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Open Data, Government and Transparency

- by Tori Wieldt

A new track at TDC (The Developer's Conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil) is titled Open Data. It deals with open data, government and transparency. Saturday will be a "transparency hacker day" where developers are invited to create applications using open data from the Brazilian government. Alexandre Gomes, co-lead of the track, says "I want to inspire developers to become "Civic hackers:" developers who create apps to make society better." It is a chance for developers to do well and do good. There are many opportunities for developers, including monitoring government expenditures and getting citizens involved via social networks. The open data movement is growing worldwide. One initiative, the Open Government Partnership, is working to make government data easier to find and access. Making this data easily available means that with the right applications, it will be easier for people to make decisions and suggestions about government policies based on detailed information. Last April, the Open Government Partnership held its annual meeting in Brasilia, the capitol of Brazil. It was a great success showcasing the innovative work being done in open data by governments, civil societies and individuals around the world. For example, Bulgaria now publishes daily data on budget spending for all public institutions. Alexandre Gomes Explains Open Data At TDC, the Open Data track will include a presentation of examples of successful open data projects, an introduction to the semantic web, how to handle big data sets, techniques of data visualization, and how to design APIs.The other track lead is Christian Moryah Miranda, a systems analyst for the Brazilian Government's Ministry of Planning. "The Brazilian government wholeheartedly supports this effort. In order to make our data available to the public, it forces us to be more consistent with our data across ministries, and that's a good step forward for us," he said. He explained the government knows they cannot achieve everything they would like without help from the public. "It is not the government versus the people, rather citizens are partners with the government, and together we can achieve great things!" Miranda exclaimed. Saturday at TDC will be a "transparency hacker day" where developers will be invited to create applications using open data from the Brazilian government. Attendees are invited to pitch their ideas, work in small groups, and present their project at the end of the conference. "For example," Gomes said, "the Brazilian government just released the salaries of all government employees and I can't wait to see what developers can do with that." Resources Open Government Partnership U.S. Government Open Data ProjectBrazilian Government Open Data ProjectU.K. Government Open Data Project 2012 International Open Government Data Conference

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Agile isn’t always Agile

- by BuckWoody

I want to make a disclaimer before I dive into this topic – At Microsoft we use all kinds of development methodologies, and I’ve worked in lots of other shops using lots of methodologies. This is one of those “religious” topics like which programming language or database is best, and is bound to generate some heat. But this isn’t pointed towards one particular event or company. But I really don’t like Agile. In particular, I really don’t like Scrum. Let me explain. Agile is a methodology for developing software that emphasizes adapting to change more so than the traditional “waterfall” method of developing software. Within Agile is a process called a “scrum” meeting. The pitch goes that in this quick, stand-up meeting the people involved in the development project (which should include the DBA, but very often doesn’t) go around the room stating what they are working on, when that will be finished and what is keeping them from getting finished (“blockers”, these are called). Sounds all very non-threatening – we’re just “enabling” the developers to work more efficiently. And that’s what we all want, isn’t it? Except it doesn’t work. In my experience (and yours might be VERY different) this just turns into a micro-management environment, where devs have to defend their daily work. Of all the work environments I hate the most, micro-management environments are THE worst. I don’t like workign in them, and I don’t like creating them. The other issue I have with Scrum is that it makes your whole team task-focused. Everyone wants to make sure that they are not the “long pole” in the meeting (meaning that they aren’t the one that gets all the attention) so they only focus on safe, quick tasks. And although you have all of the boxes checked, the project does not go well at all – even when it does finish. Before you comment (and please do comment) I fully realize that Agile <> Scrum. But in my experience, it sometimes turns into that. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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.NET development on a “Retina” MacBook Pro

- by Jeff

The rumor that Apple would release a super high resolution version of its 15” laptop has been around for quite awhile, and one I watched closely. After more than three years with a 17” MacBook Pro, and all of the screen real estate it offered, I was ready to replace it with something much lighter. It was a fantastic machine, still doing 6 or 7 hours after 460 charge cycles, but I wanted lighter and faster. With the SSD I put in it, I was able to sell it for $750. The appeal of higher resolution goes way back, when I would plug into a projector and scale up. Consolas, as it turns out, is a nice looking font for code when it’s bigger. While I have mostly indifference for iOS, I have to admit that a higher dot pitch on the iPhone and iPad is pretty to look at. So I ordered the new 15” “Retina” model as soon as the Apple Store went live with it, and got it seven days later. I’ve been primarily using Parallels as my VM of choice from OS X for about five years. They recently put out an update for compatibility with the display, though I’m not entirely sure what that means. I figured there would have to be some messing around to get the VM to look right. The combination that seems to work best is this: Set the display in OS X to “more room,” which is roughly the equivalent of the 1920x1200 that my 17” did. It’s not as stunning as the text at the default 1440x900 equivalent (in OS X), but it’s still quite readable. Parallels still doesn’t entirely know what to do with the high resolution, though what it should do is somehow treat it as native. That flaw aside, I set the Windows 7 scaling to 125%, and it generally looks pretty good. It’s not really taking advantage of the display for sharpness, but hopefully that’s something that Parallels will figure out. Screen tweaking aside, I got the base model with 16 gigs of RAM, so I give the VM 8. I can boot a Windows 7 VM in 9 seconds. Nine seconds! The Windows Experience Index scores are all 7 and above, except for graphics, which are both at 6. Again, that’s in a VM. It’s hard to believe there’s something so fast in a little slim package like that. Hopefully this one gets me at least three years, like the last one.

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Tellago announces SQL Server 2008 R2 BI quick adoption programs

