Search Results

Search found 1911 results on 77 pages for 'peter taylor'.

Page 73/77 | < Previous Page | 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77  | Next Page >

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Fundação Petrobras de Seguridade Social

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter Solution Summary Fundação Petrobras de Seguridade Social (PetroS) is a Brazilian nonprofit organization pension fund serving 152 private companies with more then 145,000 plan participants and  managing a portfolio of  US$35.9 billion in equity. PetroS business objective was to implement a robust and flexible online solution to enable the foundation to successfully compete in the pension marketplace. PetroS implemented a robust, flexible and highly available database solution based on Oracle Database 11g, Enterprise Edition and modernized the company’s Web portal using Oracle WebCenter Suite.  The solution enables PetroS to make an average of 5,000 online loans per month to its 110,000 qualifying participants and supports 2,000 online consultations daily. Company ProfileFundação Petrobras de Seguridade Social (Petrobras Social Security Foundation)—better known as PetroS—is a pension fund founded in the 1970s to pay supplementary retirement benefits to Petrobras employees. Later, the foundation expanded its market to include 152 private companies, including Sanasa, Repsol YPF and Alesat. The Foundation, a nonprofit organization, has more than 145,000 plan participants, US$35.9 billion in equity, and a loan portfolio of US$730 million. Business ChallengesPetroS business objectives were to implement a robust and flexible solution to enable the foundation to successfully compete in the pension marketplace without affecting its monthly payments to 60,000 beneficiaries and to extend service delivery through the Web to better serve the fund’s more than 145,000 participants. Solution DeployedPetroS worked with Oracle Consulting to implement a robust, flexible and high available database solution based on Oracle Database 11g, Enterprise Edition and modernized the company’s Web portal using Oracle WebCenter Suite, enabling PetroS to deliver more flexible services to pension plan participants. Business ResultsThe solution enables PetroS to make an average of 5,000 online loans per month to its 110,000 qualifying participants and supports 2,000 online consultations daily. “The combination of Oracle Database 11g and Oracle WebCenter Suite has helped us deliver faster and better service for over 130,000 clients who participate in the 96 supplementary pension plans we currently offer. It has certainly helped to fuel our growth.” Newton Carneiro da Cunha, Diretor Administrativo, Fundação Petrobrás de Seguridade Social           Additional Information PetroS Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Suite Oracle Database 11g, Enterprise Edition Oracle Real Application Clusters Oracle Diagnostics Pack Oracle Tuning Pack Oracle Consulting

    Read the article

  • links for 2010-12-22

    - by Bob Rhubart
    @hajonormann: BPM: Top Seven Architectural Topics in 2010 Oracle ACE Director Hajo Normann offers details on how to design a BPM/SOA solution including: modeling human interaction, improving BPM models, orchestrating composed services, central task management, new approaches for business-IT alignment, solutions for non-deterministic processes, and choreography. (tags: oracle otn soasymposium infoq soa bpm) InfoQ: Simplicity, The Way of the Unusual Architect Dan North talks about the tendency developers-becoming-architects have to create bigger and more complex systems. Without trying to be simplistic, North argues for simplicity, offering strategies to extract the simple essence from complex situations. (tags: ping.fm) Fun with Sun Ray, 3D, Oracle VM x86 and SRIOV (Wim Coekaerts Blog) "One of the things I like about my job is that I get to play around with stuff and make use of the technologies we work on in my teams. Sort of my own little playground." - Wim Coekaerts (tags: oracle otn virtualization oraclevm) Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0.0 Released! (Oracle's Virtualization Blog) And you were worried about what to get that special someone for Christmas... (tags: oracle otn virtualization virtualbox) Virtual Developer Day: Oracle WebLogic Server & Java EE (#OTNVDD) (Oracle Technology Network Blog (aka TechBlog)) "Virtual Developer Day is back with a vengeance! On Feb. 1, login to learn how Oracle WebLogic Server enables a whole new level of productivity for enterprise developers." Registration is open. (tags: oracle otn events webinar java) New Coherence 3.6 Oracle University Course (Cristóbal Soto's Blog) Cristóbal Soto shares information on the "Oracle Coherence 3.6: Share and Manage Data in Clusters" course now available through Oracle University. (tags: oracle otn grid coherence) The Aquarium: Oracle WebLogic Server & Java EE developer day "Oracle WebLogic is well on its way to contribute to the general Java EE 6 momentum and the OTN Blog has just announced a Virtual Developer Day for Oracle WebLogic." (tags: oracle otn weblogic java) Enterprise 2.0 Use Cases for Semantic Web (Reiser 2.0) "How can an enterprise improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their Knowledge and Community model leveraging semantic technologies and social networking dynamics?" - Peter Reiser (tags: oracle otn enterprise2.0 semanticweb) John Gøtze: European Interoperability Framework 2.0 "This week, the European Commission announced an updated interoperability policy in the EU. The Commission has committed itself to adopt a Communication that introduces the European Interoperability Strategy (EIS) and an update to the European Interoperability Framework (EIF)..." - John Gøtze (tags: entarch Interoperability) Andy Mulholland: Maybe Web 3.0 is quite understandable – and a natural result "The idea of Web 1.0 = content, Web 2.0 = people and Web 3.0 = services has a nice symmetrical feel to it, in fact it feels basically right as such a definition would include the two other major definitions as well. So if we put these things all together what picture do we see?" - Andy Mulholland (tags: web2.0 web3.0) Ken Downs: A Working Definition of Business Logic, with Implications for CRUD Code "The Wikipedia entry on 'Business Logic' has a wonderfully honest opening sentence stating that 'Business logic, or domain logic, is a non-technical term...'"  (tags: businesslogic crud)

