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• MySQL for Excel 1.3.0 Beta has been released

  - by Javier Treviño

  The MySQL Windows Experience Team is proud to announce the release of MySQL for Excel version 1.3.0.  This is a beta release for 1.3.x. MySQL for Excel is an application plug-in enabling data analysts to very easily access and manipulate MySQL data within Microsoft Excel. It enables you to directly work with a MySQL database from within Microsoft Excel so you can easily do tasks such as: Importing MySQL data into Excel Exporting Excel data directly into MySQL to a new or existing table Editing MySQL data directly within Excel As this is a beta version the MySQL for Excel product can be downloaded only by using the product standalone installer at this link http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/windows/excel/ Your feedback on this beta version is very well appreciated, you can raise bugs on the MySQL bugs page or give us your comments on the MySQL for Excel forum. Changes in MySQL for Excel 1.3.0 (2014-06-06, Beta) This section documents all changes and bug fixes applied to MySQL for Excel since the release of 1.2.1. Several new features were added, for more information see What Is New In MySQL for Excel (http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/mysql-for-excel-what-is-new.html). Known limitations: Upgrading from versions MySQL for Excel 1.2.0 and lower is not possible due to a bug fixed in MySQL for Excel 1.2.1. In that scenario, the old version (MySQL for Excel 1.2.0 or lower) must be uninstalled first. Upgrading from version 1.2.1 works correctly. <CTRL> + <A> cannot be used to select all database objects. Either <SHIFT> + <Arrow Key> or <CTRL> + click must be used instead. PivotTables are normally placed to the right (skipping one column) of the imported data, they will not be created if there is another existing Excel object at that position. Functionality Added or Changed Imported data can now be refreshed by using the native Refresh feature. Fields in the imported data sheet are then updated against the live MySQL database using the saved connection ID. Functionality was added to import data directly into PivotTables, which can be created from any Import operation. Multiple objects (tables and views) can now be imported into Excel, when before only one object could be selected. Relational information is also utilized when importing multiple objects. All options now have descriptive tooltips. Hovering over an option/preference displays helpful information about its use. A new Export Data, Advanced Options option was added that shows all available data types in the Data Type combo box, instead of only showing a subset of the most popular data types. The option dialogs now include a Refresh to Defaults button that resets the dialog's options to their defaults values. Each option dialog is set individually. A new Add Summary Fields for Numeric Columns option was added to the Import Data dialog that automatically adds summary fields for numeric data after the last row of the imported data. The specific summary function is selectable from many options, such as "Total" and "Average." A new collation option was added for the schema and table creation wizards. The default schema collation is "Server Default", and the default table collation is "Schema Default". Collation options may be selected from a drop-down list of all available collations. Quick links: MySQL for Excel documentation: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/en/mysql-for-excel.html. MySQL on Windows blog: http://blogs.oracle.com/MySQLOnWindows. MySQL for Excel forum: http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?172. MySQL YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/MySQLChannel. Enjoy and thanks for the support! 

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• Useful SVN and Git commands – Cheatsheet

  - by Madhan ayyasamy

  The following snippets will helpful one who user version control systems like Git and SVN.svn checkout/co checkout-url – used to pull an SVN tree from the server.svn update/up – Used to update the local copy with the changes made in the repository.svn commit/ci – m “message” filename – Used to commit the changes in a file to repository with a message.svn diff filename – shows up the differences between your current file and what’s there now in the repository.svn revert filename – To overwrite local file with the one in the repository.svn add filename – For adding a file into repository, you should commit your changes then only it will reflect in repository.svn delete filename – For deleting a file from repository, you should commit your changes then only it will reflect in repository.svn move source destination – moves a file from one directory to another or renames a file. It will effect your local copy immediately as well as on the repository after committing.git config – Sets configuration values for your user name, email, file formats and more.git init – Initializes a git repository – creates the initial ‘.git’ directory in a new or in an existing project.git clone – Makes a Git repository copy from a remote source. Also adds the original location as a remote so you can fetch from it again and push to it if you have permissions.git add – Adds files changes in your working directory to your index.git rm – Removes files from your index and your working directory so they will not be tracked.git commit – Takes all of the changes written in the index, creates a new commit object pointing to it and sets the branch to point to that new commit.git status – Shows you the status of files in the index versus the working directory.git branch – Lists existing branches, including remote branches if ‘-a’ is provided. Creates a new branch if a branch name is provided.git checkout – Checks out a different branch – switches branches by updating the index, working tree, and HEAD to reflect the chosen branch.git merge – Merges one or more branches into your current branch and automatically creates a new commit if there are no conflicts.git reset – Resets your index and working directory to the state of your last commit.git tag – Tags a specific commit with a simple, human readable handle that never moves.git pull – Fetches the files from the remote repository and merges it with your local one.git push – Pushes all the modified local objects to the remote repository and advances its branches.git remote – Shows all the remote versions of your repository.git log – Shows a listing of commits on a branch including the corresponding details.git show – Shows information about a git object.git diff – Generates patch files or statistics of differences between paths or files in your git repository, or your index or your working directory.gitk – Graphical Tcl/Tk based interface to a local Git repository.

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• Oracle WebCenter: Common User Experience Architecture

  - by kellsey.ruppel(at)oracle.com

  You may remember that the key goals of the new release of WebCenter are providing a Modern User Experience, unparalleled Application Integration, converging all the best of the existing portal platforms into WebCenter and delivering a Common User Experience Architecture.  In previous weeks we've provided an overview of Oracle WebCenter and discussed some of the other key goals and this week, we'll focus on how the new release of Oracle WebCenter delivers a Common User Experience Architecture.When Oracle talks about a Common User Experience Architecture, it really focuses on a core set of areas.  First, the way that information is accessed needs to be consistent and extensible so that as requirements change, the applications don't need to be rewritten for every change. Second, this information access layer needs to be securely accessible to any application, site, or any other channel that needs to leverage this information.  Third, there needs to be a consistent presentation layout, Oracle calls it a UI shell, so that all resources can fit together in a useable, productive way.  Fourth, there needs to be a common set of design patterns for how different menus, features, and services fit into this UI Shell for broad and productive usability.  Fifth, there needs to be a set of design patterns for the individual services that plug into this UI shell so that end users can move from one module of the application to another without new learning.  Finally, all of these layers need to be customizable in an easy way that insulates IT from patching and upgrading problems and allows the business owners the agility to quickly change with the market conditions.As Oracle has already announced, we will release our next generation of enterprise applications called Oracle Fusion Applications.  We have thousands of developers building these applications that all had different programming tool experience and UI design experience.  We've educated over 6,000 developers building Oracle Fusion Applications to leverage these Common User Experience Architecture patterns to speed their learning curve of the new Java standards as well as SOA principles to deliver a revolutionary new set of applications.  You could imagine the big challenge with getting all these developers with different backgrounds and different UI design skills to deliver a completely integrated application user experience.  This is why Oracle invested heavily in designing this Common User Experience Architecture, based on Oracle WebCenter and the Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF).  It pulls together the best practices and design patterns that Oracle development required in order to bring Fusion Applications to market and Oracle WebCenter is the user experience layer that all of this is surfaced through.  In this way, customers can quickly brand a deployment for new partnerships without having to redevelop a new site.  Or they can quickly add new options to the UI Shell to enable their line of business managers to quickly adapt to a new competitive product.  And with the core integration of the activities to produce a Business Activity Stream, customers are able to stay on top of all their key business actions when they happen as they happen and more importantly, the system can recommend actions or resources to help act on these activities.And we've authored this whole set of design patterns for Oracle development to take advantage of in delivering Fusion Applications.  We're also applying these design patterns to our existing eBusiness Suite, Peoplesoft, Siebel, and JD Edwards applications so that they can tie in the exact same way that Fusion Applications has been brought together.  This will provide customers with a complete Common User Experience Architecture for their entire ecosystem of applications within their enterprise whether they are from Oracle, another vender, or custom built applications. And this is all provided in the new release of Oracle WebCenter.  These design patterns cover elements around delivering a complete, aggregated menu of all the capabilities that their role allows independent of which application they are trying to access.   It means that as they move from one application to another, they will have a consistent user experience.  And if they are using an Oracle application, any customizations that are made to the application are preserved and managed through upgrades and patches.Be sure to check back this week as we share more information and resources on Oracle's Common User Experience Architecture.

