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• Create Panoramic Photos with Windows Live Photo Gallery

  - by Matthew Guay

  Have you ever wanted to capture the view from a mountain or the full size of a building?  Here’s how you can stitch multiple shots together into the perfect panoramic picture for free with Windows Live Photo Gallery. Getting Started First, make sure you have Windows Live Photo Gallery installed (link below).  Live Photo Gallery is part of the Windows Live Essentials suite, you can select other programs to install along with it if you want. Make sure to uncheck setting your home page to MSN and setting your search provider as Bing if you don’t want them changed.   Now, make sure you have pictures that will work good for a panorama.  These need to be taken from the same spot, and the edges of the pictures need to overlap so the program can find where the pictures connect.  Here we have taken pictures inside a building with a cell phone camera. Make your Panorama Open Live Photo Gallery, and find the pictures you want to use in your panorama.  It will automatically index and display all of the photos in your Pictures folder or Library if you’re using Windows 7. If your pictures are saved elsewhere, add that folder to Photo Gallery.  Click File, Include a folder in the gallery, and select the correct folder at the prompt. Now select all of the pictures that you will use in your panorama.  You can easily do this by clicking the checkbox on each picture that appears when you hover over it.    Once all of the pictures are selected, click Make in the menu bar and select Create panoramic photo… Alternately, right-click on any of the pictures you’ve selected, and click Create panoramic photo… Live Photo Gallery will analyze your photos and compost them together to create a panorama.  The amount of time it takes will vary depending on the number of photos, size of the pictures, and computer speed. When it’s finished making the panorama, you’ll be prompted to enter a file name and save the picture. Your new panorama picture will open as soon as it’s saved.  Depending on your shots, the picture may have quite a bit of black space around the edges where each picture didn’t cover the exact same amount of area. To correct this, click Fix on the menu bar, and then select Crop Photo in the sidebar that opens. Select the center of the picture with the crop tool, and click Apply when you’ve got the selection you want. Live Photo Gallery automatically saves your picture changes, and you can revert back to the original picture if you wish. Now you’ve got a nice panoramic shot, trimmed and ready to print, share, and more. Conclusion Panoramic shots are great ways to capture your whole surroundings, whether it’s a sports stadium, mall, or a scenic mountain view.  They can also be a great way to capture more with low-resolution cameras. Link Download Windows Live Photo Gallery Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Family Fun: Share Photos with Photo Gallery and Windows Live SpacesLearning Windows 7: Manage Photos with Live Photo GalleryEasily Re-Size Photos in Windows Vista or XPInstall Windows Live Essentials In Windows 7Convert Photos to Flash for Your Website TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like) Build Great Charts in Excel with Chart Advisor tinysong gives a shortened URL for you to post on Twitter (or anywhere)

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• Introducing Oracle System Assistant

  - by B.Koch

  by Josh Rosen One of the challenges with today's servers is getting the server up and running and understanding what all of the steps are once you plug the server in for the first time. So many different pieces come into play: installing drivers, updating firmware, configuring RAID, and provisioning the operating system. All of these steps must be done before you can even start using the server. Finding the latest firmware and drivers, making sure you have the right versions, and knowing that all the different software and firmware components work together properly can be a real challenge. If not done correctly, such as if you separately downloading disk firmware or controller firmware that doesn't match the existing OS drivers, you could experience bugs, performance problems, and incompatibilities. Gone are the days of having to locate the tools and drivers media that shipped with the server only to find out that newer versions of software and firmware are available on the web. Oracle has solved these challenges in the new X3-2 family of servers by introducing Oracle System Assistant. Oracle System Assistant is an innovative tool that is built-in to every new x86 server. It provides step-by-step assistance with configuring the server, updating firmware and drivers, and provisioning the operating system. Once you have completed all of the steps in the Oracle System Assistant tool, the server is ready to use. Oracle System Assistant was designed to be easy and straightforward. Starting it is as simple as pressing F9 when the server is booting. You'll need a keyboard, monitor, and mouse or you can use the remote console feature of Oracle ILOM (Integrated Lights Out Manager) to access a virtual KVM to the server from any machine. From there Oracle System Assistant will walk you through each of the steps necessary to set up your server. After configuring the network settings for Oracle System Assistant, the next step is to check for any new software or firmware for the server. Oracle System Assistant connects back to Oracle using your My Oracle Support account and downloads any updates that were made available to you for this specific server. This is where you really start to see the innovation that went into Oracle System Assistant. Firmware for Oracle ILOM and BIOS, operating system drivers, and other system firmware (including for option cards and disk drivers) come as a single bundle, downloading as a single unit, that has been engineered and tested to work together by Oracle. Oracle System Assistant figures out the right combination for your server, so you don't have to. Now that the server has the latest firmware, Oracle System Assistant will next walk you through configuring the hardware. From Oracle System Assistant, you can configure many Oracle ILOM settings, including the network settings and initial user accounts. This ensures that ILOM is accessible and ready to use. Oracle System Assistant is where all parts of the server come together. In addition to communicating with Oracle ILOM and interacting with BIOS, Oracle System Assistant understands and can configure the storage subsystem. Before installing the operating system, Oracle System Assistant can detect the storage configuration and configure RAID for all disks in the system. At this point, the server is ready to be provisioned with the host operating system. You can use Oracle System Assistant to provision a supported OS, including Oracle Linux, Oracle VM, RHEL, SuSe Linux, and Windows. And by using Oracle System Assistant, you can be sure that the proper OS drivers are installed for each of the installed hardware components. With Oracle System Assistant, initial setup of the server has never been easier. If we can innovate around problems and find solutions to make our servers easier to manage, this reduces IT costs and makes managing servers simpler. I think with Oracle System Assistant we have done just that. Josh Rosen is a Principal Product Manager at Oracle and previously spent more than a decade as a developer and architect of system management software. Josh has worked on system management for many of Oracle's hardware products ranging from the earliest blade systems to the latest Oracle x86 servers.

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• Generic Sorting using C# and Lambda Expression

  - by Haitham Khedre

  Download : GenericSortTester.zip I worked in this class from long time and I think it is a nice piece of code that I need to share , it might help other people searching for the same concept. this will help you to sort any collection easily without needing to write special code for each data type , however if you need special ordering you still can do it , leave a comment and I will see if I need to write another article to cover the other cases. I attached also a fully working example to make you able to see how do you will use that .     public static class GenericSorter { public static IOrderedEnumerable<T> Sort<T>(IEnumerable<T> toSort, Dictionary<string, SortingOrder> sortOptions) { IOrderedEnumerable<T> orderedList = null; foreach (KeyValuePair<string, SortingOrder> entry in sortOptions) { if (orderedList != null) { if (entry.Value == SortingOrder.Ascending) { orderedList = orderedList.ApplyOrder<T>(entry.Key, "ThenBy"); } else { orderedList = orderedList.ApplyOrder<T>(entry.Key,"ThenByDescending"); } } else { if (entry.Value == SortingOrder.Ascending) { orderedList = toSort.ApplyOrder<T>(entry.Key, "OrderBy"); } else { orderedList = toSort.ApplyOrder<T>(entry.Key, "OrderByDescending"); } } } return orderedList; } private static IOrderedEnumerable<T> ApplyOrder<T> (this IEnumerable<T> source, string property, string methodName) { ParameterExpression param = Expression.Parameter(typeof(T), "x"); Expression expr = param; foreach (string prop in property.Split('.')) { expr = Expression.PropertyOrField(expr, prop); } Type delegateType = typeof(Func<,>).MakeGenericType(typeof(T), expr.Type); LambdaExpression lambda = Expression.Lambda(delegateType, expr, param); MethodInfo mi = typeof(Enumerable).GetMethods().Single( method => method.Name == methodName && method.IsGenericMethodDefinition && method.GetGenericArguments().Length == 2 && method.GetParameters().Length == 2) .MakeGenericMethod(typeof(T), expr.Type); return (IOrderedEnumerable<T>)mi.Invoke (null, new object[] { source, lambda.Compile() }); } } .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; }

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• 2 eventos, 2 países, 1 jornada.