    Read the article

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Global Village Telecom Ltda

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryGlobal Village Telecom Ltda. (GVT)  is a leading Brazilian telecommunications company, developing solutions and providing services for corporate and end users. GVT is located in Curitiba, Brazil, employs 6,000 people and has an annual revenue of around US$1 billion.  GVT business objectives were to improve corporate communications, accelerate internal information flow, provide continuous access to the all business files and  enable the company’s leadership to provide information to all departments in real time. GVT implemented Oracle WebCenter Content to centralize the company's content and they built  a portal to share and find content in real-time. Oracle WebCenter Content enabled GVT to quickly and efficiently integrate communication among all company employees—ensuring that GVT maintain a competitive edge in the market. Human Resources reduced the time required for issuing internal statements to all staff from three weeks to one day. Company OverviewGlobal Village Telecom Ltda. (GVT)  is a leading telecommunications company, developing solutions and providing services for corporate and end users. The company offers diverse innovative products and advanced solutions in conventional fixed telephone communications, data transmission, high speed broadband internet services, and voice over IP (VoIP) services for all market segment. GVT is located in Curitiba, Brazil, employs 6,000 people and have an  annual revenue of around US$1 billion.   Business ChallengesGVT business objectives were to improve corporate communications, accelerate internal information flow, provide continuous access to the all business files and enable the company’s leadership to provide information to all departments in real time. Solution DeployedGVT worked with the Oracle Partner IT7 to deploy Oracle WebCenter Content to securely centralize the company's content such as growth indicators, spreadsheets, and corporate and descriptive project schedules. The solution enabled real-time information sharing through the development of Click GVT, a portal that currently receives 100,000 monthly impressions from employee searches. Business ResultsGVT gained a competitive edge in the communications market by accelerating internal information flow, streamlining the content standardizing information and enabled real-time information sharing and discovery. Human Resources  reduced the time required for issuing  internal statements to all staff from three weeks to one day. “The competitive nature of telecommunication industry demands rapid information in the internal flow of the company. Oracle WebCenter Content enabled us to quickly and efficiently integrate communication among all company employees—ensuring that we maintain a competitive edge in the market.” Marcel Mendes Filho, Systems Manager, Global Village Telecom Ltda. Additional Information Global Viallage Telecom Ltda Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content

    Read the article

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Hitachi Data Systems

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter Watch this Webcast to see a live demo on how HDS creates multilingual content for their 35+ regional websites  Solution SummaryHitachi Data Systems (HDS) provides mid-range and high-end storage systems, software and services. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. HDS is based in Santa Clara, California, and has over 5,300 employees in more then 100 countries and regions. HDS's main objectives were to provide a consistent message across all their sites, to maintain a tight governance structure across their messages and related content, expand the use of the existing content management systems and implement a centralized translation management system. HDS implemented a global web content management system based on Oracle WebCenter Content and integrated the Lingotek translation management system to manage their multilingual content. The implemented solution provides each Geo with the ability to expand their web offering to meet local market needs, while staying aligned with the Corporate Web Guidelines Company OverviewHitachi Data Systems (HDS) provides mid-range and high-end storage systems, software and services. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. and part of the Hitachi Information Systems & Telecommunications Division. The company sells through direct and indirect channels in more than 170 countries and regions. Its customers include of 50 percent of the Fortune 100 companies. HDS is based in Santa Clara California and has over 5,300 employees in more than 100 countries and regions. Business ChallengesHDS has over 35 global websites and the lack of global web capabilities led to inconsistency of messaging, slower time to market and failed to address local language needs. There was an extensive operational overhead due to manual and redundant processes. Translation efforts where superficial, inconsistent and wasteful and the lack of translation automation tools discouraged localization.  HDS's main objectives were to provide a consistent message across all their sites, to maintain a tight governance structure across their messages and related content, expand the use of the existing content management systems and implement a centralized translation management system. Solution DeployedHDS implemented a global web content management system based on Oracle WebCenter Content. The solution supports decentralized publishing for their 35+ global sites to address local market needs while ensuring editorial and brand review trough embedded review processes. They integrated the Lingotek translation management system into Oracle WebCenter Content to manage their multilingual content. Business Results Provides each Geo with the ability to expand their web offering to meet local market needs, while staying aligned with the Corporate Web Guidelines Enables end-to-end content lifecycle management across multiple languages Leverage translation memory for reuse and consistency Reduce time to market with central repository of translated content Additional Information HDS Webcast Oracle WebCenter Content Lingotek website

    Read the article

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Marvel

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryMarvel Entertainment, LLC (Marvel) is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of over 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years. The customer wanted to optimize their brand licensing process, so Marvel worked with Oracle WebCenter partner Fishbowl Solutions and implemented a centralized Content Hub based on Oracle WebCenter Content. The 100% web based secure Intranet/Partner Extranet solution is now managing the entire life cycle of the brand licensing process. Marvel and their brand licensees have  now complete visibility of brand license operations including the history of approval request and related content.  Company OverviewMarvel Entertainment, LLC (Marvel) a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of over 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years.  Marvel utilizes its character franchises in entertainment, licensing and publishing.   Sample  characters:    - Spider-Man    - Iron Man    - Captain America    - X-MEN    - Thor    - Avengers    - And a host of others  Business ChallengesMarvel wanted to optimize their brand licensing process for their characters and had following business requirements : Facilitating content worldwide Scalable and flexible infrastructure to manage multiple content types and huge file sizes Optimize the licensing process workflow trough automatic notifications, tracking reviews, issuing approvals, etc. Solution DeployedMarvel worked with Oracle WebCenter partner Fishbowl Solutions and implemented a centralized Content Hub based on Oracle WebCenter Content. The 100% web based secure Intranet/Partner Extranet solution is now managing the entire life cycle of the brand licensing process. The internal users can now manage all digital assets related to a character trough proper categorization of all items, workflow based review and approval of branding styles and a powerful search and retrieval service. The licensees of Marvel brands can now online develop and submit  concepts and prototypes which are reviewed and approved using a collaborative process. Business ResultMarvel and their brand licensees have now complete visibility of brand license operations including the history of approval request and related content. The character brand related content is now in the right place, at the right time at the user's fingertips with highly improved quality. Additional Information Marvel Open World Presentation Oracle WebCenter Content

    Read the article

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: American Home Mortgage

    - by Michelle Kimihira
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter Solution Summary American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. (AHMSI) is a 3,000 employee company based in Coppell, Texas and provides services to homeowners and loan investors. With a multibillion portfolio under management, AHMSI is one of the country's largest servicers of Alt-A and subprime loans. AHMSI implemented a public-facing secure Web portal using Oracle WebCenter Suite to help investors make informed decisions more quickly and automated much of the investor approval process AHMSI reduced the time needed to process loan modification from approximately 30 days to one week.  UsingOracle WebCenter Content AHMSI can now share strategic & sensitive content in compliance with the various governance regulations.  Company OverviewAmerican Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. provides services to homeowners and loan investors. Whether a borrower holds a traditional, Alt-A, payment option, or subprime loan, the company's highly trained experts are committed to providing high levels of service as they work to address each customer's needs. AHMSI also carefully manages the loan portfolios of investors. With a multibillion portfolio under management, AHMSI is one of the country's largest servicers of Alt-A and subprime loans.  Challenges AHMSI’s biggest challenge was to improve security by minimizing the use of e-mail and FTP sites to share sensitive mortgage loan data with third parties, including estate investors.  Solutions AHMSI implemented Oracle WebCenter Suite to deploy a public-facing Web portal, enabling authorized external users to view content stored on the content server and Oracle WebCenter Content  to create a secure storage area for daily, weekly, and monthly reports. They leveraged the standard group spaces in Oracle WebCenter Portal to enable business users to collaborate more effectively.  Results By automating much of the investor approval process, they reduced the time needed to process loan modifications from approximately 30 days to one week and greatly minimized the use of e-mail and FTP sites to share information. Investors can now view supporting materials including real-time loan information and call center data to help them make more informed decisions more quickly.  The implemented solution complies with various government regulations in dealings with real estate investors.  “To maintain our commitment to providing customers with the highest possible levels of services while creating a competitive advantage for our business, we needed to be able to share strategic and sensitive content in a safe and secure manner. With Oracle WebCenter, we have a flexible and modern user experience platform that allows us to securely, reliably and efficiently manage our portfolio of sensitive data and share it with our business partners. This not only helps ensure compliance with various government regulations, it accelerates processes and supports more informed decision making.” Vince Holt, Manager, Application Management, American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.  Additional Information AHMSI Customer Snapshot  Oracle WebCenter Suite Oracle WebCenter Content Oracle WebCenter Portal Oracle Fusion Middleware