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• Introducing MySQL for Excel

  - by Javier Treviño

  As part of the new product initiatives of the MySQL on Windows group we released a tool that makes the task of getting data in and out of a MySQL Database very friendly and intuitive, and we paired it with one of the preferred applications for data analysis and manipulation in Windows platforms, MS Excel. Welcome to MySQL for Excel, an add-in that is installed and accessed from within the MS Excel’s Data tab offering a wizard-like interface arranged in an elegant yet simple way to help users browse MySQL Schemas, Tables, Views and Procedures and perform data operations against them using MS Excel as the vehicle to drive the data in and out MySQL Databases. One of the coolest features we had in mind designing MySQL for Excel is simplicity. MS Excel is simple and easy to work with, thus liked by many Windows users because they don’t have to be software gurus to use it.  We applied the same principle by targeting MySQL for Excel to any kind of user, so if you are already familiarized with Excel’s interface you will find yourself working with MySQL data in no time. MySQL for Excel is shipped within the MySQL Installer as one of the tools in the suite; if prerequisites are already installed (.NET Framework 4.0, Visual Studio Tools for Office 4.0 and of course MS Office), installing the add-in involves a very few clicks and no further setup to use it. Being an Excel Add-In there is no executable file involved after the installation, running MS Excel and opening the add-in from its Data tab is all that is required. MySQL for Excel automatically integrates with MySQL Workbench (if installed) to share the same connections to MySQL Server installations, that way connections are defined just once in either product saving time.  Opening the Add-In brings the Welcome Panel at the right side of the Excel main window from which connections to MySQL Servers are shown grouped by Local VS Remote connections; then users can open any of those connections by double-clicking it and entering the password of the used account.  Additionally a user can create a connection by clicking on the New Connection action label or edit connections through MySQL Workbench (if installed) by clicking on the Manage Connections action label. Once a connection is opened, the Schema Selection panel is shown, at the top of it the selected connection (connection name, hostname/IP and username). Just below, a list of schemas is displayed where User Schemas are grouped first followed by System Schemas; users can double-click any selected schema to go to the next panel or select a schema and clicking the Next > button. Users can alternatively click on the < Back button to go back to the Welcome Panel to close the current connection and open a new one; also by clicking the Create New Schema action label they can create an empty new schema. Once a schema is opened the DB Object Selection panel is shown, this is actually the place where the fun stuff happens; from here users are able to perform actions against MySQL Tables, Views and Procedures. ">The actions available here are about importing data from a MySQL Table, View or Procedure to Excel, exporting Excel data to a new MySQL Table, appending Excel data to an existing MySQL Table or editing a MySQL Table’s data by using an Excel Worksheet as a user interface to update data in any row/column, insert new rows or delete existing rows in a very easy and friendly way. More blog posts will follow describing all of these actions, so stay tuned! Remember that your feedback is very important for us, so drop us a message: · MySQL on Windows (this) Blog - https://blogs.oracle.com/MySqlOnWindows/ · Forum - http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?172 · Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/mysql Cheers!

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• Drawing transparent glyphs on the HTML canvas

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  The HTML canvas has a set of methods, createImageData and putImageData, that look like they will enable you to draw transparent shapes pixel by pixel. The data structures that you manipulate with these methods are pseudo-arrays of pixels, with four bytes per pixel. One byte for red, one for green, one for blue and one for alpha. This alpha byte makes one believe that you are going to be able to manage transparency, but that’s a lie. Here is a little script that attempts to overlay a simple generated pattern on top of a uniform background: var wrong = document.getElementById("wrong").getContext("2d"); wrong.fillStyle = "#ffd42a"; wrong.fillRect(0, 0, 64, 64); var overlay = wrong.createImageData(32, 32), data = overlay.data; fill(data); wrong.putImageData(overlay, 16, 16); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } where the fill method is setting the pixels in the lower-left half of the overlay to opaque red, and the rest to transparent black. And here’s how it renders: As you can see, the transparency byte was completely ignored. Or was it? in fact, what happens is more subtle. What happens is that the pixels from the image data, including their alpha byte, replaced the existing pixels of the canvas. So the alpha byte is not lost, it’s just that it wasn’t used by putImageData to combine the new pixels with the existing ones. This is in fact a clue to how to write a putImageData that works: we can first dump that image data into an intermediary canvas, and then compose that temporary canvas onto our main canvas. The method that we can use for this composition is drawImage, which works not only with image objects, but also with canvas objects. var right = document.getElementById("right").getContext("2d"); right.fillStyle = "#ffd42a"; right.fillRect(0, 0, 64, 64); var overlay = wrong.createImageData(32, 32), data = overlay.data; fill(data); var overlayCanvas = document.createElement("canvas"); overlayCanvas.width = overlayCanvas.height = 32; overlayCanvas.getContext("2d").putImageData(overlay, 0, 0); right.drawImage(overlayCanvas, 16, 16); And there is is, a version of putImageData that works like it should always have:

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• Securing Flexfield Value Sets in EBS 12.2

  - by Sara Woodhull

  Release 12.2 includes a new feature: flexfield value set security. This new feature gives you additional options for ensuring that different administrators have non-overlapping responsibilities, which in turn provides checks and balances for sensitive activities.  Separation of Duties (SoD) is one of the key concepts of internal controls and is a requirement for many regulations including: Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) European Union Data Protection Directive. Its primary intent is to put barriers in place to prevent fraud or theft by an individual acting alone. Implementing Separation of Duties requires minimizing the possibility that users could modify data across application functions where the users should not normally have access. For flexfields and report parameters in Oracle E-Business Suite, values in value sets can affect functionality such as the rollup of accounting data, job grades used at a company, and so on. Controlling access to the creation or modification of value set values can be an important piece of implementing Separation of Duties in an organization. New Flexfield Value Set Security feature Flexfield value set security allows system administrators to restrict users from viewing, adding or updating values in specific value sets. Value set security enables role-based separation of duties for key flexfields, descriptive flexfields, and report parameters. For example, you can set up value set security such that certain users can view or insert values for any value set used by the Accounting Flexfield but no other value sets, while other users can view and update values for value sets used for any flexfields in Oracle HRMS. You can also segregate access by Operating Unit as well as by role or responsibility.Value set security uses a combination of data security and role-based access control in Oracle User Management. Flexfield value set security provides a level of security that is different from the previously-existing and similarly-named features in Oracle E-Business Suite: Function security controls whether a user has access to a specific page or form, as well as what operations the user can do in that screen. Flexfield value security controls what values a user can enter into a flexfield segment or report parameter (by responsibility) during routine data entry in many transaction screens across Oracle E-Business Suite. Flexfield value set security (this feature, new in Release 12.2) controls who can view, insert, or update values for a particular value set (by flexfield, report, or value set) in the Segment Values form (FNDFFMSV). The effect of flexfield value set security is that a user of the Segment Values form will only be able to view those value sets for which the user has been granted access. Further, the user will be able to insert or update/disable values in that value set if the user has been granted privileges to do so.  Flexfield value set security affects independent, dependent, and certain table-validated value sets for flexfields and report parameters. Initial State of the Feature upon Upgrade Because this is a new security feature, it is turned on by default.  When you initially install or upgrade to Release 12.2.2, no users are allowed to view, insert or update any value set values (users may even think that their values are missing or invalid because they cannot see the values).  You must explicitly set up access for specific users by enabling appropriate grants and roles for those users.We recommend using flexfield value set security as part of a comprehensive Separation of Duties strategy. However, if you choose not to implement flexfield value set security upon upgrading to or installing Release 12.2, you can enable backwards compatibility--users can access any value sets if they have access to the Values form--after you upgrade. The feature does not affect day-to-day transactions that use flexfields.  However, you must either set up specific grants and roles or enable backwards compatibility before users can create new values or update or disable existing values. For more information, see: Release 12.2 Flexfield Value Set Security Documentation Update for Patch 17305947:R12.FND.C (Document 1589204.1) R12.2 TOI: Implement and Use Application Object Library (AOL) - Flexfields Security and Separation of Duties for Value Sets (recorded training)

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• What's New in Oracle's EPM System?

  - by jmorourke

  Oracle’s EPM System R11.1.2.2  is now generally available to customers and partners on the download center.  Although the release number doesn’t sound significant, this is a major release of Oracle’s Hyperion EPM Suite with new modules as well as significant enhancements across the suite.  This release was announced back on April 4th as part of Oracle’s Business Analytics Strategy launch, so analytics is a key aspect of the release.  But the three biggest pieces of news in this release are Oracle Hyperion Planning support for the Exalytics In-Memory Machine, the new Project Financial Planning Application and the new Account Reconciliations Manager module. The Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine was announced back in October 2011, at Oracle OpenWorld.  It’s the latest installment from Oracle in a line of engineered systems that combine Oracle Sun hardware, with Oracle database and application technologies – in solutions that are designed to provide high scalability and performance for specific tasks.  Exalytics is the first engineered system specifically designed for high performance analytics.  Running in-memory versions of Oracle Essbase, as well as the Oracle TimesTen database and Oracle BI tools, Exalytics provides speed of thought response times for complex analytic processes with advanced visualizations.  Early adopter customers have achieved 5X to 100X faster interactivity and 6X to 10X faster planning cycles.  Hyperion Planning running with Oracle Exalytics will support enterprise-wide planning, budgeting and forecasting with more detailed data, with hundreds to thousands of users across an organization getting speed of thought performance. The new Hyperion Project Financial Planning application delivered with EPM 11.1.2.2 is also great news for Oracle customers.  This application follows on the heels of other special-purpose planning applications that Oracle has delivered for Workforce and Capital Asset planning.  It allows Project Managers to identify project-related expenses and revenues, plan and propose new projects, and track results over time. Finance Managers can evaluate and compare different projects, manage the funding process, monitor and report the actual financial results and impacts of projects and project portfolios. This new application is applicable to capital projects, contract projects and indirect projects like IT and HR projects across all industries.  This application is a great complement to existing Project Management applications, and helps bridge the gap between these applications, and the financial planning and budgeting process. Account reconciliations has to be one of the biggest bottlenecks and risks in the financial close and reporting process, and many organizations rely on spreadsheets and manual processes to perform this critical process.  To help address this problem, Oracle developed an Account Reconciliation Manager module that is being delivered as part of Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Management.   This module helps automate and streamline account reconciliations and eliminates the chances for errors, omissions and fraud.  But unlike standalone account reconciliation packages, it’s integrated with the rest of the Oracle Hyperion Financial Close suite, and can integrate balances from any source system.  This can help alleviate a major bottleneck in the financial close process, increase accuracy and reduce risk, and can complement existing investments in Hyperion Financial Management, as well as Oracle and non-Oracle transaction processing systems. Other enhancements in this release include an enhanced Web 2.0 interface for Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Financial Management (HFM), configurable dimensionality in HFM, new Predictive Planning feature in Hyperion Planning, new Detailed Profitability feature in Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management, new Smart View interface for Hyperion Strategic Finance, and integration of the Hyperion applications with JD Edwards Financials. For more information about Oracle EPM System R11.1.2.2 check out the links below: Press Release:  http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1575775 Product Information on O.com:  http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/business-analytics/overview/index.html Product Information on OTN:  http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/epm/downloads/index.html Webcast Replay:  http://www.oracle.com/us/go/index.html?Src=7317510&Act=65&pcode=WWMK11054701MPP046 Please contact me if you have any questions or need additional information – [email protected]

