Search Results

Search found 2264 results on 91 pages for 'sounds'.

Page 81/91 | < Previous Page | 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88  | Next Page >

• Must-see sessions at TCUK11

  - by Roger Hart

  Technical Communication UK is probably the best professional conference I've been to. Last year, I spoke there on content strategy, and this year I'll be co-hosting a workshop on embedded user assistance. Obviously, I'd love people to come along to that; but there are some other sessions I'd like to flag up for anybody thinking of attending. Tuesday 20th Sept - workshops This will be my first year at the pre-conference workshop day, and I'm massively glad that our workshop hasn't been scheduled along-side the one I'm really interested in. My picks: It looks like you're embedding user assistance. Would you like help? My colleague Dom and I are presenting this one. It's our paen to Clippy, to the brilliant idea he represented, and the crashing failure he was. Less precociously, we'll be teaching embedded user assistance, Red Gate style. Statistics without maths: acquiring, visualising and interpreting your data This doesn't need to do anything apart from what it says on the tin in order to be gold dust. But given the speakers, I suspect it will. A data-informed approach is a great asset to technical communications, so I'd recommend this session to anybody event faintly interested. The speakers here have a great track record of giving practical, accessible introductions to big topics. Go along. Wednesday 21st Sept - day one There's no real need to recommend the keynote for a conference, but I will just point out that this year it's Google's Patrick Hofmann. That's cool. You know what else is cool: Focus on the user, the rest follows An intro to modelling customer experience. This is a really exciting area for tech comms, and potentially touches on one of my personal hobby-horses: the convergence of technical communication and marketing. It's all part of delivering customer experience, and knowing what your users need lets you help them, sell to them, and delight them. Content strategy year 1: a tale from the trenches It's often been observed that content strategy is great at banging its own drum, but not so hot on compelling case studies. Here you go, folks. This is the presentation I'm most excited about so far. On a mission to communicate! Skype help their users communicate, but how do they communicate with them? I guess we'll find out. Then there's the stuff that I'm not too excited by, but you might just be. The standards geeks and agile freaks can get together in a presentation on the forthcoming ISO standards for agile authoring. Plus, there's a session on VBA for tech comms. I do have one gripe about day 1. The other big UK tech comms conference, UA Europe, have - I think - netted the more interesting presentation from Ellis Pratt. While I have no doubt that his TCUK case study on producing risk assessments will be useful, I'd far rather go to his talk on game theory for tech comms. Hopefully UA Europe will record it. Thursday 22nd Sept - day two Day two has a couple of slots yet to be confirmed. The rumour is that one of them will be the brilliant "Questions and rants" session from last year. I hope so. It's not ranting, but I'll be going to: RTFMobile: beyond stating the obvious Ultan O'Broin is an engaging speaker with a lot to say, and mobile is one of the most interesting and challenging new areas for tech comms. Even if this weren't a research-based presentation from a company with buckets of technology experience, I'd be going. It is, and you should too. Pattern recognition for technical communicators One of the best things about TCUK is the tendency to include sessions that tackle the theoretical and bring them towards the practical. Kai and Chris delivered cracking and well-received talks last year, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they've got for us on some of the conceptual underpinning of technical communication. Developing an interactive non-text learning programme Annoyingly, this clashes with Pattern Recognition, so I hope at least one of the streams is recorded again this year. The idea of communicating complex information without words us fascinating and this sounds like a great example of this year's third stream: "anything but text". For the localization and DITA crowds, there's rich pickings on day two, though I'm not sure how many of those sessions I'm interested in. In the 13:00 - 13:40 slot, there's an interesting clash between Linda Urban on re-use and training content, and a piece on minimalism I'm sorely tempted by. That's my pick of #TCUK11. I'll be doing a round-up blog after the event, and probably talking a bit more about it beforehand. I'm also reliably assured that there are still plenty of tickets.

  Read the article

• Collision Detection on floor tiles Isometric game

  - by Anivrom

  I am having a very hard to time figuring out a bug in my code. It should have taken me 20 minutes but instead I've been working on it for over 12 hours. I am writing a isometric tile based game where the characters can walk freely amongst the tiles, but not be able to cross over to certain tiles that have a collides flag. Sounds easy enough, just check ahead of where the player is going to move using a Screen Coordinates to Tile method and check the tiles array using our returned xy indexes to see if its collidable or not. if its not, then don't move the character. The problem I'm having is my Screen to Tile method isn't spitting out the proper X,Y tile indexes. This method works flawlessly for selecting tiles with the mouse. NOTE: My X tiles go from left to right, and my Y tiles go from up to down. Reversed from some examples on the net. Here's the relevant code: public Vector2 ScreentoTile(Vector2 screenPoint) { //Vector2 is just a object with x and y float properties //camOffsetX,Y are my camera values that I use to shift everything but the //current camera target when the target moves //tilescale = 128, screenheight = 480, the -46 offset is to center // vertically + 16 px for some extra gfx in my tile png Vector2 tileIndex = new Vector2(-1,-1); screenPoint.x -= camOffsetX; screenPoint.y = screenHeight - screenPoint.y - camOffsetY - 46; tileIndex.x = (screenPoint.x / tileScale) + (screenPoint.y / (tileScale / 2)); tileIndex.y = (screenPoint.x / tileScale) - (screenPoint.y / (tileScale / 2)); return tileIndex; } The method that calls this code is: private void checkTileTouched () { if (Gdx.input.justTouched()) { if (last.x >= 0 && last.x < levelWidth && last.y >= 0 && last.y < levelHeight) { if (lastSelectedTile != null) lastSelectedTile.setColor(1, 1, 1, 1); Sprite sprite = levelTiles[(int) last.x][(int) last.y].sprite; sprite.setColor(0, 0.3f, 0, 1); lastSelectedTile = sprite; } } if (touchDown) { float moveX=0,moveY=0; Vector2 pos = new Vector2(); if (player.direction == direction_left) { moveX = -(player.moveSpeed); moveY = -(player.moveSpeed / 2); Gdx.app.log("Movement", String.valueOf("left")); } else if (player.direction == direction_upleft) { moveX = -(player.moveSpeed); moveY = 0; Gdx.app.log("Movement", String.valueOf("upleft")); } else if (player.direction == direction_up) { moveX = -(player.moveSpeed); moveY = player.moveSpeed / 2; Gdx.app.log("Movement", String.valueOf("up")); } else if (player.direction == direction_upright) { moveX = 0; moveY = player.moveSpeed; Gdx.app.log("Movement", String.valueOf("upright")); } else if (player.direction == direction_right) { moveX = player.moveSpeed; moveY = player.moveSpeed / 2; Gdx.app.log("Movement", String.valueOf("right")); } else if (player.direction == direction_downright) { moveX = player.moveSpeed; moveY = 0; Gdx.app.log("Movement", String.valueOf("downright")); } else if (player.direction == direction_down) { moveX = player.moveSpeed; moveY = -(player.moveSpeed / 2); Gdx.app.log("Movement", String.valueOf("down")); } else if (player.direction == direction_downleft) { moveX = 0; moveY = -(player.moveSpeed); Gdx.app.log("Movement", String.valueOf("downleft")); } //Player.moveSpeed is 1 //tileObjects.x is drawn in the center of the screen (400px,240px) // the sprite width is 64, height is 128 testX = moveX * 10; testY = moveY * 10; testX += tileObjects.get(player.zIndex).x + tileObjects.get(player.zIndex).sprite.getWidth() / 2; testY += tileObjects.get(player.zIndex).y + tileObjects.get(player.zIndex).sprite.getHeight() / 2; moveX += tileObjects.get(player.zIndex).x + tileObjects.get(player.zIndex).sprite.getWidth() / 2; moveY += tileObjects.get(player.zIndex).y + tileObjects.get(player.zIndex).sprite.getHeight() / 2; pos = ScreentoTile(new Vector2(moveX,moveY)); Vector2 pos2 = ScreentoTile(new Vector2(testX,testY)); if (!levelTiles[(int) pos2.x][(int) pos2.y].collides) { Vector2 newPlayerPos = ScreentoTile(new Vector2(moveX,moveY)); CenterOnCoord(moveX,moveY); player.tileX = (int)newPlayerPos.x; player.tileY = (int)newPlayerPos.y; } } } When the player is moving to the left (downleft-ish from the viewers point of view), my Pos2 X values decrease as expected but pos2 isnt checking ahead on the x tiles, it is checking ahead on the Y tiles(as if we were moving DOWN, not left), and vice versa, if the player moves down, it will check ahead on the X values (as if we are moving LEFT, instead of DOWN). instead of the Y values. I understand this is probably the most confusing and horribly written post ever, but I'm confused myself so I'm having a hard time explaining it to others lol. if you need more information please ask!! I'm so frustrated after over 12 hours of working on it I'm about to give up.

  Read the article

• More Quick Interview Tips

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  In the last couple of years I have conducted a lot of interviews for application and database developers for my company, and I can tell you that the little things can mean a lot.  Here are a few quick tips to help you make a good first impression. A year ago I gave you my #1 interview tip: Do some basic research!  And a year later, I am still stunned by how few technical people do the most basic of research.  I can only guess that it is because it is so engrained in our psyche that technical competence is everything (see How to Manage Technical Employees for more on this idea) that we forget or ignore the importance of soft skills and the art of the interview.  Or maybe it is because we have heard the stories of the uber-geek who has zero personal skills but still makes a fortune working for Microsoft.  Well, here’s another quick tip:  You’re probably not as good as he is; and a large number of companies actually run small to medium sized teams and can’t really afford to have the social outcast in the group.  In a small team, everyone has to get along well, and that’s an important part of what I’m evaluating during the interview process. My #2 tip is to act alive!  I typically conduct screening interviews by phone before I bring someone in for an in-person.  I don’t care how laid-back you are or if you have a “quiet personality”, when we are talking, ACT like you are happy I called and you are interested in getting the job.  If you sound like you are bored-to-death and that you would be perfectly happy to never work again, I am perfectly happy to help you attain that goal, and I’ll move on to the next candidate. And closely related to #2, perhaps we’ll call it #2.1 is this tip:  When I call you on the phone for the interview, don’t answer your phone by just saying, “Hello”.  You know that the odds are about 999-to-1 that it is me calling for the interview because we have specifically arranged this time slot for the call.  And you can see on the caller ID that it is not one of your buddies calling, so identify yourself.  Don’t make me question whether I dialed the right number.  Answer your phone with a, “Hello, this is ___<your full name preferred, but at least your first name>___.”.  And when I say, “Hi, <your name>, this is Mark from <my company>” it would be really nice to hear you say, “Hi, Mark, I have been expecting your call.”  This sets the perfect tone for our conversation.  I know I have the right person; you are professional enough and interested enough in the job or contract to remember your appointments; and now we can move on to a little intro segment and get on with the reason for our call. As crazy as it sounds, I’ve actually had phone interviews that went like this: <Ring…> You:  “Hello?” Me:  “Hi, this is Mark from _______” You:  “Yeah?” Me:  “Is this <your name>?” You:  “Yeah.” Me:  “I had this time in my calendar for us to talk…were you expecting my call?” You:  “Oh, yeah, sure…” I used to be nice and would try to go ahead with the interview even after this bad start, thinking I was giving the candidate the benefit of the doubt…a second chance…but more often than not it was a struggle and 10 minutes into what was supposed to be a 45-minute call, I’m looking for a way to hang up without being rude myself.  It never worked out.  I never brought that person in for an in-person interview, much less offered them the job or contract.  Who knows, maybe they were some sort of wunderkind that we missed out on.  What I know is that they would never fit in with the rest of the team, and around here that is absolutely critical. So, in conclusion… Act alive!  Identify yourself!  And do at least the very basic of research.

