continuous delivery - Page 82

The Year 2010, The Year of Change

As I look back on the year of 2010, I could have never predicted the wonderful changes that have occurred for my wife and me. The beginning of this year started out as the 9th year that we lived in South Florida, and my fourth year working for DentalPlans.com as a software engineer/network admin. About 3 months in to the year I was given an excellent opportunity to work for MovieTickets.com in the software engineering department. This opportunity allowed me to gain experience with jQuery due to one of my projects was to reengineering MovieTickets.com existing Marketing Panel System. About 3 months after working at MovieTickets.com, my wife and I were offered an opportunity of a life time. I was offered a Job in a large background\information security company located in Nashville, TN as software engineer II. I must note that after living in South Florida for 9 years, my wife and I really had a strong distaste for the South Florida life style and the general attitude/culture of the area. Even though we shared a strong dislike for the area in which we lived I must admit that it was a tough decision to leave MovieTickets.com because I was really doing well and I made some great new friends like Chris Catto, and Tyson Nero. In fact, they introduced me to Local Microsoft User Groups, and software development podcast like DotNetRocks.com and Hanselminutes.com. In addition, we also went to my first Microsoft launch down in Miami for Visual Studios 2010. I must admit it was a cool experience. I truly hope to keep in touch with them to see how their careers grow, and I know they will. I must admit I was nervous and excited to start the next chapter in our live as I started up the 26 foot U-Haul truck and got on the road for Nashville from Boca Raton. I knew that the change was going to lead to new adventures and new opportunities that I could never imagine. As we pulled in to the long driveway of our rental house, we knew that this was the right place for my wife and I. Natalie, my wife had actually come up to Nashville and within one week of my job offer had set up a nice rental home for us to restart our lives in TN. I must admit that the wonderful southern hospitality took a bit to get use to due to the type of people we were used to dealing with on a regular basis. Our first 2 months seemed like we were living a dream because of our new area and the wonderful people we live around. So far my new job is going really well and I really like the people on my team and department. In fact after 6 months I am now in charge of all application builds for our new deployment process. I am also leading up a push for setting up of continuous integration within our new build process. In addition to starting my new job, I was also offered a position as an adjust instructor at ITT Tech teaching course like VB.net, Java Script, Ajax, and database development. So far I have really like teaching at the college level. Information technology has really been great for my life so I am really glad to be able to give back. That is actually why I started DotNetBlocks. This site allows me to document things I have learned as I work with technology, and allows others to borrow from my experiences. I hope that this site can help others as others have helped me get where I am. Finally, I am glade to report that I only have 4 classes left for my master’s degree at Capella University. I am proud to announce that I am still on track to graduate with 3.91 GPA. This last class was really a test because I had a crazy idea that I could work full time as a software engineer, teach two college courses as a first time teacher and also take an advanced masters class in application architecture. I have no idea how I actually survived, but I am really surprised how well I actually did. I was invited back to reach again at ITT Tech, and I passed my masters class with an “A”. I have decided to take this next term off from my master’s program so that I do not get burned out. Also, so that my new current employer will pay for more of my education, tuition reimbursement is an awesome benefit. This was my year 2010, how was yours?

Read the article

OTN Architect Day Headed to Reston, VA - May 16

- by Bob Rhubart

In 2011 OTN Architect Day made stops in Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, Redwood Shores, and Toronto. The 2012 series begins with OTN Architect Day in Reston, VA on Wednesday May 16. Registration is now open for this free event, but don't get caught napping -- seating is limited, and the event is just 5 weeks away. The information below reflects the most recent updates to the event agenda, including the addition of Oracle ACE Director Kai Yu as the guest keynote speaker. Kai is Senior System Engineer / Architect at Dell, Inc., and has been very busy of late as a speaker at various industry and Oracle User Group events. I'm very happy Kai has agreed to make the trek from his hometown in Austin, TX to share his insight at the Architect Day event in Reston. If you're in the area, put this one on your calendar. You won't be sorry. Venue Sheraton Reston Hotel 11810 Sunrise Valley Drive Reston, VA 20191 Event Agenda 8:30 am - 9:00 am Registration and Continental Breakfast 9:00 am - 9:15 am Welcome and Opening Comments 9:15 am - 10:00 am Engineered Systems: Oracle's Vision for the Future | Ralf Dossman Oracle's Exadata and Exalogic are impressive products in their own right. But working in combination they deliver unparalleled transaction processing performance with up to a 30x increase over existing legacy systems, with the lowest cost of ownership over a 3 or 5 year basis than any other hardware. In this session you'll learn how to leverage Oracle's Engineered Systems within your enterprise to deliver record-breaking performance at the lowest TCO. 10:00 am - 10:30 am High Availability Infrastructure for Cloud Computing | Kai Yu Infrastructure high availability is extremely critical to Cloud Computing. In a Cloud system that hosts a large number of databases and applications with different SLAs, any unplanned outage can be devastating, and even a small planned downtime may be unacceptable. This presentation will discuss various technology solutions and the related best practices that system architects should consider in cloud infrastructure design to ensure high availability. 10:30 am - 10:45 am Break 10:45 am - 11:30 am Breakout Sessions: (pick one) Innovations in Grid Computing with Oracle Coherence | Bjorn Boe Learn how Coherence can increase the availability, scalability and performance of your existing applications with its advanced low-latency data-grid technologies. Also hear some interesting industry-specific use cases that customers had implemented and how Oracle is integrating Coherence into its Enterprise Java stack. Cloud Computing - Making IT Simple | Scott Mattoon The road to Cloud Computing is not without a few bumps. This session will help to smooth out your journey by tackling some of the potential complications. We'll examine whether standardization is a prerequisite for the Cloud. We'll look at why refactoring isn't just for application code. We'll check out deployable entities and their simplification via higher levels of abstraction. And we'll close out the session with a look at engineered systems and modular clouds. 11:30 pm - 12:15 pm Breakout Sessions: (pick one) Oracle Enterprise Manager | Joe Diemer Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) provides complete lifecycle management for the cloud - from automated cloud setup to self-service delivery to cloud operations. In this session you'll learn how to take control of your cloud infrastructure with EM features including Consolidation Planning and Self-Service provisioning with Metering and Chargeback. Come hear how Oracle is expanding its management capabilities into the cloud! Rationalization and Defense in Depth - Two Steps Closer to the Clouds | Dave Chappelle Security represents one of the biggest concerns about cloud computing. In this session we'll get past the FUD with a real-world look at some key issues. We'll discuss the infrastructure necessary to support rationalization and security services, explore architecture for defense -in-depth, and deal frankly with the good, the bad, and the ugly in Cloud security. 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm Lunch 1:40 pm - 2:00 pm Panel Discussion - Q&A 2:00 pm - 2:45 pm Breakout Sessions: (pick one) 21st Century SOA | Peter Belknap Service Oriented Architecture has evolved from concept to reality in the last decade. The right methodology coupled with mature SOA technologies has helped customers demonstrate success in both innovation and ROI. In this session you will learn how Oracle SOA Suite's orchestration, virtualization, and governance capabilities provide the infrastructure to run mission critical business and system applications. And we'll take a special look at the convergence of SOA & BPM using Oracle's Unified technology stack. Track B: Oracle Cloud Reference Architecture | Anbu Krishnaswamy Cloud initiatives are beginning to dominate enterprise IT roadmaps. Successful adoption of Cloud and the subsequent governance challenges warrant a Cloud reference architecture that is applied consistently across the enterprise. This presentation gives an overview of Oracle's Cloud Reference Architecture, which is part of the Cloud Enterprise Technology Strategy (ETS). Concepts covered include common management layer capabilities, service models, resource pools, and use cases. 2:45 pm - 3:00 pm Break 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm Roundtable Discussions 4:00 pm - 4:15 pm Closing Comments & Readouts from Roundtable 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm Cocktail Reception / Networking Session schedule and content subject to change.

Read the article

Passing the CAML thru the EY of the NEEDL

- by PointsToShare

© 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved Passing the CAML thru the EY of the NEEDL Definitions: CAML (Collaborative Application Markup Language) is an XML based markup language used in Microsoft SharePoint technologies Anonymous: A camel is a horse designed by committee Dov Trietsch: A CAML is a HORS designed by Microsoft I was advised against putting any Camel and Sphinx rhymes in here. Look it up in Google! _____ Now that we have dispensed with the dromedary jokes (BTW, I have many more, but they are not fit to print!), here is an interesting problem and its solution. We have built a list where the title must be kept unique so I needed to verify the existence (or absence) of a list item with a particular title. Two methods came to mind: 1: Span the list until the title is found (result = found) or until the list ends (result = not found). This is an algorithm of complexity O(N) and for long lists it is a performance sucker. 2: Use a CAML query instead. Here, for short list we’ll encounter some overhead, but because the query results in an SQL query on the content database, it is of complexity O(LogN), which is significantly better and scales perfectly. Obviously I decided to go with the latter and this is where the CAML s--t hit the fan. A CAML query returns a SPListItemCollection and I simply checked its Count. If it was 0, the item did not already exist and it was safe to add a new item with the given title. Otherwise I cancelled the operation and warned the user. The trouble was that I always got a positive. Most of the time a false positive. The count was greater than 0 regardles of the title I checked (except when the list was empty, which happens only once). This was very disturbing indeed. To solve my immediate problem which was speedy delivery, I reverted to the “Span the list” approach, but the problem bugged me, so I wrote a little console app by which I tested and tweaked and tested, time and again, until I found the solution. Yes, one can pass the proverbial CAML thru the ey of the needle (e’s missing on purpose). So here are my conclusions: CAML that does not work: Note: QT is my quote: char QT = Convert.ToChar((int)34); string titleQuery = "<Query>><Where><Eq>"; titleQuery += "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; titleQuery += "<Value Type=" + QT + "Text" + QT + ">" + uniqueID + "</Value></Eq></Where></Query>"; titleQuery += "<ViewFields><FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/></ViewFields>"; Why? Even though U2U generates it, the <Query> and </Query> tags do not belong in the query that you pass. Start your query with the <Where> clause. Also the <ViewFiels> clause does not belong. I used this clause to limit the returned collection to a single column, and I still wish to do it. I’ll show how this is done a bit later. When you use the <Query> </Query> tags in you query, it’s as if you did not specify the query at all. What you get is the all inclusive default query for the list. It returns evey column and every item. It is expensive for both server and network because it does all the extra processing and eats plenty of bandwidth. Now, here is the CAML that works string titleQuery = "<Where><Eq>"; titleQuery += "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; titleQuery += "<Value Type=" + QT + "Text" + QT + ">" + uniqueID + "</Value></Eq></Where>"; You’ll also notice that inside the unusable <ViewFields> clause above, we have a <FieldRef> clause. This is what we pass to the SPQuery object. Here is how: SPQuery query = new SPQuery(); query.Query = titleQuery; query.ViewFields = "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; query.RowLimit = 1; SPListItemCollection col = masterList.GetItems(query); Two thing to note: we enter the view fields into the SPQuery object and we also limited the number of rows that the query returns. The latter is not always done, but in an existence test, there is no point in returning hundreds of rows. The query will now return one item or none, which is all we need in order to verify the existence (or non-existence) of items. Limiting the number of columns and the number of rows is a great performance enhancer. That’s all folks!!