    Read the article

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Guizhou Power Grid Company

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryGuizhou Power Grid Company is responsible for power grid planning, construction, management, and power distribution in Guizhou Province, serving 39 million people. Giuzhou has 49,823 employees and an annual revenue of over $5 Billion. The business objectives were to consolidate information contained in disparate systems into a single knowledge repository and provide a safe and efficient way for staff and managers to access, query, share, manage, and store business information. Guizhou Power Grid Company saved more than US$693,000 in storage costs, reduced  average search times from 180 seconds to 5 seconds and solved 80% to 90% of technology and maintenance issues by searching the Oracle WebCenter Content management system. Company OverviewA wholly owned subsidiary of China Southern Power Grid Company Limited, Guizhou Power Grid Company is responsible for power grid planning, construction, management, and power distribution in Guizhou Province, serving 39 million people. Giuzhou has 49,823 employees and an annual revenue of over $5 Billion. Business ChallengesThe business objectives were to consolidate information contained in disparate systems, such as the customer relationship management and power grid management systems, into a single knowledge repository and provide a safe and efficient way for staff and managers to access, query, share, manage, and store business information. Solution DeployedGuizhou Power Grid Company  implemented Oracle WebCenter Content to build a content management system that enabled the secure, integrated management and storage of information, such as documents, records, images, Web content, and digital assets. The content management solution was integrated with the power grid, customer service, maintenance, and other business systems, as well as the corporate Web site. Business Results Saved more than US$693,000 in storage costs and shortened the material distribution time by integrating the knowledge management solution with the power grid, customer service, maintenance, and other business systems, as well as the corporate Web site Enabled staff to search 31,650 documents using catalogs, multidimensional attributes, and knowledge maps, reducing average search times from 180 seconds to 5 seconds and saving approximately 1,539 hours in annual search time Gained comprehensive document management, format transformation, security, and auditing capabilities Enabled users to upload new documents and supervisors to check the accuracy of these documents online, resulting in improved information quality control Solved 80% to 90% of technology and maintenance issues by searching the Oracle content management system for information, ensuring IT staff can respond quickly to users’ technical problems Improved security by using role-based access controls to restrict access to confidential documents and information Supported the efficient classification of corporate knowledge by using Oracle’s metadata functions to collect, tag, and archive documents, images, Web content, and digital assets “We chose Oracle WebCenter Content, as it is an outstanding integrated content management platform. It has allowed us to establish a system to access, query, share, manage, and store our corporate assets. This has laid a solid foundation for Guizhou Power Grid Company to improve management practices.” Luo Sixi, Senior Information Consultant, Guizhou Power Grid Company Additional Information Guizhou Power Grid Company Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content

    Read the article

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Indecopi

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryIndecopi Optimizes Patent Approval Management and Accelerates Customer Service Times by 40% Indecopi is a decentralized public agency that promotes the country’s markets and protects consumer rights. It promotes fair and honest competition and safeguards all forms of intellectual property through three directorates: Author’s Rights, Inventions and New Technologies, and Trademarks. The business challenge was to unify the agency’s technology infrastructure to create a business process management strategy, consolidate the organization’s Web platform and improve and automate information services for citizens and businesses, and streamline patent procedures by digitizing documentation. Indecopi optimized patent information services , organized information, provided around-the-clock online access to users, and developed a Web site that provides internal and external users access to DIN information, such as patent documentation, through a user-friendly interface. Indecopi achieved impressive business result by reducing use of paper files by 50%, accelerating transaction approvals,  reduce nonvalue-added activities by 85% and  accelerated customer service times by 40%. Company OverviewPeru’s Instituto Nacional de Defensa de la Competencia y de la Protección de la Propiedad Intelectual (Indecopi), the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property, is a decentralized public agency that promotes the country’s markets and protects consumer rights. It promotes fair and honest competition and safeguards all forms of intellectual property through three directorates: Author’s Rights, Inventions and New Technologies, and Trademarks. Business ChallengesIndecopi's challenge was to unify the agency’s technology infrastructure to create a business process management strategy, starting with the Directorate of Inventions and New Technologies (DIN), consolidate the organization’s Web platform to meet new demands for software and process development, such as for patent applications, and improve and automate information services for citizens and businesses and streamline patent procedures by digitizing documentation. Solution DeployedIndecopi optimized patent information services with Oracle Business Process Management, automating processes to deliver expedient searches, and to create new services, such as alerts to users. They organized information and provided around-the-clock online access to users with Oracle WebCenter Content. In addition they used Oracle WebLogic Server to develop a Web site that provides internal and external users access to DIN information, such as patent documentation, through a user-friendly interface. Business Results Indecopi achieved impressive business results Reduced use of paper files by 50% Accelerated transaction approvals  reduce nonvalue-added activities, such as manual document copying to obtain patents, by 85% Accelerated customer service times by 40% by optimizing procedures, such as searches and online information related to granting patents “Oracle Business Process Manager has been a paradigm shift in process management. By digitalizing and automating our patents information services, we can now manage everything in the simplest way possible, expanding our options for the creation of new services.” Sergio Rodríguez, Assistant Director, Inventions and New Technologies Directorate, Instituto Nacional de Defensa de la Competencia y la Propiedad Intelectual Additional Information Indecopi Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content