  Read the article

• Day 1 - Finding Like Minds

  - by dapostolov

  So, is being a Game Developer any different from being an IT Developer? I picture a poorly lit environment where I get to purchase my own desk lamp; I'm thinking one of those huge lava lamps that pump out so much heat you could fry an egg on it. To my right: a "great wall" of empty coke cans dwarf me. Eating my last slice of pizza I look across my desk to see a fellow developer with a smug look on his face;  he's just coded his latest module for the game and it looks like he's in nirvana. My duty, of course, is to remind him to keep focused on the job at hand. So, picking up my trusty elastic and aerodynamically crafted paper bullet I begin a 10 minute war of welts and laughter which is promptly abrupted by our Project Manager demanding more details from our morning Scrum meeting. After providing about 5 minutes of geek speak and several words of comfort to make his eyes glaze over...it hits me, the idea for the module...beckoning my developer friend over, we quickly shoo the Project Manager away and begin our brainstorming frenzy ... now, where'd I put that full can of coke? OK. OK. This isn't probably the most ideal game developer environment, but it definitely sounds fun to me...and from what I gather is nothing like most game development companies. But I'm not doing this blog series to "go pro"; like I stated in my first post I want to make a 2D game from an idea my best friend and I drummed up long, long ago. I'm in this for the passion AND I want to see how easy it is for us .Net Developers to create a game. So where do I start? Where can I find like minded individuals? What technologies are there? What do I need to make a video game? The questions are endless....AND...since I already have an idea ... lets start with ... Technology (yes, I'm a geek, live with it...) Technology OK. Predominantly, games are still made in C++ or even C. I'm not sure how much assembly code is floating around lately, however, that is not my concern. I do know C / C++ from my past, enough to even get me by, but I'm mainly interested in a recent, not-so-new, technology called XNA. What is XNA? XNA allows us .Net Developers to make 2D / 3D games for windows, Xbox*, and Windows Mobile 7*. * = for a nominal fee *cough* The following link is your one stop shop to XNA game development: http://creators.xna.com/en-US/education/gettingstarted The above site hosts information such as: - getting started - a sample/instructional shooter game in 2D / 3D with code (if I'm taking too long for you in this blog series) - downloads - starter kits... http://creators.xna.com/en-US/education/starterkits/ And of course...forums. You can also subscribe and pay for their premium membership which gets you some pretty awesome tutorials, resources, downloads, and premium community support. Some general Wiki information about XNA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNA_%28Microsoft%29 Community Support OK. Let's move on to industry and community support. Apart from XNA, there are some really cool sites out there, I just haven't found all of them yet. However, I found a really cool Game Development website called Gamastura. You can click on the following link to get you there: http://www.gamasutra.com/ The site is 100% dedicated to "The Art & Business of Making Games". Armed with blogs, twitter, jobs/resumes and most importantly industry news; one could subscribe to the feed and got lost in the wealth of information it provides. On a side note: I remember Gamasutra being around when my best friend and I wanted to make a video game...meaning, they've been around for a while now. I think the most beneficial aspect of this site is to understand the industry you want to get into. Otherwise, it's just a cool site to keep up to date with the industry in general. Another Community Support option is LinkedIn. Amongst the land of extremely bloated achievements and responsibilities lay 3 groups (that I have found) that deal with game development.: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=59205 - Game Developers http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=824817 - DirectX Game Developer Network http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=756587 - DirectX Developers The Game Developers group in LinkedIn is by far the most active of the three and could possibly provide a wealth of support. What I've done thus far: - I lightly researched the XNA technology - I looked around for some community sites to assist me - I downloaded the XNA Game Studio 3.1 on my PC and installed it on my IDE - I even tried both tutorials! http://creators.xna.com/en-US/education/gettingstarted/bgintro/chapter1   Best Regards D.

  Read the article

• WPF Databinding- Part 2 of 3

  - by Shervin Shakibi

  This is a follow up to my previous post WPF Databinding- Not your fathers databinding Part 1-3 you can download the source code here  http://ssccinc.com/wpfdatabinding.zip Example 04   In this example we demonstrate  the use of default properties and also binding to an instant of an object which is part of a collection bound to its container. this is actually not as complicated as it sounds. First of all, lets take a look at our Employee class notice we have overridden the ToString method, which will return employees First name , last name and employee number in parentheses, public override string ToString()        {            return String.Format("{0} {1} ({2})", FirstName, LastName, EmployeeNumber);        }   in our XAML we have set the itemsource of the list box to just  “Binding” and the Grid that contains it, has its DataContext set to a collection of our Employee objects. DataContext="{StaticResource myEmployeeList}"> ….. <ListBox Name="employeeListBox"  ItemsSource="{Binding }" Grid.Row="0" /> the ToString in the method for each instance will get executed and the following is a result of it. if we did not have a ToString the list box would look  like this: now lets take a look at the grid that will display the details when someone clicks on an Item, the Grid has the following DataContext DataContext="{Binding ElementName=employeeListBox,            Path=SelectedItem}"> Which means its bound to a specific instance of the Employee object. and within the gird we have textboxes that are bound to different Properties of our class. <TextBox Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding Path=FirstName}" /> <TextBox Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding Path=LastName}" /> <TextBox Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding Path=Title}" /> <TextBox Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding Path=Department}" />   Example 05   This project demonstrates use of the ObservableCollection and INotifyPropertyChanged interface. Lets take a look at Employee.cs first, notice it implements the INotifyPropertyChanged interface now scroll down and notice for each setter there is a call to the OnPropertyChanged method, which basically will will fire up the event notifying to the value of that specific property has been changed. Next EmployeeList.cs notice it is an ObservableCollection . Go ahead and set the start up project to example 05 and then run. Click on Add a new employee and the new employee should appear in the list box.   Example 06   This is a great example of IValueConverter its actuall a two for one deal, like most of my presentation demos I found this by “Binging” ( formerly known as g---ing) unfortunately now I can’t find the original author to give him  the credit he/she deserves. Before we look at the code lets run the app and look at the finished product, put in 0 in Celsius  and you should see Fahrenheit textbox displaying to 32 degrees, I know this is calculating correctly from my elementary school science class , also note the color changed to blue, now put in 100 in Celsius which should give us 212 Fahrenheit but now the color is red indicating it is hot, and finally put in 75 Fahrenheit and you should see 23.88 for Celsius and the color now should be black. Basically IValueConverter allows us different types to be bound, I’m sure you have had problems in the past trying to bind to Date values . First look at FahrenheitToCelciusConverter.cs first notice it implements IValueConverter. IValueConverter has two methods Convert and ConvertBack. In each method we have the code for converting Fahrenheit to Celsius and vice Versa. In our XAML, after we set a reference in our Windows.Resources section. and for txtCelsius we set the path to TxtFahrenheit and the converter to an instance our FahrenheitToCelciusConverter converter. no need to repeat this for TxtFahrenheit since we have a convert and ConvertBack. Text="{Binding  UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged,            Path=Text,ElementName=txtFahrenheit,            Converter={StaticResource myTemperatureConverter}}" As mentioned earlier this is a twofer Demo, in the second demo, we basically are converting a double datatype to a brush. Lets take a look at TemperatureToColorConverter, notice we in our Covert Method, if the value is less than our cold temperature threshold we return a blue brush and if it is higher than our hot temperature threshold we return a redbrush. since we don’t have to convert a brush to double value in our example the convert back is not being implemented. Take time and go through these three examples and I hope you have a better understanding   of databinding, ObservableCollection  and IValueConverter . Next blog posting we will talk about ValidationRule, DataTemplates and DataTemplate triggers.

  Read the article

• Odd company release cycle: Go Distributed Source Control?

  - by MrLane

  sorry about this long post, but I think it is worth it! I have just started with a small .NET shop that operates quite a bit differently to other places that I have worked. Unlike any of my previous positions, the software written here is targetted at multiple customers and not every customer gets the latest release of the software at the same time. As such, there is no "current production version." When a customer does get an update, they also get all of the features added to he software since their last update, which could be a long time ago. The software is highly configurable and features can be turned on and off: so called "feature toggles." Release cycles are very tight here, in fact they are not on a shedule: when a feature is complete the software is deployed to the relevant customer. The team only last year moved from Visual Source Safe to Team Foundation Server. The problem is they still use TFS as if it were VSS and enforce Checkout locks on a single code branch. Whenever a bug fix gets put out into the field (even for a single customer) they simply build whatever is in TFS, test the bug was fixed and deploy to the customer! (Myself coming from a pharma and medical devices software background this is unbeliveable!). The result is that half baked dev code gets put into production without being even tested. Bugs are always slipping into release builds, but often a customer who just got a build will not see these bugs if they don't use the feature the bug is in. The director knows this is a problem as the company is starting to grow all of a sudden with some big clients coming on board and more smaller ones. I have been asked to look at source control options in order to eliminate deploying of buggy or unfinished code but to not sacrifice the somewhat asyncronous nature of the teams releases. I have used VSS, TFS, SVN and Bazaar in my career, but TFS is where most of my experience has been. Previously most teams I have worked with use a two or three branch solution of Dev-Test-Prod, where for a month developers work directly in Dev and then changes are merged to Test then Prod, or promoted "when its done" rather than on a fixed cycle. Automated builds were used, using either Cruise Control or Team Build. In my previous job Bazaar was used sitting on top of SVN: devs worked in their own small feature branches then pushed their changes to SVN (which was tied into TeamCity). This was nice in that it was easy to isolate changes and share them with other peoples branches. With both of these models there was a central dev and prod (and sometimes test) branch through which code was pushed (and labels were used to mark builds in prod from which releases were made...and these were made into branches for bug fixes to releases and merged back to dev). This doesn't really suit the way of working here, however: there is no order to when various features will be released, they get pushed when they are complete. With this requirement the "continuous integration" approach as I see it breaks down. To get a new feature out with continuous integration it has to be pushed via dev-test-prod and that will capture any unfinished work in dev. I am thinking that to overcome this we should go down a heavily feature branched model with NO dev-test-prod branches, rather the source should exist as a series of feature branches which when development work is complete are locked, tested, fixed, locked, tested and then released. Other feature branches can grab changes from other branches when they need/want, so eventually all changes get absorbed into everyone elses. This fits very much down a pure Bazaar model from what I experienced at my last job. As flexible as this sounds it just seems odd to not have a dev trunk or prod branch somewhere, and I am worried about branches forking never to re-integrate, or small late changes made that never get pulled across to other branches and developers complaining about merge disasters... What are peoples thoughts on this? A second final question: I am somewhat confused about the exact definition of distributed source control: some people seem to suggest it is about just not having a central repository like TFS or SVN, some say it is about being disconnected (SVN is 90% disconnected and TFS has a perfectly functional offline mode) and others say it is about Feature Branching and ease of merging between branches with no parent-child relationship (TFS also has baseless merging!). Perhaps this is a second question!

