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  • Oracle releases ADF Mobile with Java ME CDC for iOS and Android

    - by hinkmond
    Finally. Oracle has released a new product that I've worked on for a while now. Oracle ADF Mobile is available for iOS and Android bringing Java ME CDC technology to iPhones and Android devices all over the world. Woot! Java. On iPhone and Android. Yeah, it's like that. See: Java and HTML5 on SmartPhones Here's a quote: Oracle announced the availability of Oracle ADF Mobile – a framework the enables the development of hybrid applications for mobile devices. Oracle ADF Mobile uses Java and HTML5 and enables developers to develop a single application that installs and runs on both iOS and Android systems. Java - Application logic is developed with the Java language. Oracle brings a lightweight Java VM embedded with each application so you can develop all your business logic in the platform neutral language you know and love! (Yes, even iOS!) Gosh, you'd think it was a big deal. Well, it was! So, go download yours today! Hinkmond

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  • Open World Day 2

    - by Antony Reynolds
    A Day in the Life of an Oracle OpenWorld Attendee Part III My second full day started with me waking up and realising that I was supposed to meet my friend Tejas Joshi (co-author of the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud Handbook) at the station in 20 minutes!  Needless to say I didn’t make it, but then I felt better later when I found out he had caught the wrong shuttle bus and ended up at the airport instead of the BART! The morning was spent in the Authors Seminar arranged to give authors a whirlwind tour of Oracle Product updates and strategy plans.  It was useful to see what was happening in areas I knew little or nothing about.  In the afternoon I wandered around Java One, a very different show to OpenWorld with much more bleeding edge stuff and just plain blue sky thinking.  Of course who couldn’t love a show with a full size Duke wondering around and available for photographs. Attended a presentation on a highly available Weblogic JMS environment wich did a great job of laying out to architect a highly available solution. Dinner with customers and then collapsed exhausted into bed!

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  • Looking for suggestions: becoming a hireable, young programmer [closed]

    - by Dan
    I am a 17 year old Java programmer that has filled the last year with learning all of the ins and outs of Java - Using Eclipse, and the help of a friend of the family (a Java programming architect for some company), I have learned everything from serializing objects, basic networking, generics, reflection, multi-threading, code optimization and efficiency & some concurrency safety - built my own proxy class, and nowadays, I answer questions on Project Euler. I am seeking some suggestions though on where I go next, or where I go from here to get a job in programming. I dedicate at least an hour every day to coding, sometimes literally, the entire day, and I really have come to love the process. I just started reading Effective Java (v2), and learning Scala (as I see often, possibly the Java replacement) I will be going to college for Computer Science next year - and taking AP computer science this year (however, I took a practice exam and got an 87, only need a 60to70 to pass, so no need to study for it too much) -- I was wondering if getting the SE 7 OCA and OCP would help me in trying to get a programming job. I looked around and most people have said online that an OCA/OCP are practically useless, but, at my age do they make me any more credible? More or less, what would you recommend to get a job in programming these days - or distinguish yourself from the crowd? I have enough time and dedication to learn another language, or anything really. Thank you very much.

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  • HTG Explains: The Best and Worst Ways to Send a Resume

    - by Eric Z Goodnight
    With so many people looking for jobs, the slightest edge in your resume presentation has potential to make or break your chances. But not all filetypes or methods are created equal—read on to see the potential pitfalls your resume faces. In this article, we’ll explore what can go wrong in a resume submission, what can be done to counteract it, and also go into why a prospective employer might ignore your resume based on your method of sending a resume. Finally, we’ll cover the best filetypes and methods that can help get you that new job you’ve been looking for. What Sets Your Resume Apart? Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines The Citroen GT – An Awesome Video Game Car Brought to Life [Video] Four Awesome TRON Legacy Themes for Chrome and Iron Anger is Illogical – Old School Style Instructional Video [Star Trek Mashup] Get the Old Microsoft Paint UI Back in Windows 7 Relax and Sleep Is a Soothing Sleep Timer Google Rolls Out Two-Factor Authentication

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  • OpenWorld Suggest-a-Session Voting on Oracle Mix now OPEN!