  - by Noelia Gomez

  Normal 0 21 false false false ES 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} El pasado Martes 23 de Octubre fue un día de gran actividad tanto en España como en Portugal. El Dialogo CxO , organizado por Econique, y en el que participó Oracle, tuvo lugar en Madrid en el Hotel Puerta de Ámerica. Este encuentro tenía como objetivo intercambiar opiniones sobre todos los aspectos relacionados con la gestión estratégica de clientes y el Contact Centre. En este marco, los asistentes tuvieron la oportunidad de realizar reuniones “one to one” con nuestros mejores expertos. Además Oracle presentó dos coloquios relacionados con la visión de las "Nuevas necesidades, estrategias y tendencias en la gestión del Marketing", de la mano de Gema Sebastian, Principal Sales Consultant de Oracle. En dichos coloquios los participantes de empresas, como Caprabo, Carrefour, Endesa, Jaguar Land Rover y Repsol (entre otros) trataron temas de máxima actualidad para los directivos de Marketing. Esta mesa redonda se centró sobre todo en el Marketing en redes sociales, compartiendo entre todos nuestra percepción de que es algo necesario pero que todavía el mercado no sabe muy bien cómo tratar. La escucha activa dentro de las redes y la posibilidad de reaccionar ante determinados factores se veía como un claro punto donde comenzar a trabajar de manera activa y donde Oracle puede ayudar. La experiencia de cliente fue otro de los puntos tratados en esta mesa, donde se dejó claro que ahora es el consumidor el que manda, el que quiere ver las cosas donde quiere y como quiere y que un mensaje de marketing ha de darse en el momento adecuado y aportando un valor real para que el consumidor lo acepte como algo interesante. Igualmente Oracle dispone de herramientas para hacer que esto sea posible. Por otro lado, en Lisboa, tenía lugar el Total Training 2012, una conferencia organizada por el Grupo IFE. En ella participaron más de 100 profesionales de los recursos humanos de las empresas más importantes de Portugal y tuvo como base de partida los conocimientos y experiencias, el intercambio de ideas y la discusión de oportunidades a las que actualmente se enfrentan los profesionales de este área. En este marco Oracle realizó una ponencia sobre “Los nuevos conceptos en RRHH”, de la mano de Julio Rodriguez, Principal Sales Consultant de Oracle, y que puso de manifiesto algunos conceptos tecnológicos relevantes para la gestión del talento que por su novedad, no eran muy conocidos por los profesionales de los RRHH cómo: · Saas (Software as a service) · BI (Business Intelligence) para RRHH · Social Networking y cómo integrarla dentro de la empresa · El mapa del talento, por fin fuera del Excel y en una aplicación · La movilidad en las aplicaciones de RRHH. Sin duda, esta fue una jornada cargada de intercambio de experiencias y de conocimientos para dos grandes áreas: los Recursos Humanos y la Gestión Estratégica del cliente. Si quieres saber más sobre la experiencia del cliente: Customer Concepts Magazine Customer Concepts Exchange in LinkedIn Customer Concepts Web TV Customer Experience @ Oracle.com Customer Experience Facebook Hub Customer Experience YouTube Channel Customer Experience Twitter Puede conocer más sobre HCM (Gestión de RRHH): Oracle Fusion Applications Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management Oracle PartnerNetwork Oracle Consulting Services Oracle Human Capital Management Blog Oracle HCM on Twitter Oracle HCM on Facebook

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• 30 Steps to Master ASP.NET MVC Application development

  - by Rajesh Pillai

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* 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:"Times New Roman","serif";} Welcome Readers!,   I am starting out a new series on ASP.NET  MVC skill building which will be posted over the next couple of weeks.  Let me know your thoughts on the content, which I have planned and a couple of them has been taken from ASP.NET MVC2 Cookbook. (NOTE: Only the heading has been taken, the content will be not :)).   Do let me know what you would like to see, or any additional inputs or ideas to cover in this topics.  The 30 steps are oultined below for quick reference.  Will start filling this out quickly.   Outlined is the ‘30’ step to master ASP.NET MVC.   A Peek Into Model What is a model? Different types of model Presentation/ViewModel Model Mapping (AutoMapper)   A Peak into View How view works in ASP.NET MVC? View Engine Design Custom View Engine View Best Practices Templated Helpers Partial Views   A Peak into Controller Introduction Controller Design Controller Best Practices Asynchronous Controller Custom Action Result Action Filters Controller Factory to use with IOC   Routes Explanation Routes from the database Routes from XML More complex routing   Master Pages Basics Setting Master Page Dynamically   Working with data in the view Repeating Views Array of check boxes Array of radio buttons Paged data CRUD Client side action Confirmation Dialog (modal window) jqGrid   Working with Forms   Validation Model Validation with DataAnnotations Using the xVal validation framework Client side validation with jQuery Validation Fluent Validation Model Binders   Templating Create strongly typed helper using T4 Custom View Templates with T4 Create custom MVC project template using T4   IOC AutoFac Ninject Unity Application   Areas   jQuery, Ajax and jQuery Plugins   State Maintenance Application State User state Cookies Webfarm   Error Handling View error handling Controller error handling ELMAH (Error Logging Modules and Handlers)   Authentication and Authorization User Registration form SignOn Process Password Reminder Membership and Roles Windows authentication Restricting access to all pages Restricting access to selected pages Restricting access to pages by role Restricting access to a controller Restricting access to selected area   Profiles and Themes Using Profiles Inheriting a Profile Migrating an anonymous profile Creating custom themes Using themes User personalized themes   Configuration Adding custom application settings in web.config Displaying custom error messages Accessing other web.config configuration elements Adding custom configuration elements to web.config Encrypting web.config sections   Tracing, Debugging and Logging   Caching Caching a whole page Caching pages based on route details Caching pages based on browser type and version Caching pages based custom strings Caching partial pages Caching application data Object Caching Using Microsoft Velocity Using MemCache Using AppFabric cache   Localization   HTTP Handlers and Modules   Security XSS/CSRF AnitForgery Encoding   HtmlHelpers Strongly typed helpers Writing custom helpers   Repository Pattern (Data access)   WF/WCF   Unit Testing   Mocking Framework   Integration Testing   Load / Performance Testing   Deployment    Once again let me know your thoughts on this.   Till then, Enjoy MVC'ing!!!

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• Lies, damned lies, and statistics Part 2

  - by Maria Colgan

  There was huge interest in our OOW session last year on Managing Optimizer Statistics. It seems statistics and the maintenance of them continues to baffle people. In order to help dispel the mysteries surround statistics management we have created a two part white paper series on Optimizer statistics.  Part one of this series was released in November last years and describes in detail, with worked examples, the different concepts of Optimizer statistics. Today we have published part two of the series, which focuses on the best practices for gathering statistics, and examines specific use cases including, the fears that surround histograms and statistics management of volatile tables like Global Temporary Tables. Here is a quick look at the Introduction and the start of the paper. You can find the full paper here. Happy Reading! Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Introduction The Oracle Optimizer examines all of the possible plans for a SQL statement and picks the one with the lowest cost, where cost represents the estimated resource usage for a given plan. In order for the Optimizer to accurately determine the cost for an execution plan it must have information about all of the objects (table and indexes) accessed in the SQL statement as well as information about the system on which the SQL statement will be run. This necessary information is commonly referred to as Optimizer statistics. Understanding and managing Optimizer statistics is key to optimal SQL execution. Knowing when and how to gather statistics in a timely manner is critical to maintaining acceptable performance. This whitepaper is the second of a two part series on Optimizer statistics. The first part of this series, Understanding Optimizer Statistics, focuses on the concepts of statistics and will be referenced several times in this paper as a source of additional information. This paper will discuss in detail, when and how to gather statistics for the most common scenarios seen in an Oracle Database. The topics are · How to gather statistics · When to gather statistics · Improving the efficiency of gathering statistics · When not to gather statistics · Gathering other types of statistics How to gather statistics The preferred method for gathering statistics in Oracle is to use the supplied automatic statistics-gathering job. Automatic statistics gathering job The job collects statistics for all database objects, which are missing statistics or have stale statistics by running an Oracle AutoTask task during a predefined maintenance window. Oracle internally prioritizes the database objects that require statistics, so that those objects, which most need updated statistics, are processed first. The automatic statistics-gathering job uses the DBMS_STATS.GATHER_DATABASE_STATS_JOB_PROC procedure, which uses the same default parameter values as the other DBMS_STATS.GATHER_*_STATS procedures. The defaults are sufficient in most cases. However, it is occasionally necessary to change the default value of one of the statistics gathering parameters, which can be accomplished by using the DBMS_STATS.SET_*_PREF procedures. Parameter values should be changed at the smallest scope possible, ideally on a per-object bases. You can find the full paper here. Happy Reading! +Maria Colgan