Read the article

Replication - between pools in the same system

- by Steve Tunstall

OK, I fully understand that's it's been a LONG time since I've blogged with any tips or tricks on the ZFSSA, and I'm way behind. Hey, I just wrote TWO BLOGS ON THE SAME DAY!!! Make sure you keep scrolling down to see the next one too, or you may have missed it. To celebrate, for the one or two of you out there who are still reading this, I got something for you. The first TWO people who make any comment below, with your real name and email so I can contact you, will get some cool Oracle SWAG that I have to give away. Don't get excited, it's not an iPad, but it pretty good stuff. Only the first two, so if you already see two below, then settle down. Now, let's talk about Replication and Migration. I have talked before about Shadow Migration here: https://blogs.oracle.com/7000tips/entry/shadow_migrationShadow Migration lets one take a NFS or CIFS share in one pool on a system and migrate that data over to another pool in the same system. That's handy, but right now it's only for file systems like NFS and CIFS. It will not work for LUNs. LUN shadow migration is a roadmap item, however. So.... What if you have a ZFSSA cluster with multiple pools, and you have a LUN in one pool but later you decide it's best if it was in the other pool? No problem. Replication to the rescue. What's that? Replication is only for replicating data between two different systems? Who told you that? We've been able to replicate to the same system now for a few code updates back. These instructions below will also work just fine if you're setting up replication between two different systems. After replication is complete, you can easily break replication, change the new LUN into a primary LUN and then delete the source LUN. Bam. Step 1- setup a target system. In our case, the target system is ourself, but you still have to set it up like it's far away. Go to Configuration-->Services-->Remote Replication. Click the plus sign and setup the target, which is the ZFSSA you're on now. Step 2. Now you can go to the LUN you want to replicate. Take note which Pool and Project you're in. In my case, I have a LUN in Pool2 called LUNp2 that I wish to replicate to Pool1. Step 3. In my case, I made a Project called "Luns" and it has LUNp2 inside of it. I am going to replicate the Project, which will automatically replicate all of the LUNs and/or Filesystems inside of it. Now, you can also replicate from the Share level instead of the Project. That will only replicate the share, and not all the other shares of a project. If someone tells you that if you replicate a share, it always replicates all the other shares also in that Project, don't listen to them.Note below how I can choose not only the Target (which is myself), but I can also choose which Pool to replicate it to. So I choose Pool1. Step 4. I did not choose a schedule or pick the "Continuous" button, which means my replication will be manual only. I can now push the Manual Replicate button on my Actions list and you will see it start. You will see both a barber pole animation and also an update in the status bar on the top of the screen that a replication event has begun. This also goes into the event log. Step 5. The status bar will also log an event when it's done. Step 6. If you go back to Configuration-->Services-->Remote Replication, you will see your event. Step 7. Done. To see your new replica, go to the other Pool (Pool1 for me), and click the "Replica" area below the words "Filesystems | LUNs" Here, you will see any replicas that have come in from any of your sources. It's a simple matter from here to break the replication, which will change this to a "Local" LUN, and then delete the original LUN back in Pool2. Ok, that's all for now, but I promise to give out more tricks sometime in November !!! There's very exciting stuff coming down the pipe for the ZFSSA. Both new hardware and new software features that I'm just drooling over. That's all I can say, but contact your local sales SC to get a NDA roadmap talk if you want to hear more. Happy Halloween,Steve

Read the article

Converting Creole to HTML, PDF, DOCX, ..

- by Marko Apfel

Challenge We documented a project on Github with the Wiki there. For most articles we used Creole as markup language. Now we have to deliver a lot of the content to our client in an usual format like PDF or DOCX. So we need a automatism to extract all relevant content, merge it together and convert the stuff to a new format. Problem One of the most popular toolsets to convert between several formats is Pandoc. But unfortunally Pandoc does not support Creole (see the converting matrix). Approach So we need an intermediate step: Converting from Creole to a supported Pandoc format. Creolo/c is a Creole to Html converter and does exactly what we need. After converting our Creole content to Html we could use Pandoc for all the subsequent tasks. Solution Getting the Creole stuff First at all we need the Creole content on our locale machines. This is easy. Because the Github Wiki themselves is a Git repository we could clone it to our machine. In the working copy we see now all the files and the suffix gives us the hint for the markup language. Converting and Merging Creole content to Html Because we would like all content from several Creole files in one HTML file, we have to convert and merge all the input files to one output file. Creole/c has an option (-b) to generate only the Html-stuff below a Html <Body>-tag. And this is hook for us to start. We have to create manually the additional preluding Html-tags (<html>, <head>, ..), then we merge all needed Creole content to our output file and last we add the closing tags. This could be done straightforward with a little bit old DOS magic: REM === Generate the intro tags === ECHO ^<html^> > %TMP%\output.html ECHO ^<head^> >> %TMP%\output.html ECHO ^<meta name="generator" content="creole/c"^> >> %TMP%\output.html ECHO ^</head^> >> %TMP%\output.html ECHO ^<body^> >> %TMP%\output.html REM === Mix in all interesting Creole stuff with creole/c === .\Creole-C\bin\creole.exe -b .\..\datamodel+overview.creole >> %TMP%\output.html .\Creole-C\bin\creole.exe -b .\..\datamodel+domain+CvdCaptureMode.creole >> %TMP%\output.html .\Creole-C\bin\creole.exe -b .\..\datamodel+domain+CvdDamageReducingActivity.creole >> %TMP%\output.html .\Creole-C\bin\creole.exe -b .\..\datamodel+lookup+IncidentDamageCodes.creole >> %TMP%\output.html .\Creole-C\bin\creole.exe -b .\..\datamodel+table+Attachments.creole >> %TMP%\output.html .\Creole-C\bin\creole.exe -b .\..\datamodel+table+TrafficLights.creole >> %TMP%\output.html REM === Generate the outro tags === ECHO ^</body^> >> %TMP%\output.html ECHO ^</html^> >> %TMP%\output.html REM === Convert the Html file to Docx with Pandoc === .\Pandoc\bin\pandoc.exe -o .\Database-Schema.docx %TMP%\output.html Some explanation for this The first ECHO call creates the file. Therefore the beginning <html> tag is send via > to a temporary working file. All following calls add content to the existing file via >>. The tag-characters < and > must be escaped. This is done by the caret sign (^). We use a file in the default temporary folder (%TMP%) to avoid writing in our current folders. (better for continuous integration) Both toolsets (Creole/c and Pandoc) are copied to a versioned tools folder in the Wiki. This is committable and no problem after pushing – Github does not do anything with it. In this folder is also the batch (Export-Docx.bat) for all the steps. Pandoc recognizes the conversion by the suffixes of the file names. So it is enough to specify only the input and output files.

Read the article

EU Digital Agenda scores 85/100

- by trond-arne.undheim

If the Digital Agenda was a bottle of wine and I were wine critic Robert Parker, I would say the Digital Agenda has "a great bouquet, many good elements, with astringent, dry and puckering mouth feel that will not please everyone, but still displaying some finesse. A somewhat controlled effort with no surprises and a few noticeable flaws in the delivery. Noticeably shorter aftertaste than advertised by the producers. Score: 85/100. Enjoy now". The EU Digital Agenda states that "standards are vital for interoperability" and has a whole chapter on interoperability and standards. With this strong emphasis, there is hope the EU's outdated standardization system finally is headed for reform. It has been 23 years since the legal framework of standardisation was completed by Council Decision 87/95/EEC8 in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. Standardization is market driven. For several decades the IT industry has been developing standards and specifications in global open standards development organisations (fora/consortia), many of which have transparency procedures and practices far superior to the European Standards Organizations. The Digital Agenda rightly states: "reflecting the rise and growing importance of ICT standards developed by certain global fora and consortia". Some fora/consortia, of course, are distorted, influenced by single vendors, have poor track record, and need constant vigilance, but they are the minority. Therefore, the recognition needs to be accompanied by eligibility criteria focused on openness. Will the EU reform its ICT standardization by the end of 2010? Possibly, and only if DG Enterprise takes on board that Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have driven half of the productivity growth in Europe over the past 15 years, a prominent fact in the EU's excellent Digital Competitiveness report 2010 published on Monday 17 May. It is ok to single out the ICT sector. It simply is the most important sector right now as it fuels growth in all other sectors. Let's not wait for the entire standardization package which may take another few years. Europe does not have time. The Digital Agenda is an umbrella strategy with deliveries from a host of actors across the Commission. For instance, the EU promises to issue "guidance on transparent ex-ante disclosure rules for essential intellectual property rights and licensing terms and conditions in the context of standard setting", by 2011 in the Horisontal Guidelines now out for public consultation by DG COMP and to some extent by DG ENTR's standardization policy reform. This is important. The EU will issue procurement guidance as interoperability frameworks are put into practice. This is a joint responsibility of several DGs, and is likely to suffer coordination problems, controversy and delays. We have seen plenty of the latter already and I have commented on the Commission's own interoperability elsewhere, with mixed luck. :( Yesterday, I watched the cartoonesque Korean western film The Good, the Bad and the Weird. In the movie (and I meant in the movie only), a bandit, a thief, and a bounty hunter, all excellent at whatever they do, fight for a treasure map. Whether that is a good analogy for the situation within the Commission, others are better judges of than I. However, as a movie fanatic, I still await the final shoot-out, and, as in the film, the only certainty is that "life is about chasing and being chased". The missed opportunity (in this case not following up the push from Member States to better define open standards based interoperability) is a casualty of the chaos ensued in the European Wild West (and I mean that in the most endearing sense, and my excuses beforehand to actors who possibly justifiably cannot bear being compared to fictional movie characters). Instead of exposing the ongoing fight, the EU opted for the legalistic use of the term "standards" throughout the document. This is a term that--to the EU-- excludes most standards used by the IT industry world wide. So, while it, for a moment, meant "weapon down", it will not lead to lasting peace. The Digital Agenda calls for the Member States to "Implement commitments on interoperability and standards in the Malmö and Granada Declarations by 2013". This is a far cry from the actual Ministerial Declarations which called upon the Commission to help them with this implementation by recognizing and further defining open standards based interoperability. Unless there is more forthcoming from the Commission, the market's judgement will be: you simply fall short. Generally, I think the EU focus now should be "from policy to practice" and the Digital Agenda does indeed stop short of tackling some highly practical issues. There is need for progress beyond the Digital Agenda. Here are some suggestions that would help Europe re-take global leadership on openness, public sector reform, and economic growth: A strong European software strategy centred around open standards based interoperability by 2011. An ambitious new eCommission strategy for 2011-15 focused on migration to open standards by 2015. Aligning the IT portfolio across the Commission into one Digital Agenda DG by 2012. Focusing all best practice exchange in eGovernment on one social networking site, epractice.eu (full disclosure: I had a role in getting that site up and running) Prioritizing public sector needs in global standardization over European standardization by 2014.

Read the article

Parner Webcast - Innovations in Products Program

- by Richard Lefebvre

We are pleased to invite you to join the Innovations in Products –webcast. Innovations in Products will present Oracle Applications' Product's new functions and features including sales positioning. The key objectives of these webcasts are to inspire System Integrator's implementation personnel to conduct successful after sales in their Customer projects. Innovations in Products will be presented on the 1st Monday of each quarter after the billable day (4:00 to 5:00 PM CET). The webcast is intended for System Integrator's Implementation Certified Specialists but Innovations in Products is open for other interested Oracle Applications system Integrator's personnel as well. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle's contribution to Partners. Then you will see product breakout session followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. Each session will last for maximum 1 hour. A Q&A document covering all questions and answers will be made available after the webcast. What are the Benefits for partners? Find out how Innovations in Products helps you to improve your after sales Discover new functions and features so you can enrich your Customers's solution Learn more about Oracle Applications products, especially sales positioning Hear crucial questions raised by colleague alike, learn from their interest Engage and present your questions to subject experts Be inspired of the richness of Oracle Application portfolio – for your and your customer’s benefit Note: Should you already be familiar with a specific Product, then choose another one. Doing so you would expand your knowledge of the overall Applications portfolio. Some presentations contain product demonstration, although these presentations are not intended to be extremely detailed technical presentations. Note: At the latter part of this email you have also 17 links into the recent Applications Products presentations and 6 links into the Public Sector Value Proposition presentations that were presented in Innovations in Industries -program. Product breakout sessions: Topics Speaker To Register Fusion Applications Technology and Extensibility: A next-generation platform that adapts to client needs. Matthew Johnson, Sr. Director, SCM Product Development, EMEA CLICK HERE Fusion Applications - Transforming your Back-Office Accounting Function: Changing how people work in back office functions to drive value add Liam Nolan, Director, ERP Product Development, EMEA CLICK HERE Fusion HCM & Talent Overview & Extensibility: A more in-depth look into a personalized HCM solution Synco Jonkeren, Vice-President HCM Product Development & Management, EMEA CLICK HERE Fusion HCM Compensation Planning: Compensate To Compete Rosie Warner, Director, HCM Sales Development CLICK HERE Enterprise PLM for the Product Value Chain: Oracle Enterprise PLM offers Industry specific solutions that cover the Product Value Chain Ulf Köster, Sales Development Leader Enterprise PLM, Oracle Western Europe CLICK HERE Oracle's Asset Management and Maintenance Solution: What you need to know to successfully implement Oracle Asset Management solutions within Oracle Installed Base Philip Carey, Asset Management and Maintenance Solution Specialist CLICK HERE For more details please visit Innovations in Products and other breakout sessions on OPN page. Delivery Format Innovations in Products –program is a series of FREE prerecorded Applications product presentations followed by Q&A. It will be delivered over the Web. Participants have the opportunity to submit questions during the web cast via chat and subject matter experts will provide verbal answers live. Innovations in Products consists of several parallel prerecorded product breakout sessions, each lasting for max. 1 hour. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle’s contribution to Partners. Then you’ll see the product breakout sessions followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. A Q&A document covering all questions and answers will be made available after the webcast. You can also see Innovations in Products afterwards as its content will be available online for the next 6-12 months. The next Innovations in Products web casts will be presented as follows: July 2nd 2012 October 1st 2012 January 14th 2013 April 8th 2013. Note: Depending on local network bandwidth please allow some seconds time the presentations to download. You might want to refresh your screen by pressing F5. Duration Maximum 1 hour For further information please contact me Markku Rouhiainen. Recent Innovations in Products presentations Applications Products presented on April the 2nd, 2012 Speaker To Register Fusion CRM: Effective, Efficient and Easy James Penfold , Senior Director, Applications Product Development and Product Management CLICK HERE Fusion HCM: Talent management overview performance, goals, talent review Jaime Losantos Viñolas, Director, HCM Sales Development CLICK HERE Distributed Order Management - Fusion SCM Solution Vikram K Singla, Business Development Director, Supply Chain Management Applications, UK CLICK HERE Oracle Transportation Management Dominic Regan, Senior Director Oracle Transportation Management EMEA CLICK HERE Oracle Value Chain Planning: Demantra Sales & Operation Planning and Demantra Demand Management Lionel Albert, Senior Director Value Chain Planning, EMEA CLICK HERE Oracle CX (Customer Experience) - formerly CEM: Powering Great Customer Experiences Maria Ramirez , CRM Presales Consultant, EPC CLICK HERE EPM 11.1.2.2 Overview Nicholas Cox , EMEA Sales Development Director - Enterprise Performance Management CLICK HERE Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management, 11.1.2.1 Daniela Lazar , Senior EPM Sales Consultant, EPC CLICK HERE January the 16th 2012 Speaker To Register CRM / ATG: Best-in-Class CRM & Commerce Maria Ramirez , Associate CRM Presales Consultant, EPC CLICK HERE CRM / Automate Business Rules for Maximum Efficiency with OPA (Oracle Policy Automation) Marco Nilo, Associate CRM Presales Consultant, EPC CLICK HERE CRM / InQuira Toby Baker, Principal Sales Consultant, CRM Product Specialist Team CLICK HERE EPM / Business Intelligence Foundation Suite – Sales and Product Updates Liviu Nitescu, Senior BI Sales Consultant, EPC CLICK HERE EPM / Hyperion Planning 11.1.2.1 - Sales & Product Updates Andreea Voinea, EPM Sales Consultant, EPC CLICK HERE ERP / JDE EnterpriseOne Fulfillment Management Overview Mirela Andreea Nasta , ERP Presales Consultant, EPC CLICK HERE ERP / Spotlights on iExpenses Elena Nita ,ERP Presales Consultant, EPC CLICK HERE MDM / Master Data Management Martin Boyd , Senior Director Product Strategy CLICK HERE Product break through session Fusion Applications Human Capital Management Rosie Warner , Director, HCM Sales Development CLICK HERE Recent Innovations in Industries Value Proposition presentations January the 16th 2012 Speaker To Register Process Modernisation Iemke Idsingh Public Sector Solutions Director CLICK HERE Shared Services Ann Smith Business Development Director, Shared Services CLICK HERE Strengthening Financial Discipline Whilst Delivering Cashable Savings Philippa Headley UK Sales Development Director Public Sector - EPM Solutions CLICK HERE Social Welfare Industry Solutions Christian Wernberg-Tougaard Industry Director - Social Welfare CLICK HERE Police Industry Solutions Jeff Penrose Solution Sales Director CLICK HERE Tax and Revenue Management Industry Solutions Andre van der Post Global Director - Tax Solutions and Strategy CLICK HERE