    - by keith.laker
    Last year the Oracle OpenWorld team decided to use Oracle Mix as a way to select some of the papers for OpenWorld and this year we are following the same process. The majority of papers for this year's conference have already been selected, however, there are some presentation slots still available so the OpenWorld team are giving you the chance to vote on which papers you want to see at this year's OpenWorld conference.The voting process has just opened and will close on June 20. I did a quick search on the list of sessions one paper really caught my eye: Case Study: Real-Time data warehousing and fraud detection with Oracle 11gR2 by Dr. Holger Friedrich. As a data warehouse product manager I would love to see this paper selected. I have attended a number of presentations over the years given by Holger and he is an excellent, knowledgeable and entertaining presenter. The subject area is, for me, very interesting as it covers topics that I know are important to our customers and this case study highlights the innovative use of key database features. I would strongly encourage everyone to please vote for this paper. You can vote for Holger's presentation by going here:https://mix.oracle.com/oow10/proposals/10566-case-study-real-time-data-warehousing-and-fraud-detection-with-oracle-11gr2There are some rules relating to the voting process and these are all explained here: https://mix.oracle.com/oow10/faqA Quick Overview of the voting rules?1) You have to a member of the Oracle Mix communityBut membership is free! To sign up for a Mix account and you are one your way. You can sign-up by clicking on the "Create an Account" link in the top right corner of the Oracle Mix home page: https://mix.oracle.com/2) You have to vote for 3 different papersBased on last year’s voting pattern, the Mix team found that a number of participants were only voting for their own sessions. This year voters are required to vote on at least three sessions. How do I find the list of presentations? The full list of all available presentations is here: https://mix.oracle.com/oow10/proposalsGood luck and happy voting. Look forward to seeing you all at OpenWorld.

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  • Google Image Search Quick Fix

    - by Asian Angel
    Are you tired of unneeded webpage loading and extra link clicking just to access an image found using Google Image Search? Now you can jump directly to the image itself with the clickGOOGLEview extension for Google Chrome. The Problem When you find an image that you like using Google Image Search you always have to go through extra hassle just to get to the image itself. First you have an entire webpage loading in your browser and then you have to click through that irritating “See full size image” link. All that you need is the image, right? Problem Fixed Once you have installed the clickGOOGLEview extension you will absolutely love the result. Find an image that you like, click the link, and there is your new image without any of the hassle or extra link clicking. Big or small having direct access to the image is how it should have been from the beginning. Conclusion The clickGOOGLEview extension does one thing and does it extremely well…it gets you to those images without the extra hassle or additional link clicking. Links Download the clickGOOGLEview extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make Firefox Quick Search Use Google’s Beta Search KeysChange Internet Explorer in Windows Vista to Search Google by DefaultMake Firefox Built-In Search Box Use Google’s Experimental Search KeysQuick Tip: Show PageRank in Firefox while Google Toolbar is HiddenQuick Tip: Use Google Talk Sidebar in Firefox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Kill Processes Quickly with Process Assassin Need to Come Up with a Good Name? Try Wordoid StockFox puts a Lightweight Stock Ticker in your Statusbar Explore Google Public Data Visually The Ultimate Excel Cheatsheet Convert the Quick Launch Bar into a Super Application Launcher

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  • ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 10-19-2012

    - by Bob Rhubart
    One Week to Go: OTN Architect Day Los Angeles - Oct 25 Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Los Angeles happens in one week. Register now to make sure you don't miss out on a rich schedule of expert technical sessions and peer interaction covering the use of Oracle technologies in cloud computing, SOA, and more. Even better: it's all free. Register now! When: October 25, 2012, 8:30am - 5:00pm. Where: Sofitel Los Angeles, 8555 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048. Moving your APEX app to the Oracle Cloud | Dimitri Gielis Oracle ACE Director (and OSN Developer Challenge co-winner) Dimitri Gielis shares the steps in the process as he moves his "DGTournament" application, along with all of its data, onto the Oracle Cloud. A brief note for customers running SOA Suite on AIX platforms | A-Team - SOA "When running Oracle SOA Suite with IBM JVMs on the AIX platform, we have seen performance slowdowns and/or memory leaks," says Christian, an architect on the Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team. "On occasion, we have even encountered some OutOfMemoryError conditions and the concomittant Java coredump. If you are experiencing this issue, the resolution may be to configure -Dsun.reflect.inflationThreshold=0 in your JVM startup parameters." Introducing the New Face of Fusion Applications | Misha Vaughan Oracle ACE Directors Debra Lilly and Floyd Teter have already blogged about the the new face of Oracle Fusion Applications. Now Applications User Experience Architect Misha Vaughan shares a brief overview of how the Oracle Applications User Experience (UX) team developed the new look. ADF Essentials Security Implementation for Glassfish Deployment | Andrejus Baranovskis According to Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis, Oracle ADF Essentials includes all the key ADF technologies, save one: ADF Security. In this post he illustrates a solution for filling that gap. Thought for the Day "Why are video games so much better designed than office software? Because people who design video games love to play video games. People who design office software look forward to doing something else on the weekend." — Ted Nelson Source: softwarequotes.com

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  • Where do I start in regards to making a Gnome/Unity Form Application