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• Duke's Choice Award Ceremony

  - by Tori Wieldt

  The 2012 Duke's Choice Awards winners and their creative, Java-based technologies and Java community contributions were honored after the Sunday night JavaOne keynotes. Sharat Chander, Group Director for Java Technology Outreach, presented the awards. "Having the community participate directly in both submission and selection truly shows how we are driving exposure of the innovation happening in the Java community," he said. Apache Software Foundation Hadoop Project The Apache Software Foundation’s Hadoop project, written in Java, provides a framework for distributed processing of big data sets across clusters of computers, ranging from a few servers to thousands of machines. This harnessing of large data pools allows organizations to better understand and improve their business. AgroSense Project Improving farming methods to feed a hungry world is the goal of AgroSense, an open source farm information management system built in Java and the NetBeans platform. AgroSense enables farmers, agribusinesses, suppliers and others to develop modular applications that will easily exchange information through a common underlying NetBeans framework. JDuchess Rather than focus on a specific geographic area like most Java User Groups (JUGs), JDuchess fosters the participation of women in the Java community worldwide. The group has more than 500 members in 60 countries, and provides a platform through which women can connect with each other and get involved in all aspects of the Java community. Jelastic, Inc. Moving existing Java applications to the cloud can be a daunting task, but startup Jelastic, Inc. offers the first all-Java platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that enables existing Java applications to be deployed in the cloud without code changes or lock-in. Liquid Robotics Robotics – Liquid Robotics is an ocean data services provider whose Wave Glider technology collects information from the world’s oceans for application in government, science and commercial applications. The organization features the “father of Java” James Gosling as its chief software architect. London Java Community The second user group receiving a Duke’s Choice Award this year, the London Java Community (LJC) and its users have been active in the OpenJDK, the Java Community Process (JCP) and other efforts within the global Java community. NATO The first-ever Community Choice Award goes to the MASE Integrated Console Environment (MICE) in use at NATO. Built in Java on the NetBeans platform, MICE provides a high-performance visualization environment for conducting air defense and battle-space operations. Parleys.com E-learning specialist Parleys.com, based in Brussels, Belgium, uses Java technologies to bring online classes and full IT conferences to desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile devices. Parleys.com has hosted more than 1,700 conferences—including Devoxx and JavaOne—for more than 800,000 unique visitors. Student Nokia Developer Group This year’s student winner, Ram Kashyap, is the founder and president of the Nokia Student Network, and was profiled in the “The New Java Developers” feature in the March/April 2012 issue of Java Magazine. Since then, Ram has maintained a hectic pace, graduating from the People’s Education Society Institute of Technology in Bangalore, India, while working on a Java mobile startup and training students on Java ME. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is on the front lines of crises around the world, from civil wars to natural disasters. To help facilitate its mission of humanitarian relief, the UNHCR has developed a light-client Java application on the NetBeans platform. The Level One registration tool enables the UNHCR to collect information on the number of refugees and their water, food, housing, health, and other needs in the field, and combines that with geocoding information from various sources. This enables the UNHCR to deliver the appropriate kind and amount of assistance where it is needed. You can read more about the winners in the current issue of Java Magazine.

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• New Rapid Install StartCD 12.2.0.48 for EBS 12.2 Now Available

  - by Max Arderius

  A new Rapid Install startCD (Patch 18086193) for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 is now available. We recommend that all EBS customers installing or upgrading to EBS 12.2 use this latest update. The startCD updates are distributed to customers via My Oracle Support Patch which can be uncompressed on top of any previous 12.2 startCD under the main staging area. This patch replaces any previous startCDs. What's New in This Update? This new startCD version 12.2.0.48 includes important fixes for multi-node Installs, RAC, pre-install checks, platform specific issues, and upgrade scenario failures: 18703814 - QREP:122:RI:ISSUE WITH CHECKOS.CMD 18689527 - QREP:122:RI:ISSUE WITH FNDCORE.DLL SHIPPED AS PART OF R122 PACKAGE 18548485 - QREP1224:4:JAR SIGNER ISSUE DUE TO THE RI UPGRADE AUTOCONFIG CHANGES 18535812 - QREP:1220.48_4: 12.2.0 UPGRADE FILE SYSTEM LAY OUT IS AFFECTING THE DB TABLES 18507545 - WIN: UNABLE TO LAY DOWN FS PRIOR TO 12.2 UPGRADE WITHOUT AFFECTING RUNNING DB 18476041 - UNABLE TO LAY DOWN FS PRIOR TO 12.2 UPGRADE WITHOUT AFFECTING PRODUCTION DB 18459887 - R12.2 INSTALLATION FAILURE - OPMNCTL: NOT FOUND 18436053 - START CD 48_4 - ISSUES WITH TEMP SPACE CHECK 18424747 - QREP1224.3:ADD SERVER BROWSE BUTTON NOT WORKING 18421132 - *RW-50010: ERROR: - SCRIPT HAS RETURNED AN ERROR: 1 18403700 - QREP122.48:RI:UPGRADE RI PRECHECK HUNG IN SPLIT TIER APPS NODE ( NO SILENT ) 18383075 - ADD VERBOSE OPTION TO RAC VALIDATION 18363584 - UPTAKE INSTALL SCRIPTS FOR XB48_4 18336093 - QREP:122:RI:PATCH FS ADMIN SERVICE RUNNING AFTER RI UPGRADE CONFIGURE MODE 18320278 - QREP:1224.3:PLATFORM SPECIFIC SYNTAX ERRORS WITH DATE COMMAND IN DB CHECKER 18314643 - DISABLE SID=DB_NAME FOR RI UPGRADE FLOW IN RAC 18298977 - RI: EXCEPTION WHILE CLICKING RAC NODES BUTTON ON A NON-RAC SERVER 18286816 - QREP122:STARTCD48_3:TRAVERSING FROM VISION PASSW SCREEN TO PROD 18286371 - QREP122:STARTCD48_3:AMBIGUOUS MESSAGE DURING STAGE AREA CHECK ON HP 18275403 - QREP122:48:RI UPGRADE WITH EOH POST CHECKS HANGS IN SPLIT TIER DB NODE 18270631 - QREP122.48:MULTI-NODE RI USING NON-DEFAULT PASSWORDS NOT WORKING 18266046 - QREP122:48:RI NOT ALLOWING TO IGNORE THE RAC PRE-CHECK FAILURE 18242201 - UPTAKE TXK INSTALL SCRIPTS AND PLATFORMS.ZIP INTO STARTCD XB48_3 18236428 - QREP122.47:RI UPGRADE EXISTING OH FOR NON-DEFAULT APPS PASSWORD NOT WORKING 18220640 - INCONSISTENT DATABASE PORTS DURING EBS 12.2 INSTALLATION FOR STARTCD 12.2.0.47 18138796 - QREP122:47:RI 10.1.2 TECHSTACK NOT WORKING IF WE RUN RI FROM NEW STARTCD LOC 18138396 - TST1220: CONTROL FILE NAMING IN RAPID INSTALL SEEMS TO HAVE ISSUES 18124144 - IMPROVE HANDLING ERRORS FOUND IN CLUVFY LOG DURING PREINSTALL CHECKS 18111361 - VALIDATE ASM DB DATA FILES PATH AS +<DATA GROUP>/<PATH> 18102504 - QREP1220.47_5: UNZIP PANEL DOES NOT CREATE THE CORRECT STAGE 18083342 - 12.2 UPGRADE JAVA.NET.BINDEXCEPTION: CANNOT ASSIGN REQUESTED ADDRESS 18082140 - QREP122:47:RAC DB VALIDATION IS FAILS WITH EXIT STATUS IS 6 18062350 - 12.2.3 UPG: 12.2.0 INSTALLATION LOGS 18050840 - RI: UPGRADE WITH EXISTING RAC OH:SECONDARY DB NODE NAME IS BLANK 18049813 - RAC LOV DEFAULTS NOT SAVED UNLESS "SELECT" IS CLICKED 18003592 - TST1220:ADDITIONAL FREE SPACE CHECK FOR RI NEEDS TO BE CHECKED 17981471 - REMOVE ASM SPACE CHECK FROM RACVALIDATIONS.SH 17942179 - R12.2 INSTALL FAILING AT ADRUN11G.SH WITH ERRORS RW-50004 & RW-50010 17893583 - QREP1220.47:VALIDATION OF O.S IN RAPIDWIZ IN THE DB NODE CONFIGURATION SCREEN 17886258 - CLEANUP FND_NODES DURING UPGRADE FLOW 17858010 - RI POST INSTALL CHECKS (SSH VERIFICATION) STEP IS FAILING 17799807 - GEOHR: 12.2.0 - ERRORS IN RAPIDWIZ AND ADCONFIG LOGS 17786162 - QREP1223.4:RI:SERVICE_NAMES IS PRINTED AS SERVICE_NAME IN RI SCREEN 17782455 - RI: CONFIRM DEFAULT APPS PASSWORD IN SILENT MODE KICKOFF 17778130 - RI:ADMIN SERVER TO BE UP ON PRIMARY MID-TIER IN MULTI-NODE UPGRADE FS CREATION 17773989 - UN-SUPPORTED PLATFORM SHOWS 32 BIT AS HARD-CODED 17772655 - RELEVANT MESSAGE DURING THE RAPDIWIZ -TECHSTACK 17759279 - VERIFICATION PANEL DOES NOT EXPAND TECHNOLOGY STACK 17759183 - BUILDSTAGE SCRIPT MENU NEEDS TO BE ADJUSTED 17737186 - DATABASE PRE-REQ CHECK INCORRECTLY REPORTS SUCCESS ON AIX 17708082 - 12.2 INSTALLATION - OS PRE-REQUISITES CHECK 17701676 - TST122: GENERATE WRONG S_DBSID FOR PATCH FILE SYSTEM AT PHASE PREPARE 17630972 - /TMP PRE-REQ INSTALLATION CHECK 17617245 - 12.2 VISION INSTALL FAILS ON AIX 17603342 - OMCS: DB STAGING COMPLAINS WHILE MOVING IT TO FINAL LOCATION 17591171 - OMCS: DB STAGING FAILS WITH FRESH INSTALL R12.2 17588765 - CHECKER VERSION AND PLUGIN VERSION 17561747 - BUILDSTAGE.SH FAILS WITH ERROR WHEN STAGE HOSTED ON 32BIT LINUX 17539198 - RAPID INSTALL NEEDS TO IGNORE NON-REQUIRED STAGE ELEMENTS 17272808 - APPS USERS THAT HAVE DEFAULT PASSWORD AFTER 12.2 RAPID INSTALL References 12.2 Documentation Library 1581299.1 : EBS 12.2 Product Information Center 1320300.1 : Oracle E-Business Suite Release Notes, Release 12.2 1606170.1 : Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Stack and Applications DBA Release Notes for Release 12.2.3 1624423.1 : Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Stack and Applications DBA Release Notes for R12.TXK.C.Delta.4 and R12.AD.C.Delta.4 1594274.1 : Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2: Consolidated List of Patches and Technology Bug Fixes Related Articles Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2 Now Available startCD options to install Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2