Read the article

Top Reasons You Need A User Engagement Platform

- by Michael Snow

Guest post by: Amit Sircar, Senior Sales Consultant, Oracle Deliver complex enterprise functionality through a simple intuitive and unified User Interface (UI) The modern enterprise contains a wide range of applications that are used to manage the business and drive competitive advantages. Organizations respond by creating a complex structure that results in a functional and management grouping of users. Each of these groups of users requires access to multiple applications and information sources in order to perform their job functions. This leads to the lack of a unified view of enterprise information, inconsistent user interfaces and disjointed security. To be effective, portals must be designed from the end-user perspective, enabling the user to accomplish as many tasks as possible while visiting the fewest number of portals. This requires rethinking the way that portals are built, moving from a functional business unit perspective to a user-focused, process-oriented point of view. Oracle WebCenter provides the Common User Experience Architecture that allows organizations to seamlessly present a unified view of enterprise information tailored to a particular user’s role and preferences. This architecture provides the best practices, design patterns and delivery mechanism for myriad services, applications, and data sources. In order to serve as a primary system of access, Oracle WebCenter also provides access to unstructured content and to other users via integrated search, service-oriented artifacts, content management, and collaboration tools. Provide a modern and engaging experience without modifying the core business application Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, forums or social media sites are having a profound impact in the public internet. These technologies can be leveraged by enterprises to add significant value to the business. Organizations need to integrate these technologies directly into their business applications while continuing to meet their security and governance needs. To deliver richer connections and become a more agile and intelligent business, WebCenter provides an enterprise portal platform that contains pre-integrated, standards-based Enterprise 2.0 services. These Enterprise 2.0 services can be easily accessed, integrated and utilized by users. By giving users the ability to use and integrate Enterprise 2.0 services such as tags, links, wikis, activities, blogs or social networking directly with their portals and applications, they are empowered to make richer connections, optimize their productivity, and ultimately increase the value of their applications. Foster a collaborative experience The organizational workplace has undergone a major change in the last decade. With increasing globalization and a distributed workforce, project teams may be physically separated by large distances. Online collaboration technologies are becoming a critical resource to enable virtual teams to share information and work together effectively. Oracle WebCenter delivers dynamic business communities with rich Services to empower teams to quickly and efficiently manage their information, applications, projects, and people without requiring IT assistance. It brings together the latest technology around Enterprise 2.0 and social computing, communities, personal productivity, and ad-hoc team interactions without any development effort. It enables the sharing and collaboration on team content, focusing an organization’s valuable resources on solving business problems, tapping into new ideas, and reducing time-to-market. Mobile Support The traditional workplace dynamics that required employees to access their work applications from their desktops have undergone a fundamental shift. Employees were used to primarily working from company offices and utilized an IT-issued computer for performing their job functions. With the introduction of flexible work hours and the growth of remote workers, more and more employees need the ability to remain productive even when they do not have access to a computer via the use of tablets and smartphones. In addition, customers and citizens have come to expect 24x7 access to resources and websites from wherever they are located. Tablets and smartphones have empowered everyone to quickly access services they need anytime and from any place. WebCenter provides out of the box capabilities to deliver the mobile experience in a seamless manner. Seeded device profiles and toolkits within WebCenter can be used to render the same web pages into multiple target devices such iPads, iPhones and android devices. Web designers can preview the portal using the built in simulator, make necessary updates and then deploy their UI design for the targeted device. Conclusion The competitive economy and resource constraints facing organizations today require them to find ways to make their applications, portals and Web sites more agile and intelligent and their knowledge workers more productive no matter where they are located. Organizations need to provide faster access to relevant information and resources, enhance existing applications and business processes with rich Enterprise 2.0 services, and seamlessly deliver content to mobile platforms. Oracle WebCenter successfully meets these challenges by providing the modern user experience platform for the enterprise and the Web.

Read the article

NoSQL Java API for MySQL Cluster: Questions & Answers

- by Mat Keep

The MySQL Cluster engineering team recently ran a live webinar, available now on-demand demonstrating the ClusterJ and ClusterJPA NoSQL APIs for MySQL Cluster, and how these can be used in building real-time, high scale Java-based services that require continuous availability. Attendees asked a number of great questions during the webinar, and I thought it would be useful to share those here, so others are also able to learn more about the Java NoSQL APIs. First, a little bit about why we developed these APIs and why they are interesting to Java developers. ClusterJ and Cluster JPA ClusterJ is a Java interface to MySQL Cluster that provides either a static or dynamic domain object model, similar to the data model used by JDO, JPA, and Hibernate. A simple API gives users extremely high performance for common operations: insert, delete, update, and query. ClusterJPA works with ClusterJ to extend functionality, including - Persistent classes - Relationships - Joins in queries - Lazy loading - Table and index creation from object model By eliminating data transformations via SQL, users get lower data access latency and higher throughput. In addition, Java developers have a more natural programming method to directly manage their data, with a complete, feature-rich solution for Object/Relational Mapping. As a result, the development of Java applications is simplified with faster development cycles resulting in accelerated time to market for new services. MySQL Cluster offers multiple NoSQL APIs alongside Java: - Memcached for a persistent, high performance, write-scalable Key/Value store, - HTTP/REST via an Apache module - C++ via the NDB API for the lowest absolute latency. Developers can use SQL as well as NoSQL APIs for access to the same data set via multiple query patterns – from simple Primary Key lookups or inserts to complex cross-shard JOINs using Adaptive Query Localization Marrying NoSQL and SQL access to an ACID-compliant database offers developers a number of benefits. MySQL Cluster’s distributed, shared-nothing architecture with auto-sharding and real time performance makes it a great fit for workloads requiring high volume OLTP. Users also get the added flexibility of being able to run real-time analytics across the same OLTP data set for real-time business insight. OK – hopefully you now have a better idea of why ClusterJ and JPA are available. Now, for the Q&A. Q & A Q. Why would I use Connector/J vs. ClusterJ? A. Partly it's a question of whether you prefer to work with SQL (Connector/J) or objects (ClusterJ). Performance of ClusterJ will be better as there is no need to pass through the MySQL Server. A ClusterJ operation can only act on a single table (e.g. no joins) - ClusterJPA extends that capability Q. Can I mix different APIs (ie ClusterJ, Connector/J) in our application for different query types? A. Yes. You can mix and match all of the API types, SQL, JDBC, ODBC, ClusterJ, Memcached, REST, C++. They all access the exact same data in the data nodes. Update through one API and new data is instantly visible to all of the others. Q. How many TCP connections would a SessionFactory instance create for a cluster of 8 data nodes? A. SessionFactory has a connection to the mgmd (management node) but otherwise is just a vehicle to create Sessions. Without using connection pooling, a SessionFactory will have one connection open with each data node. Using optional connection pooling allows multiple connections from the SessionFactory to increase throughput. Q. Can you give details of how Cluster J optimizes sharding to enhance performance of distributed query processing? A. Each data node in a cluster runs a Transaction Coordinator (TC), which begins and ends the transaction, but also serves as a resource to operate on the result rows. While an API node (such as a ClusterJ process) can send queries to any TC/data node, there are performance gains if the TC is where most of the result data is stored. ClusterJ computes the shard (partition) key to choose the data node where the row resides as the TC. Q. What happens if we perform two primary key lookups within the same transaction? Are they sent to the data node in one transaction? A. ClusterJ will send identical PK lookups to the same data node. Q. How is distributed query processing handled by MySQL Cluster ? A. If the data is split between data nodes then all of the information will be transparently combined and passed back to the application. The session will connect to a data node - typically by hashing the primary key - which then interacts with its neighboring nodes to collect the data needed to fulfil the query. Q. Can I use Foreign Keys with MySQL Cluster A. Support for Foreign Keys is included in the MySQL Cluster 7.3 Early Access release Summary The NoSQL Java APIs are packaged with MySQL Cluster, available for download here so feel free to take them for a spin today! Key Resources MySQL Cluster on-line demo MySQL ClusterJ and JPA On-demand webinar MySQL ClusterJ and JPA documentation MySQL ClusterJ and JPA whitepaper and tutorial