    - by JMK
    Ok so I am familiar with developing Form and Console applications on Windows using Visual Studio .Net with C#, but where do I start when it comes to Linux distro's like Ubuntu, is there an equivalent? How would one go about matching what they can do in a Windows environment with .Net and C# in a Linux environment without .Net coding in something like Java or C/C++? I am aware of Eclipse, does eclipse have a form designer or do you have to code the design of any Gnome/Unity forms manually? Can I use eclipse to write the Linux equivalent of a console application, that you just double click on to run? I also know about Mono, but the idea is that I want to learn how to develop software without using anything in the Microsoft stack and am not sure where to start. What is the standard language/framework used to develop these types of applications on Linux? As I become more proficient with Visual Studio, C# and .Net, it has struck me that without these Microsoft tools, I am nothing. I am only capable of developing for the Microsoft OS and this scares me. This isn't some anti Microsoft thing, Microsoft makes some incredible Software/Hardware/Operating Systems/IDE's, but it is generally a bad idea to put all of your eggs in one basket so if I want to learn how to develop Terminal and Gnome/Unity form applications where in the world do I start? I have used Linux on and off for years, but Windows has been my primary OS. However I have watched Linux get better and better and as much as I love Windows 7, I am dubious about Windows 8 (I for one will sorely miss my start menu)! Obviously MS aren't going anywhere anytime soon and I could spend the the next couple of decades developing for .Net without any issues but just because you can get away with something doesn't always mean it's a good idea. Thanks

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  • Antenna Aligner Part 8: It's Alive!!!

    - by Chris George
    Finally the day has come, Antenna Aligner v1.0.1 has been uploaded to the AppStore and . "Waiting for review" .. . fast forward 7 days and much checking of emails later WOO HOO! Now what? So I set my facebook page to go live  https://www.facebook.com/AntennaAligner, and started by sending messages to my mates that have iphones! Amazingly a few of them bought it! Similarly some of my colleagues were also kind enough to support me and downloaded it too! Unfortunately the only way I knew they had bought is was from them telling me, as the iTunes connect data is only updated daily at about midday GMT. This is a shame, surely they could provide more granular updates throughout the day? Although I suppose once an app has been out in the wild for a while, daily updates are enough. It would, however, be nice to get a ping when you make your first sale! I would have expected more feedback on my facebook page as well, maybe I'm just expecting too much, or perhaps I've configured the page wrong. The new facebook timeline layout is just confusing, and I'm not sure it's all public, I'll check that! So please take a look and see what you think! I would love to get some more feedback/reviews/suggestions... Oh and watch out for the Android version coming soon!

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  • Updating large icon in iTunes Connect

    - by Shaggy Frog
    Just wanted to see if I understand properly how/when one can change the "Large icon" for their iOS app in iTunes Connect. Questions are in bold below. To start, first the facts (as I gather) from version 6.6 of the iTC guide (March 2, 2011): The Large Icon is a "locked" piece of version information "You will only be permitted to edit Locked version information when your app is in an Editable state" The "Editable" states are: Prepare For Upload Waiting For Upload Waiting For Review Waiting For Export Compliance Upload Received Rejected Developer Rejected Invalid Binary Missing Screenshot Am I missing anything up until this point? If not, then am I correct to say that the only time I can change an app's Large Icon is when I update the application? Here's a more specific use case: My app is currently on sale, version 2.0 I have version 2.1 ready, and I want the update to coincide with a sale, so I also put a "SALE" banner on top of my large icon (what most devs are doing) I have to upload this "SALE" Large Icon when I upload the binary. If I wait until it's been reviewed, it's too late, and I'll have developer-reject the binary so I can fix it. Is this correct? Say I want the sale to last a week. So at the end of that week, I'll want to switch my Large Icon back to the pre-"SALE" version. Will I necessarily have to upload a new binary at that time? (Also posted on the Developer Forums, but it's getting no love there...)

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  • Going on 15 months for me...

    - by Ratman21
    About 5 face to face interviews, 4 telephone ones and except for the two weeks Census Job. But, after 15 months looking for work, I am still with out a JOB. What is wrong here or with me? Let’s see, hard worker (check), self motivated to do well on a Job (Check), Certified CompTIA A+, Security+  and Network+ Technician (Check), 20 + years experience in “IT” (CHECK), in good health, in 20 years of work only 15 days off due to health issues (Check), 18 years experience as technical Help Desk support (Check), can still work better than younger personal (Check), Strong trouble shooting skills for software, computer hard ware and circuit issues (Check) and Multiple software languages (Hey I have done some programming) Check. Hmm I don’t see any problem with me (of course I could have missed something, please let me know if you see what I am missing).    Now as to what have I been up to since I last blogged. The same things of course, Job hunting, job hunting and study.   I have set up sim of my home LAN and will be adding a wireless print server to the sim and in real life, soon.  I was able to pull up and copy the examples of Cisco router commands that I had on my old lap top, to my newer PC. Every time I used a new command while working the NOC on my last job.   I would cut and past a copy of the command on the router (and what it did) I was working on.  Along with notes on the problem and commands use for same router. I used these to make documentation for on how to handle these types of issues, for the other Operation Techs. My old notes are helping me in studying for the CCENT test.    As to Love Dare, I think it will take more like 40 weeks, than the 40 days of the book. Yes I am making progress, slow but, it is progress. I will have more on that in my next blog.