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• Sweet and Sour Source Control

  - by Tony Davis

  Most database developers don't use Source Control. A recent anonymous poll on SQL Server Central asked its readers "Which Version Control system do you currently use to store you database scripts?" The winner, with almost 30% of the vote was...none: "We don't use source control for database scripts". In second place with almost 28% of the vote was Microsoft's VSS. VSS? Given its reputation for being buggy, unstable and lacking most of the basic features required of a proper source control system, answering VSS is really just another way of saying "I don't use Source Control". At first glance, it's a surprising thought. You wonder how database developers can work in a team and find out what changed, when the system worked before but is now broken; to work out what happened to their changes that now seem to have vanished; to roll-back a mistake quickly so that the rest of the team have a functioning build; to find instantly whether a suspect change has been deployed to production. Unfortunately, the survey didn't ask about the scale of the database development, and correlate the two questions. If there is only one database developer within a schema, who has an automated approach to regular generation of build scripts, then the need for a formal source control system is questionable. After all, a database stores far more about its metadata than a traditional compiled application. However, what is meat for a small development is poison for a team-based development. Here, we need a form of Source Control that can reconcile simultaneous changes, store the history of changes, derive versions and builds and that can cope with forks and merges. The problem comes when one borrows a solution that was designed for conventional programming. A database is not thought of as a "file", but a vast, interdependent and intricate matrix of tables, indexes, constraints, triggers, enumerations, static data and so on, all subtly interconnected. It is an awkward fit. Subversion with its support for merges and forks, and the tolerance of different work practices, can be made to work well, if used carefully. It has a standards-based architecture that allows it to be used on all platforms such as Windows Mac, and Linux. In the words of Erland Sommerskog, developers should "just do it". What's in a database is akin to a "binary file", and the developer must work only from the file. You check out the file, edit it, and save it to disk to compile it. Dependencies are validated at this point and if you've broken anything (e.g. you renamed a column and broke all the objects that reference the column), you'll find out about it right away, and you'll be forced to fix it. Nevertheless, for many this is an alien way of working with SQL Server. Subversion is the powerhouse, not the GUI. It doesn't work seamlessly with your existing IDE, and that usually means SSMS. So the question then becomes more subtle. Would developers be less reluctant to use a fully-featured source (revision) control system for a team database development if they had a turn-key, reliable system that fitted in with their existing work-practices? I'd love to hear what you think. Cheers, Tony.

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• MIX 2010 Covert Operations Day 3

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  I rolled over to the Mandalay for breakfast.  There I met a couple guys that were really excited about the new Windows 7 Phone.  They, as I, are also hopeful that the phone really gets a big push and some penetration into the market.  Not because we don’t like any other of the phones, but because this phone is so much better in many ways.  From a developer's perspective creating applications in Windows 7 Mobile will be vastly superior in ease, capabilities, and other aspects.  The architectural, existing code base, examples, and provisions to create things on the 7 Mobile Device are already existing as of RIGHT NOW.  There is no reason, except for fickle market conditions, for this phone to not just explode onto the market.  But alas, I won't hold my breath. Day three keynote had a whole new slew of things provided.  It also seemed that things got a lot more technical on this second keynote.  The oData was one of the very technical bits, yet it included almost no code.  Starting with a Netflix example and all the way to the Codename "Dallas" effort the oData Services provide some expansive possibilities. A mash up going 4 ways was then shown for finding a movie, finding local places to have a viewing, and information about the movie and were to prospectively find and buy additional movie bits.  The display was of course, in a Windows 7 Mobile device with literally a click to view each set of data.  The backend and the front end of this was beautifully smooth. The Dallas Project has a lot of potential for analytics in dashboard and scorecard creation also.  If there is a need or reason to provide data to a vast and wide range of clients, Dallas is a prime example of how to do that. Azure Clouds After the main keynote I checked out (while developing a working WPF & Silverlight Application for work) the session on deploying ASP.NET Applications, services, etc, into the cloud.  The session was pretty good, but I'll admit I got a little unfocused from it a few times.  It is after all hard to do two things at one time. I did take note that the cloud still is a multiple step process for deploying to.  This is a good thing and a bad thing.  There needs to be more checks and verifications when deploying something into the cloud just for technical reasons.  However, I feel that there should be some streamlining to the process.  Going back and forth between web and Visual Studio as the interface also seems kind of clunky.  Deployment should be able to be completed from within Visual Studio in my perspective.  Overall, the cloud is getting more and more impressive in function as well as theory. That's it from me so far on the third day of MIX.  I'll be note taking and studying hard to have more good tidbits to provide. Thanks for reading, if you're curious about more of my writing, check out this original entry at my other blog Agilist Mercenary.

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• New features in TFS Demo Setup 1.0.0.2

  - by Tarun Arora

  Release Notes – http://tfsdemosetup.codeplex.com/ | Download | Source Code | Report a Bug | Ideas Just pushed out the 2nd release of the TFS Demo setup on CodePlex, below a quick look at some of the new features/improvements in the tool… Details of the existing features can be found here. Feature 1 – Set up Work Items Queries as Team Favorites The task board looks cooler when the team favourite work item queries show up on the task board. The demo setup console application now has the ability to set up the work item queries as team favorites for you. If you want to see how you can add Team Favorites programmatically, refer to this blogpost here. Image 1 – Task board without Team Favorites Let’s see how the TFS Demo Setup application sets-up team favorites as part of the run… Open up the DemoDictionary.xml and you should be able to see the new node <TeamFavorites> this accepts multiple <TeamFavorite>. You simply need to specify the <Type> as Query and in the <Name> specify the name of the work item query that you would like added as a favorite. Image 2 – Highlighting the TeamFavorites block in DemoDictionary.xml So, when the demo set up application is run with the above config, work item queries “Blocked Tasks” and “Open Impediments” are added as team favorites. They then show up on the task board, as highlighted in the screen shot below. Image 3 – Team Favorites setup during the TFS demo setup app execution Feature 2 – Choose what you want to setup and exclude the rest I had a great feature request come in requesting the ability to exclude parts of the setup at the sole discretion of the executioner. To accommodate this, I have added an attribute with each block, the attribute “Run” accepts “true” or “false”. If you set the flag to true then at the time of execution that block would be considered for setup and if you set the flag to false, the block will be ignored during the setup. So, lets look at an example below… The attribute "Run” is set to true for TeamSettings, Team Favorites, TeamMembers and WorkItems. So, all of these would be setup as part of the demo setup application execution. Image 4 – New Attribute Run added to all blocks in DemoDictionary.xml If I did not want to recreate the team and did not want to add new work items but only wanted to add favorites and team members to the existing team “AgileChamps1” then I could simple run the application with below DemoDictionary.xml. Note – TeamSettings Run=”false” and WorkItems Run=”false”. Image 5 – TeamFavorites and TeamMembers set as true and others set to false Feature 3 – Usability Improvement If you try and assign a work item to a team member that does not exist then the application throws a nasty exception. This behaviour has now been changed, upon adding such a work item, the work items will be created and not assigned to any user. The work item id will be printed to the console making it simple for you to assign the work item manually. As you can see in the screen shot below, I am trying to assign the work item to a user “Tarun” and a user “v2” both are *not valid users in my team project collection* so the tool creates the work items and provides me the work item id and lets me know that since the user is invalid the work item could not be assigned to the user. Better user experience ae Image 6 – Behaviour if work item assigned to users are in valid users in team project That’s about it for the current release. I have some new features planned for the next release. Mean while if you have any ideas/comments please feel free to leave a comment. Stay tuned for more… Enjoy! Other posts on TFS Demo Setup can be found here.