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• Unleash the Power of Cryptography on SPARC T4

  - by B.Koch

  by Rob Ludeman Oracle’s SPARC T4 systems are architected to deliver enhanced value for customer via the inclusion of many integrated features.  One of the best examples of this approach is demonstrated in the on-chip cryptographic support that delivers wire speed encryption capabilities without any impact to application performance.  The Evolution of SPARC Encryption SPARC T-Series systems have a long history of providing this capability, dating back to the release of the first T2000 systems that featured support for on-chip RSA encryption directly in the UltraSPARC T1 processor.  Successive generations have built on this approach by support for additional encryption ciphers that are tightly coupled with the Oracle Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 encryption framework.  While earlier versions of this technology were implemented using co-processors, the SPARC T4 was redesigned with new crypto instructions to eliminate some of the performance overhead associated with the former approach, resulting in much higher performance for encrypted workloads. The Superiority of the SPARC T4 Approach to Crypto As companies continue to engage in more and more e-commerce, the need to provide greater degrees of security for these transactions is more critical than ever before.  Traditional methods of securing data in transit by applications have a number of drawbacks that are addressed by the SPARC T4 cryptographic approach. 1. Performance degradation – cryptography is highly compute intensive and therefore, there is a significant cost when using other architectures without embedded crypto functionality.  This performance penalty impacts the entire system, slowing down performance of web servers (SSL), for example, and potentially bogging down the speed of other business applications.  The SPARC T4 processor enables customers to deliver high levels of security to internal and external customers while not incurring an impact to overall SLAs in their IT environment. 2. Added cost – one of the methods to avoid performance degradation is the addition of add-in cryptographic accelerator cards or external offload engines in other systems.  While these solutions provide a brute force mechanism to avoid the problem of slower system performance, it usually comes at an added cost.  Customers looking to encrypt datacenter traffic without the overhead and expenditure of extra hardware can rely on SPARC T4 systems to deliver the performance necessary without the need to purchase other hardware or add-on cards. 3. Higher complexity – the addition of cryptographic cards or leveraging load balancers to perform encryption tasks results in added complexity from a management standpoint.  With SPARC T4, encryption keys and the framework built into Solaris 10 and 11 means that administrators generally don’t need to spend extra cycles determining how to perform cryptographic functions.  In fact, many of the instructions are built-in and require no user intervention to be utilized.  For example, For OpenSSL on Solaris 11, SPARC T4 crypto is available directly with a new built-in OpenSSL 1.0 engine, called the "t4 engine."  For a deeper technical dive into the new instructions included in SPARC T4, consult Dan Anderson’s blog. Conclusion In summary, SPARC T4 systems offer customers much more value for applications than just increased performance. The integration of key virtualization technologies, embedded encryption, and a true Enterprise Operating System, Oracle Solaris, provides direct business benefits that supersedes the commodity approach to data center computing.   SPARC T4 removes the roadblocks to secure computing by offering integrated crypto accelerators that can save IT organizations in operating cost while delivering higher levels of performance and meeting objectives around compliance. For more on the SPARC T4 family of products, go to here.

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• Creating shapes on the fly

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  Most Orchard shapes get created from part drivers, but they are a lot more versatile than that. They can actually be created from pretty much anywhere, including from templates. One example can be found in the Layout.cshtml file of the ThemeMachine theme: WorkContext.Layout.Footer .Add(New.BadgeOfHonor(), "5"); .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; } What this is really doing is create a new shape called BadgeOfHonor and injecting it into the Footer global zone (that has not yet been defined, which in itself is quite awesome) with an ordering rank of "5". We can actually come up with something simpler, if we want to render the shape inline instead of sending it into a zone: @Display(New.BadgeOfHonor()) Now let's try something a little more elaborate and create a new shape for displaying a date and time: @Display(New.DateTime(date: DateTime.Now, format: "d/M/yyyy")) For the moment, this throws a "Shape type DateTime not found" exception because the system has no clue how to render a shape called "DateTime" yet. The BadgeOfHonor shape above was rendering something because there is a template for it in the theme: Themes/ThethemeMachine/Views/BadgeOfHonor.cshtml. We need to provide a template for our new shape to get rendered. Let's add a DateTime.cshtml file into our theme's Views folder in order to make the exception go away: Hi, I'm a date time shape. Now we're just missing one thing. Instead of displaying some static text, which is not very interesting, we can display the actual time that got passed into the shape's dynamic constructor. Those parameters will get added to the template's Model, so they are easy to retrieve: @(((DateTime)Model.date).ToString(Model.format)) Now that may remind you a little of WebForm's user controls. That's a fair comparison, except that these shapes are much more flexible (you can add properties on the fly as necessary), and that the actual rendering is decoupled from the "control". For example, any theme can override the template for a shape, you can use alternates, wrappers, etc. Most importantly, there is no lifecycle and protocol abstraction like there was in WebForms. I think this is a real improvement over previous attempts at similar things.

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• Integrating with Fusion Applications using SOAP web services and REST APIs (Part 1 of 2) by Arvind Srinivasamoorthy

  - by JuergenKress

  Fusion Applications provides several types of interfaces to facilitate integration with other applications within the enterprise and on the cloud.As one of the key integration interfaces, Fusion Applications (FA) supports SOAP services based integration, both inbound and outbound. At this point FA doesn’t provide REST API’s but it is planned for a future release. It is however possible to invoke external REST APIs from FA which we will discuss. Oracle continues to invest in improving both SOAP and REST based connectivity. The content in this blog is based on features that were available at the time of writing it. In this two part blog, I will cover the following topics briefly. Invoking FA SOAP web services from external applications Identifying the FA SOAP web service to be invoked Sample invocation from an external application Techniques to invoke FA services from an ADF application Invoking external SOAP Web Services from FA (covered in Part 2) Invoking external REST APIs from FA (covered in Part 2) I’ll touch upon some basics, so that you can quickly build a few SOAP/REST interactions with FA. If you do not already have access to an FA instance (on-premise or SaaS), you can request for a free 30 day trial of the Oracle Sales Cloud using http://cloud.oracle.com 1. Invoking FA SOAP web services from external applications There are two main types of services that FA exposes -  ADF Services - These services allow you to perform CRUD operations on Fusion business objects. For example, Sales Party Service, Opportunity Service etc. Using these services you can typically perform operations such as get, find, create, delete, update etc on FA objects.These services are typically useful for UI driven integrations such as looking up FA information from external application UIs, using third party Interfaces to create/update data in FA. They are also used in non-UI driven integration uses cases such as initial upload of business or setup data, synchronizing data with an external systems, etc. - Composite Services – These services involve more logic than CRUD and often involving human workflows, rules etc. These services perform a business function such as Get Orchestration Order Service and are used when building larger process based integrations with external systems.These services are usually asynchronous in nature and are not typically used for UI integration patterns. 1a. Identifying the FA SOAP web service to be invoked All FA web service metadata is available through an OER instance (Oracle Enterprise Repository) which is publicly available via http://fusionappsoer.oracle.com. This is the starting point for you to discover the services that you are going to work with. You do not need to own a FA account to browse the services using the above UI You can use the search area on the left to narrow down your search to what you are looking for. For example, you can choose the type as by ADF Services or Composite, you can narrow your search to a specific FA version, Product Family etc. Read the complete article here. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Technorati Tags: AppAdvantage,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress,Arvind Srinivasamoorthy

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• SPARC T4-2 Produces World Record Oracle Essbase Aggregate Storage Benchmark Result