  Read the article

• Career guidance/advice for Junior-level Software Engineer [closed]

  - by John Do

  I have quite a few questions on my mind, so please bare with me. Please don't feel obligated to answer all of them, any as you choose will do. I'd appreciate if you could share some insight on any of these. Before I begin, some context: I currently have almost two years of professional experience as a Software Engineer, mainly developing software in Java. At this point, I feel that I have reached the peak in my career growth at the current company I am at and therefore I am looking for a new job, ideally again, as a Software Engineer. I have been interviewing for the past few months casually but have not had luck with companies I have a passion for. So, in no particular order - 1) In general, what are your thoughts on having graduate degrees in CS / Software Engineering. How much does it influence a salary increase, and do you think it's beneficial when working on real-world problems? I get the sense that a graduate degree in the field is trivial unless you really have a passion for research. 2) In general, in professional practice, how often had you have to write your own data structures and "complex" algorithms from scratch? In my own work, I have found myself relying mainly on third-party frameworks and the Java standard library to implement solutions as per business requirements. What are your thoughts on this? 3) In terms of resume, I feel the most ambivalent here. I want to be able to "blemish" my resume to a certain extent so that it stands out from others', but at the same time I do not want to over-exagerate my abilities. How do you strike a balance here? For example: I say that I am proficient in Java with data structures and algorithms. This is obviously a subjective and relative statement. I've taken the classes in my undergrad, and I've applied it in my work experience. What I feel as "prociency" can be seen as junior-level to others. How do you know what to say? Most of the time, recruiters (with no technical background) will be looking for keywords that stand out. This leads me to my next question (4). 4) Just from interviewing for the past few months (and getting plenty of rejections), I've come to realize that I may not be as proficient in data structures and algorithms as I thought I was. Do you think it's a good idea to remove the "proficient in java/data structure and algorithms"? I feel that being too hoenst on the resume will impede me from scoring opportunities to even have an interview with top-notch companies. What are your thoughts? 5) What is the absolute "must-have" knowledge going into a technical interview? I've been practicing several algorithmic and data sturcture problems now, and I feel that my abilities to solve arbitrary problems efficiently has not gotten significantly better. Do you think these abilities are something innate - it's either you have in you, or you don't? How can you teach yourself to learn, if you will? 6) How easy is it to go from industry/function to the next? I work mainly with backend technologies and I'm now interested in working with the frontend, i.e javascript,jquery,php or even mobile development. In your own experience, how did you not get pidgeon holed in your career? I feel that the choices you make now ultimately decide your future. As cliche as it sounds, I think it may be true. Here's what I mean: you've worked mainly as a backend engineer, people are interested in you doing the same thing since you've already accumulated experience in that function. How do get experience in a new function if people won't accept you because you don't already have it? It's a catch 22, you see... Are side projects the only real way to help you move from one function to another that you're truly interested in? For example: I could start writing my own mobile applications, even though I've worked mainly on the backend. Thanks so much for the long read. As a relatively new engineer to the real world, I am very humble and would like those who are experienced to shed some light. Thank you so much.

  Read the article

• From Pocket to Instapaper

  - by Michael Freidgeim

  Some time ago I’ve described the issues that I’ve had since a new version of Read It Later, named Pocket, was introduced.I’ve waited with hope for a new upgrade, but I had a huge disappointment with the latest version 16 June 2012. It didn’t fixed any of the two major problems, that I  experienced since new Pocket was introduced-  1. iPad app still didn’t show many of the saved links. 2. ability to rename articles on iPad still wasn’t restored.I’ve posted the message into their forum. They did not show my comment on their forum( I would name it censorship, not moderation), but a few days ago I’ve received an email, recommending “try logging out of the app on your iPad, and back in again.” Their suggestion helped,  but I don’t understand, why it is not posted as a recommendation on their support site.So I decided to try InstAPaper on my iPad, Previously I’ve used it for Kindle. I never considered it before on iPad, because there were no free demo and I was very satisfied with RIL free and then RIL Pro. Currently InstAPaper cost $3, so the price is not an issue.I’ve checked that it has most of features that I am using(e.g. renaming, folders) and I am quite happy with it now. Actually I am using Pocket (or RIL free) for old bookmarks( I have 1000+ stored on my iPad) and for new bookmarks I am using InstAPaper.Having a solid experience with RIL/Pocket I’ve created a list of suggestions to Marco Arment to implement.1. Some pages stored in InstAPaper have removed essential sections of the text. E.g in many blogs comments are not stored in  InstAPaper. Some pages lost almost all of important links (e.g. http://www.lib.rus.ec/a/32416 -sorry, in Russian). RIL/Pocket has 2 modes to store offline- Web view and Article view. Web View includes all links/images of the original page, but it’s very reliable. Article view suppose to strip unrelated information, but often corrupts the content. I prefer to use offline Web view.InstAPaper should also support offline Web view, in case if stripped view removes important part of content.2.  Black full screen Saving on iPad Safari is very annoying. After user pressed a bookmark, the saving has some delay and then for a few seconds prevents from reading the text.Would be better to show as message on the top part(as in Pocket ). I am surprised, that  a full screen popup was  implemented recently as a desired feature. 3.There are no comments allowed on http://blog.instapaper.com/. I would prefer to post some of these notes as comments on http://blog.instapaper.com/ rather than write them in my blog and then send link to Marco.(I found recommendation how to add support of comments on tumblr at http://www.tumblr.com/help, but then realized that Marko was the lead developer ofTumblr.)4. Also there is no support forum. I understand that maintenance of the forum ican be a hassle, but stackexchange fSome time ago I’ve described the issues that I’ve had since a new version of Read It Later, named Pocket, was introduced.I’ve waited with hope for a new upgrade, but I had a huge disappointment with the latest version 16 June 2012. It didn’t fixed any of the two major problems, that I  experienced since new Pocket was introduced- orums can be referred on  http://www.instapaper.com/main/support page, i.e.http://webapps.stackexchange.com/search?q=Instapaper  or http://apple.stackexchange.com/search?q=Instapaper 5. Tags are more convenient than folders. i.e. an ability for the same article to have more than one tag. Also creating of new folders is not supported offline, which is an annoying limitation.6. I would like to have a narrow list - additionally to existing list modes have a subject only list or subject+site list to show more list items on a screen.7. Limit of 500 offline articles sounds quite big, but my RIL list exceeded 1000, so it could be a issue in the future.8. Search button on iPad version is visible, but doesn’t work- it forces to buy Premium subscription. I think, that it’s not correct. If the button in a paid version is visible and enabled, it should  provide  a working functionality, e.g. search in article names only. And leave full-text search for the premium support.9..Copy URL is an important operation and deserves to be in a first level of Action menu, rather than in Share sub-menu.I’ve also have comment re post http://www.marco.org/2011/04/28/removed-instapaper-free. Marco Arment  explained, why he doesn’t provide free version of Instapaper.  I believe that he is loosing essential part of his customers. When I decided which of iPad application to choose, I’ve selected RIL, because I was able to play with free version, and I liked it. I didn’t have a chance to compare RIL and InstAPaper on iPad, so I’ve bought  RIL pro. For a user there is no point to pay even $3 , if there are similar free product, that user can try and see, is it suitable for him/her.I’ve also played with Readability. It doesn’t have folders or tags(which is very important for me), but nicely supports full text search

  Read the article

• Data management in unexpected places

  - by Ashok_Ora

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Data management in unexpected places When you think of network switches, routers, firewall appliances, etc., it may not be obvious that at the heart of these kinds of solutions is an engine that can manage huge amounts of data at very high throughput with low latencies and high availability. Consider a network router that is processing tens (or hundreds) of thousands of network packets per second. So what really happens inside a router? Packets are streaming in at the rate of tens of thousands per second. Each packet has multiple attributes, for example, a destination, associated SLAs etc. For each packet, the router has to determine the address of the next “hop” to the destination; it has to determine how to prioritize this packet. If it’s a high priority packet, then it has to be sent on its way before lower priority packets. As a consequence of prioritizing high priority packets, lower priority data packets may need to be temporarily stored (held back), but addressed fairly. If there are security or privacy requirements associated with the data packet, those have to be enforced. You probably need to keep track of statistics related to the packets processed (someone’s sure to ask). You have to do all this (and more) while preserving high availability i.e. if one of the processors in the router goes down, you have to have a way to continue processing without interruption (the customer won’t be happy with a “choppy” VoIP conversation, right?). And all this has to be achieved without ANY intervention from a human operator – the router is most likely to be in a remote location – it must JUST CONTINUE TO WORK CORRECTLY, even when bad things happen. How is this implemented? As soon as a packet arrives, it is interpreted by the receiving software. The software decodes the packet headers in order to determine the destination, kind of packet (e.g. voice vs. data), SLAs associated with the “owner” of the packet etc. It looks up the internal database of “rules” of how to process this packet and handles the packet accordingly. The software might choose to hold on to the packet safely for some period of time, if it’s a low priority packet. Ah – this sounds very much like a database problem. For each packet, you have to minimally · Look up the most efficient next “hop” towards the destination. The “most efficient” next hop can change, depending on latency, availability etc. · Look up the SLA and determine the priority of this packet (e.g. voice calls get priority over data ftp) · Look up security information associated with this data packet. It may be necessary to retrieve the context for this network packet since a network packet is a small “slice” of a session. The context for the “header” packet needs to be stored in the router, in order to make this work. · If the priority of the packet is low, then “store” the packet temporarily in the router until it is time to forward the packet to the next hop. · Update various statistics about the packet. In most cases, you have to do all this in the context of a single transaction. For example, you want to look up the forwarding address and perform the “send” in a single transaction so that the forwarding address doesn’t change while you’re sending the packet. So, how do you do all this? Berkeley DB is a proven, reliable, high performance, highly available embeddable database, designed for exactly these kinds of usage scenarios. Berkeley DB is a robust, reliable, proven solution that is currently being used in these scenarios. First and foremost, Berkeley DB (or BDB for short) is very very fast. It can process tens or hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. It can be used as a pure in-memory database, or as a disk-persistent database. BDB provides high availability – if one board in the router fails, the system can automatically failover to another board – no manual intervention required. BDB is self-administering – there’s no need for manual intervention in order to maintain a BDB application. No need to send a technician to a remote site in the middle of nowhere on a freezing winter day to perform maintenance operations. BDB is used in over 200 million deployments worldwide for the past two decades for mission-critical applications such as the one described here. You have a choice of spending valuable resources to implement similar functionality, or, you could simply embed BDB in your application and off you go! I know what I’d do – choose BDB, so I can focus on my business problem. What will you do? /* 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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