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• Windows Azure SDK 1.3 addresses early adopter feedback

  - by Eric Nelson

  At the end of November 2010 we released a new version of the Windows Azure SDK which contains many new features driven by the great feedback of early adopters plus a shiny new portal. New Portal implemented in Silverlight: The new portal is implemented using Silverlight and replaces the (IMHO rather clunky) original HTML + JavaScript portal. It is 100% better although does still have a few bugs. Enjoy! P.S. You can if you wish still use the old portal:   New runtime functionality: The following functionality is now generally available through the Windows Azure SDK and Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio and the new Windows Azure Management Portal: Elevated Privileges and Full IIS. You can now run a portion or all of your code in Web and Worker roles with elevated administrator privileges. The Web role now provides Full IIS functionality, which enables multiple IIS sites per Web role and the ability to install IIS modules. Remote Desktop functionality enables you to connect to a running instance of your application or service in order to monitor activity and troubleshoot common problems. Windows Server 2008 R2 Roles: Windows Azure now supports Windows Server 2008 R2 in its Web, worker and VM roles. This new support enables you to take advantage of the full range of Windows Server 2008 R2 features such as IIS 7.5, AppLocker, and enhanced command-line and automated management using PowerShell Version 2.0. New runtime functionality – in beta: Windows Azure Virtual Machine Role: Support for more types of new and existing Windows applications will soon be available with the introduction of the Virtual Machine (VM) role. You can move more existing applications to Windows Azure, reducing the need to make costly code or deployment changes. Extra Small Windows Azure Instance, which is priced at $0.05 per compute hour, provides developers with a cost-effective training and development environment. Developers can also use the Extra Small instance to prototype cloud solutions at a lower cost. Windows Azure Connect: (formerly Project Sydney), which enables a simple and easy-to-manage mechanism to set up IP-based network connectivity between on-premises and Windows Azure resources, is the first Windows Azure Virtual Network feature that we’re making available as a CTP. You can sign up for any of the betas via the Windows Azure Management Portal. Improved processes and simplified operations New portal! (see above) Access to new diagnostic information including the ability to click on a role to see role type, deployment time and last reboot time A new sign-up process that dramatically reduces the number of steps needed to sign up for Windows Azure. New scenario based Windows Azure Platform forums to help answer questions and share knowledge more efficiently. Multiple Service Administrators: Windows Azure now supports multiple Windows Live IDs to have administrator privileges on the same Windows Azure account. The objective is to make it easy for a team to work on the same Windows Azure account while using their individual Windows Live IDs.   Related Links Please also let us know through Microsoft Platform Ready if and when you intend to build an application using the Windows Azure Platform. Or indeed if you already have (Well done). You will get access to some great benefits if you do (more on that in a future post). It also really helps us better understand the demand out there which directly impacts how we will plan the next six months of activities around the Windows Azure Platform. Visit Microsoft Platform Ready to tell us about your plans for your applications UK based? Interested in the Windows Azure Platform? Join http://ukazure.ning.com Get started with the Windows Azure Platform http://bit.ly/startazure

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• Managing Operational Risk of Financial Services Processes – part 1/ 2

  - by Sanjeevio

  Financial institutions view compliance as a regulatory burden that incurs a high initial capital outlay and recurring costs. By its very nature regulation takes a prescriptive, common-for-all, approach to managing financial and non-financial risk. Needless to say, no longer does mere compliance with regulation will lead to sustainable differentiation.  Genuine competitive advantage will stem from being able to cope with innovation demands of the present economic environment while meeting compliance goals with regulatory mandates in a faster and cost-efficient manner. Let’s first take a look at the key factors that are limiting the pursuit of the above goal. Regulatory requirements are growing, driven in-part by revisions to existing mandates in line with cross-border, pan-geographic, nature of financial value chains today and more so by frequent systemic failures that have destabilized the financial markets and the global economy over the last decade.  In addition to the increase in regulation, financial institutions are faced with pressures of regulatory overlap and regulatory conflict. Regulatory overlap arises primarily from two things: firstly, due to the blurring of boundaries between lines-of-businesses with complex organizational structures and secondly, due to varying requirements of jurisdictional directives across geographic boundaries e.g. a securities firm with operations in US and EU would be subject different requirements of “Know-Your-Customer” (KYC) as per the PATRIOT ACT in US and MiFiD in EU. Another consequence and concomitance of regulatory change is regulatory conflict, which again, arises primarily from two things: firstly, due to diametrically opposite priorities of line-of-business and secondly, due to tension that regulatory requirements create between shareholders interests of tighter due-diligence and customer concerns of privacy. For instance, Customer Due Diligence (CDD) as per KYC requires eliciting detailed information from customers to prevent illegal activities such as money-laundering, terrorist financing or identity theft. While new customers are still more likely to comply with such stringent background checks at time of account opening, existing customers baulk at such practices as a breach of trust and privacy. As mentioned earlier regulatory compliance addresses both financial and non-financial risks. Operational risk is a non-financial risk that stems from business execution and spans people, processes, systems and information. Operational risk arising from financial processes in particular transcends other sources of such risk. Let’s look at the factors underpinning the operational risk of financial processes. The rapid pace of innovation and geographic expansion of financial institutions has resulted in proliferation and ad-hoc evolution of back-office, mid-office and front-office processes. This has had two serious implications on increasing the operational risk of financial processes: ·         Inconsistency of processes across lines-of-business, customer channels and product/service offerings. This makes it harder for the risk function to enforce a standardized risk methodology and in turn breaches harder to detect. ·         The proliferation of processes coupled with increasingly frequent change-cycles has resulted in accidental breaches and increased vulnerability to regulatory inadequacies. In summary, regulatory growth (including overlap and conflict) coupled with process proliferation and inconsistency is driving process compliance complexity In my next post I will address the implications of this process complexity on financial institutions and outline the role of BPM in lowering specific aspects of operational risk of financial processes.

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• Types of semantic bugs, logic errors [closed]

  - by C-Otto

  I am a PhD student and currently focus on automatically finding instances of new types of bugs in (Java) programs that cannot be found by existing tools like FindBugs. The existing tool currently is used to prove/disprove termination of (Java) programs. I have some ideas (see below), but I could need more input from you (experienced programmers, potential users of my tool). What kind of bugs do you wish to find? What types of bugs exist and might be suitable for my analysis? One strength of the approach I use is detailled information about the heap. So in contrast to FindBugs, I can work with knowledge of the form "variable x and variable y are disjoint on the heap" or "variable z is not cyclic". It is also possible to see if a method might have side effects (and if so, which variables may/may not be affected by it). Example 1: Vacuous call: Graph graphOne = createGraph(); Graph graphTwo = createGraph(); Node source = graphTwo.getRootNode(); for (Node n : graphOne.getNodes()) { if (areConnected(source, n)) { graphTwo.addNode(n); } } Imagine createGraph() creates a fresh graph, so that graphOne and graphTwo are disjoint on the heap. Then, because source is taken from graphTwo instead of graphOne, the call to areConnected always returns false. In this situation I could find out that the call areConnected is useless (because it does not have any side effect and the return value always is false) which helps finding the real bug (taking source from the wrong graph). For this the information that x and y are disjoint (because graphOne and graphTwo are disjoint) is crucial. This bug is related to calling x.equals(y) where x and y are objects of different classes. In this scenario, most implementations of equals() always return false, which most likely is not the intended result. FindBugs already finds this bug (hardcoded to equals(), semantics of implementation is not checked). Example 2: Useless code: someCode(); while (something()) { yetMoreSomething(); } moreCode(); In the case that the loop (so the code in something() and yetMoreSomething()) does not modify anything visible outside the loop, it does not make sense to run this code - the program has the same behaviour as someCode(); moreCode() (i.e., without the loop). To find this out, one needs detailled information about the side effects of the (possibly useless) code. If I can prove that the code does not have any side effect that can be observed afterwards (in the example: in moreCode() or later), then the code indeed is useless. Of course, here Input/Output of any form must be seen as a side effect, so that a System.out.println(...) is not considered useless. Example 3: Ignored return value: Instead of x = foo(); and making use of x, the method is called without storing the result: foo();. If the method does not have any side effect, its invocation is useless and can be dropped. Most likely, the bug here is that the returned value should have been used. Here, too, detailled information about side effects are needed. Can you think of similar types of bugs that might be detected (only) with detailled information about the heap, side effects, semantics of called methods, ...? Did you encounter bugs related to the ones shown below in "real life"? By the way, the tool is AProVE and Java related publications can be found on my homepage. Thanks a lot, Carsten

