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• Why a graduate program in South Africa?

  - by anca.rosu

  South Africa, like many other countries, is desperate for skills. Good, solid, technical skills – together with a get-up-and-go attitude – and the desire to work for a world-class organization that is leading the way! In addition, we have made a commitment in South Africa that we need to transform our organization and develop and empower Black individuals who historically have not had the opportunity to participate in the global economy. It is through this investment in our country's people that we contribute to the development of a nation capable of competing on the global stage. This makes for an exciting recipe! We have: Plenty of young and talented individuals who are eager to get stuck in and learn. Formal, recognized qualifications that form the basis for further development. A huge big global organization – Oracle – that is committed to developing these graduates and giving them an opportunity that is out of this world! Mix the above ‘ingredients’ together Tackle and remove potential “lumps & bumps” along the way as we learn and grow together Nurture and care for each other in a warm but tough environment What have we achieved? In most cases, the outcome is an awesome bunch of new talent that is well equipped to face the IT world. Where we have the opportunity and suitable headcount available to employ these graduates at Oracle we snap them up – alternatively our business partners and customers are always eager to recruit Oracle graduates into their organizations! These individuals go through real-life work place experience whilst at Oracle. In some cases they get to travel internationally. The excitement and buzz gets into their system and their blood becomes truly RED! Oracle RED! This is valuable talent and expertise to have in our eco-system and it’s an exciting program to be a part of not only as a graduate but as an Oracle employee too!   If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact  [email protected].  You can find our job opportunities via http://campus.oracle.com. Technorati Tags: South Africa,technical skills,graduate program,opportunity,global organization,new talent

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• How important is knowing functionality before coding?

  - by minusSeven

  I work for a software development company where the development work have been off shored to us. The on shore team handle the support and talk directly to the clients. We never talk to the clients directly we just talk people from the on shore team who talk directly to the clients. When requirements come, on shore team talk to the clients and make requirement documents and informs us. We make design documents after studying the requirements (we follow traditional waterfall model ). But there is one problem in the whole process: nobody in the either off-shore or on-shore understand the functionality of the application completely. We just know its a big complex web app handling complex order processing, catalog management, campaign management and other activities. We struggle with the design document as the requirements would not be clear. It then goes into a series of questions/answers back and forth between the on shore team,off shore team and clients. We would often be told to understand functionality from the code. But that's usually not feasible as the code base is huge and even understanding a simple menu item take days if not weeks. We tried telling the clients to give us knowledge transfer about the application but to no avail. Our manager would often tell us to start coding even if the design document is not complete or requirements not clear. We would start by coding part of the requirement that seems clear and wait for the rest. This usually would delay the deployment by a month. In extreme cases we would have very low errors in the development and production but the clients would say that's not what they asked. That would start a blame game and a series of change requests and we would end up developing something very different. My question is how would you do development work if you don't know the functionality of the app fully? UPDATE About development methodology it isn't really my choice and I am not my team's lead It is the way it began. I tried to tell people about the advantages of agile but to no avail. Besides I don't think my team has the necessary mindset to work in AGILE environment.

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• Unit Testing TSQL

  - by Grant Fritchey

  I went through a period of time where I spent a lot of effort figuring out how to set up unit tests for TSQL. It wasn't easy. There are a few tools out there that help, but mostly it involves lots of programming. well, not as much as before. Thanks to the latest Down Tools Week at Red Gate a new utility has been built and released into the wild, SQL Test. Like a lot of the new tools coming out of Red Gate these days, this one is directly integrated into SSMS, which means you're working where you're comfortable and where you already have lots of tools at your disposal. After the install, when you launch SSMS and get connected, you're prompted to install the tSQLt example database. Go for it. It's a quick way to see how the tool works. I'd suggest using it. It' gives you a quick leg up. The concepts are pretty straight forward. There are a series of CLR commands that you use to configure a test and the test assertions. In between you're calling TSQL, either calls to your structure, queries, or stored procedures. They already have the one things that I always found wanting in database tests, a way to compare tables of results. I also like the ability to create a dummy copy of tables for the tests. It lets you control structures and behaviors so that the tests are more focused. One of the issues I always ran into with the other testing tools is that setting up the tests might require potentially destructive changes to the structure of the database (dropping FKs, etc.) which added lots of time and effort to setting up the tests, making testing more difficult, and therefor, less useful. Functionally, this is pretty similar to the Visual Studio tests and TSQLUnit tests that I used to use. The primary improvement over the Visual Studio tests is that I'm working in SSMS instead of Visual Studio. The primary improvement over TSQLUnit is the SQL Test interface it self. A lot of the functionality is the same, but having a sweet little tool to manage & run the tests from makes a huge difference. Oh, and don't worry. You can still run these tests directly from TSQL too, so automation has not gone away. I'm still thinking about how I'd use this in a dev environment where I also had source control to fret. That might be another blog post right there. I'm just getting started with SQL Test, so this is the first of several blog posts & videos. Watch this space. Try the tool.

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• Separating a "wad of stuff" utility project into individual components with "optional" dependencies

  - by romkyns

  Over the years of using C#/.NET for a bunch of in-house projects, we've had one library grow organically into one huge wad of stuff. It's called "Util", and I'm sure many of you have seen one of these beasts in your careers. Many parts of this library are very much standalone, and could be split up into separate projects (which we'd like to open-source). But there is one major problem that needs to be solved before these can be released as separate libraries. Basically, there are lots and lots of cases of what I might call "optional dependencies" between these libraries. To explain this better, consider some of the modules that are good candidates to become stand-alone libraries. CommandLineParser is for parsing command lines. XmlClassify is for serializing classes to XML. PostBuildCheck performs checks on the compiled assembly and reports a compilation error if they fail. ConsoleColoredString is a library for colored string literals. Lingo is for translating user interfaces. Each of those libraries can be used completely stand-alone, but if they are used together then there are useful extra features to be had. For example, both CommandLineParser and XmlClassify expose post-build checking functionality, which requires PostBuildCheck. Similarly, the CommandLineParser allows option documentation to be provided using the colored string literals, requiring ConsoleColoredString, and it supports translatable documentation via Lingo. So the key distinction is that these are optional features. One can use a command line parser with plain, uncolored strings, without translating the documentation or performing any post-build checks. Or one could make the documentation translatable but still uncolored. Or both colored and translatable. Etc. Looking through this "Util" library, I see that almost all potentially separable libraries have such optional features that tie them to other libraries. If I were to actually require those libraries as dependencies then this wad of stuff isn't really untangled at all: you'd still basically require all the libraries if you want to use just one. Are there any established approaches to managing such optional dependencies in .NET?