- by Vishal

During the last year, we (Tellago) have been involved in various business intelligence initiatives that leverage some emerging BI techniques such as self-service BI or complex event processing (CEP). Specifically, in the last few months, we have partnered with Microsoft to deliver a series of events across the country where we present the different technologies of the SQL Server 2008 R2 BI stack such as PowerPivot, StreamInsight, Ad-Hoc Reporting and Master Data Services. As part of those events, we try to go beyond the traditional technology presentation and provide a series of best practices and lessons we have learned on real world BI projects that leverage these technologies. Now that SQL Server 2008 R2 has been released to manufacturing, we have launched a series of quick adoption programs that are designed to help customers understand how they can embrace the newest additions to Microsoft's BI stack as part of their IT initiatives. The programs are also designed to help customers understand how the new SQL Server features interact with established technologies such as SQL Server Analysis Services or SQL Server Integration Services. We try to keep these adoption programs very practical by doing a lot of prototyping and design sessions that will give our customers a practical glimpse of the capabilities of the technologies and how they can fit in their enterprise architecture roadmap. Here is our official announcement (you can blame my business partner, BI enthusiast, and Tellago's CEO Elizabeth Redding for the marketing pitch ;)): Tellago Marks Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 R2 Launch With Business Intelligence Quick Adoption Program Microsoft launched SQL Server 2008 R2 last week, which delivers several breakthrough business intelligence (BI) capabilities that enable organizations to: Efficiently process, analyze and mine data Improve IT and developer efficiency Enable highly scalable and well-managed Business Intelligence on a self-service basis for business users The release offers a new feature called PowerPivot, which enables self service BI through connecting business users directly to enterprise data sources and providing improved reporting and analytics. The release also offers Master Data Management which helps enterprises centrally manage critical data assets company-wide and across diverse systems, enabling increased integrity of information over time. Finally, the release includes StreamInsight, which is a framework for implementing Complex Event Processing (CEP) applications on the Microsoft platform. With StreamInsight, IT organizations can implement the infrastructure to process a large volume of events near real time, execute continuous queries against event streams and enable real time business intelligence. As a thought leader in the Business Intelligence community, Tellago has recognized the occasion by launching a series of quick adoption programs to enable the adoption of this new BI technology stack in your enterprise. Our Quick Adoption programs are designed to help you: Brainstorm BI solution options Architect initial infrastructure components Prototype key features of a solution As a 2-3 day program, our approach is more efficient and cost effective than a traditional Proof of Concept because it allows you to understand the new SQL Server 2008 R2 feature set while seeing directly how you can leverage it for your business intelligence needs. If you are interested in learning more about the BI capabilities of Microsoft's Business Intelligence stack, including SQL Server 2008 R2, we can help. As industry experts and software content advisers to Microsoft, Tellago is the place where ideas meet technology expertise. Let us help you see for yourself the advantages that you can gain from Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 R2. Email or call for more information - [email protected] or 847-925-2399.

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JavaOne 2012 Call for Papers

- by Tori Wieldt

JavaOne 2012 is happening Sept. 30-Oct 4 in San Francisco. The Call For Papers for this conference is now open. Java Evangelist Arun Gupta, who was on one of the selection committees and will be again this year, provided some great tips for submission (and a peek into the submission process): JavaOne is a technology-focused conference so any product, marketing or seemingly marketish talk are put at the bottom of the list. Oracle Open World and Oracle Develop are better options for submitting product specific talks. Make your title catchy. Remember the attendees are more likely to read the abstract if they like the title. We try our best to recategorize the talk to a different track if it needs to but please ensure that you are filing in the right track to have all the right eyeballs looking at it. Also, it does not hurt marking an alternate track if your talk meets the criteria. Make sure to coordinate within your team before the submission - multiple sessions from the same team or company does not ensure that the best speaker is picked. In such case we rely upon your "google presence" and/or review committee's prior knowledge of the speaker. The reviewers may not know you or your product at all and you get 750 characters to pitch your idea. Make sure to use all of them, to the last 750th character. Make sure to read your abstract multiple times to ensure that you are giving all the relevant information ? Think through your presentation and see if you are leaving out any important aspects. Also look if the abstract has any redundant information that will not required by the reviewers. There are additional sections that allow you to share information about the speaker and the presentation summary. Use them to blow the horn about yourself and any other relevant details. Please don't say "call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to find out the details." :-) The tracks this year are: Core Java Platform Development Tools and Techniques Emerging Langauges on the JVM Enterprise Services Architectures and the Cloud Java EE Web Profile and Platform Technologies Java ME, Java Card, Embedded, and Devices Java FX and Rich User Experiences IMPORTANT: Submit your proposal as soon as possible, the the Call for Papers closes April 9th, a mere three weeks away! Follow these channels to get the latest news about #JavaOne 2012. originally posted on blogs.oracle.com/javaone

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JavaOne 2012 Call for Papers

- by Tori Wieldt

JavaOne 2012 is happening Sept. 30-Oct 4 in San Francisco. The Call For Papers for this conference is now open. Java Evangelist Arun Gupta, who was on one of the selection committees and will be again this year, provided some great tips for submission (and a peek into the submission process): JavaOne is a technology-focused conference so any product, marketing or seemingly marketish talk are put at the bottom of the list. Oracle Open World and Oracle Develop are better options for submitting product specific talks. Make your title catchy. Remember the attendees are more likely to read the abstract if they like the title. We try our best to recategorize the talk to a different track if it needs to but please ensure that you are filing in the right track to have all the right eyeballs looking at it. Also, it does not hurt marking an alternate track if your talk meets the criteria. Make sure to coordinate within your team before the submission - multiple sessions from the same team or company does not ensure that the best speaker is picked. In such case we rely upon your "google presence" and/or review committee's prior knowledge of the speaker. The reviewers may not know you or your product at all and you get 750 characters to pitch your idea. Make sure to use all of them, to the last 750th character. Make sure to read your abstract multiple times to ensure that you are giving all the relevant information ? Think through your presentation and see if you are leaving out any important aspects. Also look if the abstract has any redundant information that will not required by the reviewers. There are additional sections that allow you to share information about the speaker and the presentation summary. Use them to blow the horn about yourself and any other relevant details. Please don't say "call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to find out the details." :-) The tracks this year are: Core Java Platform Development Tools and Techniques Emerging Langauges on the JVM Enterprise Services Architectures and the Cloud Java EE Web Profile and Platform Technologies Java ME, Java Card, Embedded, and Devices Java FX and Rich User Experiences IMPORTANT: Submit your proposal as soon as possible, the the Call for Papers closes April 9th, a mere three weeks away! Follow these channels to get the latest news about #JavaOne 2012.

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RIM's current BB7 developer toolset is a joke