Read the article

Becoming A Great Developer

- by Lee Brandt

Image via Wikipedia I’ve been doing the whole programming thing for awhile and reading and watching some of the best in the business. I have come to notice that the really great developers do a few things that (I think) makes them great. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I am one of these few. I still struggle with doing some of the things that makes one great at development. Coincidently, many of these things also make you a better person period. Believe That Guidance Is Better Than Answers This is one I have no problem with. I prefer guidance any time I am learning from another developer. Answers may get you going, but guidance will leave you stranded. At some point, you will come across a problem that can only be solved by thinking for yourself and this is where that guidance will really come in handy. You can use that guidance and extrapolate whatever technology to salve that problem (if it’s the right tool for solving that problem). The problem is, lots of developers simply want someone to tell them, “Do this, then this, then set that, and write this.” Favor thinking and learn the guidance of doing X and don’t ask someone to show you how to do X, if that makes sense. Read, Read and Read If you don’t like reading, you’re probably NOT going to make it into the Great Developer group. Great developers read books, they read magazines and they read code. Open source playgrounds like SourceForge, CodePlex and GitHub, have made it extremely easy to download code from developers you admire and see how they do stuff. Chances are, if you read their blog too, they’ll even explain WHY they did what they did (see “Guidance” above). MSDN and Code Magazine have not only code samples, but explanations of how to use certain technologies and sometimes even when NOT to use that same technology. Books are also out on just about every topic. I still favor the less technology centric books. For instance, I generally don’t buy books like, “Getting Started with Jiminy Jappets”. I look for titles like, “How To Write More Effective Code” (again, see guidance). The Addison-Wesley Signature Series is a great example of these types of books. They teach technology-agnostic concepts. Head First Design Patterns is another great guidance book. It teaches the "Gang Of Four" Design Patterns in a very easy-to-understand, picture-heavy way (I LIKE pictures). Hang Your Balls Out There Even though the advice came from a 3rd-shift Kinko’s attendant, doesn’t mean it’s not sound advice. Write some code and put it out for others to read, criticize and castigate you for. Understand that there are some real jerks out there who are absolute geniuses. Don’t be afraid to get some great advice wrapped in some really nasty language. Try to take what’s good about it and leave what’s not. I have a tough time with this myself. I don’t really have any code out there that is available for review (other than my demo code). It takes some guts to do, but in the end, there is no substitute for getting a community of developers to critique your code and give you ways to improve. Get Involved Speaking of community, the local and online user groups and discussion forums are a great place to hear about technologies and techniques you might never come across otherwise. Mostly because you might not know to look. But, once you sit down with a bunch of other developers and start discussing what you’re interested in, you may open up a whole new perspective on it. Don’t just go to the UG meetings and watch the presentations either, get out there and talk, socialize. I realize geeks weren’t meant to necessarily be social creatures, but if you’re amongst other geeks, it’s much easier. I’ve learned more in the last 3-4 years that I have been involved in the community that I did in my previous 8 years of coding without it. Socializing works, even if socialism doesn’t. Continuous Improvement Lean proponents might call this “Kaizen”, but I call it progress. We all know, especially in the technology realm, if you’re not moving ahead, you’re falling behind. It may seem like drinking from a fire hose, but step back and pick out the technologies that speak to you. The ones that may you’re little heart go pitter-patter. Concentrate on those. If you’re still overloaded, pick the best of the best. Just know that if you’re not looking at the code you wrote last week or at least last year with some embarrassment, you’re probably stagnating. That’s about all I can say about that, cause I am all out of clichés to throw at it. :0) Write Code Great painters paint, great writers write, and great developers write code. The most sure-fire way to improve your coding ability is to continue writing code. Don’t just write code that your work throws on you, pick that technology you love or are curious to know more about and walk through some blog demo examples. Take the language you use everyday and try to get it to do something crazy. Who knows, you might create the next Google search algorithm! All in all, being a great developer is about finding yourself in all this code. If it is just a job to you, you will probably never be one of the “Great Developers”, but you’re probably okay with that. If, on the other hand, you do aspire to greatness, get out there and GET it. No one’s going hand it to you.

Read the article

Stumbling Through: Making a case for the K2 Case Management Framework

I have recently attended a three-day training session on K2s Case Management Framework (CMF), a free framework built on top of K2s blackpearl workflow product, and I have come away with several different impressions for some of the different aspects of the framework. Before we get into the details, what is the Case Management Framework? It is essentially a suite of tools that, when used together, solve many common workflow scenarios. The tool has been developed over time by K2 consultants that have realized they tend to solve the same problems over and over for various clients, so they attempted to package all of those common solutions into one framework. Most of these common problems involve workflow process that arent necessarily direct and would tend to be difficult to model. Such solutions could be achieved in blackpearl alone, but the workflows would be complex and difficult to follow and maintain over time. CMF attempts to simplify such scenarios not so much by black-boxing the workflow processes, but by providing different points of entry to the processes allowing them to be simpler, moving the complexity to a middle layer. It is not a solution in and of itself, development is still required to tie the pieces together. CMF is under continuous development, both a plus and a minus in that bugs are fixed quickly and features added regularly, but it may be difficult to know which versions are the most stable. CMF is not an officially supported K2 product, which means you will not get technical support but you will get access to the source code. The example given of a business process that would fit well into CMF is that of a file cabinet, where each folder in said file cabinet is a case that contains all of the data associated with one complaint/customer/incident/etc. and various users can access that case at any time and take one of a set of pre-determined actions on it. When I was given that example, my first thought was that any workflow I have ever developed in the past could be made to fit this model there must be more than just this model to help decide if CMF is the right solution. As the training went on, we learned that one of the key features of CMF is SharePoint integration as each case gets a SharePoint site created for it, and there are a number of excellent web parts that can be used to design a portal for users to get at all the information on their cases. While CMF does not require SharePoint, without it you will be missing out on a huge portion of functionality that CMF offers. My opinion is that without SharePoint integration, you may as well write your workflows and other components the old fashioned way. When I heard that each case gets its own SharePoint site created for it, warning bells immediately went off in my head as I felt that depending on the data load, a CMF enabled solution could quickly overwhelm SharePoint with thousands of sites so we have yet another deciding factor for CMF: Just how many cases will your solution be creating? While it is not necessary to use the site-per-case model, it is one of the more useful parts of the framework. Without it, you are losing a big chunk of what CMF has to offer. When it comes to developing on top of the Case Management Framework, it becomes a matter of configuring what makes up a case, what can be done to a case, where each action on a case should take the user, and then typing up actions to case statuses. This last step is one that I immediately warmed up to, as just about every workflow Ive designed in the past needed some sort of mapping table to set the status of a work item based on the action being taken definitely one of those common solutions that it is good to see rolled up into a re-useable entity (and it gets a nice configuration UI to boot!). This concept is a little different than traditional workflow design, in that you dont have to think of an end-to-end process around passing a case along a path, rather, you must envision the case as central object with workflow threads branching off of it and doing their own thing with the case data. Certainly there can be certain workflow threads that get rather complex, but the idea is that they RELATE to the case, they dont BECOME the case (though it is still possible with action->status mappings to prevent certain actions in certain cases, so it isnt always a wide-open free for all of actions on a case). I realize that this description of the Case Management Framework merely scratches the surface on what the product actually can do, and I dont think Ive conclusively defined for what sort of business scenario you can make a case for Case Management Framework. What I do hope to have accomplished with this post is to raise awareness of CMF there is a (free!) product out there that could potentially simplify a tangled workflow process and give (for free!) a very useful set of SharePoint web parts and a nice set of (free!) reports. The best way to see if it will truly fit your needs is to give it a try did I mention it is FREE? Er, ok, so it is free, but only obtainable at this time for K2 partnersDid 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

Create Advanced Panoramas with Microsoft Image Composite Editor

- by Matthew Guay

Do you enjoy making panoramas with your pictures, but want more features than tools like Live Photo Gallery offer? Here’s how you can create amazing panoramas for free with the Microsoft Image Composite Editor. Yesterday we took a look at creating panoramic photos in Windows Live Photo Gallery. Today we take a look at a free tool from Microsoft that will give you more advanced features to create your own masterpiece. Getting Started Download Microsoft Image Composite Editor from Microsoft Research (link below), and install as normal. Note that there are separate version for 32 & 64-bit editions of Windows, so make sure to download the correct one for your computer. Once it’s installed, you can proceed to create awesome panoramas and extremely large image combinations with it. Microsoft Image Composite Editor integrates with Live Photo Gallery, so you can create more advanced panoramic pictures directly. Select the pictures you want to combine, click Extras in the menu bar, and select Create Image Composite. You can also create a photo stitch directly from Explorer. Select the pictures you want to combine, right-click, and select Stitch Images… Or, simply launch the Image Composite Editor itself and drag your pictures into its editor. Either way you start a image composition, the program will automatically analyze and combine your images. This application is optimized for multiple cores, and we found it much faster than other panorama tools such as Live Photo Gallery. Within seconds, you’ll see your panorama in the top preview pane. From the bottom of the window, you can choose a different camera motion which will change how the program stitches the pictures together. You can also quickly crop the picture to the size you want, or use Automatic Crop to have the program select the maximum area with a continuous picture. Here’s how our panorama looked when we switched the Camera Motion to Planar Motion 2. But, the real tweaking comes in when you adjust the panorama’s projection and orientation. Click the box button at the top to change these settings. The panorama is now overlaid with a grid, and you can drag the corners and edges of the panorama to change its shape. Or, from the Projection button at the top, you can choose different projection modes. Here we’ve chosen Cylinder (Vertical), which entirely removed the warp on the walls in the image. You can pan around the image, and get the part you find most important in the center. Click the Apply button on the top when you’re finished making changes, or click Revert if you want to switch to the default view settings. Once you’ve finished your masterpiece, you can export it easily to common photo formats from the Export panel on the bottom. You can choose to scale the image or set it to a maximum width and height as well. Click Export to disk to save the photo to your computer, or select Publish to Photosynth to post your panorama online. Alternately, from the File menu you can choose to save the panorama as .spj file. This preserves all of your settings in the Image Composite Editor so you can edit it more in the future if you wish. Conclusion Whether you’re trying to capture the inside of a building or a tall tree, the extra tools in Microsoft Image Composite Editor let you make nicer panoramas than you ever thought possible. We found the final results surprisingly accurate to the real buildings and objects, especially after tweaking the projection modes. This tool can be both fun and useful, so give it a try and let us know what you’ve found it useful for. Works with 32 & 64-bit versions of XP, Vista, and Windows 7 Link Download Microsoft Image Composite Editor Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change or Set the Greasemonkey Script Editor in FirefoxNew Vista Syntax for Opening Control Panel Items from the Command-lineTune Your ClearType Font Settings in Windows VistaChange the Default Editor From Nano on Ubuntu LinuxMake MSE Create a Restore Point Before Cleaning Malware TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like) Build Great Charts in Excel with Chart Advisor

Read the article

College Courses through distance learning

- by Matt

I realize this isn't really a programming question, but didn't really know where to post this in the stackexchange and because I am a computer science major i thought id ask here. This is pretty unique to the programmer community since my degree is about 95% programming. I have 1 semester left, but i work full time. I would like to finish up in December, but to make things easier i like to take online classes whenever I can. So, my question is does anyone know of any colleges that offer distance learning courses for computer science? I have been searching around and found a few potential classes, but not sure yet. I would like to gather some classes and see what i can get approval for. Class I need: Only need one C SC 437 Geometric Algorithms C SC 445 Algorithms C SC 473 Automata Only need one C SC 452 Operating Systems C SC 453 Compilers/Systems Software While i only need of each of the above courses i still need to take two more electives. These also have to be upper 400 level classes. So i can take multiple in each category. Some other classes I can take are: CSC 447 - Green Computing CSC 425 - Computer Networking CSC 460 - Database Design CSC 466 - Computer Security I hoping to take one or two of these courses over the summer. If not, then online over the regular semester would be ok too. Any help in helping find these classes would be awesome. Maybe you went to a college that offered distance learning. Some of these classes may be considered to be graduate courses too. Descriptions are listed below if you need. Thanks! Descriptions Computer Security This is an introductory course covering the fundamentals of computer security. In particular, the course will cover basic concepts of computer security such as threat models and security policies, and will show how these concepts apply to specific areas such as communication security, software security, operating systems security, network security, web security, and hardware-based security. Computer Networking Theory and practice of computer networks, emphasizing the principles underlying the design of network software and the role of the communications system in distributed computing. Topics include routing, flow and congestion control, end-to-end protocols, and multicast. Database Design Functions of a database system. Data modeling and logical database design. Query languages and query optimization. Efficient data storage and access. Database access through standalone and web applications. Green Computing This course covers fundamental principles of energy management faced by designers of hardware, operating systems, and data centers. We will explore basic energy management option in individual components such as CPUs, network interfaces, hard drives, memory. We will further present the energy management policies at the operating system level that consider performance vs. energy saving tradeoffs. Finally we will consider large scale data centers where energy management is done at multiple layers from individual components in the system to shutting down entries subset of machines. We will also discuss energy generation and delivery and well as cooling issues in large data centers. Compilers/Systems Software Basic concepts of compilation and related systems software. Topics include lexical analysis, parsing, semantic analysis, code generation; assemblers, loaders, linkers; debuggers. Operating Systems Concepts of modern operating systems; concurrent processes; process synchronization and communication; resource allocation; kernels; deadlock; memory management; file systems. Algorithms Introduction to the design and analysis of algorithms: basic analysis techniques (asymptotics, sums, recurrences); basic design techniques (divide and conquer, dynamic programming, greedy, amortization); acquiring an algorithm repertoire (sorting, median finding, strong components, spanning trees, shortest paths, maximum flow, string matching); and handling intractability (approximation algorithms, branch and bound). Automata Introduction to models of computation (finite automata, pushdown automata, Turing machines), representations of languages (regular expressions, context-free grammars), and the basic hierarchy of languages (regular, context-free, decidable, and undecidable languages). Geometric Algorithms The study of algorithms for geometric objects, using a computational geometry approach, with an emphasis on applications for graphics, VLSI, GIS, robotics, and sensor networks. Topics may include the representation and overlaying of maps, finding nearest neighbors, solving linear programming problems, and searching geometric databases.