  Read the article

• PanelGridLayout - A Layout Revolution

  - by Duncan Mills

  With the most recent 11.1.2 patchset (11.1.2.3) there has been a lot of excitement around ADF Essentials (and rightly so), however, in all the fuss I didn't want an even more significant change to get missed - yes you read that correctly, a more significant change! I'm talking about the new panelGridLayout component, I can confidently say that this one of the most revolutionary components that we've introduced in 11g, even though it sounds rather boring. To be totally accurate, panelGrid was introduced in 11.1.2.2 but without any presence in the component palette or other design time support, so it was largely missed unless you read the release notes. However in this latest patchset it's finally front and center. Its time to explore - we (really) need to talk about layout.  Let's face it,with ADF Faces rich client, layout is a rather arcane pursuit, once you are a layout master, all bow before you, but it's more of an art than a science, and it is often, in fact, way too difficult to achieve what should (apparently) be a pretty simple. Here's a great example, it's a homework assignment I set for folks I'm teaching this stuff to:  The requirements for this layout are: The header is 80px high, the footer is 30px. These are both fixed.  The first section of the header containing the logo is 180px wide The logo is centered within the top left hand corner of the header  The title text is start aligned in the center zone of the header and will wrap if the browser window is narrowed. It should be aligned in the center of the vertical space  The about link is anchored to the right hand side of the browser with a 20px gap and again is center aligned vertically. It will move as the browser window is reduced in width. The footer has a right aligned copyright statement, again middle aligned within a 30px high footer region and with a 20px buffer to the right hand edge. It will move as the browser window is reduced in width. All remaining space is given to a central zone, which, in this case contains a panelSplitter. Expect that at some point in time you'll need a separate messages line in the center of the footer.  In the homework assigment I set I also stipulate that no inlineStyles can be used to control alignment or margins and no use of other taglibs (e.g. JSF HTML or Trinidad HTML). So, if we take this purist approach, that basic page layout (in my stock solution) requires 3 panelStretchLayouts, 5 panelGroupLayouts and 4 spacers - not including the spacer I use for the logo and the contents of the central zone splitter - phew! The point is that even a seemingly simple layout needs a bit of thinking about, particulatly when you consider strechting and browser re-size behavior. In fact, this little sample actually teaches you much of what you need to know to become vaguely competant at layouts in the framework. The underlying result of "the way things are" is that most of us reach for panelStretchLayout before even finishing the first sip of coffee as we embark on a new page design. In fact most pages you will see in any moderately complex ADF page will basically be nested panelStretchLayouts and panelGroupLayouts, sometimes many, many levels deep. So this is a problem, we've known this for some time and now we have a good solution. (I should point out that the oft-used Trinidad trh tags are not a particularly good solution as you're tie-ing yourself to an HTML table based layout in that case with a host of attendent issues in resize and bi-di behavior, but I digress.) So, tadaaa, I give to you panelGridLayout. PanelGrid, as the name suggests takes a grid like (dare I say slightly gridbag-like) approach to layout, dividing your layout into rows and colums with margins, sizing, stretch behaviour, colspans and rowspans all rolled in, all without the use of inlineStyle. As such, it provides for a much more powerful and consise way of defining a layout such as the one above that is actually simpler and much more logical to design. The basic building blocks are the panelGridLayout itself, gridRow and gridCell. Your content sits inside the cells inside the rows, all helpfully allowing both streching, valign and halign definitions without the need to nest further panelGroupLayouts. So much simpler!  If I break down the homework example above my nested comglomorate of 12 containers and spacers can be condensed down into a single panelGrid with 3 rows and 5 cell definitions (39 lines of source reduced to 24 in the case of the sample). What's more, the actual runtime representation in the browser DOM is much, much simpler, and clean, with basically one DIV per cell (Note that just because the panelGridLayout semantics looks like an HTML table does not mean that it's rendered that way!) . Another hidden benefit is the runtime cost. Because we can use a single layout to achieve much more complex geometries the client side layout code inside the browser is having to work a lot less. This will be a real benefit if your application needs to run on lower powered clients such as netbooks or tablets. So, it's time, if you're on 11.1.2.2 or above, to smile warmly at your panelStretchLayouts, wrap the blanket around it's knees and wheel it off to the Sunset Retirement Home for a well deserved rest. There's a new kid on the block and it wants to be your friend. 

  Read the article

• Best Practices Generating WebService Proxies for Oracle Sales Cloud (Fusion CRM)

  - by asantaga

  I've recently been building a REST Service wrapper for Oracle Sales Cloud and initially all was going well, however as soon as I added all of my Web Service proxies I started to get weird errors..  My project structure looks like this What I found out was if I only had the InteractionsService & OpportunityService WebService Proxies then all worked ok, but as soon as I added the LocationsService Proxy, I would start to see strange JAXB errors. Example of the error message Exception in thread "main" javax.xml.ws.WebServiceException: Unable to create JAXBContextat com.sun.xml.ws.model.AbstractSEIModelImpl.createJAXBContext(AbstractSEIModelImpl.java:164)at com.sun.xml.ws.model.AbstractSEIModelImpl.postProcess(AbstractSEIModelImpl.java:94)at com.sun.xml.ws.model.RuntimeModeler.buildRuntimeModel(RuntimeModeler.java:281)at com.sun.xml.ws.client.WSServiceDelegate.buildRuntimeModel(WSServiceDelegate.java:762)at weblogic.wsee.jaxws.spi.WLSProvider$ServiceDelegate.buildRuntimeModel(WLSProvider.java:982)at com.sun.xml.ws.client.WSServiceDelegate.createSEIPortInfo(WSServiceDelegate.java:746)at com.sun.xml.ws.client.WSServiceDelegate.addSEI(WSServiceDelegate.java:737)at com.sun.xml.ws.client.WSServiceDelegate.getPort(WSServiceDelegate.java:361)at weblogic.wsee.jaxws.spi.WLSProvider$ServiceDelegate.internalGetPort(WLSProvider.java:934)at weblogic.wsee.jaxws.spi.WLSProvider$ServiceDelegate$PortClientInstanceFactory.createClientInstance(WLSProvider.java:1039)...... Looking further down I see the error message is related to JAXB not being able to find an objectFactory for one of its types Caused by: java.security.PrivilegedActionException: com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.IllegalAnnotationsException: 6 counts of IllegalAnnotationExceptionsThere's no ObjectFactory with an @XmlElementDecl for the element {http://xmlns.oracle.com/apps/crmCommon/activities/activitiesService/}AssigneeRsrcOrgIdthis problem is related to the following location:at protected javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement com.oracle.xmlns.apps.crmcommon.activities.activitiesservice.ActivityAssignee.assigneeRsrcOrgId at com.oracle.xmlns.apps.crmcommon.activities.activitiesservice.ActivityAssignee This is very strange... My first thoughts are that when I generated the WebService Proxy I entered the package name as "oracle.demo.pts.fusionproxy.servicename" and left the generated types as blank. This way all the generated types get put into the same package hierarchy and when deployed they get merged... Sounds resaonable and appears to work but not in this case..  To resolve this I regenerate the proxy but this time setting : Package name : To the name of my package eg. oracle.demo.pts.fusionproxy.interactionsRoot Package for Generated Types :  Package where the types will be generated to, e.g. oracle.demo.pts.fusionproxy.SalesParty.types When I ran the application now, it all works , awesome eh???? Alas no, there is a serious side effect. The problem now is that to help coding I've created a collection of helper classes , these helper classes take parameters which use some of the "generic" datatypes, like FindCriteria. e.g. This wont work any more public static FindCriteria createCustomFindCriteria(FindCriteria pFc,String pAttributes) Here lies a gremlin of a problem.. I cant use this method anymore, this is because the FindCriteria datatype is now being defined two, or more times, in the generated code for my project. If you leave the Root Package for types blank it will get generated to com.oracle.xmlns, and if you populate it then it gets generated to your custom package.. The two datatypes look the same, sound the same (and if this were a duck would sound the same), but THEY ARE NOT THE SAME... Speaking to development, they recommend you should not be entering anything in the Root Packages section, so the mystery thickens why does it work.. Well after spending sometime with some colleagues of mine in development we've identified the issue.. Alas different parts of Oracle Fusion Development have multiple schemas with the same namespace, when the WebService generator generates its classes its not seeing the other schemas properly and not generating the Object Factories correctly...  Thankfully I've found a workaround Solution Overview When generating the proxies leave the Root Package for Generated Types BLANK When you have finished generating your proxies, use the JAXB tool XJC and generate Java classes for all datatypes  Create a project within your JDeveloper11g workspace and import the java classes into this project Final bit.. within the project dependencies ensure that the JAXB/XJC generated classes are "FIRST" in the classpath Solution Details Generate the WebServices SOAP proxies When generating the proxies your generation dialog should look like this Ensure the "unwrap" parameters is selected, if it isn't then that's ok, it simply means when issuing a "get" you need to extract out the Element Generate the JAXB Classes using XJC XJC provides a command line switch called -wsdl, this (although is experimental/beta) , accepts a HTTP WSDL and will generate the relevant classes. You can put these into a single batch/shell script xjc -wsdl https://fusionservername:443/appCmmnCompInteractions/InteractionService?wsdlxjc -wsdl https://fusionservername443/opptyMgmtOpportunities/OpportunityService?wsdl Create Project in JDeveloper to store the XJC "generated" JAXB classes Within the project folder create a filesystem folder called "src" and copy the generated files into this folder. JDeveloper11g should then see the classes and display them, if it doesnt try clicking the "refresh" button In your main project ensure that the JDeveloper XJC project is selected as a dependancy and IMPORTANT make sure it is at the top of the list. This ensures that the classes are at the front of the classpath And voilà.. Hopefully you wont see any JAXB generation errors and you can use common datatypes interchangeably in your project, (e.g. FindCriteria etc)

  Read the article

• Android Bitmap : collision Detecting [on hold]