    Read the article

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: SICE

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummarySociedad Ibérica de Construcciones Eléctricas, S.A. (SICE) is a Spanish company specializes in engineering and technology integration for intelligent transport systems and environmental control systems. They had a large quantity of engineering and environmental planning documents  which they wanted to manage, classify and integrate with their existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. SICE adapted  Oracle WebCenter Content to classify and manage more than 30 different types, defined a security plan to ensure the integrity and recovery of various document types and integrated the document management solution with SICE’s third-party enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. SICE  accelerated time to market for all projects, minimized time required to identify and recover documents  and achieved greater efficiency in all operations. Company Overview Created in 1921, Sociedad Ibérica de Construcciones Eléctricas, S.A. (SICE) currently specializes in engineering and technology integration for intelligent transport systems and environmental control systems. It has more than 2,500 employees, with operations in Spain and various locations in Latin America, the United States, Africa, and Australia. Business Challenges They had a large quantity of engineering and environmental planning documents generated in research and projects which they wanted to manage, classify and integrate with their existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Solution Deployed SICE worked with the Oracle Partner ABAST Solutions to evaluate and choose the best document management system, ultimately selecting Oracle WebCenter Content over other options including  Documentum, SharePoint, OpenText, and Alfresco.They adapted Oracle WebCenter Content to classify and manage more than 30 different types, defined a security plan to ensure the integrity and recovery of various document types and integrated the document management solution  with SICE’s third-party enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to accelerate incorporation with the documentation system and ensure integrity ERP system data. Business Results SICE  accelerated time to market for all projects by releasing reports and information that support and validate engineering projects, stored all documents in a single repository with organizationwide accessibility, minimizing time required to identify and recover documents needed for reports to initiate and execute engineering and building projects. Overall they achieved greater efficiency in all operations, including technical and impact report development and construction documentation management. “The correct and efficient management of information is vital to our environmental management activity. Oracle WebCenter Content  serves as a basis for knowledge management practices, with the objective of adding greater value to everything that we do.” Manuel Delgado, IT Project Engineering, Sociedad Ibérica de Construcciones Eléctricas, S.A Additional Information SICE Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content

    Read the article

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Regency Centers Corporation

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryRegency Centers Corporation, based in Jacksonville, FL, is a leading national owner, operator, and developer of grocery-anchored and community shopping centers. Regency grew rapidly over much of the last decade. To keep up with the monthly and yearly administrative processes required to manage thousands of tenants, including reconciling yearly pass-through expenses, the customer upgraded to Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Version 9.0 and deployed Oracle WebCenter Imaging, Process Management and Oracle BI Publisher, to streamline invoice processing and reporting. Using Oracle WebCenter Imaging - Regency accelerated and improved vendor invoice accuracy  which increases process integrity by identifying potential duplicate bills while enabling rapid approval of electronic invoice documents. Company Overview Regency Centers Corporation, based in Jacksonville, FL,  is a leading national owner, operator, and developer of grocery-anchored and community shopping centers. The company owns 367 centers, totaling nearly 50 million square feet, located in top markets throughout the United States. Founded in 1963 and operating as a fully integrated real estate company, Regency is a qualified real estate investment trust that is self-administered and self-managed, operating from 17 regional offices around the country.  Business Challenges Ensure continued support of vital business applications that drive the real estate developer’s key business processes, including property management and tenant payment processing Streamline year-end expense recognition and calculation, enabling faster tenant billing Move to a Web-based platform to deliver greater mobility and convenience to employees Minimize system customizations to reduce IT management costs and burden moving forward Solution DeployedRecency Centers Corporation worked with the  Oracle Partner ICS to upgrade to Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Version 9.0, migrating to a more user-friendly, Web-based platform and realizing numerous new efficiencies in property management and tenant payment processing. They accelerated and improved vendor invoice accuracy with Oracle WebCenter Imaging, which increases process integrity by identifying potential duplicate bills while enabling rapid approval of electronic invoice documents. Business Results Enabled faster and more accurate tenant billing for year-end expenses, accelerating collections of millions of dollars in revenue Gained full audit and drill-down capabilities that facilitate understanding various aspects of calculations for expense participation generation Increases process integrity by identifying potential duplicate bills while enabling rapid approval of electronic invoice documents Helped to ensure on-time payments to hundreds of vendors, including contractors and utilities "We have realized numerous efficiencies with Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0, particularly around tenant billings. It accelerates our year-end expense reconciliation process and enables us to create and process billings more quickly.” James Chiang, Vice President of Real Estate Accounting Regency Centers Corporation Additional Information Regency Centers Corporation Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Imaging JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Financials 9.0 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Project Costing JD Edwards EnterpiseOne Real Estate Management Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Oracle Essbase

    Read the article

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Azul Brazilian Airlines

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryAzul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras (Azul Brazilian Airlines) is the third-largest airline in Brazil serving  42 destinations with a fleet of 49 aircraft and employs 4,500 crew members. The company wanted to offer an innovative site with a simple purchasing process for customers to search for and buy tickets and for the company’s marketing team to more effectively conduct its campaigns. To this end, Azul implemented Oracle WebCenter Sites, succeeding in gathering all of the site’s key information onto a single platform. Azul can now complete the Web site content updating process—which used to take approximately 48 hours—in less than five minutes. Company OverviewAzul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras (Azul Brazilian Airlines) has established itself as the third-largest airline in Brazil, based on a business model that combines low prices with a high level of service. Azul serves 42 destinations with a fleet of 49 aircraft. It operates 350 daily flights with a team of 4,500 crew members. Last year, the company transported 15 million passengers, achieving a 10% share of the Brazilian market, according to the Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil (ANAC, or the National Civil Aviation Agency). Business ChallengesThe company wanted to offer an innovative site with a simple purchasing process for customers to search for and buy tickets and for the company’s marketing team to more effectively conduct its campaigns. Provide customers with an  innovative Web site with a simple process for purchasing flight tickets Bring dynamism to the Web site’s content updating process to provide autonomy to the airline’s strategic departments, such as marketing and product development Facilitate integration among the site’s different application providers, such as ticket availability and payment process, on which ticket sales depend Solution DeployedAzul worked with the  Oracle partner TQI to implement Oracle WebCenter Sites, succeeding in gathering all of the site’s key information onto a single platform. Previously, at least three servers and corporate information environments had directed data to the portal. The single Oracle-based platform now facilitates site updates, which are daily and constant. Business Results Gained development freedom in all processes—from implementation to content editing Gathered all of the Web site’s key information onto a single platform, facilitating its daily and constant updating, whereas the information was previously spread among at least three IT environments and had to go through a complex process to be made available online to customers Reduced time needed to update banners and other Web site content from an average of 48 hours to less than five minutes Simplified the flight ticket sales process thanks to tool flexibility that enabled the company to improve Website usability “Oracle WebCenter Sites provides an easy-to-use platform that enables our marketing department to spend less time updating content and more time on innovative activities. Previously, it would take 48 hours to update content on our Web site; now it takes less than five minutes. We have shown the market that we are innovators, enabling customer convenience through an improved flight ticket purchase process.” Kleber Linhares, Information Technology and E-Commerce Director, Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras Additional Information Azul Brazilian Airlines Case Study Oracle WebCenter Sites Oracle WebCenter Sites Satellite Server