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• What's Old is New Again

  - by David Dorf

  Last night I told my son he could stream music to his tablet "from the cloud" (in this case, the Amazon Cloud).  He paused, then said, "what is the cloud?"  I replied, "a bunch of servers connected to the internet."  Apparently he had visions of something much more magnificent.  Another similar term is "big data."  These marketing terms help to quickly convey topics but are oversimplifications that are open to many interpretations.  At their core, those terms a shiny packages holding recycled ideas. I see many headlines declaring big data changes everything, but it doesn't.  Savvy retailers have been dealing with large volumes of data since the electronic cash register was invented.  But the there have a been a few changes to the landscape that make big data a topic of conversation: 1. Computing power has caught up to storage volumes. Its now possible to more thoroughly analyze the copious volumes of data retailers have been squirreling away.  CPUs are faster, sold state drives more plentiful, and new ways to store and search data are available.  My iPhone is more power than the computer used in the Apollo mission to the moon. 2. Unstructured data is everywhere.  The Web used to be where retailers published product information, but now users are generating the bulk of the content in the form of comments, videos, and "likes."  The variety of information available to retailers is huge, and it meaning difficult to discern. 3. Everything is connected.  Looking at a report from my router, there are no less than 20 active devices on my home network.  We can track the location of mobile phones, tag products with RFID, and set our thermostats (I love my Nest) from a thousand miles away.  Not only is there more data, but its arriving at higher velocity. Careful readers will note the three Vs that help define so-called big data: volume, variety, and velocity. We now have more volume, more variety, and more velocity and different technologies to deal with them.  But at the heart, the objectives are still the same: Informed decisions Accurate forecasts Improved optimizations So don't let the term "big data" throw you off the scent.  Retailers still need to execute on the basics.  But do take a fresh look at the data that's available and the new technologies to process it.  The landscape will continue to change and agile organizations will always be reevaluating their approaches.  You can just add some more weapons to the arsenal.

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• ADF Code Guidelines

  - by Chris Muir

  During Oracle Open World 2012 the ADF Product Management team announced a new OTN website, the ADF Architecture Square.  While OOW represents a great opportunity to let customers know about new and exciting developments, the problem with making announcements during OOW however is customers are bombarded with so many messages that it's easy to miss something important. So in this blog post I'd like to highlight as part of the ADF Architecture Square website, one of the initial core offerings is a new document entitled ADF Code Guidelines. Now the title of this document should hopefully make it obvious what the document contains, but what's the purpose of the document, why did Oracle create it? Personally having worked as an ADF consultant before joining Oracle, one thing I noted amongst ADF customers who had successfully deployed production systems, that they all approached software development in a professional and engineered way, and all of these customers had their own guideline documents on ADF best practices, conventions and recommendations.  These documents designed to be consumed by their own staff to ensure ADF applications were "built right", typically sourced their guidelines from their team's own expert learnings, and the huge amount of ADF technical collateral that is publicly available.  Maybe from manuals and whitepapers, presentations and blog posts, some written by Oracle and some written by independent sources. Now this is all good and well for the teams that have gone through this effort, gathering all the information and putting it into structured documents, kudos to them.  But for new customers who want to break into the ADF space, who have project pressures to deliver ADF solutions without necessarily working on assembling best practices, creating such a document is understandably (regrettably?) a low priority.  So in recognising this hurdle, at Oracle we've devised the ADF Code Guidelines.  This document sets out ADF code guidelines, practices and conventions for applications built using ADF Business Components and ADF Faces Rich Client (release 11g and greater).  The guidelines are summarized from a number of Oracle documents and other 3rd party collateral, with the goal of giving developers and development teams a short circuit on producing their own best practices collateral. The document is not a final production, but a living document that will be extended to cover new information as discovered or as the ADF framework changes. Readers are encouraged to discuss the guidelines on the ADF EMG and provide constructive feedback to me (Chris Muir) via the ADF EMG Issue Tracker. We hope you'll find the ADF Code Guidelines useful and look forward to providing updates in the near future. Image courtesy of paytai / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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• Archbeat Link-O-Rama Top 10 Facebook Faves - June 16-22, 2013

  - by Bob Rhubart

  2,819 people now follow OTN ArchBeat on Facebook. These are the Top 10 most popular items shared there for the week of June 16-22, 2013. Getting started with Java EE 7: Hands-on in 10 minutes | Lucas Jellema Oracle ACE Director and prolific blogger Lucas Jellema offers his take on the Java EE7 release and shares tips and resources to help you on your way. Not ‘how’ but ‘why’ should you upgrade to JDeveloper & ADF 11.1.1.7.0 | Chris Muir Oracle ACE Director Tim Hall and Oracle ADF Product Manager Chris Muir collaborated on this dialog that just might help you in your decision. OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing - July 9, Redwood Shores, CA You won't need 3D glasses to see the technical sessions at OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing, July 9, 2013. Redwood Shores, CA. It's free! It's live! Register now! Video: Frédéric Desbiens: Bringing Java to On-Device iOS and Android Apps (QCon NYC 2013) Oracle Application Development Tools product manager Frédéric Desbiens recaps his QCon New York presentation about how Java developers can leverage existing skills to develop enterprise mobile applications. OEPE 12.1.1.2.2 with GlassFish Tools released | Peter Benedikovic Peter Benedikovic's brief post offers an overview of some of the features in the new version of Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse, released in conjunction with the release of Java EE 7. Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Configuration Best Practices (Part 2 of 3) | Bethany Lapaglia Part 2 of Beth Lapaglia's 3-part series on the most commonly implemented configuration changes to improve performance and operation of a large Enterprise Manager 12c environment focuses on recommended WebLogic Server changes. Video: Doug Clarke: Polyglot Persistence: From NoSQL to HTML5 (QCon NYC 2013) Doug Clarke, EclipseLink Project Lead and Oracle Director of Product Management gives a very condensed version of his QCon New York presentation on "Polyglot Persistence: From NoSQL to HTML5." Podcast Show Notes: DevOps, Cloud, and Role Creep - Part 2 Automation and innovation had a huge impact on the manufacturing jobs of years gone by. Is something similar happening to some IT jobs? Oracle ACE Directors Ron Batra, Basheer Khan, and Cary Millsap discuss what's happening in part 2 of this 3-part podcast. Video: Reza Rahman: Building Java HTML5/WebSocket Applications with JSR 356 (QCon NYC 2013) Java EE/GlassFish evangelist Reza Rahman talks about how WebSocket provides "the basis for a new generation of interactive and live Web applications" for mobile developers. Lessons from Fusion HCM Implementations | Tim Warner Oracle ACE Tim Warner shares summaries of the Fusion HCM implementation experiences of several companies, as detailed in presentations at the 2013 Oracle HCM Users Group Conference. Thought for the Day "If the mind really is the finest computer, then there are a lot of people out there who need to be rebooted." — Tim Bryce Source: softwarequotes.com

