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• Oracle RightNow CX for Good Customer Experiences

  - by Andreea Vaduva

  Oracle RightNow CX is all about the customer experience, it’s about understanding what drives a good interaction and it’s about delivering a solution which works for our customers and by extension, their customers. One of the early guiding principles of Oracle RightNow was an 8-point strategy to providing good customer experiences. Establish a knowledge foundation Empowering the customer Empower employees Offer multi-channel choice Listen to the customer Design seamless experiences Engage proactively Measure and improve continuously The application suite provides all of the tools necessary to deliver a rewarding, repeatable and measurable relationship between business and customer. The Knowledge Authoring tool provides gap analysis, WYSIWIG editing (and includes HTML rich content for non-developers), multi-level categorisation, permission based publishing and Web self-service publishing. Oracle RightNow Customer Portal, is a complete web application framework that enables businesses to control their own end-user page branding experience, which in turn will allow customers to self-serve. The Contact Centre Experience Designer builds a combination of workspaces, agent scripting and guided assistances into a Desktop Workflow. These present an agent with the tools they need, at the time they need them, providing even the newest and least experienced advisors with consistently accurate and efficient information, whilst guiding them through the complexities of internal business processes. Oracle RightNow provides access points for customers to feedback about specific knowledge articles or about the support site in general. The system will generate ‘incidents’ based on the scoring of the comments submitted. This makes it easy to view and respond to customer feedback. It is vital, more now than ever, not to under-estimate the power of the social web – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – they have the ability to cause untold amounts of damage to businesses with a single post – witness musician Dave Carroll and his protest song on YouTube, posted in response to poor customer services from an American airline. The first day saw 150,000 views and is currently at 12,011,375. The Times reported that within 4 days of the post, the airline’s stock price fell by 10 percent, which represented a cost to shareholders of $180 million dollars. It is a universally acknowledged fact, that when customers are unhappy, they will not come back, and, generally speaking, it only takes one bad experience to lose a customer. The idea that customer loyalty can be regained by using social media channels was the subject of a 2011 Survey commissioned by RightNow and conducted by Harris Interactive. The survey discovered that 68% of customers who posted a negative review about a holiday on a social networking site received a response from the business. It further found that 33% subsequently posted a positive review and 34% removed the original negative review. Cloud Monitor provides the perfect mechanism for seeing what is being said about a business on public Facebook pages, Twitter or YouTube posts; it allows agents to respond proactively – either by creating an Oracle RightNow incident or by using the same channel as the original post. This leaves step 8 – Measuring and Improving: How does a business know whether it’s doing the right thing? How does it know if its customers are happy? How does it know if its staff are being productive? How does it know if its staff are being effective? Cue Oracle RightNow Analytics – fully integrated across the entire platform – Service, Marketing and Sales – there are in excess of 800 standard reports. If this were not enough, a large proportion of the database has been made available via the administration console, allowing users without any prior database experience to write their own reports, format them and schedule them for e-mail delivery to a distribution list. It handles the complexities of table joins, and allows for the manipulation of data with ease. Oracle RightNow believes strongly in the customer owning their solution, and to provide the best foundation for success, Oracle University can give you the RightNow knowledge and skills you need. This is a selection of the courses offered: RightNow Customer Service Administration Rel 12.02 (3 days) Available as In Class and Live Virtual Class (Release 11.11 is available as In Class, Live Virtual Class and Training On Demand) This course familiarises users with the tasks and concepts needed to configure and maintain their system. RightNow Customer Portal Designer and Contact Center Experience Designer Administration Rel 12.02 (2 days) Available as In Class and Live Virtual Class (Release 11.11 is available as In Class, Live Virtual Class and Training On Demand) This course introduces basic CP structure and how to make changes to the look, feel and behaviour of their self-service pages RightNow Analytics Rel 12.02 (2 days) Available as In Class, Live Virtual Class and Training On Demand (Release 11.11 is available as In Class and Live Virtual Class) This course equips users with the skills necessary to understand data supplied by standard reports and to create custom reports RightNow Integration and Customization For Developers Rel 12.02 (5-days) Available as In Class and Live Virtual Class (Release 11.11 is available as In Class, Live Virtual Class and Training On Demand) This course is for experienced web developers and offers an introduction to Add-In development using the Desktop Add-In Framework and introduces the core knowledge that developers need to begin integrating Oracle RightNow CX with other systems A full list of courses offered can be found on the Oracle University website. For more information and course dates please get in contact with your local Oracle University team. On top of the Service components, the suite also provides marketing tools, complex survey creation and tracking and sales functionality. I’m a fan of the application, and I think I’ve made that clear: It’s completely geared up to providing customers with support at point of need. It can be configured to meet even the most stringent of business requirements. Oracle RightNow is passionate about, and committed to, providing the best customer experience possible. Oracle RightNow CX is the application that makes it possible. About the Author: Sarah Anderson worked for RightNow for 4 years in both in both a consulting and training delivery capacity. She is now a Senior Instructor with Oracle University, delivering the following Oracle RightNow courses: RightNow Customer Service Administration RightNow Analytics RightNow Customer Portal Designer and Contact Center Experience Designer Administration RightNow Marketing and Feedback