    Read the article

  • Pirates, Treasure Chests and Architectural Mapping

    Pirate 1: Why do pirates create treasure maps? Pirate 2: I do not know.Pirate 1: So they can find their gold. Yes, that was a bad joke, but it does illustrate a point. Pirates are known for drawing treasure maps to their most prized possession. These documents detail the decisions pirates made in order to hide and find their chests of gold. The map allows them to trace the steps they took originally to hide their treasure so that they may return. As software engineers, programmers, and architects we need to treat software implementations much like our treasure chest. Why is software like a treasure chest? It cost money, time,  and resources to develop (Usually) It can make or save money, time, and resources (Hopefully) If we operate under the assumption that software is like a treasure chest then wouldn’t make sense to document the steps, rationale, concerns, and decisions about how it was designed? Pirates are notorious for documenting where they hide their treasure.  Shouldn’t we as creators of software do the same? By documenting our design decisions and rationale behind them will help others be able to understand and maintain implemented systems. This can only be done if the design decisions are correctly mapped to its corresponding implementation. This allows for architectural decisions to be traced from the conceptual model, architectural design and finally to the implementation. Mapping gives software professional a method to trace the reason why specific areas of code were developed verses other options. Just like the pirates we need to able to trace our steps from the start of a project to its implementation,  so that we will understand why specific choices were chosen. The traceability of a software implementation that actually maps back to its originating design decisions is invaluable for ensuring that architectural drifting and erosion does not take place. The drifting and erosion is prevented by allowing others to understand the rational of why an implementation was created in a specific manor or methodology The process of mapping distinct design concerns/decisions to the location of its implemented is called traceability. In this context traceability is defined as method for connecting distinctive software artifacts. This process allows architectural design models and decisions to be directly connected with its physical implementation. The process of mapping architectural design concerns to a software implementation can be very complex. However, most design decision can be placed in  a few generalized categories. Commonly Mapped Design Decisions Design Rationale Components and Connectors Interfaces Behaviors/Properties Design rational is one of the hardest categories to map directly to an implementation. Typically this rational is mapped or document in code via comments. These comments consist of general design decisions and reasoning because they do not directly refer to a specific part of an application. They typically focus more on the higher level concerns. Components and connectors can directly be mapped to architectural concerns. Typically concerns subdivide an application in to distinct functional areas. These functional areas then can map directly back to their originating concerns.Interfaces can be mapped back to design concerns in one of two ways. Interfaces that pertain to specific function definitions can be directly mapped back to its originating concern(s). However, more complicated interfaces require additional analysis to ensure that the proper mappings are created. Depending on the complexity some Behaviors\Properties can be translated directly into a generic implementation structure that is ready for business logic. In addition, some behaviors can be translated directly in to an actual implementation depending on the complexity and architectural tools used. Mapping design concerns to an implementation is a lot of work to maintain, but is doable. In order to ensure that concerns are mapped correctly and that an implementation correctly reflects its design concerns then one of two standard approaches are usually used. All Changes Come From ArchitectureBy forcing all application changes to come through the architectural model prior to implementation then the existing mappings will be used to locate where in the implementation changes need to occur. Allow Changes From Implementation Or Architecture By allowing changes to come from the implementation and/or the architecture then the other area must be kept in sync. This methodology is more complex compared to the previous approach.  One reason to justify the added complexity for an application is due to the fact that this approach tends to detect and prevent architectural drift and erosion. Additionally, this approach is usually maintained via software because of the complexity. Reference:Taylor, R. N., Medvidovic, N., & Dashofy, E. M. (2009). Software architecture: Foundations, theory, and practice Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons  

    Read the article

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Sberbank of Russia

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummarySberbank of Russia is the largest credit institution in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), accounting for 27% of Russian banking assets and 26% of Russian banking capital.Sberbank of Russia needed to increase business efficiency and employee productivity due to the growth in its corporate clientele from 1.2 million to an estimated 1.6 million.Sberbank of Russia deployed Oracle’s Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications to create a single client view, optimize client communication, improve efficiency, and automate distressed asset processing. Based on Oracle WebCenter Content, they implemented an enterprise content management system for documents, unstructured content storage and search, which became an indispensable service across the organization and in the board room business results. Sberbank of Russia consolidated borrower information across the entire organization into a single repository to obtain, for the first time, a single view on the bank’s borrowers. With the implemented solution they reducing the amount of bad debt significantly. Company OverviewSberbank of Russia is the largest credit institution in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), accounting for 27% of Russian banking assets and 26% of Russian banking capital. In 2010, it ranked 43rd in the world for Tier 1 capital. Business ChallengesSberbank of Russia needed to increase business efficiency and employee productivity due to the growth in its corporate clientele from 1.2 million to an estimated 1.6 million. It also wanted to automate distressed asset management to reduce the number of corporate clients’ bad debts. As part of their business strategy they wanted to drive high-quality, competitive customer services by simplifying client communication processes and enabling personnel to quickly access client information Solution deployedSberbank of Russia deployed Oracle’s Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications to create a single client view, optimize client communication, improve efficiency, and automate distressed asset processing. Based on Oracle WebCenter Content, they implemented an enterprise content management system for documents, unstructured content storage and search which became an indispensable service across the organization and in the board room business results. Business ResultsSberbank of Russia consolidated borrower information across the entire organization into a single repository to obtain, for the first time, a single view on the bank’s borrowers. They monitored 103,000 client transactions and 32,000 bank cards with credit collection issues (100% of Sberbank’s bad borrowers) reducing the amount of bad debt significantly. “Innovation and client service are the foundation of our business strategy. Oracle’s Siebel CRM applications helped advance our objectives by enabling us to deliver faster, more personalized service while managing and tracking distressed assets.” A.B. Sokolov, Head of Center of Business Administration and Customer Relationship Management, Sberbank of Russia Additional Information Sberbank of Russia Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content Siebel Customer Relationship Management 8.1 Oracle Business Intelligence, Enterprise Edition 11g

    Read the article

  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Alberta Agriculture and Rural Developmen