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• Is there a better term than "smoothness" or "granularity" to describe this language feature?

  - by Chris

  One of the best things about programming is the abundance of different languages. There are general purpose languages like C++ and Java, as well as little languages like XSLT and AWK. When comparing languages, people often use things like speed, power, expressiveness, and portability as the important distinguishing features. There is one characteristic of languages I consider to be important that, so far, I haven't heard [or been able to come up with] a good term for: how well a language scales from writing tiny programs to writing huge programs. Some languages make it easy and painless to write programs that only require a few lines of code, e.g. task automation. But those languages often don't have enough power to solve large problems, e.g. GUI programming. Conversely, languages that are powerful enough for big problems often require far too much overhead for small problems. This characteristic is important because problems that look small at first frequently grow in scope in unexpected ways. If a programmer chooses a language appropriate only for small tasks, scope changes can require rewriting code from scratch in a new language. And if the programmer chooses a language with lots of overhead and friction to solve a problem that stays small, it will be harder for other people to use and understand than necessary. Rewriting code that works fine is the single most wasteful thing a programmer can do with their time, but using a bazooka to kill a mosquito instead of a flyswatter isn't good either. Here are some of the ways this characteristic presents itself. Can be used interactively - there is some environment where programmers can enter commands one by one Requires no more than one file - neither project files nor makefiles are required for running in batch mode Can easily split code across multiple files - files can refeence each other, or there is some support for modules Has good support for data structures - supports structures like arrays, lists, and especially classes Supports a wide variety of features - features like networking, serialization, XML, and database connectivity are supported by standard libraries Here's my take on how C#, Python, and shell scripting measure up. Python scores highest. Feature C# Python shell scripting --------------- --------- --------- --------------- Interactive poor strong strong One file poor strong strong Multiple files strong strong moderate Data structures strong strong poor Features strong strong strong Is there a term that captures this idea? If not, what term should I use? Here are some candidates. Scalability - already used to decribe language performance, so it's not a good idea to overload it in the context of language syntax Granularity - expresses the idea of being good just for big tasks versus being good for big and small tasks, but doesn't express anything about data structures Smoothness - expresses the idea of low friction, but doesn't express anything about strength of data structures or features Note: Some of these properties are more correctly described as belonging to a compiler or IDE than the language itself. Please consider these tools collectively as the language environment. My question is about how easy or difficult languages are to use, which depends on the environment as well as the language.

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• After 10 Years, MySQL Still the Right Choice for ScienceLogic's "Best Network Monitoring System on the Planet"

  - by Rebecca Hansen

  ScienceLogic has a pretty fantastic network monitoring appliance.  So good in fact that InfoWorld gave it their "2013 Best Network Monitoring System on the Planet" award.  Inside their "ultraflexible, ultrascalable, carrier-grade" enterprise appliance, ScienceLogic relies on MySQL and has since their start in 2003.  Check out some of the things they've been able to do with MySQL and their reasons for continuing to use MySQL in these highlights from our new MySQL ScienceLogic case study. Science Logic's larger customers use their appliance to monitor and manage  20,000+ devices, each of which generates a steady stream of data and a workload that is 85% write. On a large system, the MySQL database: Averages 8,000 queries every second or about 1 billion queries a day Can reach 175,000 tables and up to 20 million rows in a single table Is 2 terabytes on average and up to 6 terabytes "We told our customers they could add more and more devices. With MySQL, we haven't had any problems. When our customers have problems, we get calls. Not getting calls is a huge benefit." Matt Luebke, ScienceLogic Chief Software Architect.? ScienceLogic was approached by a number of Big Data / NoSQL vendors, but decided against using a NoSQL-only solution. Said Matt, "There are times when you really need SQL. NoSQL can't show me the top 10 users of CPU, or show me the bottom ten consumer of hard disk. That's why we weren't interested in changing and why we are very interested in MySQL 5.6. It's great that it can do relational and key-value using memcached." The ScienceLogic team is very cautious about putting only very stable technology into their product, and according to Matt, MySQL has been very stable: "We've been using MySQL for 10 years and we have never had any reliability problems. Ever." ScienceLogic now uses SSDs for their write-intensive appliance and that change alone has helped them achieve a 5x performance increase. Learn more>> ScienceLogic MySQL Case Study MySQL 5.6 InnoDB Compression options for better SSD performance Tuning MySQL 5.6 for Great Product Performance - on demand webinar Developer and DBA Guide to MySQL 5.6 white paper Guide to MySQL and NoSQL: The Best of Both Worlds white paper

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• WPF: Reloading app parts to handle persistence as well as memory management.