  - by user2505374

  I am writing an Android game right now and I would need some help in the collision of the wall on screen. When I drag the ball in the top and right it able to collide in wall but when I drag it faster it was able to overlap in the wall. public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) { int x = (int) event.getX(); int y = (int) event.getY(); switch (event.getAction()) { // if the player moves case MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE: { if (playerTouchRect.contains(x, y)) { boolean left = false; boolean right = false; boolean up = false; boolean down = false; boolean canMove = false; boolean foundFinish = false; if (x != pLastXPos) { if (x < pLastXPos) { left = true; } else { right = true; } pLastXPos = x; } if (y != pLastYPos) { if (y < pLastYPos) { up = true; } else { down = true; } pLastYPos = y; } plCellRect = getRectFromPos(x, y); newplRect.set(playerRect); newplRect.left = x - (int) (playerRect.width() / 2); newplRect.right = x + (int) (playerRect.width() / 2); newplRect.top = y - (int) (playerRect.height() / 2); newplRect.bottom = y + (int) (playerRect.height() / 2); int currentRow = 0; int currentCol = 0; currentRow = getRowFromYPos(newplRect.top); currentCol = getColFromXPos(newplRect.right); if(!canMove){ canMove = mapManager.getCurrentTile().pMaze[currentRow][currentCol] == Cell.wall; canMove =true; } finishTest = mapManager.getCurrentTile().pMaze[currentRow][currentCol]; foundA = finishTest == Cell.valueOf(letterNotGet + ""); canMove = mapManager.getCurrentTile().pMaze[currentRow][currentCol] != Cell.wall; canMove = (finishTest == Cell.floor || finishTest == Cell.pl) && canMove; if (canMove) { invalidate(); setTitle(); } if (foundA) { mapManager.getCurrentTile().pMaze[currentRow][currentCol] = Cell.floor; // finishTest letterGotten.add(letterNotGet); playCurrentLetter(); /*sounds.play(sExplosion, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0, 0, 1.5f);*/ foundS = letterNotGet == 's'; letterNotGet++; }if(foundS){ AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(mainActivity); builder.setTitle(mainActivity.getText(R.string.finished_title)); LayoutInflater inflater = mainActivity.getLayoutInflater(); View view = inflater.inflate(R.layout.finish, null); builder.setView(view); View closeButton =view.findViewById(R.id.closeGame); closeButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View clicked) { if(clicked.getId() == R.id.closeGame) { mainActivity.finish(); } } }); AlertDialog finishDialog = builder.create(); finishDialog.show(); } else { Log.d(TAG, "INFO: updated player position"); playerRect.set(newplRect); setTouchZone(); updatePlayerCell(); } } // end of (CASE) if playerTouch break; } // end of (SWITCH) Case motion }//end of Switch return true; }//end of TouchEvent private void finish() { // TODO Auto-generated method stub } public int getColFromXPos(int xPos) { val = xPos / (pvWidth / mapManager.getCurrentTile().pCols); if (val == mapManager.getCurrentTile().pCols) { val = mapManager.getCurrentTile().pCols - 1; } return val; } /** * Given a y pixel position, return the row of the cell it is in This is * used when determining the type of adjacent Cells. * * @param yPos * y position in pixels * @return The cell this position is in */ public int getRowFromYPos(int yPos) { val = yPos / (pvHeight / mapManager.getCurrentTile().pRows); if (val == mapManager.getCurrentTile().pRows) { val = mapManager.getCurrentTile().pRows - 1; } return val; } /** * When preserving the position we need to know which cell the player is in, * so calculate it from the centre on its Rect */ public void updatePlayerCell() { plCell.x = (playerRect.left + (playerRect.width() / 2)) / (pvWidth / mapManager.getCurrentTile().pCols); plCell.y = (playerRect.top + (playerRect.height() / 2)) / (pvHeight / mapManager.getCurrentTile().pRows); if (mapManager.getCurrentTile().pMaze[plCell.y][plCell.x] == Cell.floor) { for (int row = 0; row < mapManager.getCurrentTile().pRows; row++) { for (int col = 0; col < mapManager.getCurrentTile().pCols; col++) { if (mapManager.getCurrentTile().pMaze[row][col] == Cell.pl) { mapManager.getCurrentTile().pMaze[row][col] = Cell.floor; break; } } } mapManager.getCurrentTile().pMaze[plCell.y][plCell.x] = Cell.pl; } } public Rect getRectFromPos(int x, int y) { calcCell.left = ((x / cellWidth) + 0) * cellWidth; calcCell.right = calcCell.left + cellWidth; calcCell.top = ((y / cellHeight) + 0) * cellHeight; calcCell.bottom = calcCell.top + cellHeight; Log.d(TAG, "Rect: " + calcCell + " Player: " + playerRect); return calcCell; } public void setPlayerRect(Rect newplRect) { playerRect.set(newplRect); } private void setTouchZone() { playerTouchRect.set( playerRect.left - playerRect.width() / TOUCH_ZONE, playerRect.top - playerRect.height() / TOUCH_ZONE, playerRect.right + playerRect.width() / TOUCH_ZONE, playerRect.bottom + playerRect.height() / TOUCH_ZONE); } public Rect getPlayerRect() { return playerRect; } public Point getPlayerCell() { return plCell; } public void setPlayerCell(Point cell) { plCell = cell; }

  Read the article

• Right-Time Retail Part 2

  - by David Dorf

  This is part two of the three-part series. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Right-Time Integration Of course these real-time enabling technologies are only as good as the systems that utilize them, and it only takes one bottleneck to slow everyone else down. What good is an immediate stock-out notification if the supply chain can’t react until tomorrow? Since being formed in 2006, Oracle Retail has been not only adding more integrations between systems, but also modernizing integrations for appropriate speed. Notice I tossed in the word “appropriate.” Not everything needs to be real-time – again, we’re talking about Right-Time Retail. The speed of data capture, analysis, and execution must be synchronized or you’re wasting effort. Unfortunately, there isn’t an enterprise-wide dial that you can crank-up for your estate. You’ll need to improve things piecemeal, with people and processes as limiting factors while choosing the appropriate types of integrations. There are three integration styles we see in the retail industry. First is batch. I know, the word “batch” just sounds slow, but this pattern is less about velocity and more about volume. When there are large amounts of data to be moved, you’ll want to use batch processes. Our technology of choice here is Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), which provides a fast version of Extract-Transform-Load (ETL). Instead of the three-step process, the load and transform steps are combined to save time. ODI is a key technology for moving data into Retail Analytics where we can apply science. Performing analytics on each sale as it occurs doesn’t make any sense, so we batch up a statistically significant amount and submit all at once. The second style is fire-and-forget. For some types of data, we want the data to arrive ASAP but immediacy is not necessary. Speed is less important than guaranteed delivery, so we use message-oriented middleware available in both Weblogic and the Oracle database. For example, Point-of-Service transactions are queued for delivery to Central Office at corporate. If the network is offline, those transactions remain in the queue and will be delivered when the network returns. Transactions cannot be lost and they must be delivered in order. (Ever tried processing a return before the sale?) To enhance the standard queues, we offer the Retail Integration Bus (RIB) to help the management and monitoring of fire-and-forget messaging in the enterprise. The third style is request-response and is most commonly implemented as Web services. This is a synchronous message where the sender waits for a response. In this situation, the volume of data is small, guaranteed delivery is not necessary, but speed is very important. Examples include the website checking inventory, a price lookup, or processing a credit card authorization. The Oracle Service Bus (OSB) typically handles the routing of such messages, and we’ve enhanced its abilities with the Retail Service Backbone (RSB). To better understand these integration patterns and where they apply within the retail enterprise, we’re providing the Retail Reference Library (RRL) at no charge to Oracle Retail customers. The library is composed of a large number of industry business processes, including those necessary to support Commerce Anywhere, as well as detailed architectural diagrams. These diagrams allow implementers to understand the systems involved in integrations and the specific data payloads. Furthermore, with our upcoming release we’ll be providing a new tool called the Retail Integration Console (RIC) that allows IT to monitor and manage integrations from a single point. Using RIC, retailers can quickly discern where integration activity is occurring, volume statistics, average response times, and errors. The dashboards provide the ability to dive down into the architecture documentation to gather information all the way down to the specific payload. Retailers that want real-time integrations will also need real-time monitoring of those integrations to ensure service-level agreements are maintained. Part 3 looks at marketing.

  Read the article

• CS, SE, HCI, Information Science, Please recommendation for further education of the former performing art manager seeking career in IT industries? [on hold]

  - by Baek Seungjoo

  IT specialists there J Thank you very much for your collective efforts here, and I got huge help reading your professional comments and advices on each questions I have searched so far! This time, I would like to ask for your practical advices or recommendation on what I am struggling on at this moment. I am currently seeking higher education for my career transition from performing art manager and director to “IT software and/or service development and management specialist”. However, as this field is quite new to me, and there are lots of different work positions, I have no idea which grad major I better pursue in order to get qualification. Of course I know this question could sounds wired as it is kind of personal choice. But my lack of understanding on how IT software companies work in general, your practical and experience-based advice will be great help to me, who spent more than two months of self-research on net. OK. Before my question, here is my plan and history, which are quite different from those currently in IT industry I think… 1) Target Firstly, get career transition into IT service or products companies and get experiences. Eventually, pursue IT entrepreneurship in combination with my arts and cultural production and business expertise. 2) Background Career: performing arts director and manager in theatre-based scale opera and musical Art education in youth BA in literature and Chinese studies (Art & Humanities) MA in Cultural & Creative Industries (Art & Humanities) – dissertation with focus on digital prosumption and the lived experience of the prosumer. (a qualitative research on the agents in the digital world) 2) Personally Huge interest in IT hardware and software, and their trend. Skills to build up, repair, tune PCs -of course this is no more than personal hobby, but shows my interests in this field. 4) Problem Encounter a question “So, what do you think you can contribute practically in this position”. This question turn me down everytime I go through job interviews, and I decided more education in the relevant area. Here are my questions. 1) In terms of work positions in IT software companies, I wonder if I can put the comparison of what “Artists” is to “Arts Manager or Director” is what “Developer” is to “Product Manager”. (Of course, this stereotypical division of Artist-Art Manager is out of sense because the domain overlaps to some extent, and is blurring at least in my field, and they are in different contexts, but just speaking easily.) Normally, artist comes with special arts educations, and they live in their own world of artistic inspiration and creation, and they feel alive in practice and on stages. Meanwhile, from the point of staging and managing productions, the role of art manager is critical as well. Our role cares how the production appeals to the audience in effective way, how to make profit and future sustainable management through that, how to set up future strategy in consideration of the external conditions such as political and social circumstances, audience trend and level, other production trends from on-going and historical perspectives, how and what the production make voice to the society from political, economic, humanitarian stances. So, we need keen eyes on economic, political, and societal environment, have to understand human-being and their desires, must know how to make presentation and attract investors, must have sense in managing and fighting over the limited financial resource, how to extend networking and so on. It is common that the two agents create productions in collaboration (normally not in that ideal way but in conflict and fight though J ). So, we need to know each other’s expertise to some extent, for better production. What are the work positions in IT software industries equivalent to the role of “art manager” in performing arts? From my view, considering developers come with special education in the world of computer science, software engineering, or others (self-education sometimes), and they express themselves with the arts of coding, computer languages on the black screen, and make sort of their artistic production online to the audience, I guess there might be someone who collaborate with developers in creating, managing, and launching IT services or products. 2) Which education among CS, SE, HCI, Information Science, is needed for those seeking such work position? Especially for person like me. (At this moment, Information Science has the highest possibility to get in, since I lack Calculus and Math in undergrad educaiton. But please let me know irrespective of this concern, I think there are ways to back it up if CS or SE education needed in my case) 3) Which field between Information Science and HCI can be more practical background regarding job hungting? And which of them have more demands in job market? AS I checked, HCI is more close to CS than IS in its focus of study area. Thank you very much for your patience reading such a long inquiry, and I appreciate to your efforts in advance. Have a nice day in this beautiful summer.