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryAlberta Agriculture and Rural Development is a government ministry that works with producers and consumers to create a strong, competitive, and sustainable agriculture and food industry in the province of Alberta, Canada The primary business challenge faced by the Alberta Ministry of Agriculture was that of managing the rapid growth of their information.  They needed to incorporate a system that would work across 22 different divisions within the ministry and deliver an improved and more efficient experience for Desktop, Web and Mobile users, while addressing their regulatory compliance needs as part of the Canadian government. The customer implemented a centralized Enterprise Content Management solution based on Oracle WebCenter Content and developed a strong and repeatable information life cycle management methodology across all their 22 divisions and agencies. With the implemented solution, Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development  centrally manages over 20 million documents for 22 divisions and agencies and they have improved time required to find records,  reliability of information, improved speed and accuracy of reporting and data security. Company OverviewAlberta Agriculture and Rural Development is a government ministry that works with producers and consumers to create a strong, competitive, and sustainable agriculture and food industry in the province of Alberta, Canada.  Business ChallengesThe business users were overwhelmed by growth in documents (over 20 million files across 22 divisions and agencies) and it was difficult to find and manage documents and versions. There was a strong need for a personalized easy-to-use, secure and dependable method of managing and consuming content via desktop, Web, and mobile, while improving efficiency and maintaining regulatory compliance by removing the risk of non-uniform approaches to retention and disposition. Solution DeployedAs a first step Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development developed a business case with clear defined business drivers: Reduce time required to find records Locate “lost” records Capture knowledge lost through attrition Increase the ease of retrieval Reduce personal copies Increase reliability of information Improve speed and accuracy of reporting Improve data security The customer implemented a centralized Enterprise Content Management solution based on Oracle WebCenter Content. They used an incremental implementation approach aligned with their divisional and agency structure which allowed continuous process improvement. This led to a very strong and repeatable information life cycle management methodology across all their 22 divisions and agencies. Business ResultsAlberta Agriculture and Rural Development achieved impressive business results: Centrally managing over 20 million files for 22 divisions and agencies Federated model to manage documents in SharePoint and other applications Doing records management for both paper and electronic records Reduced time required to find records Increased the ease of retrieval Increased reliability of information Improved speed and accuracy of reporting Improved data security Additional Information Oracle Open World 2012 Presentation Oracle WebCenter Content

    Read the article

  • Powerful Lessons in Data from the Presidential Election

    - by Christina McKeon
    Now that we’ve had a few days to recover from the U.S. presidential election, it’s a good time to take a step back from politics and look for the customer experience lessons that we can take away. The most powerful lesson is that when you know more about your base, you will have an advantage over your competition. That advantage will translate into you winning and your competition losing. Michael Scherer of TIME was given access to Obama’s data analysts two days before the election. His account is documented in Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win. What we learned from Scherer’s inside view is how well Obama’s team did in getting the right data, analyzing it, and acting on it. This data team recognized how critical it was to break down data silos within the campaign. As Scherer noted, they created “a single system that merged information from pollsters, fundraisers, field workers, consumer databases, and social-media and mobile contacts with the main Democratic voter files in the swing states.” The Obama analysis was so meticulous that they knew which celebrity and which type of celebrity event would help them maximize campaign contributions. With a single system, their data models became more precise. They determined which messages were more successful with specific demographic groups and that who made the calls mattered. Data analysis also led to many other changes in Obama’s campaign including a new ad buying strategy, using social media and applications to tap into supporters’ friends, and using new social news sites. While we did not have that same inside view into Romney’s campaign, much of the post-mortem coverage indicates that Romney’s team did not have the right analysis. As Peter Hamby of CNN wrote in Analysis: Why Romney Lost, “Romney officials had modeled an electorate that looked something like a mix of 2004 and 2008….” That historical data did not account for the changing demographics in the U.S. Does your organization approach data like the Obama or Romney team? Do you really know your base? How well can you predict what is going to happen in your business? If you haven’t already put together a strategy and plan to know more, this week’s civics lesson is a powerful reason to do it sooner rather than later. Your competitors are probably thinking the same thing that you are!

    Read the article

  • Oracle Open World - the technologist's fall classic

    - by user581320
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Well its September and the calendar is charging towards fall. I realized today that another summer had passed as the first rain in months fell here in northern California redwood country. If its fall that means that Oracle Open World is right around the corner and that tens of thousands of technology professionals will soon converge on San Francisco to fill every hotel and every corner of their minds. As in years past, team UPK will be there in force to answer questions, demo and discuss all things UPK. On Thursday, October 4, from 12:45pm to 1:45pm I along with several of my UPK teammates will be manning the User Productivity Kit Panel - Best Practices to Manage and Deploy Content. This session is an interactive session intended as an opportunity to get your UPK questions answered. To get things started we will answer some questions submitted in advance. If you have any questions or subject areas you’d like addressed during the session, let me know here in the blog and then come to the session and we’ll do our best to answer your questions.  Peter Maravelias UPK Product Management

    Read the article

  • local msmtp and ovh hosting

    - by klez
    I have my personal email hosted on OVH (personal hosting plan) and I'm not able to send mails using msmtp. Here's a typical session ignoring system configuration file /etc/msmtprc: File o directory non esistente loaded user configuration file /home/klez/.msmtprc using account default from /home/klez/.msmtprc host = ssl0.ovh.net port = 465 timeout = off protocol = smtp domain = localhost auth = choose user = federicoculloca%xxxxxxx password = * ntlmdomain = (not set) tls = on tls_starttls = off tls_trust_file = (not set) tls_crl_file = (not set) tls_fingerprint = (not set) tls_key_file = (not set) tls_cert_file = (not set) tls_certcheck = off tls_force_sslv3 = off tls_min_dh_prime_bits = (not set) tls_priorities = (not set) auto_from = off maildomain = (not set) from = federicoculloca@xxxxxxxx dsn_notify = (not set) dsn_return = (not set) keepbcc = off logfile = (not set) syslog = (not set) reading recipients from the command line TLS certificate information: Owner: Common Name: ssl0.ovh.net Organizational unit: Domain Control Validated Issuer: Common Name: OVH Secure Certification Authority Organization: OVH SAS Organizational unit: Low Assurance Country: FR Validity: Activation time: lun 31 gen 2011 01:00:00 CET Expiration time: mer 15 feb 2012 00:59:59 CET Fingerprints: SHA1: F9:DC:41:F9:A2:38:51:9B:56:E4:98:E6:CD:81:31:42:E6:0E:26:6D MD5: FC:EC:F3:8F:28:E4:7E:28:99:89:E6:BB:C9:DF:71:CE <-- 220 ns0.ovh.net ssl0.ovh.net. You connect to mail427.ha.ovh.net ESMTP --> EHLO localhost <-- 250-ssl0.ovh.net. You connect to mail427.ha.ovh.net <-- 250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN <-- 250-AUTH=LOGIN PLAIN <-- 250-PIPELINING <-- 250-8BITMIME <-- 250 SIZE 109000000 --> AUTH PLAIN xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <-- 235 ok, go ahead (#2.0.0) --> MAIL FROM:<federicoculloca@xxxxx> --> RCPT TO:<[email protected]> --> DATA <-- 250 ok <-- 250 ok <-- 354 go ahead --> hello world --> . <-- 554 mail server permanently rejected message (#5.3.0) And my configuration # ~/.msmtp # Mostly from Peter Garrett's examples # https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2007-September/122698.html # Accounts from Scott Robbins' `A Quick Guide to Mutt' # http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/mutt.html account xxxxx host ssl0.ovh.net from federicoculloca@xxxxxx auth on user federicoculloca%xxxxxx password xxxxxx tls on tls_certcheck off tls_starttls off Any idea?