  - by Ingó Vals

  I created a app using Microsoft's WPF. It mostly handles data reading and input as well as associating relations between data within specific parameters. As a total beginner I made some bad design decision ( not so much decisions as using the first thing I got to work ) but now understanding WPF better I'm getting the urge to refactor my code with better design principles. I had several problems but I guess each deserves it's own question for clarity. Here I'm asking for proper ways to handle the data itself. In the original I wrapped each row in a object when fetched from database ( using LINQ to SQL ) somewhat like Active Record just not active or persistence (each app instance had it's own data handling part). The app has subunits handling different aspects. However as it was setup it loaded everything when started. This creates several problems, for example often it wouldn't be neccesary to load a part unless we were specifically going to work with that part so I wan't some form of lazy loading. Also there was problem with inner persistance because you might create a new object/row in one aspect and perhaps set relation between it and different object but the new object wouldn't appear until the program was restarted. Persistance between instances of the app won't be huge problem because of the small amount of people using the program. While I could solve this now using dirty tricks I would rather refactor the program and do it elegantly, Now the question is how. I know there are several ways and a few come to mind: 1) Each aspect of the program is it's own UserControl that get's reloaded/instanced everytime you navigate to it. This ensures you only load up the data you need and you get some persistancy. DB server located on same LAN and tables are small so that shouldn't be a big problem. Minor drawback is that you would have to remember the state of each aspect so you wouldn't always start at beginners square. 2) Having a ViewModel type object at the base level of the app with lazy loading and some kind of timeout. I would then propegate this object down the visual tree to ensure every aspect is getting it's data from the same instance 3) Semi active record data layer with static load methods. 4) Some other idea What in your opinion is the most practical way in WPF, what does MVVM assume?

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• How to implement efficient Fog of War?

  - by Cambrano

  I've asked a question how to implement Fog Of War(FOW) with shaders. Well I've got this working. I use the vertex color to identify the alpha of a single vertex. I guess the most of you know what the FOW of Age of Empires was like, anyway I'll shortly explain it: You have a map. Everything is unexplored(solid black / 100% transparency) at the beginning. When your NPC's / other game units explore the world (by moving around mostly) they unshadow the map. That means. Everything in a specific radius (viewrange) around a NPC is visible (0%transparency). Anything that is out of viewrange but already explored is visible but shadowed (50% transparency). So yeah, AoE had relatively huge maps. Requirements was something around 100mhz etc. So it should be relatively easy to implement something to solve this problem - actually. Okay. I'm currently adding planes above my world and set the color per vertex. Why do I use many planes ? Unity has a vertex limit of 65.000 per mesh. According to the size of my tiles and the size of my map I need more than one plane. So I actually need a lot of planes. This is obviously pita for my FPS. Well so my question is, what are simple (in sense of performance) techniques to implement a FOW shader? Okay some simplified code what I'm doin so far: // Setup for (int x = 0; x < (Map.Dimension/planeSize); x++) { for (int z = 0; z < (Map.Dimension/planeSize); z++) { CreateMeshAt(x*planeSize, 3, z*planeSize) } } // Explore (is called from NPCs when walking for example) for (int x = ((int) from.x - radius); x < from.x + radius; x ++) { for (int z = ((int) from.z - radius); z < from.z + radius; z ++) { if (from.Distance(x, 1, z) > radius) continue; _transparency[x/tileSize, z/tileSize] = 0.5f; } } // Update foreach(GameObject plane in planes){ foreach(Vector3 vertex in vertices){ Vector3 worldPos = GetWorldPos(vertex); vertex.Color = new Color(0,0,0, _transparency[worldPos.x/tileSize, worldPos.z/tileSize]); } } My shader just sets the transparency of the vertex now, which comes from the vertex color channel

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• Will polishing my current project be a better learning experience than starting a new one?

  - by Alejandro Cámara

  I started programming many years ago. Now I'm trying to make games. I have read many recommendations to start cloning some well known games like galaga, tetris, arkanoid, etc. I have also read that I should go for the whole game (including menus, sound, score, etc.). Yesterday I finished the first complete version of my arkanoid clone. But it is far from over. I can still work on it for months (I program as a hobby in my free time) implementing a screen resolution switcher, remap of the control keys, power-ups falling from broken bricks, and a huge etc. But I do not want to be forever learning how to clone ONE game. I have the urge to get to the next clone in order to apply some design ideas I have come upon while developing this arkanoid clone (at the same time I am reading the GoF book and much source code from Ludum Dare 21 game contest). So the question is: Should I keep improving the arkanoid clone until it has all the features the original game had? or should I move to the next clone (there are almost infinite games to clone) and start mending the things I did wrong with the previous clone? This can be a very subjective question, so please restrain the answers to the most effective way to learn how to make my own games (not cloning someone ideas). Thank you! CLARIFICATION In order to clarify what I have implemented I make this list: Features implemented: Bouncing capabilities (the ball bounces on walls, on bricks, and on the bar). Sounds when bouncing on bricks and the bar, and when the player wins or loses. Basic title menu (new game and exit only). Also in-game menu and win/lose menus. Only three levels, but the map system is so easy I do not think it will teach me much (am I wrong?). Features not-implemented: Power-ups when breaking the bricks. Complex bricks (with more than one "hit point" and invincible). Better graphics (I am not really good at it). Programming polishing (use more intensively the design patterns). Here's a link to its (minimal) webpage: http://blog.acamara.es/piperine/ I kind of feel ashamed to show it, so please do not hit me too hard :-) My question was related to the not-implemented features. I wondered what was the fastest (optimal) path to learn. 1) implement the not-implemented features in this project which is getting big, or 2) make a new game which probably will teach me those lessons and new ones. ANSWER I choose @ashes999 answer because, in my case, I think I should polish more and try to "ship" the game. I think all the other answers are also important to bear in mind, so if you came here having the same question, before taking a rush decision read all the discussion. Thank you all!