  Read the article

• Lessons learnt in implementing Scrum in a Large Organization that has traditional values

  - by MarkPearl

  I recently had the experience of being involved in a “test” scrum implementation in a large organization that was used to a traditional project management approach. Here are some lessons that I learnt from it. Don’t let the Project Manager be the Product Owner First lesson learnt is to identify the correct product owner – in this instance the product manager assumed the role of the product owner which was a mistake. The product owner is the one who has the most to loose if the project fails. With a methodology that advocates removing the role of the project manager from the process then it is not in the interests of the person who is employed as a project manager to be the product owner – in fact they have the most to gain should the project fail. Know the time commitments of team members to the Project Second lesson learnt is to get a firm time commitment of the members on a team for the sprint and to hold them to it. In this project instance many of the issues we faced were with team members having to double up on supporting existing projects/systems and the scrum project. In many situations they just didn’t get round to doing any work on the scrum project for several days while they tried to meet other commitments. Initially this was not made transparent to the team – in stand up team members would say that had done some work but would be very vague on how much time they had actually spent using the blackhole of their other legacy projects as an excuse – putting up a time burn down chart made time allocations transparent and easy to hold the team to. In addition, how can you plan for a sprint without knowing the actual time available of the members – when I mean actual time, the exercise of getting them to go through all their appointments and lunch times and breaks and removing them from their time commitment helps get you to a realistic time that they can dedicate. Make sure you meet your minimum team sizes In a recent post I wrote about the difference between a partnership and a team. If you are going to do scrum in a large organization make sure you have a minimum team size of at least 3 developers. My experience with larger organizations is that people have a tendency to be sick more, take more leave and generally not be around – if you have a team size of two it is so easy to loose momentum on the project – the more people you have in the team (up to about 9) the more the momentum the project will have when people are not around. Swapping from one methodology to another can seem as waste to the customer It sounds bad, but most customers don’t care what methodology you use. Often they have bought into the “big plan upfront”. If you can, avoid taking a project on midstream from a traditional approach unless the customer has not bought into the process – with this particular project they had a detailed upfront planning breakaway with the customer using the traditional approach and then before the project started we moved onto a scrum implementation – this seemed as waste to the customer. We should have managed the customers expectation properly. Don’t play the role of the scrum master if you can’t be the scrum master With this particular implementation I was the “scrum master”. But all I did was go through the process of the formal meetings of scrum – I attended stand up, retrospectives and planning – but I was not hands on the ground. I was not performing the most important role of removing blockages – and by the end of the project there were a number of blockages “cropping up”. What could have been a better approach was to take someone on the team and train them to be the scrum master and be present to coach them. Alternatively actually be on the team on a fulltime basis and be the scrum master. By just going through the meetings of scrum didn’t mean we were doing scrum. So we failed with this one, if you fail look at it from an agile perspective As this particular project drew to a close and it became more and more apparent that it was not going to succeed the failure of it became depressing. Emotions were expressed by various people on the team that we not encouraging and enforced the failure. Embracing the failure and looking at it for what it is instead of taking it as the end of the world can change how you grow from the experience. Acknowledging that it failed and then focussing on learning from why and how to avoid the failure in the future can change how you feel emotionally about the team, the project and the organization.

  Read the article

• Navigate Quickly with JustCode and Ctrl+Click

  Ctrl + Click is a widely used shortcut for Go To Definition in many development environments but not in Visual Studio. We, the JustCode team, find it really useful so we added it to Visual Studio. But we didn't stop there - we improved it even further. Read on to find the details. With JustCode you get an enhanced Go To Definition. By default you can execute it in the Visual Studio editor using one of the following shortcuts: Middle Click, Ctrl+Left Click, F12, Ctrl+Enter, Ctrl+B. The first usage of this feature is not much different from the default Visual Studio Go To Definition command use it where a member, type, method, property, etc is used to navigate to the definition of that item. For example, if you have this method:         public void Start()         {             lion = new Lion();             lion.Roar();         } If you hold Ctrl and click on the usage of the lion you will go to the lion member definition. If you hold Ctrl and click on the Lion you will go to the Lion class definition. What we added is the ability to easily find all the usages of the item you just navigated to. For example:     public class Lion     {         public void Roar()         {             Console.WriteLine("Rhaaaar");         }     }   If you hold Ctrl and click on the Lion definition you will see all the usages of the Lion type; if you click on the Roar method definition you will see all the usages of the Roar method: And if there is only one usage you will get automatically to that usage. In the examples I use C#, but it works also in VB.NET, JavaScript, ASP.NET and XAML. Why we like this feature? Let me first start with how the Ctrl+Click (or Go To Definition command) is used. We noticed that developers use it especially in what we call "code browsing sessions". In simple words this is when you browse around the code looking for a bug, just reading the code or searching for something. Sounds familiar? In our experience when you go to the definition of some item you often want to know more about it and the first thing you need is to find its usages. With JustCode this is just one click away. Why Ctrl+Click/Middle Click over F12/Ctrl+Enter/Ctrl+B? Actually you can use all of them. But during these "code browsing sessions" we noticed that most developers use the mouse. So the mouse is already in use and pressing Ctrl+Click (or the Middle Click) is so natural. During heavy coding sessions or if you are a keyboard type developer F12 (or any of the other keyboard shortcuts) is the key. We really use heavily this feature not only in our team but in the whole company. It saves us a bit of time many times a day. And it adds up. We hope you will like it too. Your feedback is more than welcome for us. P.S. If you dont want JustCode to capture the Ctrl+Click and the Middle Click in the editor, you can change that in JustCode->Options->General in the Navigation group. Keyboard shortcuts can be reassigned using the Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts editor.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

  Read the article

• Why do I get an exception when playing multiple sound instances?

  - by Boreal

  Right now, I'm adding a rudimentary sound engine to my game. So far, I am able to load in a WAV file and play it once, then free up the memory when I close the game. However, the game crashes with a nice ArgumentOutOfBoundsException when I try to play another sound instance. Specified argument was out of the range of valid values. Parameter name: readLength I'm following this tutorial pretty much exactly, but I still keep getting the aforementioned error. Here's my sound-related code. /// <summary> /// Manages all sound instances. /// </summary> public static class Audio { static XAudio2 device; static MasteringVoice master; static List<SoundInstance> instances; /// <summary> /// The XAudio2 device. /// </summary> internal static XAudio2 Device { get { return device; } } /// <summary> /// Initializes the audio device and master track. /// </summary> internal static void Initialize() { device = new XAudio2(); master = new MasteringVoice(device); instances = new List<SoundInstance>(); } /// <summary> /// Releases all XA2 resources. /// </summary> internal static void Shutdown() { foreach(SoundInstance i in instances) i.Dispose(); master.Dispose(); device.Dispose(); } /// <summary> /// Registers a sound instance with the system. /// </summary> /// <param name="instance">Sound instance</param> internal static void AddInstance(SoundInstance instance) { instances.Add(instance); } /// <summary> /// Disposes any sound instance that has stopped playing. /// </summary> internal static void Update() { List<SoundInstance> temp = new List<SoundInstance>(instances); foreach(SoundInstance i in temp) if(!i.Playing) { i.Dispose(); instances.Remove(i); } } } /// <summary> /// Loads sounds from various files. /// </summary> internal class SoundLoader { /// <summary> /// Loads a .wav sound file. /// </summary> /// <param name="format">The decoded format will be sent here</param> /// <param name="buffer">The data will be sent here</param> /// <param name="soundName">The path to the WAV file</param> internal static void LoadWAV(out WaveFormat format, out AudioBuffer buffer, string soundName) { WaveStream wave = new WaveStream(soundName); format = wave.Format; buffer = new AudioBuffer(); buffer.AudioData = wave; buffer.AudioBytes = (int)wave.Length; buffer.Flags = BufferFlags.EndOfStream; } } /// <summary> /// Manages the data for a single sound. /// </summary> public class Sound : IAsset { WaveFormat format; AudioBuffer buffer; /// <summary> /// Loads a sound from a file. /// </summary> /// <param name="soundName">The path to the sound file</param> /// <returns>Whether the sound loaded successfully</returns> public bool Load(string soundName) { if(soundName.EndsWith(".wav")) SoundLoader.LoadWAV(out format, out buffer, soundName); else return false; return true; } /// <summary> /// Plays the sound. /// </summary> public void Play() { Audio.AddInstance(new SoundInstance(format, buffer)); } /// <summary> /// Unloads the sound from memory. /// </summary> public void Unload() { buffer.Dispose(); } } /// <summary> /// Manages a single sound instance. /// </summary> public class SoundInstance { SourceVoice source; bool playing; /// <summary> /// Whether the sound is currently playing. /// </summary> public bool Playing { get { return playing; } } /// <summary> /// Starts a new instance of a sound. /// </summary> /// <param name="format">Format of the sound</param> /// <param name="buffer">Buffer holding sound data</param> internal SoundInstance(WaveFormat format, AudioBuffer buffer) { source = new SourceVoice(Audio.Device, format); source.BufferEnd += (s, e) => playing = false; source.Start(); source.SubmitSourceBuffer(buffer); // THIS IS WHERE THE EXCEPTION IS THROWN playing = true; } /// <summary> /// Releases memory used by the instance. /// </summary> internal void Dispose() { source.Dispose(); } } The exception occurs on line 156 when I am playing the sound: source.SubmitSourceBuffer(buffer);