    Read the article

  • Server appears to have lost ability to read PHP files with LAMP

    - by OtagoHarbour
    I have LAMP installed on a PC that is running Ubuntu 11.10. LAMP was running fine but I had to restart the PC because Unity was messing up (as it often does) and the tool bar had disappeared. When it started up, I was unable to fire up any php files. I have a file index.php in /var/www. It is owned by www-data as is the directory that it is in. The LAN address of the server is 192.168.1.10. However when I type 192.168.1.10 into the URL box on Mozilla FireFox, I get Unable to connect Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 192.168.1.10 This server is connected to another server on the LAN that has the LAN address 192.168.1.4. When I type 192.168.1.4 into the Firefow URL box on 192.168.1.10, I see the display associated with index.php on 192.168.1.4. Why can it not display its own /var/www/index.php? Any assistance with this would be greatly appreciated, Peter.

    Read the article

  • Set up multiple websites on a local web server

    - by mickburkejnr
    I have spent the last few days setting up a CentOS 6 server on my local network so that I can host multiple projects that I'm currently working on. Everything has been set up so that I access the server by typing 192.168.1.10 and the Apache test page comes up. What I'm aiming to do is to access different projects by typing in 192.168.1.10/project, and then view the project as if it was on it's own standalone server. I have thought about just sticking these sites inside folders on the server then accessing them that way, but a lot of my projects use CakePHP so this isn't feasible. So what I need to do is create VirtualHosts in Apache to allow me to do this, but without using a domain name. I want to stick to using the IP address of the machine (which is static). Any ideas? EDIT I've followed Peter's suggestion, but now I have a new problem. In the httpd.conf file I have entered the following information: NameVirtualHost *:80 <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin [email protected] DocumentRoot /www/html/project1 ServerName local.project1.com ErrorLog logs/local.project1.com-error_log CustomLog logs/local.project1.com-access_log common </VirtualHost> And now Apache is saying: Starting httpd: Warning: DocumentRoot [/www/html/project1] does not exist When it clearly does exist. I've disabled SELinux and I can confirm this isn't turned on. I've also checked the ownership of the folder, and its owned by root. I can also save files to these folders using a guest FTP account (which isn't associated to root), so the folders are being listed and can be written to. But when I try the folder in a web browser it doesn't seem to work either. I've also done a reboot of the server and the problem persists. What should I change in order to resolve this?

    Read the article

  • Why is two-way binding in silverlight not working?

    - by Edward Tanguay
    According to how Silverlight TwoWay binding works, when I change the data in the FirstName field, it should change the value in CheckFirstName field. Why is this not the case? ANSWER: Thank you Jeff, that was it, for others: here is the full solution with downloadable code. XAML: <StackPanel> <Grid x:Name="GridCustomerDetails"> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> <RowDefinition Height="*"/> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/> <ColumnDefinition Width="300"/> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <TextBlock VerticalAlignment="Center" Margin="10" Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0">First Name:</TextBlock> <TextBox Margin="10" Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding FirstName, Mode=TwoWay}"/> <TextBlock VerticalAlignment="Center" Margin="10" Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0">Last Name:</TextBlock> <TextBox Margin="10" Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding LastName}"/> <TextBlock VerticalAlignment="Center" Margin="10" Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="0">Address:</TextBlock> <TextBox Margin="10" Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding Address}"/> </Grid> <Border Background="Tan" Margin="10"> <TextBlock x:Name="CheckFirstName"/> </Border> </StackPanel> Code behind: public Page() { InitializeComponent(); Customer customer = new Customer(); customer.FirstName = "Jim"; customer.LastName = "Taylor"; customer.Address = "72384 South Northern Blvd."; GridCustomerDetails.DataContext = customer; Customer customerOutput = (Customer)GridCustomerDetails.DataContext; CheckFirstName.Text = customer.FirstName; }

    Read the article

  • Drag and drop game - why isn't it working now I've moved it to another domain?

    - by vward
    Earlier this year I did some work on a drag and drop game. It was the first thing I'd coded other than basic html. I got it working but then had to put it to one side for a while. I've now come back to work on it. The game I had created was put on the ftp of a domain I no longer have. I took the html and image files and put them on another domain expecting them to work. However now nothing drags! I don't know what could be different. I can barely remember how I coded this in the first place. Is there an additional file that should be on the ftp or something like that? Can anyone shed any light? Thanks Vic Game: http://www.vic-taylor.com/dolls/doll6.html Code: <!doctype html> <html lang="en"> <head> <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery.min.js"></script> <script src="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.8.17/jquery-ui.min.js"></script> <script> $(function() { $( "#draggable" ).draggable() }); </script> <script> $(function() { $( "#draggable2" ).draggable(); }); </script> <script> $(function() { $( "#draggable3" ).draggable(); }); </script> <script> $(function() { $( "#draggable4" ).draggable(); }); </script> <script> $(function() { $( "#draggable5" ).draggable(); }); </script> </head> </body> <div id="bodies/palepd.gif"> <img src="bodies/palepd.gif" class="ui-widget-content" id="draggable"> <img src="bodies/trousers.gif" class="ui-widget-content" id="draggable2"> <img src="bodies/top.gif" class="ui-widget-content" id="draggable3"> <img src="bodies/dress.gif" class="ui-widget-content" id="draggable4"> <img src="bodies/coat.gif" class="ui-widget-content" id="draggable5"> </div> </body>

    Read the article

  • HTG Explains: Should You Buy Extended Warranties?

