you are using an Oracle R Enterprise client, install the package the same as any R package, bearing in mind that you must install the same version of the package on both the client and server machines to avoid incompatibilities. 4. CRAN Task ViewsCRAN also maintains a set of Task Views that identify packages associated with a particular task or methodology. Task Views are helpful in guiding users through the huge set of available R packages. They are actively maintained by volunteers who include detailed annotations for routines and packages. If you find one of the task views is a perfect match, you can install every package in that view using the ctv package - an R package for automating package installation. To use the ctv package to install a task view, first, install and load the ctv package.R> install.packages("ctv")R> library(ctv)Then query the names of the available task views and install the view you choose.R> available.views() R> install.views("TimeSeries") 5. Using and Managing R packages To use a package, start up R and load packages one at a time with the library command.Load the arules package in your R session. R> library(arules)Verify the version of arules installed.R> packageVersion("arules")[1] '1.1.2'Verify the version of arules installed on the database server using embedded R execution.R> ore.doEval(function() packageVersion("arules"))View the help file for the apropos function in the arules packageR> ?aproposOver time, your package repository will contain more and more packages, especially if you are using the system-wide repository where others are adding additional packages. It’s good to know the entire set of R packages accessible in your environment. To list all available packages in your local R session, use the installed.packages command:R> myLocalPackages <- row.names(installed.packages())R> myLocalPackagesTo access the list of available packages on the ORE database server from the ORE client, use the following embedded R syntax: R> myServerPackages <- ore.doEval(function() row.names(installed.packages()) R> myServerPackages 6. Troubleshooting Common ProblemsInstalling Older Versions of R packagesIf you immediately upgrade to the latest version of R, you will have no problem installing the most recent versions of R packages. However, if your version of R is older, some of the more recent package releases will not work and install.packages will generate a message such as: Warning message: In install.packages("arules") : package ‘arules’ is not availableThis is when you have to go to the Old sources link on the CRAN page for the arules package and determine which version is compatible with your version of R.Begin by determining what version of R you are using:$ R --versionOracle Distribution of R version 3.0.1 (--) -- "Good Sport" Copyright (C) The R Foundation for Statistical Computing Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)Given that R-3.0.1 was released May 16, 2013, any version of the arules package released after this date may work. Scanning the arules archive, we might try installing version 0.1.1-1, released in January of 2014:$ wget http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/arules/arules_1.1-1.tar.gz$ R CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-1.tar.gzFor use with ORE:$ ORE CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-1.tar.gzThe "package not available" error can also be thrown if the package you’re trying to install lives elsewhere, either another R package site, or it’s been removed from CRAN. A quick Google search usually leads to more information on the package’s location and status.Oracle R Enterprise is not in the R library pathOn Linux hosts, after installing the ORE server components, starting R, and attempting to load the ORE packages, you may receive the error:R> library(ORE)Error in library(ORE) : there is no package called ‘ORE’If you know the ORE packages have been installed and you receive this error, this is the result of not starting R with the ORE script. To resolve this problem, exit R and restart using the ORE script. After restarting R and ">running the command to load the ORE packages, you should not receive any errors.$ ORER> library(ORE)On Windows servers, the solution is to make the location of the ORE packages visible to R by adding them to the R library paths. To accomplish this, exit R, then add the following lines to the .Rprofile file. On Windows, the .Rprofile file is located in R\etc directory C:\Program Files\R\R-<version>\etc. Add the following lines:.libPaths("<path to $ORACLE_HOME>/R/library")The above line will tell R to include the R directory in the Oracle home as part of its search path. When you start R, the path above will be included, and future R package installations will also be saved to $ORACLE_HOME/R/library. This path should be writable by the user oracle, or the userid for the DBA tasked with installing R packages.Binary package compiled with different version of RBy default, R will install pre-compiled versions of packages if they are found. If the version of R under which the package was compiled does not match your installed version of R you will get an error message:Warning message: package ‘xxx’ was built under R version 3.0.0The solution is to download the package source and build it for your version of R.$ wget http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/arules/arules_1.1-1.tar.gz$ R CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-1.tar.gzFor use with ORE:$ ORE CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-1.tar.gzUnable to execute files in /tmp directoryBy default, R uses the /tmp directory to install packages. On security conscious machines, the /tmp directory is often marked as "noexec" in the /etc/fstab file. This means that no file under /tmp can ever be executed, and users who attempt to install R package will receive an error:ERROR: 'configure' exists but is not executable -- see the 'R Installation and Administration Manual’The solution is to set the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables to a location which R will use as the compilation directory. For example:$ mkdir <some path>/tmp$ export TMPDIR= <some path>/tmp$ export TMP= <some path>/tmpThis error typically appears on Linux client machines and not database servers, as Oracle Database writes to the value of the TMP environment variable for several tasks, including holding temporary files during database installation. 7. Creating your own R packageCreating your own package and submitting to CRAN is for advanced users, but it is not difficult. The procedure to follow, along with details of R's package system, is detailed in the Writing R Extensions manual.