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• Apprentice Boot Camp in South Africa (Part 1)

  - by Tim Koekkoek

  By Maximilian Michel (DE), Jorge Garnacho (ES), Daniel Maull (UK), Adam Griffiths (UK), Guillermo De Las Nieves (ES), Catriona McGill (UK), Ed Dunlop (UK) The Boot Camp in South Africa was an amazing experience for all of us. The minute we landed, we were made to feel at home from our host Patrick Fitzgerald. The whole family who run the Guest House were also very friendly and always keen to help us. Since we had people from South Africa to show us all the amazing sights and their traditional ways to live their lives, the two weeks were very enjoyable for all of us and we came much closer together as a group. You can read this in the following parts of this report. Enjoy! The first group of Apprentices in Oracle (from left to right): Maximilian Michel (DE), Jorge Garnacho (ES), Daniel Maull (UK), Adam Griffiths (UK), Guillermo De Las Nieves (ES), Catriona McGill (UK), Ed Dunlop (UK) The Training Well, it’s time to talk about the main purpose of our trip to South Africa: the training. Two weeks, two courses. Servers and Storage. Two weeks to learn as much as possible and get the certificate. First week: Eben Pretorius with Servers Boot Camp. Learning about: • Machines: T1000, T2000, T3, T4, M series; • How to connect to the machines: serial and network connections; • Levels of software: ALOM, ILOM, OBP and of course the operating system, Solaris Combined with the practical part (screwdriver in one hand, and antistatic wristband on the other) makes quite a lot of stuff! But fortunately, Eben was able to tell us about everything without making our brains explode. For the second week: Storage Boot Camp with Deon Van Vuuren. Taking a look at the content: • Storage machines; • Connectors and protocols: SCSi, SAS, SATA Fiber Channel. Again, huge amounts of information, but Deon definitely did a great job and helped us learn it all. At the end, there was just one question left. Were we able to pass the exam and get the certificate? Well, what can we say? Just take a closer look at the picture above and make your conclusions! Our lovely Oracle office in Woodmead (near Johannesburg) We are all very proud to receive certification in “Server and Storage Support Fundamentals” together with our trainer Deon Van Vuuren. In summary, in case that you don't remember any of the above, the allies for a field engineer are: • System Handbook • EIS-DVD • A proper toolkit With these tools by our side, we’ll be unbeatable!  In the next article later this week, you can find part 2 of our experiences!

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• Alternatives for comparing data from different databases

  - by Alex

  I have two huge tables on separate databases. One of them has the information of all the SMS that passed through the company's servers while the other one has the information of the actual billing of those SMS. My job is to compare samples of both of these tables (for example, the records between 1 and 2 pm) to see if there are any differences: SMS that were sent but not charged to the user for whatever reason that may be happening. The columns I will be using to compare are the remitent's phone number and the exact date the SMS was sent. An issue here is that dates usually are the same on both sides, but in many cases differ by 1 or 2 seconds. I have, so far, two alternatives to do this: (PL/SQL) Create two tables where i'm going to temporarily store all the records of that 1hour sample. One for each of the main tables. Then, for each distinct phone number, select the time of every SMS sent from that phone from both my temporary tables and start comparing one by one using cursors. In this case, the procedure would be ran on the server where one of the sources is so the contents of the other one would be looked up using a dblink. (sqlplus + c++) Instead of storing the 1hour samples in new tables, output the query to a text file. I will have two text files, one for each source. Then, open the first file and load all of it's content on a hash_map (key-value) using c++, where the key will be the phone number and the value a list of times of SMS sent from that phone. Finally, open the second file, grab each line (in this format: numberX timeX), look for numberX's entry on the hash_map (wich will be a list of times) and then check if timeX is on that list. If it isn't, save it somewhere to finally store it on a "uncharged" table (this would also be the final step on case 1) My main concern is efficiency. These samples have about 2 million records on each source, so just grabbing one record on one side and looking it up on the other would not be possible. That's the reason I wanted to use hash_maps Which do you think is a better option?

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• SQL – Biggest Concerns in a Data-Driven World

  - by Pinal Dave

  The ongoing chaos over Government Agency’s snooping has ignited a heated debate on privacy of personal data and its use by government and/or other institutions. It has created a feeling of disapproval and distrust among users. This incident proves to be a lesson for companies that are looking to leverage their business using a data driven approach. According to analysts, the goal of gathering personal information should be to deliver benefits to both the parties – the user as well as the data collector(government or business). Using data the right way is crucial, and companies need to deploy the right software applications and systems to ensure that their efforts are well-directed. However, there are various issues plaguing analysts regarding available software, which are highlighted below. According to a InformationWeek 2013 Survey of Analytics, Business Intelligence and Information Management where 541 business technology professionals contributed as respondents, it was discovered that the biggest concern was deemed to be the scarcity of expertise and high costs associated with the same. This concern was voiced by as many as 38% of the participants. A close second came out to be the issue of data warehouse appliance platforms being expensive, with 33% of those present believing it to be a huge roadblock. Another revelation made in this respect was that 31% professionals weren’t even sure how Data Analytics can create business opportunities for them. Another 17% shared that they found data platform technologies such as Hadoop and NoSQL technologies hard to learn. These results clearly pointed out that there are awareness and expertise issues that also need much attention. Unless the demand-supply gap of Business Intelligence professionals well versed in data analysis technologies is met, this divide is going to affect how companies make the most of their BI campaigns. One of the key action points that can be taken to salvage the situation, is to provide training on Data Analytics concepts. Koenig Solutions offer courses on many such technologies including a course on MCSE SQL Server 2012: BI Platform. So it’s time to brush up your skills and get down to work in a data driven world that awaits you ahead. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Help needed with pyparsing [closed]