  - by Brian

  Significance of Results Oracle's SPARC T4-2 server configured with a Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array and running Oracle Solaris 10 with Oracle Database 11g has achieved exceptional performance for the Oracle Essbase Aggregate Storage Option benchmark. The benchmark has upwards of 1 billion records, 15 dimensions and millions of members. Oracle Essbase is a multi-dimensional online analytical processing (OLAP) server and is well-suited to work well with SPARC T4 servers. The SPARC T4-2 server (2 cpus) running Oracle Essbase 11.1.2.2.100 outperformed the previous published results on Oracle's SPARC Enterprise M5000 server (4 cpus) with Oracle Essbase 11.1.1.3 on Oracle Solaris 10 by 80%, 32% and 2x performance improvement on Data Loading, Default Aggregation and Usage Based Aggregation, respectively. The SPARC T4-2 server with Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array and Oracle Essbase running on Oracle Solaris 10 achieves sub-second query response times for 20,000 users in a 15 dimension database. The SPARC T4-2 server configured with Oracle Essbase was able to aggregate and store values in the database for a 15 dimension cube in 398 minutes with 16 threads and in 484 minutes with 8 threads. The Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array provides more than a 20% improvement out-of-the-box compared to a mid-size fiber channel disk array for default aggregation and user-based aggregation. The Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array with Oracle Essbase provides the best combination for large Oracle Essbase databases leveraging Oracle Solaris ZFS and taking advantage of high bandwidth for faster load and aggregation. Oracle Fusion Middleware provides a family of complete, integrated, hot pluggable and best-of-breed products known for enabling enterprise customers to create and run agile and intelligent business applications. Oracle Essbase's performance demonstrates why so many customers rely on Oracle Fusion Middleware as their foundation for innovation. Performance Landscape System Data Size(millions of items) Database Load(minutes) Default Aggregation(minutes) Usage Based Aggregation(minutes) SPARC T4-2, 2 x SPARC T4 2.85 GHz 1000 149 398* 55 Sun M5000, 4 x SPARC64 VII 2.53 GHz 1000 269 526 115 Sun M5000, 4 x SPARC64 VII 2.4 GHz 400 120 448 18 * – 398 mins with CALCPARALLEL set to 16; 484 mins with CALCPARALLEL threads set to 8 Configuration Summary Hardware Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-2 2 x 2.85 GHz SPARC T4 processors 128 GB memory 2 x 300 GB 10000 RPM SAS internal disks Storage Configuration: 1 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array 40 x 24 GB flash modules SAS HBA with 2 SAS channels Data Storage Scheme Striped - RAID 0 Oracle Solaris ZFS Software Configuration: Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 Installer V 11.1.2.2.100 Oracle Essbase Client v 11.1.2.2.100 Oracle Essbase v 11.1.2.2.100 Oracle Essbase Administration services 64-bit Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3) HP's Mercury Interactive QuickTest Professional 9.5.0 Benchmark Description The objective of the Oracle Essbase Aggregate Storage Option benchmark is to showcase the ability of Oracle Essbase to scale in terms of user population and data volume for large enterprise deployments. Typical administrative and end-user operations for OLAP applications were simulated to produce benchmark results. The benchmark test results include: Database Load: Time elapsed to build a database including outline and data load. Default Aggregation: Time elapsed to build aggregation. User Based Aggregation: Time elapsed of the aggregate views proposed as a result of tracked retrieval queries. Summary of the data used for this benchmark: 40 flat files, each of size 1.2 GB, 49.4 GB in total 10 million rows per file, 1 billion rows total 28 columns of data per row Database outline has 15 dimensions (five of them are attribute dimensions) Customer dimension has 13.3 million members 3 rule files Key Points and Best Practices The Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array has been used to accelerate the application performance. Setting data load threads (DLTHREADSPREPARE) to 64 and Load Buffer to 6 improved dataloading by about 9%. Factors influencing aggregation materialization performance are "Aggregate Storage Cache" and "Number of Threads" (CALCPARALLEL) for parallel view materialization. The optimal values for this workload on the SPARC T4-2 server were: Aggregate Storage Cache: 32 GB CALCPARALLEL: 16   See Also Oracle Essbase Aggregate Storage Option Benchmark on Oracle's SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com Oracle Essbase oracle.com OTN SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement Copyright 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Results as of 28 August 2012.

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• Serving up a RSS feed in MVC using WCF Syndication

  - by brian_ritchie

  With .NET 3.5, Microsoft added the SyndicationFeed class to WCF for generating ATOM 1.0 & RSS 2.0 feeds.  In .NET 3.5, it lives in System.ServiceModel.Web but was moved into System.ServiceModel in .NET 4.0. Here's some sample code on constructing a feed: .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; } 1: SyndicationFeed feed = new SyndicationFeed(title, description, new Uri(link)); 2: feed.Categories.Add(new SyndicationCategory(category)); 3: feed.Copyright = new TextSyndicationContent(copyright); 4: feed.Language = "en-us"; 5: feed.Copyright = new TextSyndicationContent(DateTime.Now.Year + " " + ownerName); 6: feed.ImageUrl = new Uri(imageUrl); 7: feed.LastUpdatedTime = DateTime.Now; 8: feed.Authors.Add(new SyndicationPerson() { Name = ownerName, Email = ownerEmail }); 9:   10: var feedItems = new List<SyndicationItem>(); 11: foreach (var item in Items) 12: { 13: var sItem = new SyndicationItem(item.title, null, new Uri(link)); 14: sItem.Summary = new TextSyndicationContent(item.summary); 15: sItem.Id = item.id; 16: if (item.publishedDate != null) 17: sItem.PublishDate = (DateTimeOffset)item.publishedDate; 18: sItem.Links.Add(new SyndicationLink() { Title = item.title, Uri = new Uri(link), Length = item.size, MediaType = item.mediaType }); 19: feedItems.Add(sItem); 20: } 21: feed.Items = feedItems;   Then, we create a custom ContentResult to serialize the feed & stream it to the client: 1: public class SyndicationFeedResult : ContentResult 2: { 3: public SyndicationFeedResult(SyndicationFeed feed) 4: : base() 5: { 6: using (var memstream = new MemoryStream()) 7: using (var writer = new XmlTextWriter(memstream, System.Text.UTF8Encoding.UTF8)) 8: { 9: feed.SaveAsRss20(writer); 10: writer.Flush(); 11: memstream.Position = 0; 12: Content = new StreamReader(memstream).ReadToEnd(); 13: ContentType = "application/rss+xml" ; 14: } 15: } 16: } Finally, we wire it up through the controller: 1: public class RssController : Controller 2: { 3: public SyndicationFeedResult Feed() 4: { 5: var feed = new SyndicationFeed(); 6: // populate feed... 7: return new SyndicationFeedResult(feed); 8: } 9: }   In the next post, I'll discuss how to add iTunes markup to the feed to publish it on iTunes as a Podcast. 

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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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• Data Connection Library in SharePoint Server 2010

  - by Wayne

  What is a Data Connection Library in SharePoint Server 2010? A Data Connection Library in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is a library that can contain two kinds of data connections: an Office Data Connection (ODC) file or a Universal Data Connection (UDC) file. Microsoft InfoPath 2010 uses data connections that comply with the Universal Data Connection (UDC) file schema and typically have either a *.udcx or *.xml file name extension. Data sources described by these data connections are stored on the server and can be used in standard form templates and browser-enabled form templates. How to create a SharePoint Server Data Connection Library? 1. Browse to a SharePoint Server 2010 site on which you have at least Design permissions. If you are on the root site, create a new site before you continue with the next step. 2. On the Site Actions menu, click More Options. 3. On the Create page, click Library under Filter By, and then click Data Connection Library. 4. On the right side of the Create page, type a name for the library, and then click the Create button. 5. Copy the URL of the new data connection library. How to create a new data connection file in InfoPath? 1. Open InfoPath Designer 2010, click Blank Form, and then click Design Form. 2. On the Data tab, click Data Connections, and then click Add. 3. In the Data Connection Wizard, click Create a new connection to, click Receive data, and then click Next. 4. Click the kind of data source that you are connecting to, such as Database, Web service, or SharePoint library or list, and then click Next. 5. Complete the remaining steps in the Data Connection Wizard to configure your data connection, and then click Finish to return to the Data Connections dialog box. 6. In the Data Connections dialog box, click Convert to Connection File. 7. In the Convert Data Connection dialog box, enter the URL of the data connection library that you previously copied (delete "Forms/AllItems.aspx" and anything following it from the URL), enter a name for the data connection file at the end of the URL, and then click OK. It will take a few moments to convert and save the data connection file to the library. 8. Confirm that the data connection was converted successfully by examining the Details section of the Data Connections dialog box while the name of the converted data connection is selected. 9. Browse to the SharePoint data connection library, click the drop-down next to the name of the data connection, click Approve/Reject, click Approved, and then click OK. Take advantage of SharePoint Data Connection Library and other useful features of SharePoint family of products that include, SharePoint Foundation 2010, MOSS 2007 and free SharePoint templates or web parts.