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• The Evolution of Oracle Direct EMEA by John McGann

  - by user769227

  John is expanding his Dublin based team and is currently recruiting a Director with marketing and sales leadership experience: http://bit.ly/O8PyDF Should you wish to apply, please send your CV to [email protected] Hi, my name is John McGann and I am part of the Oracle Direct management team, based in Dublin.   Today I’m writing from the Oracle London City office, right in the heart of the financial district and up to very recently at the centre of a fantastic Olympic Games. The Olympics saw individuals and teams from across the globe competing to decide who is Citius, Altius, Fortius - “Faster, Higher, Stronger" There are lots of obvious parallels between the competitive world of the Olympics and the Business environments that many of us operate in, but there are also some interesting differences – especially in my area of responsibility within Oracle. We are of course constantly striving to be the best - the best solution on offer for our clients, bringing simplicity to their management, consumption and application of information technology, and the best provider when compared with our many niche competitors.   In Oracle and especially in Oracle Direct, a key aspect of how we achieve this is what sets us apart from the Olympians.  We have long ago eliminated geographic boundaries as a limitation to what we can achieve. We assemble the strongest individuals across multiple countries and bring them together in teams focussed on a single goal. One such team is the Oracle Direct Sales Programs team. In case you don’t know, Oracle Direct EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa) is the inside sales division in Oracle and it is where I started my Oracle career.  I remember that my first role involved putting direct mail in envelopes.... things have moved on a bit since then – for me, for Oracle Direct and in how we interact with our customers. Today, the team of over 1000 people is located in the different Oracle Direct offices around Europe – the main ones are Malaga, Berlin, Prague and Dubai plus the headquarters in Dublin. We work in over 20 languages and are in constant contact with current and future Oracle customers, using the latest internet and telephone technologies to effectively communicate and collaborate with each other, our customers and prospects. One of my areas of responsibility within Oracle Direct is the Sales Programs team. This team of 25 people manages the planning and execution of demand generation, leading the process of finding new and incremental revenue within Oracle Direct. The Sales Programs Managers or ‘SPMs’ are embedded within each of the Oracle Direct sales teams, focussed on distinct geographies or product groups. The SPMs are virtual members of the regional sales management teams, and work closely with the sales and marketing teams to define and deliver demand generation activities. The customer contact elements of these activities are executed via the Oracle Direct Sales and Business Development/Lead Generation teams, to deliver the pipeline required to meet our revenue goals. Activities can range from pan-EMEA joint sales and marketing campaigns, to very localised niche campaigns. The campaigns might focus on particular segments of our existing customers, introducing elements of our evolving solution portfolio which customers may not be familiar with. The Sales Programs team also manages ‘Nurture’ activities to ensure that we develop potential business opportunities with contacts and organisations that do not have immediate requirements. Looking ahead, it is really important that we continue to evolve our ability to add value to our clients and reduce the physical limitations of our distance from them through the innovative application of technology. This enables us to enhance the customer buying experience and to enable the Inside Sales teams to manage ever more complex sales cycles from start to finish.  One of my expectations of my team is to actively drive innovation in how we leverage data to better understand our customers, and exploit emerging technologies to better communicate with them.   With the rate of innovation and acquisition within Oracle, we need to ensure that existing and potential customers are aware of all we have to offer that relates to their business goals.   We need to achieve this via a coherent communication and sales strategy to effectively target the right people using the most effective medium. This is another area where the Sales Programs team plays a key role.

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• Comparing Isis, Google, and Paypal

  - by David Dorf

  Back in 2010 I was sure NFC would make great strides, but here we are two years later and NFC doesn't seem to be sticking. The obvious reason being the chicken-and-egg problem.  Retailers don't want to install the terminals until the phones support NFC, and vice-versa. So consumers continue to sit on the sidelines waiting for either side to blink and make the necessary investment.  In the meantime, EMV is looking for a way to sneak into the US with the help of the card brands. There are currently three major solutions that are battling in the marketplace.  All three know that replacing mag-stripe alone is not sufficient to move consumers.  Long-term it's the offers and loyalty programs combined with tendering that make NFC attractive. NFC solutions cross lots of barriers, so a strong partner system is required.  The solutions need to include the carriers, card brands, banks, handset manufacturers, POS terminals, and most of all lots of merchants.  Lots of coordination is necessary to make the solution seamless to the consumer. Google Wallet Google's problem has always been that only the Nexus phone has an NFC chip that supports their wallet.  There are a couple of additional phones out there now, but adoption is still slow.  They acquired Zavers a while back to incorporate digital coupons, but the the bulk of their users continue to be non-NFC.  They have taken an open approach by not specifying particular payment brands.  Google is piloting in San Francisco and New York, supporting both MasterCard PayPass and stored value. I suppose the other card brands may eventually follow.  There's no cost for consumers or merchants -- Google will make money via targeted ads. Isis Not long after Google announced its wallet, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile announced a joint venture called Isis.  They are in the unique position of owning the SIM in the phones they issue.  At first it seemed Isis was a vehicle for the carriers to compete with the existing card brands, but Isis later switched to a generic wallet that supports the major card brands.  Isis reportedly charges issuers a $5 fee per customer per year.  Isis will pilot this summer in Salt Lake City and Austin. PayPal PayPal, the clear winner in the online payment space beyond traditional credit cards, is trying to move into physical stores.  After negotiations with Google to provide a wallet broke off, PayPal decided to avoid NFC altogether, at least for now, and focus on payments without any physical card or phone.  By avoiding NFC, consumers don't need an NFC-enabled phone and merchants don't need a new reader.  Consumers must enter their phone number and PIN in the merchant's existing device, or they can enter their PIN in the PayPal inStore app running on their phone, then show the merchant a unique barcode which authorizes payment. Paypal is free for consumers and charges a fee for merchants.  Its not clear, at least to me, how PayPal handles fraudulent transactions and whether the consumer is protected. The wildcard is, of course, Apple.  Their mobile technologies set the standard, so incorporating NFC chips would certainly accelerate adoption of many payment solutions.  Their announcement today of the iOS Passbook is a step in the right direction, but stops short of handling payments. For those retailers that have invested in modern terminals, it seems the best strategy is to support all the emerging solutions and let the consumers choose the winner.

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• Part 6: Extensions vs. Modifications

  - by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com

  Customizations = Extensions + Modifications In the EBS terminology, a customization can be an extension or a modification. Extension means that you mainly create your own code from scratch. You may utilize existing views, packages and java classes, but your code is unique. Modifications are quite different, because here you take existing code and change or enhance certain areas to achieve a slightly different behavior. Important is that it doesn't matter if you place your code at the same or at another place – it is a modification. It is also not relevant if you leave the original code enabled or not! Why? Here is the answer: In case the original code piece you have taken as your base will get patched, you need to copy the source again and apply all your changes once more. If you don't do that, you may get different results or write different data compared to the standard – this causes a high risk! Here are some guidelines how to reduce the risk: Invest a bit longer when searching for objects to select data from. Rather choose a view than a table. In case Oracle development changes the underlying tables, the view will be more stable and is therefore a better choice. Choose rather public APIs over internal APIs. Same background as before: although internal structure might change, the public API is more stable. Use personalization and substitution rather than modification. Spend more time to check if the requirement can be covered with such techniques. Build a project code library, avoid that colleagues creating similar functionality multiple times. Otherwise you have to review lots of similar code to determine the need for correction. Use the technique of “flagged files”. Flagged files is a way to mark a standard deployment file. If you run the patch analyse (within Application Manager), the analyse result will list flagged standard files in case they will be patched. If you maintain a cross reference to your own CEMLIs, you can easily determine which CEMLIs have to be reviewed. Implement a code review process. This can be done by utilizing team internal or external persons. If you implement such a team internal process, your team members will come up with suggestions how to improve the code quality by themselves. Review heavy customizations regularly, to identify options to reduce complexity; let's say perform this every 6th month. You may not spend days for such a review, but a high level cross check if the customization can be reduced is suggested. De-install customizations which are no more required. Define a process for this. Add a section into the technical documentation how to uninstall and what are possible implications. Maintain a cross reference between CEMLIs and between CEMLIs, EBS modules and business processes. Keep this list up to date! Share this list! By following these guidelines, you are able to improve product stability. Although we might not be able to avoid modifications completely, we can give a much better advise to developers and to our test team. Summary: Extensions and Modifications have to be handled differently during their lifecycle. Modifications implicate a much higher risk and should therefore be reviewed more frequently. Good cross references allow you to give clear advise for the testing activities.