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  • Designing Content-Based ETL Process with .NET and SFDC

    - by Patrick
    As my firm makes the transition to using SFDC as our main operational system, we've spun together a couple of SFDC portals where we can post customer-specific documents to be viewed at will. As such, we've had the need for pseudo-ETL applications to be implemented that are able to extract metadata from the documents our analysts generate internally (most are industry-standard PDFs, XML, or MS Office formats) and place in networked "queue" folders. From there, our applications scoop of the queued documents and upload them to the appropriate SFDC CRM Content Library along with some select pieces of metadata. I've mostly used DbAmp to broker communication with SFDC (DbAmp is a Linked Server provider that allows you to use SQL conventions to interact with your SFDC Org data). I've been able to create [console] applications in C# that work pretty well, and they're usually structured something like this: static void Main() { // Load parameters from app.config. // Get documents from queue. var files = someInterface.GetFiles(someFilterOrRegexPattern); foreach (var file in files) { // Extract metadata from the file. // Validate some attributes of the file; add any validation errors to an in-memory // structure (e.g. List<ValidationErrors>). if (isValid) { // Upload using some wrapper for an ORM an someInterface.Upload(meta.Param1, meta.Param2, ...); } else { // Bounce the file } } // Report any validation errors (via message bus or SMTP or some such). } And that's pretty much it. Most of the time I wrap all these operations in a "Worker" class that takes the needed interfaces as constructor parameters. This approach has worked reasonably well, but I just get this feeling in my gut that there's something awful about it and would love some feedback. Is writing an ETL process as a C# Console app a bad idea? I'm also wondering if there are some design patterns that would be useful in this scenario that I'm clearly overlooking. Thanks in advance!

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  • Windows 7+ desktop apps - what's the best UI toolkit for a new project?

    - by Chris Adams
    I'm trying to make a decision for a new Windows desktop app: what to use for the UI. (This is a desktop app that needs to have compatibility with Windows 7. It won't be distributed on the Windows Store.) This application is going to be cross-platform. I intend on writing the core in C++, and using each platform's native UI toolkit. I feel this is preferable to using a cross-platform toolkit like Qt, as it allows me to keep the native look and feel of each platform. On the Windows side, the UI situation isn't exactly clear. I'm getting the feeling that Microsoft is slowly abandoning .NET, particularly as their preferred toolkit for desktop apps. Indeed, the Getting Started chapter for Windows 7, as well as the rest of Microsoft's documentation, seems to be more suited for C++. I have a few options here: C# with WPF - This sesms like this might be the best Microsoft has to offer for Windows 7 desktop apps, even if it isn't their "preferred" toolkit. I'd need to use P/Invoke to call my C++ code. C++ with Direct2D - This is what Microsoft used in one of their examples. This feels like it's too low-level. Part of the appeal of a higher-level UI toolkit is the consistency with the native look and feel of the platform, so doing this would just feel strange. C++ with a third-party UI toolkit, like Qt There might be some other options I'm missing, which I'd love to hear about. So, if you were starting a new Windows 7+ desktop app today, what would you use?

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  • Desktop Fun: Star Trek Wallpapers

    - by Asian Angel
    If you are a Star Trek fan then doubtless you have a favorite series and starship(s) that you love. Get ready to enjoy viewing the fleet of ships that we have gathered together for you in our Star Trek Wallpaper collection. Note: Click on the picture to see the full-size image—these wallpapers vary in size so you may need to crop, stretch, or place them on a colored background in order to best match them to your screen’s resolution. Note: This particular wallpaper can be trimmed up height-wise to fit your monitor’s size very nicely. For more fun wallpapers be certain to visit our new Desktop Fun section. Looking for some great icons to go with your new Star Trek wallpaper? Then be certain to check out our Sci-Fi Icon Packs collection here. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Desktop Customization: Sci-Fi Icon PacksWindows 7 Welcome Screen Taking Forever? Here’s the Fix (Maybe)Desktop Fun: Starship Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Underwater Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Starscape Theme Wallpapers TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff

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  • Ch-ch-ch-changes...