  Read the article

• Some Early Considerations

  - by Chris Massey

  Following on from my previous post, I want to say "thank you" to everyone who has got in touch and got involved – you are pioneers! An update on where we are right now: paper prototypes v1 To be more specific, we’ve picked two of the ideas that seem to have more pros than cons, turned them into Balsamiq mockups, and are getting them fleshed out with realistic content. We’ll initially make these available to the aforementioned pioneers (thank you again), roll in the feedback, and then open up to get more data on what works and what doesn’t. If you’ve got any questions about this (or what we’re working on right now), feel free to ask me in the comments below. I’ve had a few people express an interest in the process we’re going through, and I’m more than happy to share details more frequently as we go along – not least because you, dear reader, will help us stay on target and create something Good. To start with, here’s a quick flashback to bring you all up to speed. A Brief Retrospective As you may already know, we’re creating a new publishing asset specifically focused on providing great content for web developers. We don’t yet know exactly what this thing will look like, or exactly how it will work, but we know we want to create something that is useful different. For my part, I’m seriously excited at the prospect of building a genuinely digital publishing system (as opposed to what most publishing is these days, which is print-style publishing which just happens to be on the web). The main challenge at this point is working out our build-measure-assess loop to speed up our experimental turn-around, and that’ll get better as we run more trials. Of course, there are a few things we’ve been pondering at this early conceptual stage: Do we publishing about heterogeneous technology stacks from day 1, or do we start with ASP.NET (which we’re familiar with) & branch out later? There are challenges with either approach. What publishing "modes" are already being well-handled? For example, the likes of Pluralsight, TekPub, and Treehouse have pretty much nailed video training (debate about price, if you like), and unless we think we can do it faster / better / cheaper (unlikely, for the record), we should leave them to it. Where should we base whatever we create? Should we create a completely new asset under a new name, graft something onto Simple-Talk (like the labs), or just build something directly into Simple-Talk? It sounds trivial, but it does have at least some impact on infrastructure and what how we manage the different types of content we (will) have. Are there any obvious problems or niches that we think could address really well, or should we just throw ideas out and see what readers respond to? What kind of users do we want to provide for? This actually deserves a little bit of unpacking… Why are you here? We currently divide readers into (broadly) the categories: Category 1: I know nothing about X, and I’d like to learn about it. Category 2: I know something about X, but I’d like to learn how to do something specific with it. Category 3: Ah man, I have a problem with X, and I need to fix it now. Now that I think about it, I might also include a 4th class of reader: Category 4: I’m looking for something interesting to engage my brain. These are clearly task-based categorizations, and depending on which task you’re performing when you arrive here, you’re going to need different types of content, or will have specific discovery needs. One of the questions that’s at the back of my mind whenever I consider a new idea is “How many of the categories will this satisfy?” As an example, typical video training is very well suited to categories 1, 2, and 4. StackOverflow is very well suited to category 3, and serves as a sign-posting system to the rest. Clearly it’s not necessary to satisfy every category need to be useful and popular, but being aware of what behavior readers might be exhibiting when they arrive will help us tune our ideas appropriately. < / Flashback > We don’t have clean answers to most of these considerations – they’re things we’re aware of, and each idea we look at is going to be best suited to a different mix of the options I’ve described. Our first experimental loop will be coming full circle in the next few days, so we should start to see how the different possibilities vary between ideas. Free to chime in with questions and suggestions about anything I’ve just brain-dumped, or at any stage as we go along. If you see anything that intrigued or enrages you, or just have an idea you’d like to share, I’d love to hear from you.

  Read the article

• UIScrollView image/photo viewer with paging enabled and zooming

  - by Mike Weller

  OK, I think it's time to make an official place on the internet for this problem: How to make a UIScrollView photoviewer with paging and zooming. Welcome my fellow UIScrollView hackers. I have a UIScrollView with paging enabled, and I'm displaying UIImageViews like the built-in photos app. (Does this sound familiar yet?) I found the following project on github: http://wiki.github.com/andreyvit/ScrollingMadness Which shows how to implement zooming in a scroll view while paging is enabled. If anyone else tries this out, I actually had to remove the UIScrollView subclass and use the native class otherwise it doesn't work. I think it's because of changes in the 3.0 SDK relating to how the scroll view intercepts touch events. So the the idea is to remove all the other views when you start zooming, and move the current view to (0, 0) in the scrollview, updating the contentsize etc. Then when you zoom back to 1.0f it adds the other views back and puts things all back in order. Anyway, that project works perfectly in the simulator, but on the device there is some nasty movement of the view you are resizing, which looks like it's caused by the fact we are changing the contentsize/offset etc. for the view being resized. You have to do this view moving otherwise you can pan left through the whitespace left by the other views. I found one interesting note in the "Known Issues" of the 3.0 SDK release notes: UIScrollView: After zooming, content inset is ignored and content is left in the wrong position. This kind of sounds like what is happening here. After zooming in, the view will shift offscreen because you have changed the offset etc. I've spent hours on this already and I'm slowing coming to the sad realization that this just isn't going to work. Three20's photo viewer is out of the question: it's too heavy weight and there is too much unnecessary UI and other behaviour. The built in Photo app seems to do some magic. If you zoom in on an image and pan to the far edges, the current photo moves independently of the photo next to it which isn't what you get when trying this with a standard UIScrollView. I've seen discussion about nesting the UIScrollView's but I really don't want to go there. Has anybody managed this with the standard UIScrollView (and works in the 2.2 and 3.0 SDK)? I don't fancy rolling my own zoom + bounce + pan + paging code.

  Read the article

• Subclassed django models with integrated querysets

  - by outofculture

  Like in this question, except I want to be able to have querysets that return a mixed body of objects: >>> Product.objects.all() [<SimpleProduct: ...>, <OtherProduct: ...>, <BlueProduct: ...>, ...] I figured out that I can't just set Product.Meta.abstract to true or otherwise just OR together querysets of differing objects. Fine, but these are all subclasses of a common class, so if I leave their superclass as non-abstract I should be happy, so long as I can get its manager to return objects of the proper class. The query code in django does its thing, and just makes calls to Product(). Sounds easy enough, except it blows up when I override Product.__new__, I'm guessing because of the __metaclass__ in Model... Here's non-django code that behaves pretty much how I want it: class Top(object): _counter = 0 def __init__(self, arg): Top._counter += 1 print "Top#__init__(%s) called %d times" % (arg, Top._counter) class A(Top): def __new__(cls, *args, **kwargs): if cls is A and len(args) > 0: if args[0] is B.fav: return B(*args, **kwargs) elif args[0] is C.fav: return C(*args, **kwargs) else: print "PRETENDING TO BE ABSTRACT" return None # or raise? else: return super(A).__new__(cls, *args, **kwargs) class B(A): fav = 1 class C(A): fav = 2 A(0) # => None A(1) # => <B object> A(2) # => <C object> But that fails if I inherit from django.db.models.Model instead of object: File "/home/martin/beehive/apps/hello_world/models.py", line 50, in <module> A(0) TypeError: unbound method __new__() must be called with A instance as first argument (got ModelBase instance instead) Which is a notably crappy backtrace; I can't step into the frame of my __new__ code in the debugger, either. I have variously tried super(A, cls), Top, super(A, A), and all of the above in combination with passing cls in as the first argument to __new__, all to no avail. Why is this kicking me so hard? Do I have to figure out django's metaclasses to be able to fix this or is there a better way to accomplish my ends?

  Read the article

• ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider and ADAM (or AD LDS) and SetPassword

  - by Iulian

  By the subject line it seems to be a rather broad subject and I need some help here. Basically what I want is to use ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider with an ADAM instance to authenticate users in an ASP.NET web application. My development environment is a windows 7 machine with an AD LDS instance on it whilst the QA server is a Windows 2003 server with an ADAM instance on it. I have all the required users on both instances plus one with adminsitrator role (CN=Admin,CN=xxx,DC=xxx,C=xx) which I want to use as the connection user. Using connectonProtecton="None" connectionUsername="CN=Admin,CN=xxx,DC=xxx,C=xx" connectionPassword="xxx" I am able to authenticate on both environments (dev & qa). If I change to the connectionProtection to "Secure" I am not able to authenticate anymore; the error I get is "Parser Error Message: Unable to establish secure connection with the server" To me it sounds wrong to use connectionProtection="None" although I found on the net a lot of samples using this setting. Can I use connectionProtection="Secure" to connect to an ADAM instance using an account defined on that instance having Administrator role? What other choices do I have (like using an domain account)? What if my machine where I am to deploy the application is not a part of the domain, will this affect in any way the behavior? I am novice in the respect so I would really appreciate some clear answers or some directions as where to look? Now beside the "signing in" feature of the ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider I also want to add an extra one, which is setting the password without knowing the old one (something that will be used by a "reset password" feature). So I added a couple of extension methods to the provider, and used System.DirectoryServices classes like DirectoryEntry and the like. When creating a directory entry I use the same credentials provided in web.config for the provider minus the AuthenticationType as I don't know what is right combination of the flags that corresponds to None/Secure. I am able to use Invoke "SetPassword" with ADS_OPTION_PASSWORD_METHOD option as ADS_PASSWORD_ENCODE_CLEAR on my dev machine (w/ AD LDS instance); nevertheless on qa environment (w/ ADAM instance) I am getting an error like "Exception Details: System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryServicesCOMException: An operations error occurred. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80072020)" I am quite sure it is not about AD LDS vs ADAM but probably another configuration / permission issue. So can anyone help me with some hints on how to use this SetPassword feature? And as a general question what are the best practices when it comes to using ADAM regarding security, programming etc? Thanks in advance Iulian

  Read the article

• Best ASP.NET E-Commerce Framework (aspDotNetStoreFront, AbleCommerce, BVCommerce, MediaChase,...)

  - by EfficionDave

  I need a full-featured asp.net E-Commerce solution for a project. It needs to be easily extensible as I need to extend it to integrate with a custom Flash based personalization engine. It should also have a great administrative back-end that handles inventory tracking, report, labels, shipping, ... so that the client can really use it as the basis for their business. I've used quite a few different E-Commerce systems including OSCommerce, Zen Cart, Catalook, and eTailer. While I was impressed with Zen Cart and eTailer, this project is big enough that I want to try a more serious, commercial offering. I'm particularly interested in thoughts on aspdotnetstorefront, BVCommerce, AbleCommerce, and MediaChase. [UPDATE] I've done quite a bit of evaluation since I posted this question and will give some of my findings below: BVCommerce - The price point is nice, the product seems fairly well regarded, and I've heard good things about customizing/extending it, it just doesn't seem like it's going to meet my needs as an Top Tier ECommerce solution. After viewing the tutorial videos, the Admin interface just seems too basic and outdated. aspDotNetStorefront - The integration with DotNetNuke was it's biggest selling point for me but after reading peoples opinions, it's integration seems quite weak. It's sounds like there's a significant learning curve and the architecture just doesn't sound like it's as clean as it should be. AbleCommerce - After a rather thorough evaluation, I have selected AbleCommerce for at least my next project. The Admin interface is beautiful and has a nice list of features. The E-Commerce portion of the user side is very well done, highly skin-able (using Master Pages and a couple other techniques), and the checkout workflow has all the features I need while still being very clean. Source to the API can be bought for $500 but you generally won't need it. There are some 3rd party modules available but there's not currently a large market for these. The biggest glaring weakness of AbleCommerce I've found is their CMS capabilities are very limited and not at all well suited for a non-technical user to make most site content updates. But I have a good solution for that that I plan adapting into AbleCommerce. They will automatically generate a site for you to play with to your heart's content for 30 days. It is defniitely worth checking out.