  - by Zearin

  Overview So, I’m in the middle of refactoring a project, and I’m separating out a bunch of parsing code. The code I’m concerned with is pyparsing. I have a very poor understanding of pyparsing, even after spending a lot of time reading through the official documentation. I’m having trouble because (1) pyparsing takes a (deliberately) unorthodox approach to parsing, and (2) I’m working on code I didn’t write, with poor comments, and a non-elementary set of existing grammars. (I can’t get in touch with the original author, either.) Failing Test I’m using PyVows to test my code. One of my tests is as follows (I think this is clear even if you’re unfamiliar with PyVows; let me know if it isn’t): def test_multiline_command_ends(self, topic): output = parsed_input('multiline command ends\n\n',topic) expect(output).to_equal( r'''['multiline', 'command ends', '\n', '\n'] - args: command ends - multiline_command: multiline - statement: ['multiline', 'command ends', '\n', '\n'] - args: command ends - multiline_command: multiline - terminator: ['\n', '\n'] - terminator: ['\n', '\n']''') But when I run the test, I get the following in the terminal: Failed Test Results Expected topic("['multiline', 'command ends']\n- args: command ends\n- command: multiline\n- statement: ['multiline', 'command ends']\n - args: command ends\n - command: multiline") to equal "['multiline', 'command ends', '\\n', '\\n']\n- args: command ends\n- multiline_command: multiline\n- statement: ['multiline', 'command ends', '\\n', '\\n']\n - args: command ends\n - multiline_command: multiline\n - terminator: ['\\n', '\\n']\n- terminator: ['\\n', '\\n']" Note: Since the output is to a Terminal, the expected output (the second one) has extra backslashes. This is normal. The test ran without issue before this piece of refactoring began. Expected Behavior The first line of output should match the second, but it doesn’t. Specifically, it’s not including the two newline characters in that first list object. So I’m getting this: "['multiline', 'command ends']\n- args: command ends\n- command: multiline\n- statement: ['multiline', 'command ends']\n - args: command ends\n - command: multiline" When I should be getting this: "['multiline', 'command ends', '\\n', '\\n']\n- args: command ends\n- multiline_command: multiline\n- statement: ['multiline', 'command ends', '\\n', '\\n']\n - args: command ends\n - multiline_command: multiline\n - terminator: ['\\n', '\\n']\n- terminator: ['\\n', '\\n']" Earlier in the code, there is also this statement: pyparsing.ParserElement.setDefaultWhitespaceChars(' \t') …Which I think should prevent exactly this kind of error. But I’m not sure. Even if the problem can’t be identified with certainty, simply narrowing down where the problem is would be a HUGE help. Please let me know how I might take a step or two towards fixing this.

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• Creating a Strong Bridge to the Post PC World

  - by Webgui

  Moving from location to location requires strong roads.  When crossing a barrier though, like a body of water or valley, we are required to build a strong bridge to get us from point A to point B in a way that is fast, safe, and easy.Yet we are not talking here about driving a car or riding a bus.  As we in the computing world are evidencing the move to the post-PC era, modernizing and migrating legacy applications to harness the power of HTML5 web, cloud and mobile is one of the most difficult challenges enterprises have faced.  Constant technological changes have weakened the business value of legacy systems, which have been developed over the years through huge investments.  There are several risks of course in this move.  Do you choose to simply rewrite code of legacy apps and transform them to HTML5 one by one?  This is quite expensive (according to research firm Gartner, the cost is $6 - $26 per line of code).  Of course, the pace of the rewriting process is very slow – around 170 lines per day for each developer – which slows down business productivity in a world in which no organization can afford to fall behind.  Other questions include whether the new cloud-based apps will have the same functionality as the trusted applications that worked for you for years.  How will the user experience be affected?  And of course, what about data security?  So we are faced with the challenge of building a sturdy bridge to stabilize our move in order to allow us to confidently and easily move our legacy applications into the post-PC era.   We at Gizmox are excited to release the first downloadable Community Technology Preview (CTP) of our Instant CloudMove Transposition Studio.Developers: To download the tool, and try it out for yourself, please visit http://www.visualwebgui.com/download.aspx.The CTP is the first and only tool-based solution allowing any Microsoft Visual Studio developer to extend VB6 and .NET enterprise client/server applications into HTML5 web, cloud and mobile applications, including the ability to upgrade their code and UI while doing so.   It is the only solution to fully replicate enterprise desktop applications behavior in the post-PC era.  With Instant CloudMove, the transposed application is available on any mobile or tablet device, browser and across any client operating system. Moreover, the extended application logic and data remains on the server behind the fire-wall and therefore the application’s front end is secured-by-design.   We would love for you to try out the tool for yourselves and let us know what you think.  How are you finding the move?

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• Visual WebGui's XAML based programming for web developers

  - by Webgui

  While ASP.NET provides an event base approach it is completely dismissed when working with AJAX and the richness of the server is lost and replaced with JavaScript programming and couple with a very high security risk. Visual WebGui reinstates the power of the server to AJAX development and provides a statefull yet scalable, server centric architecture that provides the benefits and user productivity of AJAX with the security and developer productivity we had before AJAX stormed into our lives. "When I first came up with the concept of Visual WebGui , I was frustrated by the fragile and complex nature of developing web applications. The contrast in productivity between working in a fully OOP compiled environment vs. scripting even today, with JQuery, Dojo and such, is still huge. Even today the greatest sponsor of JavaScript programming, Google, is offering a framework to avoid JavaScript using Java that compiles to JavaScript (GWT). So I decided to find a way to abstract the complexity or rather delegate the complex job to enable developers to concentrate on the “What” instead of the “How” and embraced the Form based approach," said Guy Peled the inventor of Visual WebGui. Although traditional OOP development still rules the enterprise, the differences between web sites and web applications have blurred and so did the differences between classic developers and web developers. As a result, we now see declarative languages in desktop / backend development environments (WPF / WF) and we see OOP, gaining more and more power in web development (ASP.NET MVC / ASP.NET DOM). However, what has not changed is enterprise need for security, development ROI, reach, highly responsive and interactive UIs and scalability. The advantages that declarative languages and 'on demand' compilation provide over classic development are mostly the flexibility and a more readable initialize component it offers which is what Gizmox is aspiring to do by replacing the designer initialize component with XAML code. The code in this new project template will be compiled on demand using the build provider mechanism ASP.NET has. This means that the performance hit is only on the first request and after that the performance is the same as a prebuilt solution. This will allow the flexibility of a dynamically updated sites and the power of fully blown enterprise applications over web. You can also use prebuilt features available in ASP.NET to enjoy both worlds in production. VWG XAML implementation (VWG Sites) will be the first truly compliable XAML implementation as Microsoft implemented Silverlight and WPF as a runtime markup interpretation opposed to the ASP.NET markup implementation which is compiled to CLR code once. We have chosen to implement the VWG Sites parser as a different way to create CLR code that provides greater performance over the reflection alternative. VWG Sites will also be the first server side XAML UI engine which, while giving the power of XAML, it will not require any plug-ins or installations on the client side. Short demo video of VWG Sites markup. There is also a live sample available here.

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• How do you manage extensibility in your multi-tenant systems?