    - by Lou Vega
    The last few months have been pretty crazy. Just before the MVP summit in February I was approached about changing to a different project with my (then current) employer, and right after the summit I was approached by another company. Eventually I went with the new company and a new role in the Information Assurance field. More to come on that as things progress. All that being said I've not been as active in the .NET community as I once was and I miss it - so I'm looking to dive back in especially as Windows Phone 7 draws nearer and nearer. Speaking of the community - many of you may not recognize me if you see me now :) I had told my son for the last couple years that I would cut my hair before he turned 5 (he always asked how come he didn't have long hair) and he turns 5 (time has flown!) on June 19th so May 30th I cut my long hair down pretty short and donated the hair to Locks of Love. As Chris said to me on Twitter, "pics or it didn't happen" - well fortunately my wife was there to document the whole thing so I'll get a picture or two posted here soon.

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  • I am afraid that my University is not going to teach me enough information [closed]

    - by Muhklayne
    I attend a University and am a Computer Science major. I have barely entered into the major, as I am a sophomore. However, the coursework I am doing is extremely easy already and I feel as though this degree is going to lead me to a path of knowledge without knowing how to bring it all together. Therefore, I am coming to you to ask where I should begin learning on my own! I am willing to dedicate hours upon hours of learning to code outside of class, as it is truly my passion. I will begin by completing all work on http://www.codecademy.com, however I feel this will not be enough either. I would love to learn to integrate visual languages for video games such as NXA and C# combining it with C++ (as I understand video games can be created in this manner). I would also like to look into LUA and Python scripting. I am asking for advice as to where I should begin my personal studies of learning to program, as with my research it has become quite apparent that simply attaining a degree in Computer Science is quite frankly not enough. Thank you for your time!

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  • How can I get run Ubuntu Desktop on my Galaxy Nexus?

    - by Jack Senechal
    On the Ubuntu for phones site it advertises the desktop view feature: "The phone becomes a full PC and thin client when docked.". And there's the demo by Canonical of something similar running under Ubuntu for Android. I realize they're different systems, but the end effect is in both is to have a full Ubuntu system running on the phone. I've installed Ubuntu Touch Preview on my Galaxy Nexus (toro), and it's working as expected (no cellular signal, but wifi works, etc). But when I plug in a monitor via HDMI it just mirrors the phone's touch display. There's also currently no bluetooth support for attaching keyboard and mouse. Keyboard only kind of works via USB, and mouse not at all. I've also tried running Ubuntu under Android via VNC, but the lack of responsiveness of VNC makes it impractical for daily use. I'd consider that route again if there is some way to make the UI more responsive. So the question is, how can set up my phone to run Ubuntu Desktop in a way that's useable as a laptop replacement? Is there a way to enable Desktop View on Ubuntu Touch? Or can I run Ubuntu for Android as in the previously referenced demo? Plugging into a monitor would be OK, but I'd love to be able to use the desktop interface with mouse and keyboard through the phone's screen as well. Touch input and an onscreen keyboard would be a plus but is definitely not necessary.

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  • Can anyone recommend an AI sandbox?

    - by user19433
    I'm passionate person, who has been around AI from a long time [1] but never going in deep enough. Now it's time! I've been really looking for some way to concentrate on AI coding but couldn't succeeded to find an AI environment I can focus on. I just want to use an AI sandbox environment which would let me have tools like: visibility information character controller able to easily define a level, with obstacles of course physics collider management triggers management don't need to be a shiny, eye candy graphical render : this is about pathfinding, tactical reasoning, etc.. I have tried : Unreal Dev Kit : while the new release announce is about C++ coding, this is about external tools and will be released in 2013 Cry Engine : really interesting as AI is presents here but coding with it appears to be an hell: did I got it wrong ? Half Life source, C4, Torque, Dx Studio : either quite old, not very useful or costly these imply to dig in documentation (when provided) to code everything, graphics included. Unity 3D : the most promising platform. While you also need to create your own environment, there are lot of examples. The disadvantage is, in addition to spend time to have this env. working, is the languages choice : C#, Javascript or Boo. C# is not that hard, but this implies you'll allways have to convert papers (I love those from Lars Linden) books codes, or anything you can have in Aigamedev are most often in C++. This is extra work. I've look at "Simple Path", the very good Arong Greenberg work but no source provided and AngryAnt work. AI Sandbox : this seems to be exactly what as AI coder I want to use. I saw some preview but from 2009 we still don't know what it will be about precisely, will it be opensource or free (I strongly doubt), will I be able to buy it? will it really provide me tools I need to focus on AI ? That being said, what is the best environment to be able to focus on AI coding only, is it even possible?

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  • What's the best way to generate an NPC's face using web technologies?