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• Basics of Join Factorization

  - by Hong Su

  We continue our series on optimizer transformations with a post that describes the Join Factorization transformation. The Join Factorization transformation was introduced in Oracle 11g Release 2 and applies to UNION ALL queries. Union all queries are commonly used in database applications, especially in data integration applications. In many scenarios the branches in a UNION All query share a common processing, i.e, refer to the same tables. In the current Oracle execution strategy, each branch of a UNION ALL query is evaluated independently, which leads to repetitive processing, including data access and join. The join factorization transformation offers an opportunity to share the common computations across the UNION ALL branches. Currently, join factorization only factorizes common references to base tables only, i.e, not views. Consider a simple example of query Q1. Q1:    select t1.c1, t2.c2    from t1, t2, t3    where t1.c1 = t2.c1 and t1.c1 > 1 and t2.c2 = 2 and t2.c2 = t3.c2   union all    select t1.c1, t2.c2    from t1, t2, t4    where t1.c1 = t2.c1 and t1.c1 > 1 and t2.c3 = t4.c3; Table t1 appears in both the branches. As does the filter predicates on t1 (t1.c1 > 1) and the join predicates involving t1 (t1.c1 = t2.c1). Nevertheless, without any transformation, the scan (and the filtering) on t1 has to be done twice, once per branch. Such a query may benefit from join factorization which can transform Q1 into Q2 as follows: Q2:    select t1.c1, VW_JF_1.item_2    from t1, (select t2.c1 item_1, t2.c2 item_2                   from t2, t3                    where t2.c2 = t3.c2 and t2.c2 = 2                                  union all                   select t2.c1 item_1, t2.c2 item_2                   from t2, t4                    where t2.c3 = t4.c3) VW_JF_1    where t1.c1 = VW_JF_1.item_1 and t1.c1 > 1; In Q2, t1 is "factorized" and thus the table scan and the filtering on t1 is done only once (it's shared). If t1 is large, then avoiding one extra scan of t1 can lead to a huge performance improvement. Another benefit of join factorization is that it can open up more join orders. Let's look at query Q3. Q3:    select *    from t5, (select t1.c1, t2.c2                  from t1, t2, t3                  where t1.c1 = t2.c1 and t1.c1 > 1 and t2.c2 = 2 and t2.c2 = t3.c2                 union all                  select t1.c1, t2.c2                  from t1, t2, t4                  where t1.c1 = t2.c1 and t1.c1 > 1 and t2.c3 = t4.c3) V;   where t5.c1 = V.c1 In Q3, view V is same as Q1. Before join factorization, t1, t2 and t3 must be joined first before they can be joined with t5. But if join factorization factorizes t1 from view V, t1 can then be joined with t5. This opens up new join orders. That being said, join factorization imposes certain join orders. For example, in Q2, t2 and t3 appear in the first branch of the UNION ALL query in view VW_JF_1. T2 must be joined with t3 before it can be joined with t1 which is outside of the VW_JF_1 view. The imposed join order may not necessarily be the best join order. For this reason, join factorization is performed under cost-based transformation framework; this means that we cost the plans with and without join factorization and choose the cheapest plan. Note that if the branches in UNION ALL have DISTINCT clauses, join factorization is not valid. For example, Q4 is NOT semantically equivalent to Q5.   Q4:     select distinct t1.*      from t1, t2      where t1.c1 = t2.c1  union all      select distinct t1.*      from t1, t2      where t1.c1 = t2.c1 Q5:    select distinct t1.*     from t1, (select t2.c1 item_1                   from t2                union all                   select t2.c1 item_1                  from t2) VW_JF_1     where t1.c1 = VW_JF_1.item_1 Q4 might return more rows than Q5. Q5's results are guaranteed to be duplicate free because of the DISTINCT key word at the top level while Q4's results might contain duplicates.   The examples given so far involve inner joins only. Join factorization is also supported in outer join, anti join and semi join. But only the right tables of outer join, anti join and semi joins can be factorized. It is not semantically correct to factorize the left table of outer join, anti join or semi join. For example, Q6 is NOT semantically equivalent to Q7. Q6:     select t1.c1, t2.c2    from t1, t2    where t1.c1 = t2.c1(+) and t2.c2 (+) = 2  union all    select t1.c1, t2.c2    from t1, t2      where t1.c1 = t2.c1(+) and t2.c2 (+) = 3 Q7:     select t1.c1, VW_JF_1.item_2    from t1, (select t2.c1 item_1, t2.c2 item_2                  from t2                  where t2.c2 = 2                union all                  select t2.c1 item_1, t2.c2 item_2                  from t2                                                                                                    where t2.c2 = 3) VW_JF_1       where t1.c1 = VW_JF_1.item_1(+)                                                                  However, the right side of an outer join can be factorized. For example, join factorization can transform Q8 to Q9 by factorizing t2, which is the right table of an outer join. Q8:    select t1.c2, t2.c2    from t1, t2      where t1.c1 = t2.c1 (+) and t1.c1 = 1 union all    select t1.c2, t2.c2    from t1, t2    where t1.c1 = t2.c1(+) and t1.c1 = 2 Q9:   select VW_JF_1.item_2, t2.c2   from t2,             (select t1.c1 item_1, t1.c2 item_2            from t1            where t1.c1 = 1           union all            select t1.c1 item_1, t1.c2 item_2            from t1            where t1.c1 = 2) VW_JF_1   where VW_JF_1.item_1 = t2.c1(+) All of the examples in this blog show factorizing a single table from two branches. This is just for ease of illustration. Join factorization can factorize multiple tables and from more than two UNION ALL branches.  SummaryJoin factorization is a cost-based transformation. It can factorize common computations from branches in a UNION ALL query which can lead to huge performance improvement. 