- by mbrit

tl;dr - RIM's current developer toolset is not fit for purpose.Background to this is that I'm currently working on a PhoneGap/Cordova project for a client that has to run on BlackBerry. The tooling is so ridiculous to use that even though I had a gentle dig at them in a Guardian piece it's worth having a more full-on attack.At the moment, RIM's pitch is that apps are built for the current BBOS7 devices using WebWorks. This is an HTML-based toolset. Essentially a browser is spun up in a native app container and your app is powered by JavaScript. Specific JavaScript libraries exist that thunk down to native capabilities no the device. I happen to use PhoneCap/Cordova in combination with this.The tooling is non-existent. I'm using TextMate, Ant, and Terminal to develop the app. There's no "console.log" output, and no debugging. The only way to instrument the app is to put "alert" calls in your code.Apart from the fact that that's *not* fine in 2012, how about this… every time you deploy a new app to the device, the device has to reboot. This process takes six minutes on a relatively modern BlackBerry device. How about this as well - in order to get a file into the package it has to be signed. My small app over here has 100 different files (75 or so generated). Signing doesn't happen locally, it happens on RIM's servers in Waterloo. Thus whenever you deploy the app you have this utility have to call RIM's servers 100 times. More to the point, sometimes during the day these servers have "micro-downtime" moments where they're unreachable for five or ten minutes, normally two or three times a day. Oh yes, you'll also get an email sent to you per signing on success or failure. 100 inbound emails, per deployment.(I started this post at the beginning of one of these cycles, by the way. That's how long it takes to build and deploy *once*. By the way, the change I made didn't work.)To clarify:* Change the script,* Build it using Ant,* Ant will spin up a Java app that talks to RIM's servers to sign it.* Receive 100 emails, assuming the server is up.* App deployed - takes about 30 seconds.* BlackBerry device restarts - takes about six minutes.* Find and open the app. Go through security prompts.* Test the app, with no "console.log" output and no debugger."Why not use the simulator?" I hear you ask. Well, apart from the fact that the simulator refused to reach any network service over HTTPS that I happen to own? (Some people suggest changing DNS settings for this known issue.) Admittedly, the simulator does show you console.log, but you still have the "six minute" restart issue on the simulator.Developers will understand this problem. Breaking concentration for six-plus minutes every time you want to deploy an app turns developing into a nightmare. Combining that with no worthy debugging tools turns the toolset into a joke.

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Parallel Port Problem in 12.04

- by Frank Oberle

I have a “dumb” printer attached to a parallel port in my machine which works fine under the “other” resident operating system (from Redmond) on the same machine. I recently added Ubuntu 12.04 as a dual boot on the machine, but Ubuntu doesn't seem to recognize the parallel port at all. All I need to set up a printer is a really plain-vanilla fixed pitch text-only generic driver, which is present, but no parallel ports show up. (The other printers, all on USB ports, seem to work just fine). Following what appeared to me to be the most reasonable of the many conflicting pieces of advice on the web, here's what I did: I added the following lines to /etc/modules parport_pc ppdev parport Then, after rebooting, I checked to see that the lines were still present, and they were. I ran dmesg | grep par and got the following references in the output that seemed like they might have to do with the parallel port: [ 14.169511] parport_pc 0000:03:07.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 21 [ 14.169516] PCI parallel port detected: 9710:9805, I/O at 0xce00(0xcd00), IRQ 21 [ 14.169577] parport0: PC-style at 0xce00 (0xcd00), irq 21, using FIFO [PCSPP,TRISTATE,COMPAT,ECP] [ 14.354254] lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven). [ 14.571358] ppdev: user-space parallel port driver [ 16.588304] type=1400 audit(1347226670.386:5): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" name="/usr/lib/cups/backend/cups-pdf" pid=964 comm="apparmor_parser" [ 16.588756] type=1400 audit(1347226670.386:6): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" name="/usr/sbin/cupsd" pid=964 comm="apparmor_parser" [ 16.673679] type=1400 audit(1347226670.470:7): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" name="/usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm/lightdm-guest-session-wrapper" pid=1010 comm="apparmor_parser" [ 16.675252] type=1400 audit(1347226670.470:8): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" name="/usr/lib/telepathy/mission-control-5" pid=1014 comm="apparmor_parser" [ 16.675716] type=1400 audit(1347226670.470:9): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" name="/usr/lib/telepathy/telepathy-*" pid=1014 comm="apparmor_parser" [ 16.676636] type=1400 audit(1347226670.474:10): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" name="/usr/lib/cups/backend/cups-pdf" pid=1015 comm="apparmor_parser" [ 16.677124] type=1400 audit(1347226670.474:11): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" name="/usr/sbin/cupsd" pid=1015 comm="apparmor_parser" [ 1545.725328] parport0: ppdev0 forgot to release port I have no idea what any of that means, but the line “parport0: ppdev0 forgot to release port ” seems unusual. I was still unable to add a printer for my old clunker, so I tried the direct approach, typing echo “Hello” > /dev/lp0 and received a Permission denied message. I then tried echo “Hello” > /dev/parport0 which didn't give me any message at all, but still didn't print anything. Running the command sudo /usr/lib/cups/backend/parallel gives the following: direct parallel:/dev/lp0 "unknown" "LPT #1" "" "" Checking the permissions for /dev/parport0, Owner, Group, and Other are all set to read and write. crw-rw---- 1 root lp 6, 0 Sep 9 16:37 /dev/lp0 crw-rw-rw- 1 root lp 99, 0 Sep 9 16:37 /dev/parport0 The output of the command lpinfo -v includes the following line: direct parallel:/dev/lp0 I've read several web postings that seem to suggest this has been a problem for several years, but the bug reports were closed because there wasn't enough information to address the issue (shades of Microsoft!). Any suggestions as to what I might be missing here?

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What's a good way to get an IT internship? [closed]

- by user1419715

I'm a second year CS student who's worked really hard to build and expand my skills. I've spent the past week now trying to find a place to volunteer (i.e. work for FREE) so I can get a little bit of in-the-door experience with web development. I have a portfolio with several decent projects, a handful of languages and other hard/soft skills that employers constantly say they're clamoring for. I can't even get people to take my calls. This is me offering to work for them for FREE, remember. I'm in a reputable program at a respected school, get decent grades and...yeah, I've worked really hard to be presentable. On the rare occassions I actually get to speak to somebody at a design firm they hedge and do everything they can to get me off the phone. Nobody's ever expressed even the slightest interest in taking me on. The answer to the experience problem is supposed to be "you need to spend a year or two building up a big portfolio of projects on your own" so that employers will be impressed. I've done that. Websites, standalone apps, etc.. Nobody will even look at my resume, though. Question: Why does there seem to be so little interest in taking on upaid interns in the world of IT? Update: Sorry you all think I'm too aggressive or angry. It wasn't my intent to be a jerk to people while asking them for their opinions. That said, how would you feel if employer after employer turned you down cold when you offered yourself to them without asking for remuneration? One can't even get an unpaid job in this economy now, it seems. How am I going about my search? I find web firms in my area and contact them via email with a brief sales pitch of myself and a resume attached. Then a couple of days later I follow up with a phone contact. Nobody--anywhere--is advertising for interns of any kind. If there were I'm sure there'd be about 500 resumes per position, even unpaid. I've had good experiences in the past with cold-calling firms for actual paid jobs in other industries (hiring is a pain in the ass process and a call like this can show initiative while reducing a busy employer's need to do all the hiring overhead work), so I thought volunteering would work at least as well. My skills are pretty good for a CS student and include the usual suspects: HTML/CSS/Javascript, Python, Java, C, C#/.Net etc etc. I made a point on my resume to tie each ability claim to a project as well. Oh, and regarding the "working for free still costs the employer money" argument: that's an excellent point I hadn't though of. But it means...what? I have to pay the employer for the privilege of working there now?