    - by Vael Victus
    I'm in the process of creating a web app. I have many randomly-generated non-player characters in a database. I can pull a lot of information about them - their height, weight, down to eye color, hair color, and hair style. For this, I am solely interested in generating a graphical representation of the face. Currently the information is displayed with text in the nicest way possible, but I believe it's worth generating these faces for a more... human experience. Problem is, I'm not artist. I wouldn't mind commissioning an artist for this system, but I wouldn't know where to start. Were it 2007, I'd naturally think to myself that using Flash would be the best choice. I'd love to see "breathing" simulated. However, since Flash is on its way out, I'm not sure of a solid solution. With a previous game, I simply used layered .pngs to represent various aspects of the player's body: their armor, the face, the skin color. However, these solutions weren't very dynamic and felt very amateur. I can't go deep into this project feeling like that's an inferior way to present these faces, and I'm certain there's a better way. Can anyone give some suggestion on how to pull this off well?

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  • Personalized Pricing

    - by David Dorf
    In past postings I've spent a fair amount of time talking about targeted promotions.  Using a complete view of the customer that includes purchase history, location history, and psychographics gleaned from social media, we can select the offer with the greatest chance of redemption.  This is done to influence shopping behavior, which might be introducing the consumer to a new product line, increasing their basket size, increasing frequency of purchases, etc. Safeway seems to be taking a slightly different approach with their personalized pricing.  In additional to offering electronic coupons and club card offers, they are also providing a personalized price for certain items based on purchase history.  So when Sally want to shop at Safeway, she first checks the "Just for U" website for three types of deals.  She starts by selecting manufacturer coupons to load into her loyalty card, then she checks the Club Card for offers like "buy one get one free." The third step is the interesting one.  Safeway will set a particular lower price for Sally good for 90 days on items she buys often.  Clearly this isn't enforcing a new behavior but rather instilling loyalty.  I would love to know exactly how they are determining the personalized price.  Of course bargain hunters can still stack the three offers so they can, for example, get their $4.99 Oatmeal for $0.72. I like this particular question and answer from their website's FAQ: My offers are not that great. Can I tell you what offers I need? That's a good idea. That functionality is not currently available, but we appreciate your input and are constantly improving our just for U program. Stay tuned for exciting enhancements! I suppose if Safeway is tracking all the purchases, they can easily determine whether the customer if profitable.  As long as the customer stays profitable, why not let them determine a few offers themselves?  Food for thought.

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  • Software development is (mostly) a trade, and what to do about it