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• Heterogeneous Datacenter Management with Enterprise Manager 12c

  - by Joe Diemer

  The following is a Guest Blog, contributed by Bryce Kaiser, Product Manager at Blue MedoraWhen I envision a perfect datacenter, it would consist of technologies acquired from a single vendor across the entire server, middleware, application, network, and storage stack - Apps to Disk - that meets your organization’s every IT requirement with absolute best-of-breed solutions in every category.   To quote a familiar motto, your datacenter would consist of "Hardware and Software, Engineered to Work Together".  In almost all cases, practical realities dictate something far less than the IT Utopia mentioned above.   You may wish to leverage multiple vendors to keep licensing costs down, a single vendor may not have an offering in the IT category you need, or your preferred vendor may quite simply not have the solution that meets your needs.    In other words, your IT needs dictate a heterogeneous IT environment.  Heterogeneity, however, comes with additional complexity. The following are two pretty typical challenges:1) No End-to-End Visibility into the Enterprise Wide Application Deployment. Each vendor solution which is added to an infrastructure may bring its own tooling creating different consoles for different vendor applications and platforms.2) No Visibility into Performance Bottlenecks. When multiple management tools operate independently, you lose diagnostic capabilities including identifying cross-tier issues with database, hung-requests, slowness, memory leaks and hardware errors/failures causing DB/MW issues. As adoption of Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) has increased, especially since the release of Enterprise Manager 12c, Oracle has seen an increase in the number of customers who want to leverage their investments in EM to manage non-Oracle workloads.  Enterprise Manager provides a single pane of glass view into their entire datacenter.  By creating a highly extensible framework via the Oracle EM Extensibility Development Kit (EDK), Oracle has provided the tooling for business partners such as my company Blue Medora as well as customers to easily fill gaps in the ecosystem and enhance existing solutions.  As mentioned in the previous post on the Enterprise Manager Extensibility Exchange, customers have access to an assortment of Oracle and Partner provided solutions through this Exchange, which is accessed at http://www.oracle.com/goto/emextensibility.  Currently, there are over 80 Oracle and partner provided plug-ins across the EM 11g and EM 12c versions.  Blue Medora is one of those contributing partners, for which you will find 3 of our solutions including our flagship plugin for VMware.  Let's look at Blue Medora’s VMware plug-in as an example to what I'm trying to convey.  Here is a common situation solved by true visibility into your entire stack:Symptoms•    My database is bogging down, however the database appears okay internally.  Maybe it’s starved for resources?•    My OS tooling is showing everything is “OK”.  Something doesn’t add up. Root cause•    Through the VMware plugin we can see the problem is actually on the virtualization layer Solution•    From within Enterprise Manager  -- the same tool you use for all of your database tuning -- we can overlay the data of the database target, host target, and virtual machine target for a true picture of the true root cause. Here is the console view: Perhaps your monitoring conditions are more specific to your environment.  No worries, Enterprise Manager still has you covered.  With Metric Extensions you have the “Next Generation” of User-Defined Metrics, which easily bring the power of your existing management scripts into a single console while leveraging the proven Enterprise Manager framework. Simply put, Oracle Enterprise manager boasts a growing ecosystem that provides the single pane of glass for your entire datacenter from the database and beyond.  Bryce can be contacted at [email protected]

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• SO-Aware Service Explorer – Configure and Export your services from VS 2010 into the repository

  - by cibrax

  We have introduced a new Visual Studio tool called “Service Explorer” as part of the new SO-Aware SDK version 1.3 to help developers to configure and export any regular WCF service into the SO-Aware service repository. This new tool is a regular Visual Studio Tool Window that can be opened from “View –> Other Windows –> Services Explorer”. Once you open the Services Explorer, you will able to see all the available WCF services in the Visual Studio Solution. In the image above, you can see that a “HelloWorld” service was found in the solution and listed under the Tool window on the left. There are two things you can do for a new service in tool, you can either export it to SO-Aware repository or associate it to an existing service version in the repository. Exporting the service to SO-Aware means that you want to create a new service version in the repository and associate the WCF service WSDL to that version. Associating the service means that you want to use a version already created in SO-Aware with the only purpose of managing and centralizing the service configuration in SO-Aware. The option for exporting a service will popup a dialog like the one bellow in which you can enter some basic information about the service version you want to create and the repository location. The option for associating a service will popup a dialog in which you can pick any existing service version repository and the application configuration file that you want to keep in sync for the service configuration. Two options are available for configuring a service, WCF Configuration or SO-Aware. The WCF Configuration option just tells the tool that the service will use the standard WCF configuration section “system.serviceModel” but that section must be updated and kept in sync with the configuration selected for the service in the repository. The SO-Aware configuration option will tell the tool that the service configuration will be resolved at runtime from the repository. For example, selecting SO-Aware will generate the following configuration in the selected application configuration file, <configuration> <configSections> <section name="serviceRepository" type="Tellago.ServiceModel.Governance.ServiceConfiguration.ServiceRepositoryConfigurationSection, Tellago.ServiceModel.Governance.ServiceConfiguration" /> </configSections> <serviceRepository url="http://localhost/soaware/servicerepository.svc"> <services> <service name="ref:HelloWorldService(1.0)@dev" type="SOAwareSampleService.HelloWorldService" /> </services> </serviceRepository> </configuration> As you can see the tool represents a great addition to the toolset that any developer can use to manage and centralize configuration for WCF services. In addition, it can be combined with other useful tools like WSCF.Blue (Web Service Contract First) for generating the service artifacts like schemas, service code or the service WSDL itself.

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• Retrofit Certification

  - by Bill Evjen

  Impact of Regulations on Cabin Systems Installation John Courtright, Structural Integrity Engineering There are “heightened” FAA attention to technical issues related to IFE and Wi-Fi Systems Installations The Aging Aircraft Safety Rule – EWIS & Damage Tolerance Analysis The Challenge: Maximize Flight Safety While Minimizing Costs Issue Papers & Testing, Testing, Testing The role of Airworthiness Directives (ADs) on the design of many IFE systems and all antenna systems. Goal is safety AND cost-effective maintenance intervals and inspection techniques The STC Process Briefly Stated Type Certifications (TC) Supplemental Type Certifications (STC) The STC Process Project Specific Certification Plan (PSCP) Managed by FAA Aircraft Certification Office (ACO) Type of Project (Electrical/Mechanical Systems or Structural) Specific Type of Aircraft Being Modified Schedule Design & Installation Location What does the STC Plan (PSCP) Cover? System Description – What does the system do? System qualification – Are the components qualified? Certification requirements – What FARs are applicable? Installation detail – what is being modified? Prototype installation – What is new? Functional hazard Assessment (FHA) – is it safe? EZAP-EWIS Requirements – Any aging aircraft issues? Certification Data – How is compliance achieved? Delegation and FAA involvement – Who is doing the work? Proposed certification schedule – When is the installation? Certification documentation – What the FAA Expects to see Cabin Systems Certification Concerns In addition to meeting the requirements for DO-160, Cabin System Certification needs to address issues related to: Power management: Generally, IFE and Wi-Fi Systems are classified as “Non-Essential Equipment” from a certification viewpoint. Connected to “non-essential” power buses Must be able to shed IFE & Wi-Fi Systems in a smoke/fire event or Other electrical emergency (FAA Policy 00-111-160) FAA is more relaxed with testing wi-fi. It used to be that you had to have 150 seats with laptops running wi-fi, but now it is down to around 50. Aging aircraft concerns – electrical and structural Issue papers addressing technical concerns involving: “Structural Certification Criteria for Large Antenna Installations” Antenna “Vibration/Buffeting Compliance Criteria” DO-160 : Environmental Test Procedures DO 160 – “Environmental Conditions and Test Procedures for Airborne Equipment”, Issued by RTCA Provides guidance to equipment manufacturers as to testing requirements Temperature: –40C to +55C Vibration and Shock Contaminant susceptibility – fluids and dust Electro-magnetic Interference Cabin systems are generally classified as “non-essential” Swissair 111 crashed (in part) due to non-standard wiring practices. EWIS Design Implications Installation design must take EWIS Requirements into account. This generally means: Aircraft surveys are needed to identify proper wire routing Ensure existing wiring diagrams are correct Identify primary/Secondary/Tertiary bus locations Verify proper separation of wire bundles exist Required separation from fuel quantity indicator system (FQIS) to prevent fuel tang ignition Enhanced Zonal Analysis Procedure (EZAP) Performed EZAP was developed by the Aging Transport Systems Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ATSRAC) EZAP is the method for analyzing airplane zones with an emphasis on evaluating wiring systems and the existence of combustibles  in the cabin. Certification Considerations for Wi-Fi Systems Electrical – All existing DO 160 testing required Issue papers required Onboard EMI testing – any interference with aircraft systems when multiple wi-fi users are logged on? Vibration/Buffeting compliance criteria – what is the effect of the antenna on aircraft flight characteristics? Structural certification criteria – what are the stress loads on the aircraft at the antenna location and what is the impact on maintenance inspection criteria for the airline? Damage tolerance analysis required Goal – minimize maintenance inspection intervals

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• How to automate a monitoring system for ETL runs