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Questions about TinyMCE. Or suggestions on a compariable product.

- by chobo2

Hi I am using jquery 1.3.2 and asp.net mvc 1.0. Originally I was using some other rich html editor but I ran into one major problem when a user pasted in text from open office or MS office it would bring along tons of styling junk. If a user like wrote one sentence what was like 25 characters and pasted that into my current html editor the count would 25,000 characters and I don't want to store all that junk( I can't afford to). So tinyMCE seems to not have this problem. However I got some questions. It seems if you want to use for commercial use(what my site is but currently is not making very much at this time) you need to get a commercial license. However it does not say if it is free or if it will cost money. I am assuming it means that you will have to pay but I would like to confirm this. So do you have to pay for a license to use tinyMCe if your using it for commercial use? (Yes/ No) ------------------ Answer the following questions if you said "no" to the first question ----------- So would I use the jQuery package then or is it better to use the other versions? What is this .net compressor zip for? Do I need it? I only want a few of the buttons(like bold,font size) can I remove the other buttons? It seems to display a word count. Can it be changed to character count? ----------------- Answer the following question if you said "yes" to the first question -------- Is there a rich html editor that is free for commercial use and preferably for jquery that can remove the junk that office programs seem to bring along? This is a test to show how much formatting gets made. • One • Two • Three The above text when copied into my current rich html editor will have all this code with it. <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cchobo2%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cchobo2%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cchobo2%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><style>  </style> This is a test to show how much formatting gets made. ·         One ·         Two ·         Three <o:p> </o:p>

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How to parse out MS Word formatting?

- by chobo2

I have a rich html textbox on my asp.net mvc application. The rich html textbox is some jquery plugin that I use and has basic stuff like bold,underline and etc. Now I am anticipating that people will maybe write something in word and then copy and paste it into my textbox. However I limit the number of characters a person can have. This is a test to show how much formatting gets made. • One • Two • Three So I wrote that above(it does not copy to well into here). Basically it is a line of text and "how" is bold and the "one,two,three" are a bullet list. Word says it is 70 characters long with spacing. However when I post this data from my textbox to my server I get a length back of 24577 characters. so I checked what was being sent and I get this <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cchobo2%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cchobo2%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cchobo2%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><style>  </style> This is a test to show how much formatting gets made. ·         One ·         Two ·         Three <o:p> </o:p> Is there something I can use to get rid of all this stuff?

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Good visuals supporting adopting Macintosh in a Windows company

- by jdmuys

I work in a Windows only software service company, which just put up an internal contest for innovative ideas for the company. The idea I submitted is to let employees use a Mac instead of the mandatory PC if they wished to. My idea has been selected (among a few others) to reach the next stage of the contest. One of the items requested for the next stage is ONE visual that best illustrates the idea. While my pitch is rather good (I think), I have a hard time coming up with ONE visual that would be suggestive enough and not too fanboy-ish, or too restricted. That's why I am requesting suggestions. For reference, some of the points I intend to develop are (not in order): de facto safety (little or no malware) Apple as a company reached its leading position through innovation (bio)diversity is a source of value for a service company, that expands its reach. it makes financial sense the Mac is the most compatible machine, making it a lot easier to test our software (especially web sites). Some OS X technologies can be valuable to a software service company (eg Applescript) Some Apple tools can help us improve (eg Keynote) It's good citizenship for our company as Apple is now best in class according to Greenpeace. I realize this question may be out of topic here. I'd be happy to have suggestions on where to post this question. Please do not argue why OS X might be better or worse than Windows. My question is very narrow. Thanks.

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How to slow down audio files?

- by verve

I need a program (with an easy learning curve) that lets me slow down mp3 (at the very least this format) music and audiobook files. The software needs to be able to slow down the audio at the chosen speeds without altering the pitch and accuracy of the words being pronounced. Perhaps like the language software "Byki Deluxe's" "SlowSound" feature? I'm learning a foreign language (German) and I find the speeds at which the books are being read too fast. I need to hear the pronunciation of each word much more clearly to learn how to pronounce the words myself. Is there such a product out there? Now, I know you can slow down stuff in VLC but it sounds really artificial. I need something that slows down audio files without altering the accuracy of the words being pronounced. It doesn't have to be freeware; ease of use and quality is more important to me. Win 7 64-bit. IE 8. Edit: Are there any software-for-pay like Audacity? Only the beta works in Win 7. Also, I'd prefer to be able to slow down a file live and not have to create a new file to use the feature.

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Problem with Amiga 1200 accelerator board

- by cc0

I just recently walked past a dump, where in the corner of my eye I spotted something that looked like a huge keyboard. I went to take a closer look, and found out that it was an Amiga 1200 with a 030 accellerator board and scala dongle. Jackpot! So anyway; I dried it, cleaned it, it works, but the floppy was not powering on and same with the harddrive. I am using an old Amiga 1200 PSU that was making some strange high pitch noise when I tried to boot the amiga with the harddrive installed in it. I removed the harddrive and it booted fine with the PSU not emitting any detectable noise. However, when I have the 030 installed it sometimes reboots and shows a red "Software Error" screen. I tried removing the memory on the board, same effect. Sometimes it does not boot at all, just gives a black screen. Someone suggested the card had problems with 3.1 roms, but this amiga has only 3.0 roms installed. Does anyone have any apparent theories as to why it seems unstable? I don't have any other Amiga parts to cross-swap with to test a lot of things, so I'd really appreciate some sound input here so I'd know what to look for in order to try fix it. And merry Christmas everyone :]

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How to prepare for a telephone interview: ‘Develop an Interview Cheat Sheet’

- by Maria Sandu

At Oracle we often do telephone interviews in different stages of the process with candidates, due to the fact that we hire native speakers into other countries. On this blog we already have an article with tips and tricks for phone interviews that can help you during the telephone interviews. To help you prepare even better for a telephone interview we would like to introduce you the basics of developing a cheat sheet. The benefit of a telephone interview is that you will be sitting at home, at your table or desk, during the interview, and not in front of someone. So use this to your advantage. The Monster website has some useful and interesting tips and tricks for developing a cheat sheet. Carole Martin, who wrote this article, says that a cheat sheet will help you feel more prepared and confident when speaking to managers over the phone. Important to keep in mind is that you shouldn't memorise what's on the sheet or check it off during the interview. Only use your cheat sheet to remind you of key facts. Here are some suggestions to include on it: • Divide a piece of paper in 2 by drawing a line. Write on one side of the paper a list of requirements as mentioned in the job description. On the other side list your qualities to fulfill the requirements of the employer. This will help you in answering questions about why you are the best candidate for the job and how you fit the role. • Do research on the company, the industry sector and the competitors, so you will get a feeling for the company’s business and can ask more in-depth questions. • Be prepared for the most used introduction question: “Tell me a bit about yourself”. Prepare a 60-second personal statement or pitch in which you summarise who you are and what you can offer, so you will be able to sell yourself from on the very beginning. • Write down a minimum of 5 good examples to answer behavioral interview questions ("Tell me about a time when..." or "Give me an example of a time..." ). These questions are used by interviewers to see how you deal with similar situations as you might encounter in the job. Interviewers use this question as past behaviour is scientifically proven to be the best predictor for future behaviour. • List five questions to ask the interviewer about the job, the company and the industry to help you get a good understanding if the role and company really fit your needs and wants. To get some inspiration check this article on inc.com • Find out how much you are worth on the job market and determine your needs based on your living expenses, especially when moving abroad. • Ask for permission from the people you plan to use as a reference. Also make sure you have your CV at hand and an overview of your grades. Feel free to comment on this article and let us know what your experience is with developing a cheat sheet for a telephone interview. Good luck with the preparation of your sheet.