    - by Jeff
    (This is another cross-post from my personal blog. I don’t even remember when I first started to write it, but I feel like my opinion is well enough baked to share.) I've been sitting on this for a long time, particularly as my opinion has changed dramatically over the last few years. That I've encountered more crappy code than maintainable, quality code in my career as a software developer only reinforces what I'm about to say. Software development is just a trade for most, and not a huge academic endeavor. For those of you with computer science degrees readying your pitchforks and collecting your algorithm interview questions, let me explain. This is not an assault on your way of life, and if you've been around, you know I'm right about the quality problem. You also know the HR problem is very real, or we wouldn't be paying top dollar for mediocre developers and importing people from all over the world to fill the jobs we can't fill. I'm going to try and outline what I see as some of the problems, and hopefully offer my views on how to address them. The recruiting problem I think a lot of companies are doing it wrong. Over the years, I've had two kinds of interview experiences. The first, and right, kind of experience involves talking about real life achievements, followed by some variation on white boarding in pseudo-code, drafting some basic system architecture, or even sitting down at a comprooder and pecking out some basic code to tackle a real problem. I can honestly say that I've had a job offer for every interview like this, save for one, because the task was to debug something and they didn't like me asking where to look ("everyone else in the company died in a plane crash"). The other interview experience, the wrong one, involves the classic torture test designed to make the candidate feel stupid and do things they never have, and never will do in their job. First they will question you about obscure academic material you've never seen, or don't care to remember. Then they'll ask you to white board some ridiculous algorithm involving prime numbers or some kind of string manipulation no one would ever do. In fact, if you had to do something like this, you'd Google for a solution instead of waste time on a solved problem. Some will tell you that the academic gauntlet interview is useful to see how people respond to pressure, how they engage in complex logic, etc. That might be true, unless of course you have someone who brushed up on the solutions to the silly puzzles, and they're playing you. But here's the real reason why the second experience is wrong: You're evaluating for things that aren't the job. These might have been useful tactics when you had to hire people to write machine language or C++, but in a world dominated by managed code in C#, or Java, people aren't managing memory or trying to be smarter than the compilers. They're using well known design patterns and techniques to deliver software. More to the point, these puzzle gauntlets don't evaluate things that really matter. They don't get into code design, issues of loose coupling and testability, knowledge of the basics around HTTP, or anything else that relates to building supportable and maintainable software. The first situation, involving real life problems, gives you an immediate idea of how the candidate will work out. One of my favorite experiences as an interviewee was with a guy who literally brought his work from that day and asked me how to deal with his problem. I had to demonstrate how I would design a class, make sure the unit testing coverage was solid, etc. I worked at that company for two years. So stop looking for algorithm puzzle crunchers, because a guy who can crush a Fibonacci sequence might also be a guy who writes a class with 5,000 lines of untestable code. Fashion your interview process on ways to reveal a developer who can write supportable and maintainable code. I would even go so far as to let them use the Google. If they want to cut-and-paste code, pass on them, but if they're looking for context or straight class references, hire them, because they're going to be life-long learners. The contractor problem I doubt anyone has ever worked in a place where contractors weren't used. The use of contractors seems like an obvious way to control costs. You can hire someone for just as long as you need them and then let them go. You can even give them the work that no one else wants to do. In practice, most places I've worked have retained and budgeted for the contractor year-round, meaning that the $90+ per hour they're paying (of which half goes to the person) would have been better spent on a full-time person with a $100k salary and benefits. But it's not even the cost that is an issue. It's the quality of work delivered. The accountability of a contractor is totally transient. They only need to deliver for as long as you keep them around, and chances are they'll never again touch the code. There's no incentive for them to get things right, there's little incentive to understand your system or learn anything. At the risk of making an unfair generalization, craftsmanship doesn't matter to most contractors. The education problem I don't know what they teach in college CS courses. I've believed for most of my adult life that a college degree was an essential part of being successful. Of course I would hold that bias, since I did it, and have the paper to show for it in a box somewhere in the basement. My first clue that maybe this wasn't a fully qualified opinion comes from the fact that I double-majored in journalism and radio/TV, not computer science. Eventually I worked with people who skipped college entirely, many of them at Microsoft. Then I worked with people who had a masters degree who sucked at writing code, next to the high school diploma types that rock it every day. I still think there's a lot to be said for the social development of someone who has the on-campus experience, but for software developers, college might not matter. As I mentioned before, most of us are not writing compilers, and we never will. It's actually surprising to find how many people are self-taught in the art of software development, and that should reveal some interesting truths about how we learn. The first truth is that we learn largely out of necessity. There's something that we want to achieve, so we do what I call just-in-time learning to meet those goals. We acquire knowledge when we need it. So what about the gaps in our knowledge? That's where the most valuable education occurs, via our mentors. They're the people we work next to and the people who write blogs. They are critical to our professional development. They don't need to be an encyclopedia of jargon, but they understand the craft. Even at this stage of my career, I probably can't tell you what SOLID stands for, but you can bet that I practice the principles behind that acronym every day. That comes from experience, augmented by my peers. I'm hell bent on passing that experience to others. Process issues If you're a manager type and don't do much in the way of writing code these days (shame on you for not messing around at least), then your job is to isolate your tradespeople from nonsense, while bringing your business into the realm of modern software development. That doesn't mean you slap up a white board with sticky notes and start calling yourself agile, it means getting all of your stakeholders to understand that frequent delivery of quality software is the best way to deal with change and evolving expectations. It also means that you have to play technical overlord to make sure the education and quality issues are dealt with. That's why I make the crack about sticky notes, because without the right technique being practiced among your code monkeys, you're just a guy with sticky notes. You're asking your business to accept frequent and iterative delivery, now make sure that the folks writing the code can handle the same thing. This means unit testing, the right instrumentation, integration tests, automated builds and deployments... all of the stuff that makes it easy to see when change breaks stuff. The prognosis I strongly believe that education is the most important part of what we do. I'm encouraged by things like The Starter League, and it's the kind of thing I'd love to see more of. I would go as far as to say I'd love to start something like this internally at an existing company. Most of all though, I can't emphasize enough how important it is that we mentor each other and share our knowledge. If you have people on your staff who don't want to learn, fire them. Seriously, get rid of them. A few months working with someone really good, who understands the craftsmanship required to build supportable and maintainable code, will change that person forever and increase their value immeasurably.

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  • ThinkPad TrackPoint Buttons Not Working Well

    - by Oscar Godson
    The TrackPoint itself works fine. But the three buttons below the spacebar don't. For example if I were to copy these lines, 1-10, using trackpoint buttons it'd start highlighting at 7. If I use the main TrackPad (the part every laptop) and it's buttons it works normal, 1-10: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 It's like the button doesn't register right away. I use the TrackPoint ALL the time. I love it and I don't think I can go back to the normal TrackPad, so is there anyway to fix this? An app or setting? Also, the middle button to scroll isn't working at all I tried: Middle Button on ThinkPad Not Working with 10.10 update And put it in /usr/share/... and /usr/lib... neither seem to work. They USED to work. I used to be able to use that method of fixing it, but it seems in 11.04 this doesnt work? I dont wanna give up on Ubuntu yet...