  - by Brian MacKay

  I've got a few big web based multi-tenant products now, and very soon I can see that there will be a lot of customizations that are tenant specific. An extra field here or there, maybe an extra page or some extra logic in the middle of a workflow - that sort of thing. Some of these customizations can be rolled into the core product, and that's great. Some of them are highly specific and would get in everyone else's way. I have a few ideas in mind for managing this, but none of them seem to scale well. The obvious solution is to introduce a ton of client-level settings, allowing various 'features' to be enabled on per-client basis. The downside with that, of course, is massive complexity and clutter. You could introduce a truly huge number of settings, and over time various types of logic (presentation, business) could get way out of hand. Then there's the problem of client-specific fields, which begs for something cleaner than just adding a bunch of nullable fields to the existing tables. So what are people doing to manage this? Force.com seems to be the master of extensibility; obviously they've created a platform from the ground up that is super extensible. You can add on to almost anything with their web-based UI. FogBugz did something similiar where they created a robust plugin model that, come to think of it, might have actually been inspired by Force. I know they spent a lot of time and money on it and if I'm not mistaken the intention was to actually use it internally for future product development. Sounds like the kind of thing I could be tempted to build but probably shouldn't. :) Is a massive investment in pluggable architecture the only way to go? How are you managing these problems, and what kind of results are you seeing? EDIT: It does look as though FogBugz handled the problem by building a fairly robust platform and then using that to put together their screens. To extend it you create a DLL containing classes that implement interfaces like ISearchScreenGridColumn, and that becomes a module. I'm sure it was tremendously expensive to build considering that they have a large of devs and they worked on it for months, plus their surface area is perhaps 5% of the size of my application. Right now I am seriously wondering if Force.com is the right way to handle this. And I am a hard core ASP.Net guy, so this is a strange position to find myself in.

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• The Numbers of Customer Experience

  - by Christie Flanagan

  This week, we’ll be continuing our conversations about Customer Experience (CX) on the Oracle WebCenter blog.  While we all know that customer experience is critically important for acquiring new customers and engendering long term brand loyalty, I thought we could kick this week off by taking a look at the numbers of customer experience.   I’m sure you’ll agree that nothing quite puts things into perspective like numbers and figures. A whopping 86% of consumers say that they are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.  But many companies are failing to step up to the challenge.  And when companies fail deliver on customer experience expectations, they leave money on the table. A huge percentage of customers, 89%, begin doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience. Breaking up isn’t hard to do and today’s empowered customers have no qualms about taking their business elsewhere when their expectations for customer experience are not met. Over a quarter of consumers, 26%, posted a negative comment on a social networking site like Facebook or Twitter following a poor customer experience. Today, individual customer service failures have the ability to easily snowball.  An unsatisfied customer has the ability to easily share their rancor with their entire social network and chip away at your brand’s reputation. A large number of consumers, 79%,  who shared complaints about poor customer experience online had their complaints ignored.  Companies ignore customer complaints at their own peril.  And unsatisfied customers, when handled effectively, have the potential to become advocates for your brand.  Of the 21% of consumers who did get responses to complaints, more than half had positive reactions to the same company about which they were previously complaining. Half of consumers will give a brand only a week to respond to a question before they stop doing business with them.  The clock is ticking when customers have questions about your brand and a week is an eternity in the realm of customer experience.  The source for these stats is the 2011 Customer Experience Impact (CEI) Report, which explores the relationship between consumers and brands.  The report is based on a survey commissioned by RightNow (acquired by Oracle in 2012) and conducted by Harris Interactive. If you’re interested in seeing more facts and figures about customer experience, download the full report.

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• Where can I hire local programmers with very specific skillsets?

  - by Lostsoul

  I have been browsing the site and haven't found a exact fit to this question so I'll post it but if its already answered(since I'm sure its a common problem, then let me know). I have a business and want to create a totally different product in a different industry than I'm currently in, so I learned how to program and created a working prototype. I have a bit of savings and am getting some cash flow from my current business so I can go out and hire a developer(in the future hopefully it can be permenant but right now I just need a person willing to work on contract and code on weekends or their spare time and I just want to pay in cash instead of equity or future promises). At first I wasn't sure what kind of developer to hire but this question helped me understand I should target specific skills I need as opposed to general programmers. This poses a problem for me since general programmers are everywhere but if I want specific skills I'm unsure how to get them. I thought about a list of approaches but it doesn't feel complete or effective since it seems to be assuming good developers are actively looking. If it helps I want someone local(since this is my first developer hire) and looking for skills like cuda, hadoop, hbase, java and c. Any suggestions? As a FYI, I have been thinking of approaching it as: Go to meet ups for one or more skills I need. Use LinkedIn to find people with the skills I need Search for job postings that contain skills I need and then use linkedIn to reach out to that firms employees since many profiles on linkedin are not very updated or detailed but job postings generally are. Send postings to universities and maybe find a student who loves technology so much they learned these tools on their own. Post on job board. Not sure how successful it will be to post to monster. Use Craigslist, not sure if a highly skilled developer would go here for work. What am I missing? I could be wrong but it seems like good/smart/able developers aren't hunting for work non-stop(especially in this tech job market). Plus most successful people I know have work/life balance so I'm not sure if the best ones really care about code after work. Lastly, most of the skills I need aren't used in big corporations so not sure how aggressively smart developers at small shops look for work. I don’t really know any developers personally, so but should I be using the above plan or if they live balanced lives should I be looking outside of the regular resources(and instead focus on asking around my gym or my accountant or something)? Sorry, I'm making huge assumptions here, I guess because developers are a total mystery to me. I kind of wish Jane Goodall wrote a book on understanding developers social behaviour better :-p

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• MSCC: Global Windows Azure Bootcamp - 29th March 2014