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Spending the summer at camp… Web Camp, that is

- by Jon Galloway

Microsoft is sponsoring a series of Web Camps this summer. They’re a series of free two day events being held worldwide, and I’m really excited about being taking part. The camp is targeted at a broad range of developer background and experience. Content builds from 101 level introductory material to 200-300 level coverage, but we hit some advanced bits (e.g. MVC 2 features, jQuery templating, IIS 7 features, etc.) that advanced developers may not yet have seen. We start with a lap around ASP.NET & Web Forms, then move on to building and application with ASP.NET MVC 2, jQuery, and Entity Framework 4, and finally deploy to IIS. I got to spend some time working with James before the first Web Camp refining the content, and I think he’s packed about as much goodness into the time available as is scientifically possible. The content is really code focused – we start with File/New Project and spend the day building a real, working application. The second day of the Web Camp provides attendees an opportunity to get hands on. There are two options: Join a team and build an application of your choice Work on a lab or tutorial James Senior and I kicked off the fun with the first Web Camp in Toronto a few weeks ago. It was sold out, lots of fun, and by all accounts a great way to spend two days. I’m really enthusiastic about the format. Rather than just listening to speakers and then forgetting everything in a few days, attendees actually build something of their choice. They get an opportunity to pitch projects they’re interested in, form teams, and build it – getting experience with “real world” problems, with all the help they need from experienced developers. James got help on the second day practical part from the good folks that run Startup Weekend. Startup Weekend is a fantastic program that gathers developers together to build cool apps in a weekend, so their input on how to organize successful teams for weekend projects was invaluable. Nick Seguin joined us in Toronto, and in addition to making sure that everything flowed smoothly, he just added a lot of fun and excitement to the event, reminding us all about how much fun it is to come up with a cool idea and just build it. In addition to the Toronto camp, I’ll be at the Mountain View, London, Munich, and New York camps over the next month. London is sold out, but the rest still have space available, so come join us! Here’s the full list, with the ones I’ll be at bolded because - you know - it’s my blog. The the whole speaker list is great, including Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, James Senior, Rachel Appel, Dan Wahlin, and Christian Wenz. Toronto May 7-8 (James Senior and I were thrown out on our collective ears) Moscow May 19 Beijing May 21-22 Shanghai May 24-25 Mountain View May 27-28 (I’m speaking with Rachel Appel) Sydney May 28-29 Singapore June 04-05 London June 04-05 (I’m speaking with Christian Wenz – SOLD OUT) Munich June 07-08 (I’m speaking with Christian Wenz) Chicago June 11-12 Redmond, WA June 18-19 New York June 25-26 (I’m speaking with Dan Wahlin) Come say hi!

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My Mother Bought a Droid

- by Ben Griswold

I converted to iPhone two years ago when I left my former employer and my Blackberry behind. The truth is I half-heartedly purchased my iPhone. It was a great looking device, but as far as I was concerned, it was a mere toy compared to my Blackberry. I remember hiding the toy in my briefcase when attending business meetings because I didn’t consider it to be professional enough. I’ve since owned all three generations of the iPhone and, well, iPhone seems to have caught on. I still miss the click of the Blackberry keyboard and the blinking red light letting me know that someone/something requires my attention, but I’m officially an iPhone fanboy now. My mom called last weekend and asked if she should buy an iPhone. I talked her ear off about everything I love about iPhone. I went on for about twenty minutes. I couldn’t help myself. I mentioned everything from my podcast subscriptions to the application which manages my workouts. I went as far as to say that someday all smart phones will be referred to as iPhones just like all tissues are referred to as Kleenex and all sodas are referred to as Cokes. I was really on a roll and then I stopped. I had to…the call dropped. There I was, strategically standing in the far corner of my backyard where I get the most reliable AT&T reception and the call drops in middle of my iPhone pitch. Folks, I don’t care how good a salesperson you are, it’s tough to recover from a situation like this. I dialed my mom back and jokingly asked if she was planning to make calls with her new phone. I explained that AT&T is bound to provide better service eventually but I’m not sure she should wait. After all, I have troubles with the network in San Diego and I can only image how bad it would be for her in Western Massachusetts. Mom called back a few days later exclaiming, “I bought a Droid! I love this phone! I haven’t done anything with it but make phone calls, but I love it.” I had to laugh. My mom made the right call (pun intended.) The iPhone is an amazing device, but owners are constantly reminded that its core function (it’s a phone, remember?) is subpar. If you love gadgets, you’re probably enthralled by iPhone’s many bells and whistles and, relatively speaking, the terrible phone service might not amount to much. (Maybe it amounts to a rant on your blog.) The overall iPhone offering is so attractive that consumers are willing to wait for AT&T to straighten up their act or wait until Apple grants a choice of carriers. But I don’t see either of these remedies coming soon. In the interim, I’m willing to take my iPhone for what it is and just continue to enjoy my favorite features while pretending that poor coverage isn’t a big deal. With any luck, more and more reasonable folks will recognize that Android Phones are legitimate players in the smart phone space, they will buy loads of them and there will become plenty of functional phones to borrow when my “phone” is showing zero bars. Heck, I’m already covered when I visit my mom.