Read the article

Employee Engagement Q&A with John Brunswick

- by Kellsey Ruppel

As we are focusing this week on Employee Engagement, I recently sat down with industry expert and thought leader John Brunswick on the topic. Here is the Q&A dialogue we shared. Q: How do you effectively engage employees to drive business value?A: Motivation, both extrinsic and intrinsic, combined with the relevancy of various channels to support it. Beyond chaining business strategies like compensation models within an organization, engagement ultimately is most successful when driven by employee's motivations. Business value derived from engagement through technical capabilities can be objectively measured through metrics like the rate and accuracy of problem solving for a given business function or frequency of innovation created. Providing employees performing "knowledge work" with capabilities that allow them to perform work with a higher degree of accuracy in the same or ideally less time, adds value for that individual and in turn, drives their level of engagement to drive business value. Q: Organizations with high levels of employee engagement outperform the total stock market index by 22%. Can you comment on why you think this might be? A: Alignment through shared purpose. Zappos is an excellent example of a culture that arguably has higher than average levels of employee engagement and it permeates every aspect of their organization – embodied externally through their customer experience. I recently made my first purchase with them and it was obvious through their web experience, visual design, communication style, customer service and attention to detail down to green packaging, that they have an amazingly strong shared purpose. The Zappos.com ‘About page’ outlines their "Family Core Values", the first three being "Deliver WOW Through Service, Embrace and Drive Change & Create Fun and A Little Weirdness" – all reflected externally in my interaction with them. Strong shared purpose enables higher product and service experience, equating to a dedicated customer base, repeat purchases and expanded marketshare. Q: Have you seen any trends in the market regarding employee engagement? A: Some companies now see offering a form of social engagement similar to Facebook and LinkedIn as standard communication infrastructure like email or instant messaging. Originally offered as standalone tools, the value is now seen when these capabilities are offered in an integrated fashion in the context of business entities. An emerging area of focus is around employee activities related to their organization on external social platforms, implicitly creating external communities with employees acting on behalf of the brand and interacting with each other (e.g. Twitter). Companies have reached a formal understand that this now established communication medium requires strategies allowing employees to engage. I have personally met colleagues from Oracle, like Oracle User Experience Director Ultan O'Broin (@ultan), via Twitter before meeting first through internal channels. Q: Employee engagement is important, but what about engaging customers and partners? A: The last few years we have witnessed an interesting evolution from the novelty of self-service to expectations of "intelligent" self-service. From a consumer standpoint, engagement can end up being a key differentiator, especially in mature markets. Customers that perform some level of interaction with a brand develop greater affinity for the brand and have a greater probability of acting as an advocate. As organizations move toward a model of deeper engagement, they must ensure that their business is positioned to support deeper relationships, offering potentially greater transparency. From a partner standpoint greater engagement can lead to new types of business opportunities, much in the way that Amazon.com offers a unified shopping experience that can potentially span various vendors. This same model can be extended to blending services and product delivery models, based on a closeness not easily possible before increased capability of engagement mechanisms. Q: What types of solutions are available to successfully deliver employee engagement? A: Solutions enabling higher levels of engagement do so on the basis of relevancy. This relevancy is generally supported by aspects of content management, social collaboration, business intelligence, portal and process management technologies. These technologies can help deliver an experience tailored to a given role or process within an organization that applies equally to work that is structured or unstructured, appearing in the form of functionality as simple as an online employee directory search, knowledge communities supported by social collaboration, as well as more feature rich business intelligence dashboards and portals. Looking to learn more about how to effectively engage your employees? Check out this webcast, or read more from John Brunswick.

Read the article

PeopleSoft at Alliance 2012 Executive Forum

- by John Webb

Guest Posting From Rebekah Jackson This week I jointed over 4,800 Higher Ed and Public Sector customers and partners in Nashville at our annual Alliance conference. I got lost easily in the hallways of the sprawling Gaylord Opryland Hotel. I carried the resort map with me, and I would still stand for several minutes at a very confusing junction, studying the map and the signage on the walls. Hallways led off in many directions, some with elevators going down here and stairs going up there. When I took a wrong turn I would instantly feel stuck, lose my bearings, and occasionally even have to send out a call for help. It strikes me that the theme for the Executive Forum this year outlines a less tangible but equally disorienting set of challenges that our higher education customer’s CIOs are facing: Making Decisions at the Intersection of Business Value, Strategic Investment, and Enterprise Technology. The forces acting upon higher education institutions today are not neat, straight-forward decision points, where one can glance to the right, glance to the left, and then quickly choose the best course of action. The operational, technological, and strategic factors that must be considered are complex, interrelated, messy…and the stakes are high. Michael Horn, co-author of “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns”, set the tone for the day. He introduced the model of disruptive innovation, which grew out of the research he and his colleagues have done on ‘Why Successful Organizations Fail’. Highly simplified, the pattern he shared is that things start out decentralized, take a leap to extreme centralization, and then experience progressive decentralization. Using computers as an example, we started with a slide rule, then developed the computer which centralized in the form of mainframes, and gradually decentralized to mini-computers, desktop computers, laptops, and now mobile devices. According to Michael, you have more computing power in your cell phone than existed on the planet 60 years ago, or was on the first rocket that went to the moon. Applying this pattern to Higher Education means the introduction of expensive and prestigious private universities, followed by the advent of state schools, then by community colleges, and now online education. Michael shared statistics that indicate 50% of students will be taking at least one on line course by 2014…and by some measures, that’s already the case today. The implication is that technology moves from being the backbone of the campus, the IT department’s domain, and pushes into the academic core of the institution. Innovative programs are underway at many schools like Bellevue and BYU Idaho, joined by startups and disruptive new players like the Khan Academy. This presents both threat and opportunity for higher education institutions, and means that IT decisions cannot afford to be disconnected from the institution’s strategic plan. Subsequent sessions explored this theme. Theo Bosnak, from Attain, discussed the model they use for assessing the complete picture of an institution’s financial health. Compounding the issue are the dramatic trends occurring in technology and the vendors that provide it. Ovum analyst Nicole Engelbert, shared her insights next and suggested that incremental changes are no longer an option, instead fundamental changes are affecting the landscape of enterprise technology in higher ed. Nicole closed with her recommendation that institutions focus on the trends in higher education with an eye towards the strategic requirements and business value first. Technology then is the enabler. The last presentation of the day was from Tom Fisher, Sr. Vice President of Cloud Services at Oracle. Tom runs the delivery arm of the Cloud Services group, and shared his thoughts candidly about his experiences with cloud deployments as well as key issues around managing costs and security in cloud deployments. Okay, we’ve covered a lot of ground at this point, from financials planning, business strategy, and cloud computing, with the possibility that half of the institutions in the US might not be around in their current form 10 years from now. Did I forget to mention that was raised in the morning session? Seems a little hard to believe, and yet Michael Horn made a compelling point. Apparently 100 years ago, 8 of the top 10 education institutions in the world were German. Today, the leading German school is ranked somewhere in the 40’s or 50’s. What will the landscape be 100 years from now? Will there be an institution from China, India, or Brazil in the top 10? As Nicole suggested, maybe US parents will be sending their children to schools overseas much sooner, faced with the ever-increasing costs of a US based education. Will corporations begin to view skill-based certification from an online provider as a viable alternative to a 4 year degree from an accredited institution, fundamentally altering the education industry as we know it?

Read the article

Whoosh: PASS Board Year 1, Q4

- by Denise McInerney

"Whoosh". That's the sound the last quarter of 2012 made as it rushed by. My first year on the PASS Board is complete, and the last three months of it were probably the busiest. PASS Summit 2012 Much of October was devoted to preparing for Summit. Every Board member, HQ staffer and dozens of volunteers were busy in the run-up to our flagship event. It takes a lot of work to put on the Summit. The community meetings, first-timers program, keynotes, sessions and that fabulous Community Appreciation party are the result of many hours of preparation. Virtual Chapters at the Summit With a lot of help from Karla Landrum, Michelle Nalliah, Lana Montgomery and others at HQ the VCs had a good presence at Summit. We started the week with a VC leaders meeting. I shared some information about the activities and growth during the first part of the year. From January - September 2012: The number of VCs increased from 14 to 20 VC membership grew from 55,200 to 80,100 Total attendance at VC meetings increased from 1,480 to 2,198 Been part of PASS Global Growth with language-based VC- including Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese. We also heard from some VC leaders and volunteers. Ryan Adams (Performance VC) shared his tips for successful marketing of VC events. Amy Lewis (Business Intelligence VC) described how the BI chapter has expanded to support PASS' global growth by finding volunteers to organize events at times that are convenient for people in Europe and Australia. Felipe Ferreira (Portuguese language VC) described the experience of building a user group first in Brazil, then expanding to work with Portuguese-speaking data professionals around the world. Virtual Chapter leaders and volunteers were in evidence throughout Summit, beginning with the Welcome Reception. For the past several years VCs have had an organized presence at this event, signing up new members and advertising their meetings. Many VC leaders also spent time at the Community Zone. This new addition to the Summit proved to be a vibrant spot were new members and volunteers could network with others and find out how to start a chapter or host a SQL Saturday. Women In Technology 2012 was the 10th WIT Luncheon to be held at Summit. I was honored to be asked to be on the panel to discuss the topic "Where Have We Been and Where are We Going?" The PASS community has come a long way in our understanding of issues facing women in tech and our support of women in the organization. It was great to hear from panelists Stefanie Higgins and Kevin Kline who were there at the beginning as well as Kendra Little and Jen Stirrup who are part of the progress being made by women in our community today. Bylaw Changes The Board spent a good deal of time in 2012 discussing how to move our global growth initiatives forward. An important component of this is a proposed change to how the Board is elected with some seats representing geographic regions. At the end of December we voted on these proposed bylaw changes which have been published for review. The member review and feedback is open until February 8. I encourage all members to review these changes and send any feedback to [email protected] In addition to reading the bylaws, I recommend reading Bill Graziano's blog post on the subject. Business Analytics Conference At Summit we announced a new event: the PASS Business Analytics Conference. The inaugural event will be April 10-12, 2013 in Chicago. The world of data is changing rapidly. More and more businesses want to extract value and insight from their data. Data professionals who provide these insights or enable others to do so are in demand. The BA Conference offers expert content on predictive analytics, data exploration and visualization, content delivery strategies and more. By holding this new event PASS is participating in important discussions happening in our industry, offering our members more educational value and reaching out to data professionals who are not currently part of our organization. New Year, New Portfolio In addition to my work with the Virtual Chapters I am also now responsible for the 24 Hours of PASS portfolio. Since the first 24HOP of 2013 is scheduled for January 30 we started the transition of the portfolio work from Rob Farley to me right after Summit. Work immediately started to secure speakers for the January event. We have also been evaluating webinar platforms that can be used for 24HOP as well as the Virtual Chapters. Next Up 24 Hours of PASS: Business Analytics Edition will be held on January 30. I'll be there and will moderate one or two sessions. The 24HOP topics are a sneak peek into the type of content that will be offered at the Business Analytics Conference. I hope to see some of you there. The Virtual Chapters have hit the ground running in 2013; many of them have events scheduled. The Application Development VC is getting restarted and a new Business Analytics VC will be starting soon. Check out the lineup and join the VCs that interest you. And watch the Events page and Connector for announcements of upcoming meetings. At the end of January I will be attending a Board meeting in Seattle, and February 23 I will be at SQL Saturday #177 in Silicon Valley.