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• SQLAuthority News – Getting Ready to Learn SQL Server

  - by pinaldave

  If you have read my earlier blog post you must be aware of how I am always eager to learn new things. I have signed up for three days learning course at Koenig Solutions for End to End SQL Server Business Intelligence. You may wonder why I sign up for the course on SQL Server when it seems that I know a lot about it. Well, the belief is incorrect that I know a lot. I think there are plenty of things which I have been dreaming to learn. Why am I learning SQL Server? First of all – I do not know everything and second it is always a good idea to learn more. No matter how old we get or how much we think we know – there are always details which we can learn and refresh few concepts. Learning is never ending process philosophically but it is true as well in reality. SQL Server 2012 is already released earlier this year and there are plenty of enhancements released. Recently I was going over the list of the all the new feature and enhancement and I realized that there few things about SQL Server 2008 R2 I never got a chance to have a hand’s on experience and we have entered into the era of SQL Server 2012. I feel a bit bad about it and I decided to make it a priority for me to learn all the missing experiences. Quick Action – Registration The very same day I called up my friend who owns Koenig Solution and expressed my concern and requested his help. During my early career when I was a SQL Server Trainer, we had some good synergy between us and now they are very successful offshore training company by having a physical location in Delhi,  Goa, Dahradun, Shimla, Goa and Bangalore. I quickly visited their Bangalore Center and paid my fees for learning SQL Server Business Intelligence course. Very next second I got call from my friend suggesting that I learn this course from Delhi instead of Bangalore. As per him I should travel to Delhi and learn the course how other students are learning “Away from Home”. This made sense as I stay in Bangalore and if I return home after a long day of learning, I will be not able to practice for the next day as there will be “sweet distraction” of the family. Well I opted for Delhi. What Registration Fees Included I learned from registration processes that the following were included in the fees. 3 meals every day (hearty breakfast, lunch from premium restaurants and home cooked like dinner) Airport pick up and drop Hotel Stay Internet at hotel and at learning institute Unlimited coffee and snacks at learning institute Printed Learning Material Certification Fees (if applicable) Learning material … And of course classroom training I thought registration process was over when I paid fees. Well, I was in for a very nice surprise. Registration Experience – Bliss! Within few hours I received emails from Center Manager of Delhi with all the necessary details I need to know about my learning experience. The email contained following information in detail and it blew me away. Details of the pick up from airport – driver information Details of Delhi and important information List of all the important people and emergency contact details Internet connection details Detail of the trainer and all the training details and lots of other relevant information Well so far everything looks great. Tomorrow I will reach to Delhi and I will share how things go on. Any suggestion for things to do in Delhi? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, T SQL, Technology

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• Deploy Oracle Management Agent using RPM File

  - by cristiano.toni

  Normal 0 21 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tableau Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times","serif"; mso-ansi-language:FR;} 1) Create a rpm package on Enterprise Manager 12c a) as Root : # yum install rpmbuild # mkdir /usr/lib/oracle b) as oracle user # cd $<OMS_HOME>/bin/ # emcli get_supported_platforms ----------------------------------------------- Version = 12.1.0.3.0  Platform = Linux x86-64 ----------------------------------------------- Platforms list displayed successfully. #  emcli get_agentimage_rpm -destination=/tmp/agentRPM -platform="Linux x86-64" \ -version=12.1.0.3.0 Platform:Linux x86-64 Destination:/tmp/agentRPM Exalogic:false  Checking for disk space requirements...  === Partition Detail === Space free : 6 GB Space required : 1 GB RPM creation in progress ... Check the logs at /Oracle/gc_inst/em/EMGC_OMS1/sysman/emcli/setup/.emcli/get_agentimage_rpm_date-PM.log Copying agent image from software library to /tmp/agentRPM Setting property ORACLE_HOME to:/Oracle/middleware/oms calling pulloneoffs with arguments:/Oracle/middleware/oms/Oracle/middleware/oms/sysman/agent/ \ 12.1.0.3.0_AgentCore_226.zip12.1.0.3.0Linux x86-64/tmp/agentRPMtrue Agent Image copied successfully... Creation of RPM started... RPM creation successful. Agent image to rpm conversion completed successfully 2) Copy it on all new hosts and install it.  As Root user : c) check and install rpm file # rpm -ivh --test oracle-agt-12.1.0.3.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm  Preparing...                ########################################### [100%] # rpm -ivh oracle-agt-12.1.0.3.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm  Preparing...                ########################################### [100%] Running the prereq    1:oracle-agt             ########################################### [100%] Agent RPM installation is completed successfully. Now to configure the agent follow the below steps: 1. Edit the properties file: /usr/lib/oracle/agent/agent.properties with the correct values 2. Execute the script /etc/init.d/oracle-agt RESPONSE_FILE=/usr/lib/oracle/agent/agent.properties d) create a user for the agent: # useradd -m -d /home/em12adm -s /bin/bash -g dba -G oinstall em12adm # passwd em12adm e) Edit file /usr/lib/oracle/agent/agent.properties # vi /usr/lib/oracle/agent/agent.properties  OMS_HOST=<host_Enterprise_Manager> OMS_PORT=<HTTPS Upload Port > AGENT_REGISTRATION_PASSWORD=oracle AGENT_USERNAME=em12adm AGENT_GROUP=dba ORACLE_HOSTNAME=oraclevm-mgmt # chown -R em12adm:dba /usr/lib/oracle/agent/ Start agent and register the new host server on EM12c   #  /etc/init.d/oracle-agt RESPONSE_FILE=/usr/lib/oracle/agent/agent.properties Now you have registered on EM12C your new target host.

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• Today's Links (6/30/2011)

  - by Bob Rhubart

  James Gosling Says He Doesn't Care About Java But here's the rest of the story: "What I really care about is the Java Virtual Machine as a concept," says Gosling, "because that is the thing that ties it all together; it's the thing that makes Java the language possible; it's the thing that makes things work on all kinds of different platforms; and it makes all kinds of languages able to coexist." Virtual Developer Day: SOA Accelerate Your Development with Oracle SOA Suite. Learn how in this FREE on-line workshop with Hands-on labs July 12th 9 am to 1:30 PM PST" July 12th 9 am to 1:30 PM PST Podcast: Toronto Architect Day Panel Discussion Part 3 (of 4) is now available, in which the panel (including Oracle ACE Director Cary Millsap and InfoQ editor and co-founder Floyd Marinescu) discusses public vs private cloud as the best strategy for small businesses and start-ups. WebLogic Weekly for June 27th, 2011 | James Bayer Bayer shares the latest resources for those with WebLogic on the brain. Griffiths Waite at Oracle Open World | Mark Simpson Oracle ACE Director Mark Simpson share information on the presentations he's scheduled to give at Oracle OpenWorld San Francisco 2011. Kscope Solid Service Bus Implementations Peter Paul van de Beek's Kscope11 presentation "is aimed at supporting architects and especially developers to choose the right integration infrastructure for a job." Migration To Java EE 6 With Spring 3 - ...Could Become "Interesting" | Adam Bien "Put simply, big data implies datasets so large they can't normally be processed using a standard transactional database," says David Dorf. "The term 'noSQL' is often used in this context as well." Book Review: "Designing With the Mind In Mind" | Abhinav Agarwal According to Abhinav Agarwal, Jeff Johnson's new book is about "the theory of how the mind perceives information, of how humans understand what they read, and how our eyes are attuned to paying attention to not just what's happening in front of us but also at the periphery of our vision." BPM 11g Advanced Workshop | Martien van den Akker Martien van den Akker shares his thoughts on both the workshop he recently attended and on the Oracle BPM 11g product. Fusion Applications - What You Need To Know: Product Families | Floyd Teter "Fusion Applications are organized into seven groups of related products called Product Families," observes Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter. "While the product features are organized according to the Business Process Model and can cross the boundaries of product families, the product family groupings are an easy way to wrap your mind around Fusion Apps." Grid Control: Refreshing Weblogic Domains | Dave Best Dave Best shares tips for avoiding problems when using grid control to centrally manage/monitor your environment. Webcast: Oracle to Announce Datanomic Integration Plans The combination of Datanomic technology and the previous acquisition of Silver Creek Systems will deliver a complete, integrated and best-of-breed solution for Data Quality. Learn about Oracle’s strategy and product plans and how the new products acquired from Datanomic will impact your organization. July 19, 2011, 8:00am PT / 11:00am ET. Speakers include Michael Weingartner (Vice President, Product Development, Oracle), Martin Boyd (Senior Director, Product Strategy, Oracle), and Dain Hansen (Director, Product Marketing, Fusion Middleware, Oracle).