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Know Your Audience, And/Or Your Customer

- by steve.diamond

Yesterday I gave an internal presentation to about 20 Oracle employees on "messaging," not messaging technology, but embarking on the process of building messages. One of the elements I covered was the importance of really knowing and understanding your audience. As a humorous reference I included two side-by-side photos of Oakland A's fans and Oakland Raiders fans. The Oakland A's fans looked like happy-go-lucky drunk types. The Oakland Raiders fans looked like angry extras from a low budget horror flick. I then asked my presentation attendees what these two groups had in common. Here's what I heard. --They're human (at least I THINK they're human). --They're from Oakland. --They're sports fans. After that, it was anyone's guess. A few days earlier we were putting the finishing touches on a sales presentation for one of our product lines. We had included an upfront "lead in" addressing how the economy is improving, yet that doesn't mean sales executives will have any more resources to add to their teams, invest in technology, etc. This "lead in" included miscellaneous news article headlines and statistics validating the slowly improving economy. When we subjected this presentation to internal review two days ago, this upfront section in particular was scrutinized. "Is the economy really getting better? I (exclamation point) don't think it's really getting better. Haven't you seen the headlines coming out of Greece and Europe?" Then the question TO ME became, "Who will actually be in the audience that sees and hears this presentation? Will s/he be someone like me? Or will s/he be someone like the critic who didn't like our lead-in?" We took the safe route and removed that lead in. After all, why start a "pitch" with a component that is arguably subjective? What if many of our audience members are individuals at organizations still facing a strong headwind? For reasons I won't go into here, it was the right decision to make. The moral of the story: Make sure you really know your audience. Harness the wisdom of the information your organization's CRM systems collect to get that fully informed "customer view." Conduct formal research. Conduct INFORMAL research. Ask lots of questions. Study industries and scenarios that have nothing to do with yours to see "how they do it." Stop strangers in coffee shops and on the street...seriously. Last week I caught up with an old friend from high school who recently retired from a 25 year career with the USMC. He said, "I can learn something from every single person I come into contact with." What a great way of approaching the world. Then, think about and write down what YOU like and dislike as a customer. But also remember that when it comes to your company's products, you are most likely NOT the customer, so don't go overboard in superimposing your own world view. Approaching the study of customers this way adds rhyme, reason and CONTEXT to lengthy blog posts like this one. Know your audience.

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Windows Phone 8, possible tablets and what the latest update might mean

- by Roger Hart

Microsoft have just announced an update to Windows Phone 8. As one of the five, maybe six people who actually bought a WP8 handset I found this interesting. Then I read the blog post about it, and rushed off to write somewhat less than a thousand words about a single picture. The blog post announces an extra column of tiles on the start screen, and support for higher resolutions. If we ignore all the usual flummery about how this will make your life better, that (and the rotation lock) sounds a little like stage setting for tablets. Looking at the preview screenshot, I started to wonder. What it’s called Phablet_5F00_StartScreenProductivity_5F00_01_5F00_072A1240.jpg Pretty conclusive. If you can brand something a “phablet” and sleep at night you’re made of sterner stuff than I am, but that’s beside the point. It’s explicit in the post that Microsoft are expecting a broader range of form factors for WP8, but they stop short of quite calling out tablet size. The extra columns and resolution definitely back that up, so why stop at a 6 inch “phablet”? Sadly, the string of numbers there don’t really look like a Lumia model number – that would be a bit tendentious even for a speculative blog post about a single screenshot. “Productivity” is interesting too. I get into this a bit more below, but this is a pretty clear pitch for a business device. What it looks like Something that would look quite decent on a 7 inch screen, but something a bit too vertical to go toe-to-toe with the Surface. Certainly, it would look a lot better on a large-factor phone than any of the current models. Those tiles are going to get cramped and a bit ugly if the handsets aren’t getting bigger. What’s on it You have a bunch of missed calls, you rarely text, use a stocks app, and your budget spreadsheet and meeting notes are a thumb-reach away. Outlook is your main form of email. You care enough about LinkedIn to not only install its app but give it a huge live tile. There’s no beating about the bush here, the implicit persona is a corporate exec. With Nokia in the bag and Blackberry pushing daisies, that may not be a stupid play. There’s almost certainly a niche there if they can parlay their corporate credentials into filling it before BYOD (which functionally means an iPhone) reaches the late adopters. The really quite slick WP8 Office implementation ought to help here. This is the face they’ve chosen to present, the cultural milieu they’re normalizing for Windows Phone. It’s an iPhone for Serious Business Grown-ups. Could work, I guess. Does it mean anything? Is the latest WP8 update a sign that we can expect to see tablets running Windows Phone rather than WinRT? Well, WinRT tablets haven’t exactly taken off but I’m not quite going to make a leap like that just from a file name and a column of icons. I feel pretty safe, however, conjecturing that Microsoft would like to squeeze a WP8 “phablet” into the palm of every exec who’s ever grumbled about their Blackberry, and this release might get them a bit closer. If it works well incrementing up to larger devices, then that could be a fair hedge against WinRt crashing and burning any harder in the marketplace.

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Content Challenge: You Can Only Get it Here

- by Mike Stiles

Part of the content conundrum for brands is figuring out what kind of content customers would find cool, desirable, and relevant. The mere fact many brands have no idea what this content might be is, in itself, pretty alarming. You’d have to have a pretty thorough lack of involvement with and understanding of your customers to not know what they might like. But despite what should be a great awakening in which consumers are using every technology and trick in the book to shield themselves from ads and commercials, brand self-obsession continues as marketers concentrate on their message, their campaign, what they want to say, and what they want social users to do. When individuals conduct themselves in that same fashion on Facebook and Twitter, it gets tiresome and starts losing value pretty quickly. Their posts eventually get hidden. Conversely, friends who post things that consistently entertain or inform, with little self-marketing desperation involved, win the coveted “show all updates” setting. Of course brands are going to use social to market. It’s pretty much the point of having social in the marketing mix. And yes, people who follow a brand’s Twitter account or “Like” a brand’s Facebook Page implicitly state they want to know what’s going on with that brand’s products and services. But if you have a Facebook friend that assumes you want every one of her posts to be about what wine she likes (Mitsubishi’s current campaign is even based around weeding out pretentious Facebook friends, then running them over), then you know how it must feel for your fans and followers to get a sales pitch for your crackers or whatever you’re selling every single time. Is there such a thing as content that doesn’t sell but that still advances the brand and makes the consumer more involved and valuable? Of course. And perhaps there are no better companies than enterprise brands to do it. Enterprise organizations are large enough to go beyond a product and engage readers/viewers at higher, broader levels…communicating expertise across entire sectors, subjects and industries. You’re going from pitchman to news source, and getting full credit for it as the presenter. A recent GigaOM article pointed out the success a San Francisco-based startup called Crunchyroll is having. Their niche (and they proudly admit it’s a niche) is providing Japanese anime, Korean drama and Asian live action content to countries that can’t get it any other way via licensing deals. Shows are available in HD and on the same day they air in the host country. Crunchyroll not only gets 8 million viewers a month, they have 100,000 paying subscribers at $7-12/month. Got a point, Mike? I do happen to have one. Crunchyroll illustrates the content opportunity enterprise companies have…which is to determine your “area,” the interest graph of your customers, then provide content that speaks to and satisfies those interests that can’t be found anywhere else. At least not in the same style, or of the same quality, or with the same authority. Do what no one else is doing. Provide what no one else is providing in your sector. If underserved users are willing to pay monthly for access to awkwardly moving cartoon dragons, imagine the audience you could attract with free, useful, non-sales content in your customers’ area of interest. It’s an audience you’ll want in place when the time does come to put out that marketing message. A content challenge is better than a content conundrum any day.