Read the article

Imaging: Paper Paper Everywhere, but None Should be in Sight

- by Kellsey Ruppel

Author: Vikrant Korde, Technical Architect, Aurionpro's Oracle Implementation Services team My wedding photos are stored in several empty shoeboxes. Yes...I got married before digital photography was mainstream...which means I'm old. But my parents are really old. They have shoeboxes filled with vacation photos on slides (I doubt many of you have even seen a home slide projector...and I hope you never do!). Neither me nor my parents should have shoeboxes filled with any form of photographs whatsoever. They should obviously live in the digital world...with no physical versions in sight (other than a few framed on our walls). Businesses grapple with similar challenges. But instead of shoeboxes, they have file cabinets and warehouses jam packed with paper invoices, legal documents, human resource files, material safety data sheets, incident reports, and the list goes on and on. In fact, regulatory and compliance rules govern many industries, requiring that this paperwork is available for any number of years. It's a real challenge...especially trying to find archived documents quickly and many times with no backup. Which brings us to a set of technologies called Image Process Management (or simply Imaging or Image Processing) that are transforming these antiquated, paper-based processes. Oracle's WebCenter Content Imaging solution is a combination of their WebCenter suite, which offers a robust set of content and document management features, and their Business Process Management (BPM) suite, which helps to automate business processes through the definition of workflows and business rules. Overall, the solution provides an enterprise-class platform for end-to-end management of document images within transactional business processes. It's a solution that provides all of the capabilities needed - from document capture and recognition, to imaging and workflow - to effectively transform your ‘shoeboxes’ of files into digitally managed assets that comply with strict industry regulations. The terminology can be quite overwhelming if you're new to the space, so we've provided a summary of the primary components of the solution below, along with a short description of the two paths that can be executed to load images of scanned documents into Oracle's WebCenter suite. WebCenter Imaging (WCI): the electronic document repository that provides security, annotations, and search capabilities, and is the primary user interface for managing work items in the imaging solution SOA & BPM Suites (workflow): provide business process management capabilities, including human tasks, workflow management, service integration, and all other standard SOA features. It's interesting to note that there a number of 'jumpstart' processes available to help accelerate the integration of business applications, such as the accounts payable invoice processing solution for E-Business Suite that facilitates the processing of large volumes of invoices WebCenter Enterprise Capture (WEC): expedites the capture process of paper documents to digital images, offering high volume scanning and importing from email, and allows for flexible indexing options WebCenter Forms Recognition (WFR): automatically recognizes, categorizes, and extracts information from paper documents with greatly reduced human intervention WebCenter Content: the backend content server that provides versioning, security, and content storage There are two paths that can be executed to send data from WebCenter Capture to WebCenter Imaging, both of which are described below: 1. Direct Flow - This is the simplest and quickest way to push an image scanned from WebCenter Enterprise Capture (WEC) to WebCenter Imaging (WCI), using the bare minimum metadata. The WEC activities are defined below: The paper document is scanned (or imported from email). The scanned image is indexed using a predefined indexing profile. The image is committed directly into the process flow 2. WFR (WebCenter Forms Recognition) Flow - This is the more complex process, during which data is extracted from the image using a series of operations including Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Classification, Extraction, and Export. This process creates three files (Tiff, XML, and TXT), which are fed to the WCI Input Agent (the high speed import/filing module). The WCI Input Agent directory is a standard ingestion method for adding content to WebCenter Imaging, the process for doing so is described below: WEC commits the batch using the respective commit profile. A TIFF file is created, passing data through the file name by including values separated by "_" (underscores). WFR completes OCR, classification, extraction, export, and pulls the data from the image. In addition to the TIFF file, which contains the document image, an XML file containing the extracted data, and a TXT file containing the metadata that will be filled in WCI, are also created. All three files are exported to WCI's Input agent directory. Based on previously defined "input masks", the WCI Input Agent will pick up the seeding file (often the TXT file). Finally, the TIFF file is pushed in UCM and a unique web-viewable URL is created. Based on the mapping data read from the TXT file, a new record is created in the WCI application. Although these processes may seem complex, each Oracle component works seamlessly together to achieve a high performing and scalable platform. The solution has been field tested at some of the largest enterprises in the world and has transformed millions and millions of paper-based documents to more easily manageable digital assets. For more information on how an Imaging solution can help your business, please contact [email protected] (for U.S. West inquiries) or [email protected] (for U.S. East inquiries). About the Author: Vikrant is a Technical Architect in Aurionpro's Oracle Implementation Services team, where he delivers WebCenter-based Content and Imaging solutions to Fortune 1000 clients. With more than twelve years of experience designing, developing, and implementing Java-based software solutions, Vikrant was one of the founding members of Aurionpro's WebCenter-based offshore delivery team. He can be reached at [email protected].

Read the article

OpenSSL Versions in Solaris

- by darrenm

Those of you have have installed Solaris 11 or have read some of the blogs by my colleagues will have noticed Solaris 11 includes OpenSSL 1.0.0, this is a different version to what we have in Solaris 10. I hope the following explains why that is and how it fits with the expectations on binary compatibility between Solaris releases. Solaris 10 was the first release where we included OpenSSL libraries and headers (part of it was actually statically linked into the SSH client/server in Solaris 9). At time we were building and releasing Solaris 10 the current train of OpenSSL was 0.9.7. The OpenSSL libraries at that time were known to not always be completely API and ABI (binary) compatible between releases (some times even in the lettered patch releases) though mostly if you stuck with the documented high level APIs you would be fine. For this reason OpenSSL was classified as a 'Volatile' interface and in Solaris 10 Volatile interfaces were not part of the default library search path which is why the OpenSSL libraries live in /usr/sfw/lib on Solaris 10. Okay, but what does Volatile mean ? Quoting from the attributes(5) man page description of Volatile (which was called External in older taxonomy): Volatile interfaces can change at any time and for any reason. The Volatile interface stability level allows Sun pro- ducts to quickly track a fluid, rapidly evolving specif- ication. In many cases, this is preferred to providing additional stability to the interface, as it may better meet the expectations of the consumer. The most common application of this taxonomy level is to interfaces that are controlled by a body other than Sun, but unlike specifications controlled by standards bodies or Free or Open Source Software (FOSS) communities which value interface compatibility, it can not be asserted that an incompatible change to the interface specifica- tion would be exceedingly rare. It may also be applied to FOSS controlled software where it is deemed more important to track the community with minimal latency than to provide stability to our customers. It also common to apply the Volatile classification level to interfaces in the process of being defined by trusted or widely accepted organization. These are generically referred to as draft standards. An "IETF Internet draft" is a well understood example of a specification under development. Volatile can also be applied to experimental interfaces. No assertion is made regarding either source or binary compatibility of Volatile interfaces between any two releases, including patches. Applications containing these interfaces might fail to function properly in any future release. Note that last paragraph! OpenSSL is only one example of the many interfaces in Solaris that are classified as Volatile. At the other end of the scale we have Committed (Stable in Solaris 10 terminology) interfaces, these include things like the POSIX APIs or Solaris specific APIs that we have no intention of changing in an incompatible way. There are also Private interfaces and things we declare as Not-an-Interface (eg command output not intended for scripting against only to be read by humans). Even if we had declared OpenSSL as a Committed/Stable interface in Solaris 10 there are allowed exceptions, again quoting from attributes(5): 4. An interface specification which isn't controlled by Sun has been changed incompatibly and the vast majority of interface consumers expect the newer interface. 5. Not making the incompatible change would be incomprehensible to our customers. In our opinion and that of our large and small customers keeping up with the OpenSSL community is important, and certainly both of the above cases apply. Our policy for dealing with OpenSSL on Solaris 10 was to stay at 0.9.7 and add fixes for security vulnerabilities (the version string includes the CVE numbers of fixed vulnerabilities relevant to that release train). The last release of OpenSSL 0.9.7 delivered by the upstream community was more than 4 years ago in Feb 2007. Now lets roll forward to just before the release of Solaris 11 Express in 2010. By that point in time the current OpenSSL release was 0.9.8 with the 1.0.0 release known to be coming soon. Two significant changes to OpenSSL were made between Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 Express. First in Solaris 11 Express (and Solaris 11) we removed the requirement that Volatile libraries be placed in /usr/sfw/lib, that means OpenSSL is now in /usr/lib, secondly we upgraded it to the then current version stream of OpenSSL (0.9.8) as was expected by our customers. In between Solaris 11 Express in 2010 and the release of Solaris 11 in 2011 the OpenSSL community released version 1.0.0. This was a huge milestone for a long standing and highly respected open source project. It would have been highly negligent of Solaris not to include OpenSSL 1.0.0e in the Solaris 11 release. It is the latest best supported and best performing version. In fact Solaris 11 isn't 'just' OpenSSL 1.0.0 but we have added our SPARC T4 engine and the AES-NI engine to support the on chip crypto acceleration. This gives us 4.3x better AES performance than OpenSSL 0.9.8 running on AIX on an IBM POWER7. We are now working with the OpenSSL community to determine how best to integrate the SPARC T4 changes into the mainline OpenSSL. The OpenSSL 'pkcs11' engine we delivered in Solaris 10 to support the CA-6000 card and the SPARC T1/T2/T3 hardware is still included in Solaris 11. When OpenSSL 1.0.1 and 1.1.0 come out we will asses what is best for Solaris customers. It might be upgrade or it might be parallel delivery of more than one version stream. At this time Solaris 11 still classifies OpenSSL as a Volatile interface, it is our hope that we will be able at some point in a future release to give it a higher interface stability level. Happy crypting! and thank-you OpenSSL community for all the work you have done that helps Solaris.

Read the article

Enable DreamScene in Any Version of Vista or Windows 7

- by DigitalGeekery

Windows DreamScene was a utility available for Vista Ultimate that allowed users to set video as desktop wallpaper. It was dropped in Windows 7, but we’ll take a look at how to play DreamScenes in all versions of Windows 7 or Vista. Downloading DreamScenes First, you’ll need to find some DreamScenes to download. We’ve found some nice ones at both DreamScene.org and DeviantArt. You can find those download links at the end of the article. They’ll come as compressed files, so you’ll need to extract them after downloading. Windows 7 DreamScene Activator If you are running Windows 7 you can use Windows 7 DreamScene Activator. This free portable utility enables DreamScene in both 32 & 64 bit versions of Windows 7. Users can then set either MPG or WMV files as desktop wallpaper. Download and extract the Windows 7 DreamScene Activator (link below). Once extracted, you’ll need to run the application as administrator. Right-click on the .exe and select Run as administrator. Click on Enable DreamScene. This will also restart Windows Explorer if it is open. To play your DreamScene, browse for the file in Windows Explorer, right-click the file and select Set as Desktop Background. Enjoy your new Windows 7 DreamScene. Although it says it is for Windows 7 only, we were able to get it to work with no problems on Vista Home Premium x32 as well. You can Pause the DreamScene at anytime by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting Pause DreamScene. When you are ready for a change, click Disable DreamScene and switch back to your previous wallpaper. Using VLC Media Player Users of all versions of Windows 7 & Vista can enable a DreamScene using VLC. Recently, we showed you how to set a video as your desktop wallpaper in VLC. Since DreamScenes are in MPEG or WMV format, we will use the same tactic to display them as desktop wallpaper. We’ll just need to make a few additional tweaks to the VLC settings. You’ll need to download and install VLC media player if you don’t already have it. You can find the download link below. Next, select Tools > Preferences from the Menu. Select the Video button on the left and then choose DirectX video output from the Output dropdown list. Next, select All under Show Settings at the lower left, then select the Video button on the left pane. Uncheck Show media title on video. This will prevent VLC from constantly showing the title of the video on the screen each time the video loops. Click Save and the restart VLC. Now we will add the video to our playlist and set it to continuously loop. Select View > Playlist from the Menu. Select the Add file button from the bottom of the Playlist window and select Add file. Browse for your file and click Open. Click the Loop button at the bottom so the video plays in a continuous loop. Now, we’re ready to play the video. After the video starts playing, select Video > DirectX Wallpaper from the Menu, then minimize VLC. If you’re using Aero Themes, you may get a pop-up warning and Windows will switch automatically to a basic theme. If looping one video gets to be a little repetitive, you can add multiple videos to your playlist in VLC and loop the entire playlist. Just make sure you toggle the Loop button on the playlist window to Loop All. Now you’ve got a nice DreamScene playing on your desktop. Another cool trick you can do with VLC is take snapshots of favorite movie scenes and set them as backgrounds. When you’re ready to go back to your old wallpaper, maximize VLC, select Video and click DirectX Wallpaper again to turn it off the video background. Occasionally we were left with a black screen and had to manually change our wallpaper back to normal even after turning off the DirectX Wallpaper. Note: Keep in mind that using the VLC method takes up a lot of resources so if you try to run it on older hardware, or say a netbook, you’re not going to get good results. We also tried to use the VLC method in XP, but couldn’t get it to work. If you have leave a comment and let us know. While the DreamScene feature never really caught on in Vista, we find them to be a cool way to pump a little life into your desktop on any version of Vista or Windows 7. Downloads DreamScenes from Dreamscene.org DreamScenes from DeviantArt Download VLC media player Windows 7 DreamScene Activator Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Wait, How do I Turn on DreamScene Again?Enable Run Command on Windows 7 or Vista Start MenuEnable or Disable UAC From the Windows 7 / Vista Command LineUnderstanding Windows Vista Aero Glass RequirementsEnable Mapping to \HostnameC$ Share on Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide Know if Someone Accessed Your Facebook Account Shop for Music with Windows Media Player 12 Access Free Documentaries at BBC Documentaries Rent Cameras In Bulk At CameraRenter Download Songs From MySpace