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  • Kids and programming: ScratchKara

    - by Mike Pagel
    Ever now and then I kept wondering how to share with my kids the excitement of creating something with your computer. Of course, today this is a bit more difficult, as they have seen 3D animation games and well-edited websites. I guess that's why they weren't all that hyped when I found my first computer model at our local recycling facilities (an 8-bit Laser VZ-200 with rubber keys). When I finally got it up and running with an old analog TV set they finally asked whether we could play soccer on it. Needless to say that my showing them how it remembers some BASIC commands and lists and executes them did not make any impression. So the question is for real: How do you get today's kids excited about programming? And just recently I looked again for environments that allow even young kids (mine are 7 and 9 years old now) to do something and have fun. Obviously any real, text-oriented programming language wouldn't work well. To cut it short: Something really nice was built by University of Oldenburg: ScratchKara. It is the perfect mixture of Kara, a simulation of a little ladybug and Scratch, an authoring environment from MIT. ScratchKara allows kids to initially simply explore how the bug moves and turns by pressing the action buttons, then move towards sequencing commands through drag & drop, and eventually end up building algorithms with procedures and functions. Even through it is built for kids and beginners, the environment comes with debugging and refactoring, which I found more than amazing. My kids love it and I have to admit I keep thinking about how to solve a bit more advanced problems with this language, which does not allow you to store any state information (other than your call stack). Yes, I am hooked, too... Once the language is understood you can then move to one of the original Kara versions, where you can define the bug's behavior through finite statemachines, Turing tables, Java and other textual languages. And from there, anything is possible.

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  • Technology Choice for a Client Application [on hold]

    - by AK_
    Not sure this is the right place to ask... I'm involved in the development of a new system, and now we are passing the demos stage. We need to build a proper client application. The platform we care most about is Windows, for now at least, but we would love to support other platforms, as long as it's free :-). Or at least very cheap. We anticipate two kinds of users: Occasional, coming mostly from the web. Professional, who would probably require more features, and better performance, and probably would prefer to see a native client. Our server exposes two APIs: A SOAP API, WCF behind the scenes, that supports 100% of the functionality. A small and very fast UDP + Binary API, that duplicates some of the functionality and is intended for the sake of performance for certain real-time scenarios. Our team is mostly proficient in .Net, C#, C++ development, and rather familiar with Web development (HTML, JavaScript). We are probably intending to develop two clients (for both user profiles), a web app, and a native app. Architecturally, we would like to have as many common components as possible. We would like to have several layers: Communication, Client Model, Client Logic, shared by both of the clients. We would also like to be able to add features to both clients when only the actual UI is a dual cost, and the rest is shared. We are looking at several technologies: WPF + Silverlight, Pure HTML, Flash / Flex (AIR?), Java (JavaFx?), and we are considering poking at WinRT(or whatever the proper name is). The question is which technology would you recommend and why? And which advantages or disadvantages will it have regarding our requirements?

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  • Ten Classic Electronic Toys and Their Modern Equivalents

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Whether you’re looking to relive the toy exploits of your youth or pass your love of tinkering and electronics onto the younger generation, this list highlights ten great electronic toys of yesteryear and their modern equivalents. Courtesy of Wired’s Geek Dad, the description for the all-in-one electronics kit seen here: What is was: Arthur C. Clarke has said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. As a kid in the midst of an increasing technological revolution, electronics were at the heart of that. Learning electronics was made easy through the Science Fair Electronic Project Kits found at Radioshack. Through the project guides, kids could construct various ‘experiments’ by attaching wires to terminal springs that make circuits. The terminal springs would wire in components such as LED segment lights, photo sensors, resistors, diodes, etc. While it was fun getting the projects to work, the manuals lacked in depth explanation as to what was happening in the circuit to produce the project’s result. Why it was awesome: First, it was a simple buy for parents. Everything you needed to get your child interested in electronics was right in the kit. You didn’t need to breadboard or solder. I remember a distinct feeling of accomplishment making a high-water alarm or a light-sensor game with the realization that the bundles of wires springing up from the kit were actually doing something! Modern equivalent: You can still pick up variations of the 100-in-1 kits, but their popular replacement seem to be Snap Circuits by Elenco. All of the components are mounted on a plastic base with a contact on either end which interconnect with each other and the plastic base that projects can be mounted to. Each component also has the electrical diagram symbol for that component drawn on it so it can help you read schematics. For that reason alone, I like these better. HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online Here’s How to Download Windows 8 Release Preview Right Now

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