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AppKata - Enter the next level of programming exercises

- by Ralf Westphal

Doing CodeKatas is all the rage lately. That´s great since widely accepted exercises are important to further the art. They provide a means of communication across platforms and allow to compare results which is part of any deliberate practice. But CodeKatas suffer from their size. They are intentionally small, so they can be done again and again. Repetition helps to build habit and to dig deeper. Over time ever new nuances of the problem or one´s approach become visible. On the other hand, though, their small size limits the methods, techniques, technologies that can be applied. To improve your TDD skills doing CodeKatas might be enough. But what about other skills? Developing on a software in a team, designing larger pieces of software, iteratively releasing software… all this and more is kinda hard to train using the tiny CodeKata problems. That´s why I´d like to present here another kind of kata I call Application Kata (or just AppKata). AppKatas are larger programming problems. They require the development of “whole” applications, i.e. not just one class or method, but bunches of classes accessible through a user interface. Also AppKata problems always are split into iterations. To get the most out of them, just look at the requirements of one iteration at a time. This way you´re closer to reality where requirements evolve in unexpected ways. So if you´re looking for more of a challenge for your software development skills, check out these AppKatas – or invent your own. AppKatas are platform independent like CodeKatas. Use whatever programming language and IDE you like. Also use whatever approach to software development you like. Just be sensitive to how easy it is to evolve your code across iterations. Reflect on what went well and what not. Compare your solutions with others. Or – for even more challenge – go for the “Coding Carousel” (see below). CSV Viewer An application to view CSV files. Sounds easy, but watch out! Requirements sometimes drastically change if the customer is happy with what you delivered. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5 (to come) Questionnaire If you like GUI programming, this AppKata might be for you. It´s about an app to let people fill out questionnaires. Also this problem might be interestin for you, if you´re into DDD. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Tic Tac Toe For developers who like game programming. Although Tic Tac Toe is a trivial game, this AppKata poses some interesting infrastructure challenges. The GUI, however, stays simple; leave any 3D ambitions at home ;-) Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Iteration 5 (to come) Coding Carousel There are many ways you can do AppKatas. Work on them alone or in a team, pitch several devs against each other in an AppKata contest – or go around in a Coding Carousel. For the Coding Carousel you need at least 3 dev teams (regardless of size). All teams work on the same iteration at the same time. But here´s the trick: After each iteration the teams swap their code. Whatever they did for iteration n will be the basis for changes another team has to apply in iteration n+1. The code is going around the teams like in a carousel. I promise you, that´s gonna be fun! :-)

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Computing a normal matrix in conjunction with gluLookAt

- by Chris Smith

I have a hand-rolled camera class that converts yaw, pitch, and roll angles into a forward, side, and up vector suitable for calling gluLookAt. Using this camera class I can modify the model-view matrix to move about the 3D world just fine. However, I am having trouble when using this camera class (and associated model-view matrix) when trying to perform directional lighting in my vertex shader. The problem is that the light direction, (0, 1, 0) for example, is relative to where the 'camera is looking' and not the actual world coordinates. (Or is this eye coordinates vs. model coordinates?) I would like the light direction to be unaffected by the camera's viewing direction. For example, when the camera is looking down the Z axis the ground is lit correctly. However, if I point the camera straight at the ground, then it goes dark. This is (I think) because the light direction is parallel with the camera's 'up' vector which is perpendicular with the ground's normal vector. I tried computing the normal matrix without taking the camera's model view into account, but then none of my objects were rotated correctly. Sorry if this sounds vague. I suspect there is a straight forward answer, but I'm not 100% clear on how the normal matrix should be used for transforming vertex normals in my vertex shader. For reference, here is pseudo code for my rendering loop: pMatrix = new Matrix(); pMatrix = makePerspective(...) mvMatrix = new Matrix() camera.apply(mvMatrix); // Calls gluLookAt // Move the object into position. mvMatrix.translatev(position); mvMatrix.rotatef(rotation.x, 1, 0, 0); mvMatrix.rotatef(rotation.y, 0, 1, 0); mvMatrix.rotatef(rotation.z, 0, 0, 1); var nMatrix = new Matrix(); nMatrix.set(mvMatrix.get().getInverse().getTranspose()); // Set vertex shader uniforms. gl.uniformMatrix4fv(shaderProgram.pMatrixUniform, false, new Float32Array(pMatrix.getFlattened())); gl.uniformMatrix4fv(shaderProgram.mvMatrixUniform, false, new Float32Array(mvMatrix.getFlattened())); gl.uniformMatrix4fv(shaderProgram.nMatrixUniform, false, new Float32Array(nMatrix.getFlattened())); // ... gl.drawElements(gl.TRIANGLES, this.vertexIndexBuffer.numItems, gl.UNSIGNED_SHORT, 0); And the corresponding vertex shader: // Attributes attribute vec3 aVertexPosition; attribute vec4 aVertexColor; attribute vec3 aVertexNormal; // Uniforms uniform mat4 uMVMatrix; uniform mat4 uNMatrix; uniform mat4 uPMatrix; // Varyings varying vec4 vColor; // Constants const vec3 LIGHT_DIRECTION = vec3(0, 1, 0); // Opposite direction of photons. const vec4 AMBIENT_COLOR = vec4 (0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 1.0); float ComputeLighting() { vec4 transformedNormal = vec4(aVertexNormal.xyz, 1.0); transformedNormal = uNMatrix * transformedNormal; float base = dot(normalize(transformedNormal.xyz), normalize(LIGHT_DIRECTION)); return max(base, 0.0); } void main(void) { gl_Position = uPMatrix * uMVMatrix * vec4(aVertexPosition, 1.0); float lightWeight = ComputeLighting(); vColor = vec4(aVertexColor.xyz * lightWeight, 1.0) + AMBIENT_COLOR; } Note that I am using WebGL, so if the anser is use glFixThisProblem(...) any pointers on how to re-implement that on WebGL if missing would be appreciated.