Read the article

Database-as-a-Service on Exadata Cloud

- by Gagan Chawla

Note – Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c DBaaS is platform agnostic and is designed to work on Exadata/non-Exadata, physical/virtual, Oracle/non Oracle platforms and it’s not a mandatory requirement to use Exadata as the base platform. Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) is an important trend these days and the top business drivers motivating customers towards private database cloud model include constant pressure to reduce IT Costs and Complexity, and also to be able to improve Agility and Quality of Service. The first step many enterprises take in their journey towards cloud computing is to move to a consolidated and standardized environment and Exadata being already a proven best-in-class popular consolidation platform, we are seeing now more and more customers starting to evolve from Exadata based platform into an agile self service driven private database cloud using Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. Together Exadata Database Machine and Enterprise Manager 12c provides industry’s most comprehensive and integrated solution to transform from a typical silo’ed environment into enterprise class database cloud with self service, rapid elasticity and pay-per-use capabilities. In today’s post, I’ll list down the important steps to enable DBaaS on Exadata using Enterprise Manager 12c. These steps are chalked down based on a recent DBaaS implementation from a real customer engagement - Project Planning - First step involves defining the scope of implementation, mapping functional requirements and objectives to use cases, defining high availability, network, security requirements, and delivering the project plan. In a Cloud project you plan around technology, business and processes all together so ensure you engage your actual end users and stakeholders early on in the project right from the scoping and planning stage. Setup your EM 12c Cloud Control Site – Once the project plan approval and sign off from stakeholders is achieved, refer to EM 12c Install guide and these are some important tips to follow during the site setup phase - Review the new EM 12c Sizing paper before you get started with install Cloud, Chargeback and Trending, Exadata plug ins should be selected to deploy during install Refer to EM 12c Administrator’s guide for High Availability, Security, Network/Firewall best practices and options Your management and managed infrastructure should not be combined i.e. EM 12c repository should not be hosted on same Exadata where target Database Cloud is to be setup Setup Roles and Users – Cloud Administrator (EM_CLOUD_ADMINISTRATOR), Self Service Administrator (EM_SSA_ADMINISTRATOR), Self Service User (EM_SSA_USER) are the important roles required for cloud lifecycle management. Roles and users are managed by Super Administrator via Setup menu –> Security option. For Self Service/SSA users custom role(s) based on EM_SSA_USER should be created and EM_USER, PUBLIC roles should be revoked during SSA user account creation. Configure Software Library – Cloud Administrator logs in and in this step configures software library via Enterprise menu –> provisioning and patching option and the storage location is OMS shared filesystem. Software Library is the centralized repository that stores all software entities and is often termed as ‘local store’. Setup Self Update – Self Update is one of the most innovative and cool new features in EM 12c framework. Self update can be accessed via Setup -> Extensibility option by Super Administrator and is the unified delivery mechanism to get all new and updated entities (Agent software, plug ins, connectors, gold images, provisioning bundles etc) in EM 12c. Deploy Agents on all Compute nodes, and discover Exadata targets – Refer to Exadata discovery cookbook for detailed walkthrough to ensure successful discovery of Exadata targets. Configure Privilege Delegation Settings – This step involves deployment of privilege setting template on all the nodes by Super Administrator via Setup menu -> Security option with the option to define whether to use sudo or powerbroker for all provisioning and patching operations. Provision Grid Infrastructure with RAC Database on Compute Nodes – Software is provisioned in this step via a provisioning profile using EM 12c database provisioning. In case of Exadata, Grid Infrastructure and RAC Database software is already deployed on compute nodes via OneCommand from Oracle, so SSA Administrator just needs to discover Oracle Homes and Listener as EM targets. Databases will be created as and when users request for databases from cloud. Customize Create Database Deployment Procedure – the actual database creation steps are "templatized" in this step by Self Service Administrator and the newly saved deployment procedure will be used during service template creation in next step. This is an important step and make sure you have locked all the required variables marked as locked as ‘Y’ in this table. Setup Self Service Portal – This step involves setting up of zones, user quotas, service templates, chargeback plan. The SSA portal is setup by Self Service Administrator via Setup menu -> Cloud -> Database option and following guided workflow. Refer to DBaaS cookbook for details. You also have an option to customize SSA login page via steps documented in EM 12c Cloud Administrator’s guide Final Checks – Define and document process guidelines for SSA users and administrators. Get your SSA users trained on Self Service Portal features and overall DBaaS model and SSA administrators should be familiar with Self Service Portal setup pieces, EM 12c database lifecycle management capabilities and overall EM 12c monitoring framework. GO LIVE – Announce rollout of Database-as-a-Service to your SSA users. Users can login to the Self Service Portal and request/monitor/view their databases in Exadata based database cloud. Congratulations! You just delivered a successful database cloud implementation project! In future posts, we will cover these additional useful topics around database cloud – DBaaS Implementation tips and tricks – right from setup to self service to managing the cloud lifecycle ‘How to’ enable real production databases copies in DBaaS with rapid provisioning in database cloud Case study of a customer who recently achieved success with their transformational journey from traditional silo’ed environment on to Exadata based database cloud using Enterprise Manager 12c. More Information – Podcast on Database as a Service using Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Installation and Administration guide, Cloud Administration guide DBaaS Cookbook Exadata Discovery Cookbook Screenwatch: Private Database Cloud: Set Up the Cloud Self-Service Portal Screenwatch: Private Database Cloud: Use the Cloud Self-Service Portal Stay Connected: Twitter | Face book | You Tube | Linked in | Newsletter

Read the article

Unexpected behaviour with glFramebufferTexture1D

- by Roshan

I am using render to texture concept with glFramebufferTexture1D. I am drawing a cube on non-default FBO with all the vertices as -1,1 (maximum) in X Y Z direction. Now i am setting viewport to X while rendering on non default FBO. My background is blue with white color of cube. For default FBO, i have created 1-D texture and attached this texture to above FBO with color attachment. I am setting width of texture equal to width*height of above FBO view-port. Now, when i render this texture to on another cube, i can see continuous white color on start or end of each face of the cube. That means part of the face is white and rest is blue. I am not sure whether this behavior is correct or not. I expect all the texels should be white as i am using -1 and 1 coordinates for cube rendered on non-default FBO. code: #define WIDTH 3 #define HEIGHT 3 GLfloat vertices8[]={ 1.0f,1.0f,1.0f, -1.0f,1.0f,1.0f, -1.0f,-1.0f,1.0f, 1.0f,-1.0f,1.0f,//face 1 1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f, -1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f, -1.0f,1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f,1.0f,-1.0f,//face 2 1.0f,1.0f,1.0f, 1.0f,-1.0f,1.0f, 1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f,1.0f,-1.0f,//face 3 -1.0f,1.0f,1.0f, -1.0f,1.0f,-1.0f, -1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f, -1.0f,-1.0f,1.0f,//face 4 1.0f,1.0f,1.0f, 1.0f,1.0f,-1.0f, -1.0f,1.0f,-1.0f, -1.0f,1.0f,1.0f,//face 5 -1.0f,-1.0f,1.0f, -1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f,-1.0f,-1.0f, 1.0f,-1.0f,1.0f//face 6 }; GLfloat vertices[]= { 0.5f,0.5f,0.5f, -0.5f,0.5f,0.5f, -0.5f,-0.5f,0.5f, 0.5f,-0.5f,0.5f,//face 1 0.5f,-0.5f,-0.5f, -0.5f,-0.5f,-0.5f, -0.5f,0.5f,-0.5f, 0.5f,0.5f,-0.5f,//face 2 0.5f,0.5f,0.5f, 0.5f,-0.5f,0.5f, 0.5f,-0.5f,-0.5f, 0.5f,0.5f,-0.5f,//face 3 -0.5f,0.5f,0.5f, -0.5f,0.5f,-0.5f, -0.5f,-0.5f,-0.5f, -0.5f,-0.5f,0.5f,//face 4 0.5f,0.5f,0.5f, 0.5f,0.5f,-0.5f, -0.5f,0.5f,-0.5f, -0.5f,0.5f,0.5f,//face 5 -0.5f,-0.5f,0.5f, -0.5f,-0.5f,-0.5f, 0.5f,-0.5f,-0.5f, 0.5f,-0.5f,0.5f//face 6 }; GLuint indices[] = { 0, 2, 1, 0, 3, 2, 4, 5, 6, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 14, 12, 14, 13, 16, 17, 18, 16, 18, 19, 20, 23, 22, 20, 22, 21 }; GLfloat texcoord[] = { 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0 }; glGenTextures(1, &id1); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_1D, id1); glGenFramebuffers(1, &Fboid); glTexParameterf(GL_TEXTURE_1D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_NEAREST); glTexParameterf(GL_TEXTURE_1D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_NEAREST); glTexParameterf(GL_TEXTURE_1D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE); glTexImage1D(GL_TEXTURE_1D, 0, GL_RGBA, WIDTH*HEIGHT , 0, GL_RGBA, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE,0); glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, Fboid); glFramebufferTexture1D(GL_DRAW_FRAMEBUFFER,GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0,GL_TEXTURE_1D,id1,0); draw_cube(); glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, 0); draw(); } draw_cube() { glViewport(0, 0, WIDTH, HEIGHT); glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.5f, 1.0f); glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); glEnableVertexAttribArray(glGetAttribLocation(temp.psId,"position")); glVertexAttribPointer(glGetAttribLocation(temp.psId,"position"), 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0,vertices8); glDrawArrays (GL_TRIANGLE_FAN, 0, 24); } draw() { glClearColor(1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f); glClearDepth(1.0f); glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glEnableVertexAttribArray(glGetAttribLocation(shader_data.psId,"tk_position")); glVertexAttribPointer(glGetAttribLocation(shader_data.psId,"tk_position"), 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0,vertices); nResult = GL_ERROR_CHECK((GL_NO_ERROR, "glVertexAttribPointer(position, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0,vertices);")); glEnableVertexAttribArray(glGetAttribLocation(shader_data.psId,"inputtexcoord")); glVertexAttribPointer(glGetAttribLocation(shader_data.psId,"inputtexcoord"), 2, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0,texcoord); glBindTexture(*target11, id1); glDrawElements ( GL_TRIANGLES, 36,GL_UNSIGNED_INT, indices ); when i change WIDTH=HEIGHT=2, and call a glreadpixels with height, width equal to 4 in draw_cube() i can see first 2 pixels with white color, next two with blue(glclearcolor), next two white and then blue and so on.. Now when i change width parameter in glTeximage1D to 16 then ideally i should see alternate patches of white and blue right? But its not the case here. why so?

Read the article

Availability Best Practices on Oracle VM Server for SPARC

- by jsavit

This is the first of a series of blog posts on configuring Oracle VM Server for SPARC (also called Logical Domains) for availability. This series will show how to how to plan for availability, improve serviceability, avoid single points of failure, and provide resiliency against hardware and software failures. Availability is a broad topic that has filled entire books, so these posts will focus on aspects specifically related to Oracle VM Server for SPARC. The goal is to improve Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS): An article defining RAS can be found here. Oracle VM Server for SPARC Principles for Availability Let's state some guiding principles for availability that apply to Oracle VM Server for SPARC: Avoid Single Points Of Failure (SPOFs). Systems should be configured so a component failure does not result in a loss of application service. The general method to avoid SPOFs is to provide redundancy so service can continue without interruption if a component fails. For a critical application there may be multiple levels of redundancy so multiple failures can be tolerated. Oracle VM Server for SPARC makes it possible to configure systems that avoid SPOFs. Configure for availability at a level of resource and effort consistent with business needs. Effort and resource should be consistent with business requirements. Production has different availability requirements than test/development, so it's worth expending resources to provide higher availability. Even within the category of production there may be different levels of criticality, outage tolerances, recovery and repair time requirements. Keep in mind that a simple design may be more understandable and effective than a complex design that attempts to "do everything". Design for availability at the appropriate tier or level of the platform stack. Availability can be provided in the application, in the database, or in the virtualization, hardware and network layers they depend on - or using a combination of all of them. It may not be necessary to engineer resilient virtualization for stateless web applications applications where availability is provided by a network load balancer, or for enterprise applications like Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) and WebLogic that provide their own resiliency. It's (often) the same architecture whether virtual or not: For example, providing resiliency against a lost device path or failing disk media is done for the same reasons and may use the same design whether in a domain or not. It's (often) the same technique whether using domains or not: Many configuration steps are the same. For example, configuring IPMP or creating a redundant ZFS pool is pretty much the same within the guest whether you're in a guest domain or not. There are configuration steps and choices for provisioning the guest with the virtual network and disk devices, which we will discuss. Sometimes it is different using domains: There are new resources to configure. Most notable is the use of alternate service domains, which provides resiliency in case of a domain failure, and also permits improved serviceability via "rolling upgrades". This is an important differentiator between Oracle VM Server for SPARC and traditional virtual machine environments where all virtual I/O is provided by a monolithic infrastructure that itself is a SPOF. Alternate service domains are widely used to provide resiliency in production logical domains environments. Some things are done via logical domains commands, and some are done in the guest: For example, with Oracle VM Server for SPARC we provide multiple network connections to the guest, and then configure network resiliency in the guest via IP Multi Pathing (IPMP) - essentially the same as for non-virtual systems. On the other hand, we configure virtual disk availability in the virtualization layer, and the guest sees an already-resilient disk without being aware of the details. These blogs will discuss configuration details like this. Live migration is not "high availability" in the sense of "continuous availability": If the server is down, then you don't live migrate from it! (A cluster or VM restart elsewhere would be used). However, live migration can be part of the RAS (Reliability, Availability, Serviceability) picture by improving Serviceability - you can move running domains off of a box before planned service or maintenance. The blog Best Practices - Live Migration on Oracle VM Server for SPARC discusses this. Topics Here are some of the topics that will be covered: Network availability using IP Multipathing and aggregates Disk path availability using virtual disks defined with multipath groups ("mpgroup") Disk media resiliency configuring for redundant disks that can tolerate media loss Multiple service domains - this is probably the most significant item and the one most specific to Oracle VM Server for SPARC. It is very widely deployed in production environments as the means to provide network and disk availability, but it can be confusing. Subsequent articles will describe why and how to configure multiple service domains. Note, for the sake of precision: an I/O domain is any domain that has a physical I/O resource (such as a PCIe bus root complex). A service domain is a domain providing virtual device services to other domains; it is almost always an I/O domain too (so it can have something to serve). Resources Here are some important links; we'll be drawing on their content in the next several articles: Oracle VM Server for SPARC Documentation Maximizing Application Reliability and Availability with SPARC T5 Servers whitepaper by Gary Combs Maximizing Application Reliability and Availability with the SPARC M5-32 Server whitepaper by Gary Combs Summary Oracle VM Server for SPARC offers features that can be used to provide highly-available environments. This and the following blog entries will describe how to plan and deploy them.