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• Displaying Multiple Tables in a Page in Jasper Reports using ireports/Jasper Assistant

  - by Karthikeyan

  Hi all, I have a report to be printed / exported to PDF format. for that i am using jasper reports. I have 8 individual pages to be exported. so i prepared 8 separate design files. In that 6 pages are having more static text and mere direct mapping and remaining two pages consists of table like data. one page contains huge table so i filled it directly with no problem by keeping a single table in detail band. now problem is that remaining one page. that page is having more than 5 small tables (two or four column). is t possible to have more that one table in a page in jasper reports ? i am using jasper reports and for designing jasper assistant/ireports.

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• TDD - How to start really thinking TDD?

  - by user74825

  I have been reading about Agile, XP methodologies and TDDs. I have been in projects which states it needs to do TDD, but most of the tests are somehow integration tests or during the course of project TDD is forgotten in effort to finish codes faster. So, as far as my case goes, I have written unit tests, but I find myself going to start writing code first instead of writing a test. I feel there's a thought / design / paradigm change which is actually huge. So, though one really believes in TDD, you actually end up going back old style because of time pressure / project deliverables. I have few classes where I have pure unit tested code, but I can't seem to continue with the process, when mocks come into picture. Also, I see at times : "isn't it too trivial to write a test for it" syndrome. How do you guys think I should handle this?