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• [Silverlight] How to watermark a WriteableBitmap with a text

  - by Benjamin Roux

  Hello, In my current project, I needed to watermark a WriteableBitmap with a text. As I couldn’t find anything I decided to create a small extension method to do so. public static class WriteableBitmapEx { /// <summary> /// Creates a watermark on the specified image /// </summary> /// <param name="input">The image to create the watermark from</param> /// <param name="watermark">The text to watermark</param> /// <param name="color">The color - default is White</param> /// <param name="fontSize">The font size - default is 50</param> /// <param name="opacity">The opacity - default is 0.25</param> /// <param name="hasDropShadow">Specifies if a drop shadow effect must be added - default is true</param> /// <returns>The watermarked image</returns> public static WriteableBitmap Watermark(this WriteableBitmap input, string watermark, Color color = default(Color), double fontSize = 50, double opacity = 0.25, bool hasDropShadow = true) { var watermarked = GetTextBitmap(watermark, fontSize, color == default(Color) ? Colors.White : color, opacity, hasDropShadow); var width = watermarked.PixelWidth; var height = watermarked.PixelHeight; var result = input.Clone(); var position = new Rect(input.PixelWidth - width - 20 /* right margin */, input.PixelHeight - height, width, height); result.Blit(position, watermarked, new Rect(0, 0, width, height)); return result; } /// <summary> /// Creates a WriteableBitmap from a text /// </summary> /// <param name="text"></param> /// <param name="fontSize"></param> /// <param name="color"></param> /// <param name="opacity"></param> /// <param name="hasDropShadow"></param> /// <returns></returns> private static WriteableBitmap GetTextBitmap(string text, double fontSize, Color color, double opacity, bool hasDropShadow) { TextBlock txt = new TextBlock(); txt.Text = text; txt.FontSize = fontSize; txt.Foreground = new SolidColorBrush(color); txt.Opacity = opacity; if (hasDropShadow) txt.Effect = new DropShadowEffect(); WriteableBitmap bitmap = new WriteableBitmap((int)txt.ActualWidth, (int)txt.ActualHeight); bitmap.Render(txt, null); bitmap.Invalidate(); return bitmap; } } For this code to run, you need the WritableBitmapEx library. As you can see, it’s quite simple. You just need to call the Watermark method and pass it the text you want to add in your image. You can also pass optional parameters like the color, the opacity, the fontsize or if you want a drop shadow effect. I could have specify other parameters like the position or the the font family but you can change the code if you need to. Here’s what it can give Hope this helps.

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• App Stores&ndash;In All Things, Its Quality Over Quantity

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Everybody has an opinion about Windows 8. People love it, people hate it, people are meh about it, people are apparently buying it from Microsoft stores in NYC as if it was water before a natural disaster…if there’s one thing that Microsoft product launches do well, its the ability to bring out strong emotional responses. Over at eweek.com, Don Reisinger wrote about 5 good and bad things about Windows 8. Yes, another opinion piece on WIndows 8. I figured since this one had good and bad it might be worthwhile to read. I then came across #10 on his list, and figured “What the hell…might as well post a bit of a rant on Windows 8 myself!” Here’s #10: 10. Bad: Too few apps Unfortunately, Microsoft wasn’t able to get too many developers to start producing applications for its Windows 8 Store. Microsoft hasn’t yet released official numbers, but some have said that the marketplace has less than 8,000 programs. Considering Apple’s App Store has 100 times that, it’s about time Microsoft starts leaning on developers to get more programs into its store. Believe me, Microsoft *has* been leaning on developers to get apps into the store. I’ve been asked at least 5 or 6 times from 5 or 6 different friends at Microsoft about whether I was going to write a Windows 8 app. I think Microsoft felt they had to try and address the number of apps available in their marketplace, since some people (like Don) would draw comparisons to the number of apps in the Apple marketplace. I feel for Microsoft in this, since the number of apps in a marketplace are an empty stat. Quality of Quantity I have an iPad that my family (wife, 10yo daughter, 3yo daughter) use. We all have our own apps installed on it. In addition, my wife has an iPhone 4S that she also installs apps on. As someone who gets asked by his kids often whether they can buy/download an app, the vast majority of the vast catalogue of iOS marketplace apps are crap! Do you realize how many “free” games are out there, only to really be not-free because you have to purchase in-game content to make the game actually playable? And how about searching – with such a vast array of apps and such high numbers of craptastic ones, trying to find something is incredibly difficult and can be frustrating. I would rather see that Microsoft has 8000 high quality apps in their store at launch, instead of 800000 that were mostly junk. Too Few Apps?! And seriously, 8000 is not a small number. How many iOS apps have I actually bought between the iPad and iPhone? I’ll be generous and say 30…heck, let’s round it up to 40. It’s not like I have 10,000 apps installed on my iPad, nor will that ever happen! So if people have, at the *launch* of a new platform ecosystem, EIGHT THOUSAND apps to choose from, I don’t see that as a fail at all! It should be noted that most of the most common apps (Netflix, Skype, etc.) are available for Windows 8 at launch – I guess I’ll have to wait a few weeks for My Pony Ranch and all its clones to start showing up; pity. Let’s Check Back in a Year So look, let’s check back in a year’s time and see what the app store looks like. My hope is that Microsoft doesn’t continue to push quantity over quality. Even knowing the optics that # of apps in the store carries and the pressure to catch Apple and Android marketplaces, I hope Microsoft avoids the scenario where there’s a good percentage of apps in the Windows Store that are utter rubbish and finding the gems will be cumbersome. But if that happens, we can thank guys like Dan who raised the false issue of app count at the launch for it.

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• EPM 11.1.2.2.000 - released

  - by THE

  Normal 0 21 false false false DE 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Oracle’s EPM System Development Team is pleased to announce General Availability of Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System release 11.1.2.2.  This release is available on the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud (  https://edelivery.oracle.com).  This is a localized release available in multiple languages. See "System Requirements and Supported Platforms for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System 11.1.2.2" ( http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/ias/downloads/fusion-certification-100350.html)  for details.  In this release, EPM System products extend the new features and products offered with release 11.1.2.1. Please visit the product "New Features Guides" ( http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/index.htm), available in the Enterprise Performance Management System Documentation Library for more information. Note: Oracle Hyperion Calculation Manager has replaced Oracle Hyperion Business Rules as the mechanism for designing and managing business rules, therefore, Business Rules is no longer released with EPM System Release 11.1.2.2. If you are applying 11.1.2.2 as a maintenance release, or upgrading to Release 11.1.2.2, and have been using Business Rules in an earlier release, you must migrate to Calculation Manager rules in Release 11.1.2.2. See Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Installation and Configuration Guide. The EPM System Media pack on Oracle Software Delivery Cloud has been simplified.  Software downloads have been merged together. See the Media Pack Readme for a list of downloads needed for your domain/product. IBM WebSphere 7.0.0.19+ (AS, ND) is now supported as an application server.  Documentation about deploying to WebSphere is in the chapter titled “Deploying EPM System Products to WebSphere Application Server” in the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Installation and Configuration Guide. FireFox 10.x+ and Internet Explorer 9 are now supported Web browsers. Microsoft Office 2010 64 bit is now supported. Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) Client Installers are now provided for Oracle Essbase Client, Oracle Essbase Administration Services Console, Oracle Essbase Studio Console, and Oracle Hyperion Financial Management Client. Online Help content for EPM System products is served from a central Oracle download location, which reduces the download and installation time for EPM System. You can also install and configure online Help to run locally. For more information, see the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Installation and Configuration Guide.  For more information on , please see the “Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System, Release 11.1.2.2.000 Readme ( http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/epm_1112200_readme.pdf).