  - by Jeffrey McDaniel

  Upon completion of the Primavera ETL process there are a few ways to determine if the process finished successfully.  First, in the <installation directory>\log folder,  there is a staretlprocess.log and staretl.html files. These files will give the output results of the ETL run. The staretl.html file will give a detailed summary of each step of the process, its run time, and its status. The .log file, based on the logging level set in the Configuration tool, can give extensive information about the ETL process. The log file can be used as a validation for process completion.  To automate the monitoring of these log files, perform the following steps: 1. Write a custom application to parse through the log file and search for [ERROR] . In most cases,  a major [ERROR] could cause the ETL process to fail. Searching the log and finding this value is worthy of an alert. 2. Determine the total number of steps in the ETL process, and validate that the log file recorded and entry for the final step.  For example validate that your log file contains an entry for Step 39/39 (could be different based on the version you are running). If there is no Step 39/39, then either the process is taking longer than expected or it didn't make it to the end.  Either way this would be a good cause for an alert. 3. Check the last line in the log file. The last line of the log file should contain an indication that the ETL run completed successfully. For example, the last line of a log file will say (results could be different based on Reporting Database versions):   [INFO] (Message) Finished Writing Report 4. You could write an Ant script to execute the ETL process and have it set to - failonerror="true" - and from there send results to an external tool to monitor the jobs, send to email, or send to database. With each ETL run, the log file appends to the existing log file by default. Because of this behavior, I would recommend renaming the existing log files before running a new ETL process. By doing this,  only log entries for the currently running ETL process is recorded in the new log files. Based on these log entries, alerts can be setup to notify the administrator or DBA. Another way to determine if the ETL process has completed successfully is to monitor the etl_processmaster table.  Depending on the Reporting Database version this could be in the Stage or Star databases. As of Reporting Database 2.2 and higher this would be in the Star database.  The etl_processmaster table records entries for the ETL run along with a Start and Finish time.  If the ETl process has failed the Finish date should be null. This table can be queried at a time when ETL process is expected to be finished and if null send an alert.  These are just some options. There are additional ways this can be accomplished based around these two areas - log files or database. Here is an additional query to gather more information about your ETL run (connect as Staruser): SELECT SYSDATE,test_script,decode(loc, 0, PROCESSNAME, trim(SUBSTR(PROCESSNAME, loc+1))) PROCESSNAME ,duration duration from ( select (e.endtime - b.starttime) * 1440 duration, to_char(b.starttime, 'hh24:mi:ss') starttime, to_char(e.endtime, 'hh24:mi:ss') endtime,  b.PROCESSNAME, instr(b.PROCESSNAME, ']') loc, b.infotype test_script from ( select processid, infodate starttime, PROCESSNAME, INFOMSG, INFOTYPE from etl_processinfo  where processid = (select max(PROCESSID) from etl_processinfo) and infotype = 'BEGIN' ) b  inner Join ( select processid, infodate endtime, PROCESSNAME, INFOMSG, INFOTYPE from etl_processinfo  where processid = (select max(PROCESSID) from etl_processinfo) and infotype = 'END' ) e on b.processid = e.processid  and b.PROCESSNAME = e.PROCESSNAME order by b.starttime)

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• Managing Operational Risk of Financial Services Processes – part 2/2

  - by Sanjeev Sharma

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} In my earlier blog post, I had described the factors that lead to compliance complexity of financial services processes. In this post, I will outline the business implications of the increasing process compliance complexity and the specific role of BPM in addressing the operational risk reduction objectives of regulatory compliance. First, let’s look at the business implications of increasing complexity of process compliance for financial institutions: · Increased time and cost of compliance due to duplication of effort in conforming to regulatory requirements due to process changes driven by evolving regulatory mandates, shifting business priorities or internal/external audit requirements · Delays in audit reporting due to quality issues in reconciling non-standard process KPIs and integrity concerns arising from the need to rely on multiple data sources for a given process Next, let’s consider some approaches to managing the operational risk of business processes. Financial institutions considering reducing operational risk of their processes, generally speaking, have two choices: · Rip-and-replace existing applications with new off-the shelf applications. · Extend capabilities of existing applications by modeling their data and process interactions, with other applications or user-channels, outside of the application boundary using BPM. The benefit of the first approach is that compliance with new regulatory requirements would be embedded within the boundaries of these applications. However pre-built compliance of any packaged application or custom-built application should not be mistaken as a one-shot fix for future compliance needs. The reason is that business needs and regulatory requirements inevitably out grow end-to-end capabilities of even the most comprehensive packaged or custom-built business application. Thus, processes that originally resided within the application will eventually spill outside the application boundary. It is precisely at such hand-offs between applications or between overlaying processes where vulnerabilities arise to unknown and accidental faults that potentially result in errors and lead to partial or total failure. The gist of the above argument is that processes which reside outside application boundaries, in other words, span multiple applications constitute a latent operational risk that spans the end-to-end value chain. For instance, distortion of data flowing from an account-opening application to a credit-rating system if left un-checked renders compliance with “KYC” policies void even when the “KYC” checklist was enforced at the time of data capture by the account-opening application. Oracle Business Process Management is enabling financial institutions to lower operational risk of such process ”gaps” for Financial Services processes including “Customer On-boarding”, “Quote-to-Contract”, “Deposit/Loan Origination”, “Trade Exceptions”, “Interest Claim Tracking” etc.. If you are faced with a similar challenge and need any guidance on the same feel free to drop me a note.

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• What is a good design pattern / lib for iOS 5 to synchronize with a web service?

  - by Junto

  We are developing an iOS application that needs to synchronize with a remote server using web services. The existing web services have an "operations" style rather than REST (implemented in WCF but exposing JSON HTTP endpoints). We are unsure of how to structure the web services to best fit with iOS and would love some advice. We are also interested in how to manage the synchronization process within iOS. Without going into detailed specifics, the application allows the user to estimate repair costs at a remote site. These costs are broken down by room and item. If the user has an internet connection this data can be sent back to the server. Multiple photographs can be taken of each item, but they will be held in a separate queue, which sends when the connection is optimal (ideally wifi). Our backend application controls the unique ids for each room and item. Thus, each time we send these costs to the server, the server echoes the central database ids back, thus, that they can be synchronized in the mobile app. I have simplified this a little, since the operations contract is actually much larger, but I just want to illustrate the basic requirements without complicating matters. Firstly, the web service architecture: We currently have two operations: GetCosts and UpdateCosts. My assumption is that if we used a strict REST architecture we would need to break our single web service operations into multiple smaller services. This would make the services much more chatty and we would also have to guarantee a delivery order from the app. For example, we need to make sure that containing rooms are added before the item. Although this seems much more RESTful, our perception is that these extra calls are expensive connections (security checks, database calls, etc). Does the type of web api (operation over service focus) determine chunky vs chatty? Since this is mobile (3G), are we better handling lots of smaller messages, or a few large ones? Secondly, the iOS side. What is the current advice on how to manage data synchronization within the iOS (5) app itself. We need multiple queues and we need to guarantee delivery order in each queue (and technically, ordering between queues). The server needs to control unique ids and other properties and echo them back to the application. The application then needs to update an internal database and when re-updating, make sure the correct ids are available in the update message (essentially multiple inserts and updates in one call). Our backend has a ton of business logic operating on these cost estimates. We don't want any of this in the app itself. Currently the iOS app sends the cost data, and then the server echoes that data back with populated ids (and other data). The existing cost data is deleted and the echoed response data is added to the client database on the device. This is causing us problems, because any photos might not have been sent, but the original entity tree has been removed and replaced. Obviously updating the costs tree rather than replacing it would remove this problem, but I'm not sure if there are any nice xcode libraries out there to do such things. I welcome any advice you might have.

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• In hindsight, is basing XAML on XML a mistake or a good approach?

  - by romkyns

  XAML is essentially a subset of XML. One of the main benefits of basing XAML on XML is said to be that it can be parsed with existing tools. And it can, to a large degree, although the (syntactically non-trivial) attribute values will stay in text form and require further parsing. There are two major alternatives to describing a GUI in an XML-derived language. One is to do what WinForms did, and describe it in real code. There are numerous problems with this, though it’s not completely advantage-free (a question to compare XAML to this approach). The other major alternative is to design a completely new syntax specifically tailored for the task at hand. This is generally known as a domain-specific language. So, in hindsight, and as a lesson for the future generations, was it a good idea to base XAML on XML, or would it have been better as a custom-designed domain-specific language? If we were designing an even better UI framework, should we pick XML or a custom DSL? Since it’s much easier to think positively about the status quo, especially one that is quite liked by the community, I’ll give some example reasons for why building on top of XML might be considered a mistake. Basing a language off XML has one thing going for it: it’s much easier to parse (the core parser is already available), requires much, much less design work, and alternative parsers are also much easier to write for 3rd party developers. But the resulting language can be unsatisfying in various ways. It is rather verbose. If you change the type of something, you need to change it in the closing tag. It has very poor support for comments; it’s impossible to comment out an attribute. There are limitations placed on the content of attributes by XML. The markup extensions have to be built "on top" of the XML syntax, not integrated deeply and nicely into it. And, my personal favourite, if you set something via an attribute, you use completely different syntax than if you set the exact same thing as a content property. It’s also said that since everyone knows XML, XAML requires less learning. Strictly speaking this is true, but learning the syntax is a tiny fraction of the time spent learning a new UI framework; it’s the framework’s concepts that make the curve steep. Besides, the idiosyncracies of an XML-based language might actually add to the "needs learning" basket. Are these disadvantages outweighted by the ease of parsing? Should the next cool framework continue the tradition, or invest the time to design an awesome DSL that can’t be parsed by existing tools and whose syntax needs to be learned by everyone? P.S. Not everyone confuses XAML and WPF, but some do. XAML is the XML-like thing. WPF is the framework with support for bindings, theming, hardware acceleration and a whole lot of other cool stuff.

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