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Generate texture for a heightmap

- by James

I've recently been trying to blend multiple textures based on the height at different points in a heightmap. However i've been getting poor results. I decided to backtrack and just attempt to recreate one single texture from an SDL_Surface (i'm using SDL) and just send that into opengl. I'll put my code for creating the texture and reading the colour values. It is a 24bit TGA i'm loading, and i've confirmed that the rest of my code works because i was able to send the surfaces pixels directly to my createTextureFromData function and it drew fine. struct RGBColour { RGBColour() : r(0), g(0), b(0) {} RGBColour(unsigned char red, unsigned char green, unsigned char blue) : r(red), g(green), b(blue) {} unsigned char r; unsigned char g; unsigned char b; }; // main loading code SDLSurfaceReader* reader = new SDLSurfaceReader(m_renderer); reader->readSurface("images/grass.tga"); // new texture unsigned char* newTexture = new unsigned char[reader->m_surface->w * reader->m_surface->h * 3 * reader->m_surface->w]; for (int y = 0; y < reader->m_surface->h; y++) { for (int x = 0; x < reader->m_surface->w; x += 3) { int index = (y * reader->m_surface->w) + x; RGBColour colour = reader->getColourAt(x, y); newTexture[index] = colour.r; newTexture[index + 1] = colour.g; newTexture[index + 2] = colour.b; } } unsigned int id = m_renderer->createTextureFromData(newTexture, reader->m_surface->w, reader->m_surface->h, RGB); // functions for reading pixels RGBColour SDLSurfaceReader::getColourAt(int x, int y) { Uint32 pixel; Uint8 red, green, blue; RGBColour rgb; pixel = getPixel(m_surface, x, y); SDL_LockSurface(m_surface); SDL_GetRGB(pixel, m_surface->format, &red, &green, &blue); SDL_UnlockSurface(m_surface); rgb.r = red; rgb.b = blue; rgb.g = green; return rgb; } // this function taken from SDL documentation // http://www.libsdl.org/cgi/docwiki.cgi/Introduction_to_SDL_Video#getpixel Uint32 SDLSurfaceReader::getPixel(SDL_Surface* surface, int x, int y) { int bpp = m_surface->format->BytesPerPixel; Uint8 *p = (Uint8*)m_surface->pixels + y * m_surface->pitch + x * bpp; switch (bpp) { case 1: return *p; case 2: return *(Uint16*)p; case 3: if (SDL_BYTEORDER == SDL_BIG_ENDIAN) return p[0] << 16 | p[1] << 8 | p[2]; else return p[0] | p[1] << 8 | p[2] << 16; case 4: return *(Uint32*)p; default: return 0; } } I've been stumped at this, and I need help badly! Thanks so much for any advice.

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Top 5 characteristics Recruiters are looking for

- by Maria Sandu

Of course many skills and characteristics recruiters are looking for are job specific. But whether you are a graduate fresh out of college or seasoned in the workplace, recruiters are also looking for generic skills and attitude to see whether you are a good fit to the company. So make sure you prepare and show through examples that you have these skills. 1. Drive/passion Liking the job you are applying for is paramount and something recruiters are always looking for. Show and prove your drive for the role and/or the field you are applying for. Always be prepared to pitch yourself, this shows your drive in the role you are applying for. 2. Communication skills People often make the mistake by thinking this skill is related to how good they are able to talk about their background and expertise. This is important, but as least as important is it that you listen well to questions that are asked. Make sure you answer to the point and ask questions if you want questions to be clarified. This shows your interest in the role and the ability to communicate clearly. This also helps you building trust with the recruiter every time you speak to him/her. 3. Confidence Recruiters are looking for the best candidate for the job. So if you don’t think you are the best candidate why should the recruiter? Show with confidence, without being arrogant (think about building trust), why you are the right person for the job. Confidence also shows in your answers to difficult questions. Be confident enough to explain why some experiences went wrong and how you learnt from them. If you don’t have a direct explanation on a question, it is better to ask for a second to think instead of a random answer. 4. Vision The main reason to hire graduates for many companies is that graduates are perceived to be flexible. The organisation will train and up skill you in the direction best suitable for the organisation. However the most intense learning path is realised when you also know where you want to go. Companies are often happy to accommodate you to support with training and development, but if you don’t have a clear vision on what you want to achieve for yourself and what value you bring to the company, recruiters can decide you are not the right candidate as they are afraid you aren’t going to stay in the company. 5. Business awareness For every job you apply you will get challenged on your knowledge and interest for the market and business they are in. All companies add value in different ways in their respective markets. So make sure you are aware of what a company is doing, what their goal is and why and how they exist and how you can add value for the company in the role you are applying for. /* 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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Too complex/too many objects?

- by Mike Fairhurst

I know that this will be a difficult question to answer without context, but hopefully there are at least some good guidelines to share on this. The questions are at the bottom if you want to skip the details. Most are about OOP in general. Begin context. I am a jr dev on a PHP application, and in general the devs I work with consider themselves to use many more OO concepts than most PHP devs. Still, in my research on clean code I have read about so many ways of using OO features to make code flexible, powerful, expressive, testable, etc. that is just plain not in use here. The current strongly OO API that I've proposed is being called too complex, even though it is trivial to implement. The problem I'm solving is that our permission checks are done via a message object (my API, they wanted to use arrays of constants) and the message object does not hold the validation object accountable for checking all provided data. Metaphorically, if your perm containing 'allowable' and 'rare but disallowed' is sent into a validator, the validator may not know to look for 'rare but disallowed', but approve 'allowable', which will actually approve the whole perm check. We have like 11 validators, too many to easily track at such minute detail. So I proposed an AtomicPermission class. To fix the previous example, the perm would instead contain two atomic permissions, one wrapping 'allowable' and the other wrapping 'rare but disallowed'. Where previously the validator would say 'the check is OK because it contains allowable,' now it would instead say '"allowable" is ok', at which point the check ends...and the check fails, because 'rare but disallowed' was not specifically okay-ed. The implementation is just 4 trivial objects, and rewriting a 10 line function into a 15 line function. abstract class PermissionAtom { public function allow(); // maybe deny() as well public function wasAllowed(); } class PermissionField extends PermissionAtom { public function getName(); public function getValue(); } class PermissionIdentifier extends PermissionAtom { public function getIdentifier(); } class PermissionAction extends PermissionAtom { public function getType(); } They say that this is 'not going to get us anything important' and it is 'too complex' and 'will be difficult for new developers to pick up.' I respectfully disagree, and there I end my context to begin the broader questions. So the question is about my OOP, are there any guidelines I should know: is this too complicated/too much OOP? Not that I expect to get more than 'it depends, I'd have to see if...' when is OO abstraction too much? when is OO abstraction too little? how can I determine when I am overthinking a problem vs fixing one? how can I determine when I am adding bad code to a bad project? how can I pitch these APIs? I feel the other devs would just rather say 'its too complicated' than ask 'can you explain it?' whenever I suggest a new class.

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