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Buy something at an electronics store and you’ll be confronted by a pushy salesperson who insists you need an extended warranty. You’ll also see extended warranties pushed hard when shopping online. But are they worth it? There’s a reason stores push extended warranties so hard. They’re almost always pure profit for the store involved. An electronics store may live on razor-thin product margins and make big profits on extended warranties and overpriced HDMI cables. You’re Already Getting Multiple Warranties First, back up. The product you’re buying already includes a warranty. In fact, you’re probably getting several different types of warranties. Store Return and Exchange: Most electronics stores allow you to return a malfunctioning product within the first 15 or 30 days and they’ll provide you with a new one. The exact period of time will vary from store to store. If you walk out of the store with a defective product and have to swap it for a new one within the first few weeks, this should be easy. Manufacturer Warranty: A device’s manufacturer — whether the device is a laptop, a television, or a graphics card — offers their own warranty period. The manufacturer warranty covers you after the store refuses to take the product back and exchange it. The length of this warranty depends on the type of product. For example, a cheap laptop may only offer a one-year manufacturer warranty, while a more expensive laptop may offer a two-year warranty. Credit Card Warranty Extension: Many credit cards offer free extended warranties on products you buy with that credit card. Credit card companies will often give you an additional year of warranty. For example, if you buy a laptop with a two year warranty and it fails in the third year, you could then contact your credit card company and they’d cover the cost of fixing or replacing it. Check your credit card’s benefits and fine print for more information. Why Extended Warranties Are Bad You’re already getting a fairly long warranty period, especially if you have a credit card that offers you a free extended warranty — these are fairly common. If the product you get is a “lemon” and has a manufacturing error, it will likely fail pretty soon — well within your warranty period. The extended warranty matters after all your other warranties are exhausted. In the case of a laptop with a two-year warranty that you purchase with a credit card giving you a one-year warranty extension, your extended warranty will kick in three years after you purchase the laptop. In that many years, your current laptop will likely feel pretty old and laptops that are as good — or better — will likely be pretty cheap. If it’s a television, better television displays will be available at a lower price point. You’ll either want to upgrade to a newer model or you’ll be able to buy a new, just-as-good product for very cheap. You’ll only have to pay out-of-pocket if your device fails after the normal warranty period — in over two or three years for typical laptops purchased with a decent credit card. Save the money you would have spent on the warranty and put it towards a future upgrade. How Much Do Extended Warranties Cost? Let’s look at an example from a typical pushy retail outlet, Best Buy. We went to Best Buy’s website and found a pretty standard $600 Samsung laptop. This laptop comes with a one-year warranty period. If purchased with a fairly common credit card, you can easily get a two-year warranty period on this laptop without spending an additional penny. (Yes, such credit cards are available with no yearly fees.) During the check-out process, Best Buy tries to sell you a Geek Squad “Accidental Protection Plan.” To get an additional year of Best Buy’s extended warranty, you’d have to pay $324.98 for a “3-Year Accidental Protection Plan”. You’d basically be paying more than half the price of your laptop for an additional year of warranty — remember, the standard warranties would cover you anyway for the first two years. If this laptop did break sometime between two and three years from now, we wouldn’t be surprised if you could purchase a comparable laptop for about $325 anyway. And, if you don’t need to replace it, you’ve saved that money. Best Buy would object that this isn’t a standard extended warranty. It’s a supercharged warranty plan that will also provide coverage if you spill something on your laptop or drop it and break it. You just have to ask yourself a question. What are the odds that you’ll drop your laptop or spill something on it? They’re probably pretty low if you’re a typical human being. Is it worth spending more than half the price of the laptop just in case you’ll make an uncommon mistake? Probably not. There may be occasional exceptions to this — some Apple users swear by Apple’s AppleCare, for example — but you should generally avoid buying these things. There’s a reason stores are so pushy about extended warranties, and it’s not because they want to help protect you. It’s because they’re making lots of profit from these plans, and they’re making so much profit because they’re not a good deal for customers. Image Credit: Philip Taylor on Flickr     

    Read the article

  • how to do asynchronous http requests with epoll and python 3.1

    - by flow
    there is an interesting page http://scotdoyle.com/python-epoll-howto.html about how to do asnchronous / non-blocking / AIO http serving in python 3. there is the tornado web server which does include a non-blocking http client. i have managed to port parts of the server to python 3.1, but the implementation of the client requires pyCurl and seems to have problems (with one participant stating how ‘Libcurl is such a pain in the neck’, and looking at the incredibly ugly pyCurl page i doubt pyCurl will arrive in py3+ any time soon). now that epoll is available in the standard library, it should be possible to do asynchronous http requests out of the box with python. i really do not want to use asyncore or whatnot; epoll has a reputation for being the ideal tool for the task, and it is part of the python distribution, so using anything but epoll for non-blocking http is highly counterintuitive (prove me wrong if you feel like it). oh, and i feel threading is horrible. no threading. i use stackless. people further interested in the topic of asynchronous http should not miss out on this talk by peter portante at PyCon2010; also of interest is the keynote, where speaker antonio rodriguez at one point emphasizes the importance of having up-to-date web technology libraries right in the standard library.

    Read the article

  • Spring-json problem in Liferay with Spring 2.5

    - by Jesus Benito
    Hi all, I am trying to use the library spring-json.1.3.1 in a project that has been done with Liferay 5.1.2 which includes Spring 2.5. Following the project website instructions, I managed to make the request hit in my controller, but at the moment of returning the json object back through the modelAndView object it fails with the following error: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException at com.liferay.portlet.MimeResponseImpl.setContentType(MimeResponseImpl.java:162) I have checked Liferays source code, and it checks that contentType that its being set is in a harcoded list,if it not it will throw a IllegalArgumentException that it is exactly what os happening. This is my view resolver code: <bean id="xmlFileViewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.XmlViewResolver"> /WEB-INF/context/views.xml 1 My views.xml code: <beans> <bean name="jsonView" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.json.JsonView"/> And my controller: @SuppressWarnings("unchecked") @Override public ModelAndView handleRenderRequest(RenderRequest arg0, RenderResponse arg1) throws Exception { Map model = new HashMap(); model.put("firstname", "Peter"); model.put("secondname", "Schmitt"); return new ModelAndView("jsonView", model); } Any ideas?

    Read the article

  • Filtering documents against a dictionary key in MongoDB

    - by Thomas
    I have a collection of articles in MongoDB that has the following structure: { 'category': 'Legislature', 'updated': datetime.datetime(2010, 3, 19, 15, 32, 22, 107000), 'byline': None, 'tags': { 'party': ['Peter Hoekstra', 'Virg Bernero', 'Alma Smith', 'Mike Bouchard', 'Tom George', 'Rick Snyder'], 'geography': ['Michigan', 'United States', 'North America'] }, 'headline': '2 Mich. gubernatorial candidates speak to students', 'text': [ 'BEVERLY HILLS, Mich. (AP) \u2014 Two Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates found common ground while speaking to private school students in suburban Detroit', "Democratic House Speaker state Rep. Andy Dillon and Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra said Friday a more business-friendly government can help reduce Michigan's nation-leading unemployment rate.", "The candidates were invited to Detroit Country Day Upper School in Beverly Hills to offer ideas for Michigan's future.", 'Besides Dillon, the Democratic field includes Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith. Other Republicans running are Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, Attorney General Mike Cox, state Sen. Tom George and Ann Arbor business leader Rick Snyder.', 'Former Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz is considering running as an independent.' ], 'dateline': 'BEVERLY HILLS, Mich.', 'published': datetime.datetime(2010, 3, 19, 8, 0, 31), 'keywords': "Governor's Race", '_id': ObjectId('4ba39721e0e16cb25fadbb40'), 'article_id': 'urn:publicid:ap.org:0611e36fb084458aa620c0187999db7e', 'slug': "BC-MI--Governor's Race,2nd Ld-Writethr" } If I wanted to write a query that looked for all articles that had at least 1 geography tag, how would I do that? I have tried writing db.articles.find( {'tags': 'geography'} ), but that doesn't appear to work. I've also thought about changing the search parameter to 'tags.geography', but am having a devil of a time figuring out what the search predicate would be.

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77  | Next Page >