  The Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community proudly presents you the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 in Mauritius. Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 in Mauritius - MSCC together with Microsoft, Ceridian and Emtel We are very happy and excited about our participation in this global event and would like to draw your attention to the official invitation letter below. Please sign up and RSVP on the official website of the MSCC. Participation is for free! Call for action Please create more awareness of this event in Mauritius and use the hash tag #gwabmru as well as the shortened link: http://aka.ms/gwabmru And remember: Sharing is Caring! Official invitation letter to the GWAB 2014 in Mauritius With over 130 confirmed locations around the globe, the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp is going to be a truly memorable event - and now here's your chance to take part! In April of 2013 we held the first Global Windows Azure Bootcamp at more than 90 locations around the globe! This year we want to again offer up a one day deep dive class to help thousands of people get up to speed on discovering Cloud Computing Applications for Windows Azure. In addition to this great learning opportunity the hands on labs will feature pooling a huge global compute farm to perform diabetes research! In Mauritius, the event will be organised by Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands & French Pacific in partnership with The Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC) and sponsored by Microsoft, Ceridian and Emtel. What do I need to bring?  You will need to bring your own computer which can run Visual Studio 2012 or 2013 (i.e. Windows, OSX, Ubuntu with virtualization, etc.) and have it preloaded with the following: Visual Studio 2012 or 2013 The Windows Azure SDK - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/ Optionally (or if you will not be doing just .NET labs), the following can also be installed: Node.js SDK - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/nodejs/ JAVA SDK - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/java/ Doing mobile? Android? iOS? Windows Phone or Windows 8? - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/ PHP - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/php/ More info here: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation Important: Please do the installation upfront as there will be very little time to troubleshoot installations during the day.  

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• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Marvel

  - by me

  Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryMarvel Entertainment, LLC (Marvel) is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of over 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years. The customer wanted to optimize their brand licensing process, so Marvel worked with Oracle WebCenter partner Fishbowl Solutions and implemented a centralized Content Hub based on Oracle WebCenter Content. The 100% web based secure Intranet/Partner Extranet solution is now managing the entire life cycle of the brand licensing process. Marvel and their brand licensees have  now complete visibility of brand license operations including the history of approval request and related content.  Company OverviewMarvel Entertainment, LLC (Marvel) a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of over 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years.  Marvel utilizes its character franchises in entertainment, licensing and publishing.   Sample  characters:    - Spider-Man    - Iron Man    - Captain America    - X-MEN    - Thor    - Avengers    - And a host of others  Business ChallengesMarvel wanted to optimize their brand licensing process for their characters and had following business requirements : Facilitating content worldwide Scalable and flexible infrastructure to manage multiple content types and huge file sizes Optimize the licensing process workflow trough automatic notifications, tracking reviews, issuing approvals, etc. Solution DeployedMarvel worked with Oracle WebCenter partner Fishbowl Solutions and implemented a centralized Content Hub based on Oracle WebCenter Content. The 100% web based secure Intranet/Partner Extranet solution is now managing the entire life cycle of the brand licensing process. The internal users can now manage all digital assets related to a character trough proper categorization of all items, workflow based review and approval of branding styles and a powerful search and retrieval service. The licensees of Marvel brands can now online develop and submit  concepts and prototypes which are reviewed and approved using a collaborative process. Business ResultMarvel and their brand licensees have now complete visibility of brand license operations including the history of approval request and related content. The character brand related content is now in the right place, at the right time at the user's fingertips with highly improved quality. Additional Information Marvel Open World Presentation Oracle WebCenter Content

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• NVIDIA 550M Drivers

  - by DOOM

  First to say, I am newbie, to the linux world and in situation where i have to get used to using ubuntu. My system is: i7-2630QM 8GB Ram with 750GB HD + NVIDIa 550M (1GB) Since i was facing problems with wubi - "slow Ubuntu", i installed it on a separate partition, of 80GB (10GB Swap, 40GB HOME, 30GB ROOT). The system was running fine, before I started using some "CFD" (Graphics Dependent) application. I needed to use "paraview" a graphics software, to design some engineering stuff. Following the installation problems, i installed something called "messa" on my system. The software works but, now my system is "dead-slow". Even with the computer at an idle state, the laptop, is pretty slow, and with huge annoying fan noise. I was tried running some similar applications with windows, and it turns out that its not a hardware, but has to do with the GPU drivers. Following some forums, I installed the "nvidia-current" and now everything is the same. I know, there are many solutions on this forum for nvidia-driver updates, but as you see, nothings working my way. Please someone, tell me what is that I am doing wrong :( This is the output from my terminal for the command lspci | grep 'intel' 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port (rev 09) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 05) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b5) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev b5) 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b5) 00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev b5) 00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev b5) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 05) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM67 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 05) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 05) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05) 03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1030 (rev 34)

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• Office 2010 Professional Plus (Top 10 reasons to upgrade)

  - by mbcrump

  Being a huge nerd, I decided that I would go ahead and upgrade to the latest and greatest office. That being, Office 2010 Professional Plus. The biggest concern that I had was loosing all my mail settings from Outlook 2007. Thankfully, it upgrade gracefully and worked like a charm. So lets start this top 10 list. 1) You can upgrade without fear of loosing all your stuff! As you can tell by the screenshot below, you can select what you want to do. I selected to remove all previous versions.    2) Outlook conversations: Just like GMail, you can now group emails by conversations. This is simply awesome and a must have. 3) The ability to ignore conversations. If you are on a email thread that has nothing to do with you. Simply “ignore” the conversation and all emails go into the deleted folder. 4) Quick Steps, do you send an email to the same team member or group constantly. With quick steps, its just one click away. 5) Spell check in the Subject line! 6)  Easier Screenshots, built in just click the button. No more ALT-Printscreen for those that are not aware of the awesome SnagIT 10 that's out. 7) Open in protected view. When you open a document from an email attachment, it lets you know the file may be unsafe. You can click a button to enable editing. This is great for preventing macros.       8) Excel has always had a variety of charts and graphs available to visually depict data and trends. With Excel 2010, though, Microsoft has added a new feature called Sparklines, which allows you to place a mini-graph or trend line in a single cell. The Sparklines are a cool way to quickly and simply add a visual element without having to go through the effort of inserting a graph or chart that overwhelms the worksheet. 9) Contact actions. If you hover over a name in the form or fields on an email, you get a popup giving you several actions you can perform on the person such as adding them to your Outlook contacts, scheduling a meeting, viewing their stored contact information if they are already in your contacts, sending an instant message or even starting a telephone call. 10) Windows 7 Task Bar Context Menu – I love the jumplist. I don’t know how much that I would actually use it but it just rocks.

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