Read the article

SQLAuthority News – A Conversation with an Old Friend – Sri Sridharan

- by pinaldave

Sri Sridharan is my old friend and we often talk on GTalk. The subject varies from Life in India/USA, movies, musics, and of course SQL. We have our differences when we talk about food or movie but we always agree when we talk about SQL. Yesterday while chatting with him we talked about SQLPASS and the conversation lasted for a long time. Here is the conversation between us on GTalk. I have removed a few of the personal talks and formatted into paragraphs as GTalk often shows stuff out of formatting. Pinal: Sri, Congrats on running for the PASS BoD again. You were so close last year. What made you decide to run again this year? Sri: Thank you Pinal for your leadership in the PASS India Community and all the things you do out there. After coming so close last year, there was no doubt in my mind that I will run again. I was truly humbled by the support I got from the community. Growing up in India for over 25 years, you are brought up in a very competitive part of the world. Right from the pressure of staying in the top of the class from kindergarten to your graduation, the relentless push from your parents about studying and getting good grades (and nothing else matters), you land up essentially living in a pressure cooker. To survive that relentless pressure, you need to have a thick skin, ability to stand up for who you really are , what you want to accomplish and in the process stay true those values. I am striving for a greater cause, to make PASS an organization that can help people with their SQL Server careers, to make PASS relevant to its chapter members, to make PASS an organization that every SQL professional in the world wants to be connected with. Just because I did not get elected or appointed last year does not mean that these causes are not worth fighting. Giving up upon failing the first time is simply not in me. If I did that, what message would I send to those who voted for me? What message would I send to my kids? Pinal: As someone who has such strong roots in India, what can the Indian PASS Community expect from you? Sri: First of all, I think fostering a regional leadership is something PASS must encourage as part of its global growth plan. For PASS global being able to understand all the issues in a region of the world and make sound decisions will be a tough thing to do on a continuous basis. I expect people like you, chapter leaders, regional mentors, MVPs of the region start playing a bigger role in shaping the next generation of PASS. That is something I said in my campaign and I still stand by it. I would like to see growth in the number of chapters in India. The current count does not truly represent the full potential of that region. I was pretty thrilled to see the Bangalore SQLSaturday happen early this year. I would like to see more of SQLSaturday events, at least in the major metro cities. I know the issues in India are very different from the rest of the world. So the formula needs to be tweaked a little for it to work better in India. Once the SQLSaturday model is vetted out, maybe there could be enough justification to have SQLRally India. PASS needs to have a premier SQL event in that region. Going to USA or Europe for that matter is incredibly hard due to VISA issues etc. So this could be a case of where PASS comes closer to where the community is. Pinal: What portfolio would take on if you are elected to the PASS Board? Sri: There are some very strong folks on the PASS Board today. The President discusses the portfolios with the group and makes the final call on the portfolios. I am also a fan of having a team associated with the portfolios. In that case, one person is the primary for a portfolio but secondary on a couple of other portfolios. This way people on the board have a direct vested interest in a few portfolios. Personally, I know I would these portfolios good justice – Chapters, Global Growth and Events (SQLSat, SQLRally). I would try to see if we can get a director to focus on Volunteers. To me that is very critical for growth in the international regions. Pinal: This is an interesting conversation with you Sri. I know you so long time but this is indeed inspiring to many. India is a big country and we appreciate your thoughts. Sri: Thank you very much for taking time to chat with me today. Cheers. There are pretty strong candidates for SQLPASS Board of Elections this year. I know all of them in person and honestly it is going to be extremely difficult to not to vote for anybody. I am indeed in a crunch right now how to pick one over another. Though the choice is difficult, I encourage you to vote for them. I am extremely confident that the new board of directors will all have the same goal – Better SQL Server Community. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, DBA, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL PASS, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

Read the article

IRM Item Codes – what are they for?

- by martin.abrahams

A number of colleagues have been asking about IRM item codes recently – what are they for, when are they useful, how can you control them to meet some customer requirements? This is quite a big topic, but this article provides a few answers. An item code is part of the metadata of every sealed document – unless you define a custom metadata model. The item code is defined when a file is sealed, and usually defaults to a timestamp/filename combination. This time/name combo tends to make item codes unique for each new document, but actually item codes are not necessarily unique, as will become clear shortly. In most scenarios, item codes are not relevant to the evaluation of a user’s rights - the context name is the critical piece of metadata, as a user typically has a role that grants access to an entire classification of information regardless of item code. This is key to the simplicity and manageability of the Oracle IRM solution. Item codes are occasionally exposed to users in the UI, but most users probably never notice and never care. Nevertheless, here is one example of where you can see an item code – when you hover the mouse pointer over a sealed file. As you see, the item code for this freshly created file combines a timestamp with the file name. But what are item codes for? The first benefit of item codes is that they enable you to manage exceptions to the policy defined for a context. Thus, I might have access to all oracle – internal files - except for 2011_03_11 13:33:29 Board Minutes.sdocx. This simple mechanism enables Oracle IRM to provide file-by-file control where appropriate, whilst offering the scalability and manageability of classification-based control for the majority of users and content. You really don’t want to be managing each file individually, but never say never. Item codes can also be used for the opposite effect – to include a file in a user’s rights when their role would ordinarily deny access. So, you can assign a role that allows access only to specified item codes. For example, my role might say that I have access to precisely one file – the one shown above. So how are item codes set? In the vast majority of scenarios, item codes are set automatically as part of the sealing process. The sealing API uses the timestamp and filename as shown, and the user need not even realise that this has happened. This automatically creates item codes that are for all practical purposes unique - and that are also intelligible to users who might want to refer to them when viewing or assigning rights in the management UI. It is also possible for suitably authorised users and applications to set the item code manually or programmatically if required. Setting the item code manually using the IRM Desktop The manual process is a simple extension of the sealing task. An authorised user can select the Advanced… sealing option, and will see a dialog that offers the option to specify the item code. To see this option, the user’s role needs the Set Item Code right – you don’t want most users to give any thought at all to item codes, so by default the option is hidden. Setting the item code programmatically A more common scenario is that an application controls the item code programmatically. For example, a document management system that seals documents as part of a workflow might set the item code to match the document’s unique identifier in its repository. This offers the option to tie IRM rights evaluation directly to the security model defined in the document management system. Again, the sealing application needs to be authorised to Set Item Code. The Payslip Scenario To give a concrete example of how item codes might be used in a real world scenario, consider a Human Resources workflow such as a payslips. The goal might be to allow the HR team to have access to all payslips, but each employee to have access only to their own payslips. To enable this, you might have an IRM classification called Payslips. The HR team have a role in the normal way that allows access to all payslips. However, each employee would have an Item Reader role that only allows them to access files that have a particular item code – and that item code might match the employee’s payroll number. So, employee number 123123123 would have access to items with that code. This shows why item codes are not necessarily unique – you can deliberately set the same code on many files for ease of administration. The employees might have the right to unseal or print their payslip, so the solution acts as a secure delivery mechanism that allows payslips to be distributed via corporate email without any fear that they might be accessed by IT administrators, or forwarded accidentally to anyone other than the intended recipient. All that remains is to ensure that as each user’s payslip is sealed, it is assigned the correct item code – something that is easily managed by a simple IRM sealing application. Each month, an employee’s payslip is sealed with the same item code, so you do not need to keep amending the list of items that the user has access to – they have access to all documents that carry their employee code.

Read the article

Customer Engagement: Are Your Customers Engaged With Your Brands?

- by Michael Snow

Engaging Customers is Critical for Business Growth This week we'll be spending some time looking at Customer Engagement. We all have stories about how we try to engage our customers better than ever before. We all know that successfully engaging customers is critical to an organization’s business success. We also know that engaging our customers is more challenging today than ever before. There is so much noise to compete with for getting anyone's attention. Over the last decade and a half we’ve watched as the online channel became a primary one for conducting our business and even managing our lives. And during this whole process or evolution, the customer journey has grown increasingly complex. Customers themselves have assumed increasing power and influence over the purchase process and for setting the tone and pace of the relationships they have with brands and you see the evidence of this in the really high expectations that customers have today. They expect brand experiences that are personalized and relevant -- In other words they want experiences that demonstrate that the brand understands their interests, preferences and past interactions with them. They also expect their experience with a brand and the community surrounding it to be social and interactive – it’s no longer acceptable to have a static, one-way dialogue with your customer base or to fail to connect your customers with fellow customers, or with your employees and partners. And on top of all this, customers expect us to deliver this rich and engaging, personalized and interactive experience, in a consistent way across a variety of channels including web, mobile and social channels or even offline venues such as in-store or via a call center. And as a result, we see that delivery on these expectations and successfully engaging your customers is a great challenge today. Customers expect a personal, engaging and consistent online customer experience. Today’s consumer expects to engage with your brand and the community surrounding it in an interactive and social way. Customers have come to expect a lot for the online customer experience. · They expect it to be personal: o Accessible: - Regardless of my device Via my existing online identities o Relevant: Content that interests me o Customized: To be able to tailor my online experience · They expect it to be engaging: o Social: So I can share content with my social networks o Intuitive: To easily find what I need o Interactive: So I can interact with online communities And they expect it to be consistent across the online experience – so you better have your brand and information ducks in a row. These expectations are not only limited to your customers by any means. Your employees (and partners) are also expecting to be empowered with engagement tools across their internal and external communications and interactions with customers, partners and other employees. We had a great conversation with Ted Schadler from Forrester Research entitled: "Mobile is the New Face of Engagement" that is now available On-Demand. Take a look at all the webcasts available to watch from our Social Business Thought Leader Series. Social capabilities have become so pervasive and changed customers’ expectations for their online experiences. The days of one-direction communication with customers are at an end. Today’s customers expect to engage in a dialogue with your brand and the community surrounding it in an interactive and social way. You have at a very short window of opportunity to engage a customer before they go to another site in their pursuit of information, product, or services. In fact, customers who engage with brands via social media tend to spend more that customers who don’t, between 20% and 40% more. And your customers are also increasingly influenced by their social networks too – 40% of consumers say they factor in Facebook recommendations when making purchasing decisions. This means a few different things for today’s businesses. Incorporating forms of social interaction such as commenting or reviews as well as tightly integrating your online experience with your customers’ social networking experiences into the online customer experience are crucial for maintaining the eyeballs on your desired pages. --- Notes/Sources: 93% - Cone Finds that Americans Expect Companies to Have a Presence in Social Media - http://www.coneinc.com/content1182 40% of consumers factor in Facebook recommendations when making decisions about purchasing (Increasing Campaign Effectiveness with Social Media, Syncapse, March 2011) 20%-40% - Customers who engage with a company via social media spend this percentage more with that company than other customers (Source: Bain & Company Report – Putting Social Media to Work)

Search Results

Search found 2313 results on 93 pages for 'continuous delivery'.

Page 82/93 | < Previous Page | 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 | Next Page >

- by Bob Rhubart

- by PointsToShare

- by Steve Tunstall

- by Marko Apfel

- by trond-arne.undheim

- by Richard Lefebvre

- by Michael Snow

- by Mat Keep

- by Lee Brandt

- by Matthew Guay

- by Matt

- by Kellsey Ruppel

- by John Webb

- by Denise McInerney

- by Kellsey Ruppel

- by darrenm

- by DigitalGeekery

- by Gagan Chawla

- by Roshan

- by jsavit

- by pinaldave

- by martin.abrahams

- by Michael Snow

< Previous Page | 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 | Next Page >