  Read the article

• Run MySQL INSERT Query multiple times (insert values into multiple tables)

  - by Derek

  Hi, basically, I have 3 tables; users and projects (which is a many-to-many relationship), then I have 'usersprojects' to allow the one-to-many formation. When a user adds a project, I need the project information stored and then the 'userid' and 'projectid' stored in the usersprojects table. It sounds like its really straight forward but I'm having problems with the syntax I think!? As it stands, I have this as my INSERT queries (values going into 2 different tables): $project_id = $_POST['project_id']; $projectname = $_POST['projectname']; $projectdeadline = $_POST['projectdeadline']; $projectdetails = $_POST['projectdetails']; $user_id = $_POST['user_id']; $sql = "INSERT INTO projects (projectid, projectname, projectdeadline, projectdetails) VALUES ('{$projectid}','{$projectname}','{$projectdeadline}','{$projectdetails}')"; $sql = "INSERT INTO usersprojects (userid, projectid) VALUES ('{$userid}','{$projectid}')"; None of the information is being stored in the projects table, but the user ID is being stored in the usersprojects table (but not project ID!?)... I did have it working where the project information is stored correctly with a project ID, before I added this bit: $sql = "INSERT INTO usersprojects (userid, projectid) VALUES ('{$userid}','{$projectid}')"; But before the code above was put in, obviously no info is being stored in usersprojects table. The source code that links the script: <form id="addform" name="addform" method="POST" action="addproject-run.php"> <label>Project Name:</label> <input name="projectname" size="40" id="projectname" value="<?php if (isset($_POST['projectname'])); ?>"/><br /> <input name="user_id" input type="hidden" size="40" id="user_id" value="<?php echo $_SESSION['SESS_USERID']; ?>"/> <label>Project Deadline:</label> <input name="projectdeadline" size="40" id="projectdeadline" value="In the format of 'YYYY-MM-DD'<?php if (isset($_POST['projectdeadline'])); ?>"/><br /> <label>Project Details:</label> <textarea rows="5" cols="20" name="projectdetails" id="projectdetails"><?php if (isset($_POST['projectdetails'])); ?></textarea> <br /> <br /> <input value="Create Project" class="addbtn" type="submit" /> </form></div> So I think I'm right in saying I have the syntax for the SQL statement to be run an insert query of values into 2 tables? Any help is much appreciated! Thanks.

  Read the article

• iOS static Framework crash when animating view

  - by user1439216

  I'm encountering a difficult to debug issue with a static library project when attempting to animate a view. It works fine when debugging (and even when debugging in the release configuration), but throws an error archived as a release: Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGSYS) Exception Codes: 0x00000000, 0x00000000 Crashed Thread: 0 Thread 0 name: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread Thread 0 Crashed: 0 TestApp 0x000d04fc 0x91000 + 259324 1 UIKit 0x336d777e +[UIView(UIViewAnimationWithBlocks) animateWithDuration:animations:] + 42 2 TestApp 0x000d04de 0x91000 + 259294 3 TestApp 0x000d0678 0x91000 + 259704 4 Foundation 0x355f04f8 __57-[NSNotificationCenter addObserver:selector:name:object:]_block_invoke_0 + 12 5 CoreFoundation 0x35aae540 ___CFXNotificationPost_block_invoke_0 + 64 6 CoreFoundation 0x35a3a090 _CFXNotificationPost + 1400 7 Foundation 0x355643e4 -[NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo:] + 60 8 UIKit 0x33599112 -[UIInputViewTransition postNotificationsForTransitionStart] + 846 9 UIKit 0x335988cc -[UIPeripheralHost(UIKitInternal) executeTransition:] + 880 10 UIKit 0x3351bb8c -[UIPeripheralHost(UIKitInternal) setInputViews:animationStyle:] + 304 11 UIKit 0x3351b260 -[UIPeripheralHost(UIKitInternal) _reloadInputViewsForResponder:] + 952 12 UIKit 0x3351ae54 -[UIResponder(UIResponderInputViewAdditions) reloadInputViews] + 160 13 UIKit 0x3351a990 -[UIResponder becomeFirstResponder] + 452 14 UIKit 0x336194a0 -[UITextInteractionAssistant setFirstResponderIfNecessary] + 168 15 UIKit 0x33618d6a -[UITextInteractionAssistant oneFingerTap:] + 1602 16 UIKit 0x33618630 _UIGestureRecognizerSendActions + 100 17 UIKit 0x335a8d5e -[UIGestureRecognizer _updateGestureWithEvent:] + 298 18 UIKit 0x337d9472 ___UIGestureRecognizerUpdate_block_invoke_0541 + 42 19 UIKit 0x33524f4e _UIGestureRecognizerApplyBlocksToArray + 170 20 UIKit 0x33523a9c _UIGestureRecognizerUpdate + 892 21 UIKit 0x335307e2 _UIGestureRecognizerUpdateGesturesFromSendEvent + 22 22 UIKit 0x33530620 -[UIWindow _sendGesturesForEvent:] + 768 23 UIKit 0x335301ee -[UIWindow sendEvent:] + 82 24 UIKit 0x3351668e -[UIApplication sendEvent:] + 350 25 UIKit 0x33515f34 _UIApplicationHandleEvent + 5820 26 GraphicsServices 0x376d5224 PurpleEventCallback + 876 27 CoreFoundation 0x35ab651c __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE1_PERFORM_FUNCTION__ + 32 28 CoreFoundation 0x35ab64be __CFRunLoopDoSource1 + 134 29 CoreFoundation 0x35ab530c __CFRunLoopRun + 1364 30 CoreFoundation 0x35a3849e CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 294 31 CoreFoundation 0x35a38366 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 98 32 GraphicsServices 0x376d4432 GSEventRunModal + 130 33 UIKit 0x33544cce UIApplicationMain + 1074 Thread 0 crashed with ARM Thread State: r0: 0x0000004e r1: 0x000d04f8 r2: 0x338fed47 r3: 0x3f523340 r4: 0x00000000 r5: 0x2fe8da00 r6: 0x00000001 r7: 0x2fe8d9d0 r8: 0x3f54cad0 r9: 0x00000000 r10: 0x3fd00000 r11: 0x3f523310 ip: 0x3f497048 sp: 0x2fe8d988 lr: 0x33539a41 pc: 0x000d04fc cpsr: 0x60000010 To give some background info: The static library is part of an 'iOS fake-framework', built using the templates from here: https://github.com/kstenerud/iOS-Universal-Framework The framework presents a registration UI as a modal view on top of whatever the client application is doing at the time. It pushes these views using a handle to a UIViewController provided by the client application. It doesn't do anything special, but here's the animation code: -(void)keyboardWillShowNotification:(NSNotification *)notification { double animationDuration = [[[notification userInfo] objectForKey:UIKeyboardAnimationDurationUserInfoKey] doubleValue]; dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^(void) { [self animateViewsToState:kUMAnimationStateKeyboardVisible forIdiom:[UIDevice currentDevice].userInterfaceIdiom forDuration:animationDuration]; }); } -(void)animateViewsToState:(kUMAnimationState)state forIdiom:(UIUserInterfaceIdiom)idiom forDuration:(double)duration { float fieldOffset; if (idiom == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPhone) { if (state == kUMAnimationStateKeyboardVisible) { fieldOffset = -KEYBOARD_HEIGHT_IPHONE_PORTRAIT; } else { fieldOffset = KEYBOARD_HEIGHT_IPHONE_PORTRAIT; } } else { if (state == kUMAnimationStateKeyboardVisible) { fieldOffset = -IPAD_FIELD_OFFSET; } else { fieldOffset = IPAD_FIELD_OFFSET; } } [UIView animateWithDuration:duration animations:^(void) { mUserNameField.frame = CGRectOffset(mUserNameField.frame, 0, fieldOffset); mUserPasswordField.frame = CGRectOffset(mUserPasswordField.frame, 0, fieldOffset); }]; } Further printf-style debugging shows that it crashes whenever I do anything much with UIKit - specifically, it crashes when I replace -animateViewsToState with: if (0 == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPhone) { NSLog(@""); } and [[[[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"test" message:@"123" delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:@"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil] autorelease] show]; To me, this sounds like a linker problem, but I don't understand how such problems would only manifest here, and not beforehand. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

  Read the article

• Eventlet or gevent or Stackless + Twisted, Pylons, Django and SQL Alchemy

  - by Khorkrak

  We're using Twisted extensively for apps requiring a great deal of asynchronous io. There are some cases where stuff is cpu bound instead and for that we spawn a pool of processes to do the work and have a system for managing these across multiple servers as well - all done in Twisted. Works great. The problem is that it's hard to bring new team members up to speed. Writing asynchronous code in Twisted requires a near vertical learning curve. It's as if humans just don't think that way naturally. We're considering a mixed approach perhaps. Maybe do the xmlrpc server part and process management in Twisted still but the other stuff in code that at least looks synchronous while not being as such. Then again I like explicit over implicit so hmmm. Anyway onto greenlets - how well does that stuff work? So there's Stackless and as you can see from my Gallentean avatar I'm well aware of the tremendous success in it's use for CCP's flagship EVE Online game first hand. What about Eventlet or gevent? Well for now only Eventlet works with Twisted. However gevent claims to be faster since it's not a pure python implementation it instead uses libevent. It also has fewer idiosyncrasies and defects supposedly. The documentation there is minimal in comparison to Eventlet and it's maintained by 1 guy as far as I can tell. This makes me leery but all great projects start this way so... Then there's PyPy - I haven't even finished reading about that one yet - just saw it in this thread: Drawbacks of Stackless. So confusing - I'm wondering what the heck to do - sounds like Eventlet is probably the best bet but is it really stable enough? Anyone out there have any experience with it? Should we go with Stackless instead as it's been around and is proven technology - just like Twisted is as well - and they do work together nicely. But still I hate having to have a separate version of Python to do this. what to do.... This somewhat obnoxious blog entry hit the nail on the head for me though: Asynchronous IO for Grownups We're stuck using MySQL as well - I never knew how great PostgreSQL was until having had to work on a production OLTP system in MySQL instead - but that's another story. But if that monkey patch thing really works then wow. Just wow.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88  | Next Page >