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• What Counts For A DBA: ESP

  - by Louis Davidson

  Now I don’t want to get religious here, and I’m not going to, but what I’m going to describe in this ‘What Counts for a DBA’ installment sometimes feels like magic. Often  I will spend hours thinking about the solution to a design issue or coding problem, working diligently to try to come up with a solution and then finally just give up with the feeling that I’m not even qualified to be a data entry clerk, much less a data architect.  At this point I often take a walk (or sometimes a nap), and then it hits me. I realize that I have the answer just sitting in my brain, ready to implement.  This phenomenon is not limited to walks either; it can happen almost any time after I stop my obsession about a problem. I call this phenomena ESP (or Extra-Sensory Programming.)  Another term for this could be ‘sleeping on it’, and while the idiom tends to mean to let time pass to actively think about a problem, sleeping on a problem also lets you relax and let your brain do the work. I first noticed this back in my college days when I would play video games for hours on end. We would get stuck deep in some dungeon unable to find a way out, playing for days on end until we were beaten down tired. Once we gave up and walked away, the solution would usually be there waiting for one of us before we came back to play the next day.  Sometimes it would be in the form of a dream, and sometimes it would just be that the problem was now easy to solve when we started to play again.  While it worked great for video games, it never occurred when I studied English Literature for hours on end, or even when I worked for the same sort of frustrating hours attempting to solve a homework problem in Calculus.  I believe that the difference was that I was passionate about the video game, and certainly far less so about homework where people used the word “thou” instead of “you” or x to represent a number. This phenomenon occurs somewhat more often in my current work as a professional data programmer, because I am very passionate about SQL and love those aspects of my career choice.  Every day that I get to draw a new data model to solve a customer issue, or write a complex SELECT statement to ferret out the answer to a complex data question, is a great day. I hope it is the same for any reader of this blog.  But, unfortunately, while the day on a whole is great, a heck of a lot of noise is generated in work life. There are the typical project deadlines, along with the requisite project manager sitting on your shoulders shouting slogans to try to make you to go faster: Add in office politics, and the occasional family issues that permeate the mind, and you lose the ability to think deeply about any problem, not to mention occasionally forgetting your own name.  These office realities coupled with a difficult SQL problem staring at you from your widescreen monitor will slowly suck the life force out of your body, making it seem impossible to solve the problem This is when the walk starts; or a nap. Maybe you hide from the madness under your desk like George Costanza hides from Steinbrenner on Seinfeld.  Forget about the problem. Free your mind from the insanity of the problem and your surroundings. Then let your training and education deep in your brain take over and see if it will passively do the rest for you. If you don’t end up with a solution, the worst case scenario is that you have a bit of exercise or rest, and you won’t have heard the phrase “better is the enemy of good enough” even once…which certainly will do your brain some good. Once you stop expecting whipping your brain for information, inspiration may just strike and instead of a humdrum solution you find a solution you hadn’t even considered, almost magically. So, my beloved manager, next time you have an urgent deadline and you come across me taking a nap, creep away quietly because I’m working, doing some extra-sensory programming.

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• BI&EPM in Focus June 2012

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  General News Thomas Kurian Discusses Oracle Exalytics, SAP HANA (replay | preso | press)  Accenture & Oracle Study: The Challenges of Corporate Financial Reporting  (link) Flash Demo: Oracle Hyperion Planning on Exalytics in the Public Sector (link) Flash Demo: OBIEE & Exalytics in Retail (link) Customers Italian Partner Alfa Sistemi implemented at Autovie Venete S.p.A. Integrates Business Intelligence and Performance Management to Improve Efficiency and Speed for Managing Public Works Projects (English version)  / Autovie Venete implementa un sistema integrato di Business Intelligence e Performance Management per migliorare l’efficienza e la tempestività dell’attività di Controlling di Commessa (Italian version). FANCL Gains 360-Degree View of Customers across Multiple Sales Channels, Reduces Reports by 75% Korea Yakult Improves Profit & Loss Analysis with Oracle Hyperion Planning and OBIEE Hill International Streamlines Forecasting, Improves Visibility into Project Productivity and Profitability Children’s Rights in Society Better Supports Organizational Mission with Advanced, Integrated, and Streamlined Business Intelligence Tools Profit: International utility Enel monitors the performance of global subsidiaries with Oracle Hyperion Applications (link) Profit: Charting a New Course: Korean Air gains altitude by leveraging its greatest asset: information (link)   Events June 12: Breaking Away from the Excel Add-In: Welcome to Hyperion Smart View 11.1.2.2 (link) June 13: Upgrading OBIEE 10g to 11g: Best Practices and Lessons Learned (performance architects) (link) June 14, The Netherlands: Strategies for Business Excellence, New Release of Oracle Hyperion EPM Suite (link) June 21: Comprehensive and Accurate Forecasting for Healthcare (link) June 26: What Exactly is Exalytics? (KPI Partners) (link) Webcast Replay: Is Your Company Able to Navigate Through Market Volatility? (link)  Webcast Replay: Is Hope and Email The Core of Your Reconciliation Process? (link) Webcast Replay: Troubleshooting EPM Reporting & Analysis 11.1.2.x  (link) Webcast Replay: Is your Organization Flying Blind when it comes to Understanding Profitability?  (link) Enterprise Performance Management Final Oracle EPM  Information Panel (CIP) survey on cost, profitability and performance reporting/scorecards is now OPEN (link) New on EPM Blog: What's Going on With IFRS? (link) How does Crystal Ball integrate with EPM Solutions? New collateral and demos on Crystal Ball Solution Factory!  (link) New Youtube Video: Business Case Analysis with Oracle Crystal Ball (link) Crystal Ball 11.1.2.2 is released! Grouped Assumptions in Sensitivity Charts, Data Filtering When Fitting Distributions and Parameter Edits When Fitting Distributions to name a few. Get full details from the online New Features Guide (link) New DRM Oracle-by-Examples now available (link) Support Blog: Hyperion Ledgerlink Sample Record and Windows 7: Now you see it, now you don’t  (link) Use Enterprise Manager FMW Control to Troubleshoot Oracle EPM 11.1.2 Family of Products (link) Business  Intelligence Whitepaper: Real-Time Operational Reporting for E-Business Suite via GoldenGate Replication to an Operational Data Store.  How Oracle enabled real-time operational reporting for its $20B services contract business with Golden Gate & OBIEE (link) KPI Partners ebook: Understanding Oracle BI Components and Repository Modeling Basics (link) “Getting Started with Oracle Endeca Information Discovery” video tutorials now available (link) Oracle BI Publisher Conversion Center: Convert from Crystal, Actuate, or Oracle Reports to Oracle BI Publisher (link) Oracle Fusion Applications: Monthly Partner Updates Webcast Replays to help BI partners understand how OBI, Essbase, BI-Apps and Fusion work together: More on Fusion CRM: Fusion Marketing More on Fusion CRM: Fusion CRM Sales Start-Up Packs and Expert Services for Implementation Partners Introducing the Oracle Fusion Accounting Hub Implementing Fusion Applications using Oracle's Composers Oracle Fusion Applications Co-Existence

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• Using Teleriks new LINQ implementation to connect to MySQL

  Last week Telerik released a new LINQ implementation that is simple to use and produces domain models very fast. Built on top of the enterprise grade OpenAccess ORM, you can connect to any database that OpenAccess can connect to such as: SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Azure, VistaDB, etc. Today I will show you how to build a domain model using MySQL as your back end. To get started, you have to download MySQL 5.x and the MySQL Workbench and also, as my colleague Alexander Filipov at Telerik reminded me, make sure you install the MySQL .NET Connector, which is available here.  I like to use Northwind, ok it gives me the warm and fuzzies, so I ran a script to produce Northwind on my MySQL server. There are many ways you can get Northwind on your MySQL database, here is a helpful blog to get your started. I also manipulated the first record to indicate that I am in MySQL and gave a look via the MySQL Workbench. Ok, time to build our model! Start up the Domain Model wizard by right clicking on the project in Visual Studio (I have a Web project) and select Add|New Item and choose Telerik OpenAccess Domain Model from the new item list. When the wizard comes up, choose MySQL as your back end and enter in the name of your saved MySQL connection. If you dont have a saved MySQL connection set up in Visual Studio, click on New Connection and enter in the proper connection information. *Note, this is where you need to have the MySQL .NET connector installed. After you set your connection to the MySQL database server, you have to choose which tables to include in your model. Just for fun, I will choose all of them. Give your model a name, like NorthwindEntities and click finish. That is it. Now lets consume the model with ASP .net. I created a simple page that also has a GridView on it. On my page load I wrote this code, by now it should look very familiar, a simple LINQ query filtering customers by country (Germany) and binding the results to the grid.  1: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) 2: { 3: if (!IsPostBack) 4: { 5: //a reference to the data context 6: NorthwindEntities dat = new NorthwindEntities(); 7: //LINQ Statement 8: var result = from c in dat.Customers 9: where c.Country == "Germany" 10: select c; 11: //Databinding to the Gridview 12: GridView1.DataSource = result; 13: GridView1.DataBind(); 14: } 15: } .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; } F5 produces the following. Tomorrow Ill show how to take the same model and create an Astoria/OData data feed. Technorati Tags: MySQL Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Cientos de Directores Financieros se congregaron en el evento “Innovación y Excelencia en la Función Financiera”