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• vs2010: trying to debug javascript using Chrome: this is not a valid location for a breakpoint

  - by George

  Everytime I try to set a debug point in Javascript, eietehr while in Design mode or while runniong, I get the error: trying to set a breakpoint in javascript: this is not a valid location for a breakpoint When I go to VS2010's Options screen under Debugging Just In Time, I see that Managed, Native & Script are selected, I also placed the line "debugger;" in the first line of a javascript function that is called but the break is never hit. In the Web.Config (although this is probably for compiled code:): <compilation debug="true I'm reliving this problem on a new machine...Can u help? Edit: I left out a huge detail: Google Chrome is my default browser. (I am trying to debug a Chrome-only error.) Must I resort to other debug tools other than VS2010? I am thinking that it should work. Too hopeful, eh?

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• Search algorithm (with a sort algorithm already implemented)

  - by msr

  Hello, Im doing a Java application and Im facing some doubts in which concerns performance. I have a PriorityQueue which guarantees me the element removed is the one with greater priority. That PriorityQueue has instances of class Event (which implements Comparable interface). Each Event is associated with a Entity. The size of that priorityqueue could be huge and very frequently I will have to remove events associated to an entity. Right now Im using an iterator to run all the priorityqueue. However Im finding it heavy and I wonder if there are better alternatives to search and remove events associated with an entity "xpto". Any suggestions? Thanks!

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• SqlCommand.Dispose() not disposing the SqlParameters in it - Memory Leak - C#.NET

  - by NLV

  Hello I've a windows forms application with MS SQL Server 2005 as the back end. I have written code in the form to call few stored procedures using SqlConnection, SqlCommand objects and i properly dispose everything. I've disposed sqlcommand object by calling oSqlCommand.Dispose() But i witnessed my application consuming huge amount of memory. I basically pass large XML files as SqlParameters. I finally decided to memory profile it using RedGate Memory profiler and i noticed that the System.Data.SqlClient.SqlParameters are not disposed. Any insights on this? Thanks NLV

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• iPad Web App: Detect Virtual Keyboard Using JavaScript in Safari?

  - by LKM

  I'm writing a web app for the iPad (not a regular App Store app - it's written using HTML, CSS and JavaScript). Since the keyboard fills up a huge part of the screen, it would make sense to change the app's layout to fit the remaining space when the keyboard is shown. However, I have found no way to detect when or whether the keyboard is shown. My first idea was to assume that the keyboard is visible when a text field has focus. However, when an external keyboard is attached to an iPad, the virtual keyboard does not show up when a text field receives focus. In my experiments, the keyboard also did not affect the height or scrollheight of any of the DOM elements, and I have found no proprietary events or properties which indicate whether the keyboard is visible.

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• automation of data format conversion to parent child format

  - by silverkid

  This is an excel sheet which has only a single column filled for each row. (explanation : all CITY categories fall under V21 , all handset categories fall under CityJ and so on ) V21 CITYR CITYJ HandsetS HandsetHW HandsetHA LOWER_AGE<=20 LOWER_AGE>20 SMS_COUNT<=0 RECHARGE_MRP<=122 RECHARGE_MRP>122 SMS_COUNT>0 I need to change this format to a double column format with parent and child category format. therefore the output sheet would be V21 CITYR V21 CITYJ CITYJ HandsetS CITYJ HandsetHW CITYJ HandsetHA HandsetHA LOWER_AGE<=20 HandsetHA LOWER_AGE>20 LOWER_AGE>20 SMS_COUNT<=0 SMS_COUNT<=0 RECHARGE_MRP<=122 SMS_COUNT<=0 RECHARGE_MRP>122 LOWER_AGE>20 SMS_COUNT>0 the datas are huge so i cant do them manually . how can i automate this ?

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• Integer ID obfuscation techniques

  - by Chris

  Hi there, I'm looking for an easy and reversible method of obfuscating integer IDs. Ideally, I'd want the resulting obfuscation to be at most eight characters in length and non-sequential, meaning that the obfuscation of "1" should look nothing like the obfuscation for "2" and so on. This isn't meant to be secure by any means, so this isn't a huge concern. Additionally, the integers I'll be obfuscating aren't large - between one and 10,000 - but I don't want any collisions, either. Does anybody have any ideas for something that would fit this criteria? Thanks! Chris

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