  - by Noelia Gomez

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} El pasado 24 de Octubre tuvo lugar el evento “Innovación y Excelencia en la Función Financiera” en la Fundación Rafael de Pino, Madrid (que ya anunciamos aquí). APD, en colaboración con Oracle, organizaron esta jornada con el objetivo de analizar el proceso de transformación del Director Financiero en las compañías (aquí puedes ver un estudio sobre ello). Enrique Sanchez de Leon, Director de APD, fue el encargado de abrir la jornada con una calurosa bienvenida a los invitados. Tras él, Fernando Rumbero, Iberia Applications Cluster Leader de Oracle , comenzó dando unas pinceladas sobre los cambios a los que los Directores Financieros deben estar preparados para convertirse en parte de la estrategia de la compañía. Después de que todos los ponentes fueran presentados y se acomodaran en su lugar del escenario de aquella gran sala, Oriol Farré, Presales Director de Oracle, tomó la palabra para profundizar sobre el nuevo rol estratégico del Director Financiero y cómo éste se está convirtiendo cada vez más en el catalizador del cambio dentro de las empresas (¿tú lo eres? aquí hablamos de cómo puedes evaluarlo) Por su parte, Maria Jesús Carrato, Profesora de Dirección Financiera Internacional en el IE y Directora Financiera del Grupo SM mostró su visión sobre cómo serán los Departamentos Financieros del futuro. Después llego el turno de Ramón Arguelaguet, Financial Controller & Reporting Senior Manager de Vodafone, que profundizo en la innovación y la transformación lideradas por los Directores Financieros dentro de las organizaciones. Por último, pero no menos importante, Juan Jesús Donoso, Director Económico de Cruz Roja Española, nos mostro el punto de vista de la gestión de una organización sin ánimo de lucro. Finalmente, en la mesa redonda, cada uno de los integrantes dio su punto de vista sobre el nuevo rol de Director Financiero y los nuevos retos a los que se enfrentan. El broche final de la jornada la puso el coctel para abrir paso a un espacio de networking que sin duda los cientos de Directores Financieros aprovecharon para intercambiar puntos de vista, conocer a nuevos compañeros y reencontrarse con muchos otros. Si estuviste en el evento… ¿qué te pareció? Tal vez no encontraste el momento de plantear alguna cuestión. Ahora puedes hacerlo en los comentarios y se lo trasladaremos a los ponentes. Contact 12.00 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}

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• Oracle Employees Support New World Record for IYF Children's Hour

  - by Maria Sandu

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 960 students ‘crouched’, ‘touched’ and ‘set’ under the watchful eye of International Rugby Referee Alain Roland, and supported by Oracle employees, to successfully set a new world record for the World’s Largest Scrum to raise funds and awareness for the Irish Youth Foundation. Last year Oracle Employees supported the Irish Youth Foundation by donating funds from their payroll through the Giving Tree Appeal. We were the largest corporate donor to the IYF by raising €3075. To acknowledge our generosity the IYF asked Oracle Leadership in Society team members to participate in their most recent campaign which was to break the Guinness Book of Records by forming the World’s Largest Rugby Scrum. This was a wonderful opportunity for Oracle’s Leadership in Society to promote the charity, support education and to make a mark in the Corporate Social Responsibility field. The students who formed the scrum also gave up their lunch money and raised a total of €3000. This year we hope Oracle Employees will once again support the IYF with the challenge to match that amount. On the 24th of October the sun shone down on the streaming lines of students entering the field. 480 students were decked out in bright red Oracle T-Shirts against the other 480 in blue and white jerseys - all ready to form a striking scrum. Ryan Tubridy the host of the event made the opening announcement and with the blow of a whistle the Scum began. 960 students locked tight together with the Leinster players also at each side. Leinster Manager Matt O’Connor was there along with presenters Ryan Tubridy and George Hook to assist with getting the boys in line and keeping the shape of the scrum. In accordance with Guinness Book of Records rules, the ball was fed into the scrum properly by Ireland and Leinster scrum-half, Eoin Reddan, and was then passed out the line to his Leinster team mates including Ian Madigan, Brendan Macken and Jordi Murphy, also proudly sporting the Oracle T-Shirt. The new World Record was made, everyone gave a big cheer and thankfully nobody got injured! Thank you to everyone in Oracle who donated last year through the Giving Tree Appeal. Your generosity has gone a long way to support local groups both. Last year’s donation was so substantial that the IYF were able to spread it across two youth groups: The first being Ballybough Youth Project in Dublin. The funding gave them the chance to give 24 young people from their project the chance to get away from the inner city and the problems and issues they face in their daily life by taking a trip to the Cavan Centre to spend a weekend away in a safe and comfortable environment; a very rare holiday in these young people’s lives. The Rahoon Family Centre. Used the money to help secure the long term sustainability of their project. They act as an educational/social/fun project that has been working with disadvantaged children for the past 16 years. Their aim is to change young people’s future with fun /social education and supporting them so they can maximize their creativity and potential. We hope you can help support this worthy cause again this year, so keep an eye out for the Children’s Hour and Giving Tree Appeal! About the Irish Youth Foundation The IYF provides opportunities for marginalised children and young people facing difficult and extreme conditions to experience success in their lives. It passionately believes that achievement starts with opportunity. The IYF’s strategy is based on providing safe places where children can go after school; to grow, to learn and to play; and providing opportunities for teenagers from under-served communities to succeed and excel in their lives. The IYF supports innovative grassroots projects operated by dedicated professionals who understand young people and care about them. This allows the IYF to focus on supporting young people at risk of dropping out of school and, in particular, on the critical transition from primary to secondary school; and empowering teenagers from disadvantaged neighborhoods to become engaged in their local communities. Find out more here www.iyf.ie

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• Is a university education really worth it for a good programmer?

  - by Jon Purdy

  The title says it all, but here's the personal side of it: I've been doing design and programming for about as long as I can remember. If there's a programming problem, I can figure it out. (Though admittedly StackOverflow has allowed me to skip the figuring out and get straight to the doing in many instances.) I've made games, esoteric programming languages, and widgets and gizmos galore. I'm currently working on a general-purpose programming language. There's nothing I do better than programming. However, I'm just as passionate about design. Thus when I felt leaving high school that my design skills were lacking, I decided to attend university for New Media Design and Imaging, a digital design-related major. For a year, I diligently studied art and programmed in my free time. As the next year progressed, however, I was obligated to take fewer art and design classes and more technical classes. The trouble was of course that these classes were geared toward non-technical students, and were far beneath my skill level at the time. No amount of petitioning could overcome the institution's reluctance to allow me to test out of such classes, and the major offered no promise for any greater challenge in the future, so I took the extreme route: I switched into the technical equivalent of the major, New Media Interactive Development. A lot of my credits moved over into the new major, but many didn't. It would have been infeasible to switch to a more rigorous technical major such as Computer Science, and having tutored Computer Science students at every level here, I doubt I would be exposed to anything that I haven't already or won't eventually find out on my own, since I'm so involved in the field. I'm now on track to graduate perhaps a year later than I had planned, which puts a significant financial strain on my family and my future self. My schedule continues to be bogged down with classes that are wholly unnecessary for me to take. I'm being re-introduced to subjects that I've covered a thousand times over, simply because I've always been interested in it all. And though I succeed in avoiding the cynical and immature tactic of failing to complete work out of some undeserved sense of superiority, I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned by the lack of intellectual stimulation. Further, my school requires students to complete a number of quarters of co-op work experience proportional to their major. My original major required two quarters, but my current requires three, delaying my graduation even more. To top it all off, college is putting a severe strain on my relationship with my very close partner of a few years, so I've searched diligently for co-op jobs in my area, alas to no avail. I'm now in my third year, and approaching that point past which I can no longer handle this. Either I keep my head down, get a degree no matter what it takes, and try to get a job with a company that will pay me enough to do what I love that I can eventually pay off my loans; or I cut my losses now, move wherever there is work, and in six months start paying off what debt I've accumulated thus far. So the real question is: is a university education really more than just a formality? It's a big decision, and one I can't make lightly. I think this is the appropriate venue for this kind of question, and I hope it sticks around for the sake of others who might someday find themselves in similar situations. My heartfelt thanks for reading, and in advance for your help.

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