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• 5 Android Keyboard Replacements to Help You Type Faster

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Android allows developers to replace its keyboard with their own keyboard apps. This has led to experimentation and great new features, like the gesture-typing feature that’s made its way into Android’s official keyboard after proving itself in third-party keyboards. This sort of customization isn’t possible on Apple’s iOS or even Microsoft’s modern Windows environments. Installing a third-party keyboard is easy — install it from Google Play, launch it like another app, and it will explain how to enable it. Google Keyboard Google Keyboard is Android’s official keyboard, as seen on Google’s Nexus devices. However, there’s a good chance your Android smartphone or tablet comes with a keyboard designed by its manufacturer instead. You can install the Google Keyboard from Google Play, even if your device doesn’t come with it. This keyboard offers a wide variety of features, including a built-in gesture-typing feature, as popularized by Swype. It also offers prediction, including full next-word prediction based on your previous word, and includes voice recognition that works offline on modern versions of Android. Google’s keyboard may not offer the most accurate swiping feature or the best autocorrection, but it’s a great keyboard that feels like it belongs in Android. SwiftKey SwiftKey costs $4, although you can try it free for one month. In spite of its price, many people who rarely buy apps have been sold on SwiftKey. It offers amazing auto-correction and word-prediction features. Just mash away on your touch-screen keyboard, typing as fast as possible, and SwiftKey will notice your mistakes and type what you actually meant to type. SwiftKey also now has built-in support for gesture-typing via SwiftKey Flow, so you get a lot of flexibility. At $4, SwiftKey may seem a bit pricey, but give the month-long trial a try. A great keyboard makes all the typing you do everywhere on your phone better. SwiftKey is an amazing keyboard if you tap-to-type rather than swipe-to-type. Swype While other keyboards have copied Swype’s swipe-to-type feature, none have completely matched its accuracy. Swype has been designing a gesture-typing keyboard for longer than anyone else and its gesture feature still seems more accurate than its competitors’ gesture support. If you use gesture-typing all the time, you’ll probably want to use Swype. Swype can now be installed directly from Google Play without the old, tedious process of registering a beta account and sideloading the Swype app. Swype offers a month-long free trial and the full version is available for $1 afterwards. Minuum Minuum is a crowdfunded keyboard that is currently still in beta and only supports English. We include it here because it’s so interesting — it’s a great example of the kind of creativity and experimentation that happens when you allow developers to experiment with their own forms of keyboard. Minuum uses a tiny, minimum keyboard that frees up your screen space, so your touch-screen keyboard doesn’t hog your device’s screen. Rather than displaying a full keyboard on your screen, Minuum displays a single row of letters.  Each letter is small and may be difficult to hit, but that doesn’t matter — Minuum’s smart autocorrection algorithms interpret what you intended to type rather than typing the exact letters you press. Just swipe to the right to type a space and accept Minuum’s suggestion. At $4 for a beta version with no trial, Minuum may seem a bit pricy. But it’s a great example of the flexibility Android allows. If there’s a problem with this keyboard, it’s that it’s a bit late — in an age of 5″ smartphones with 1080p screens, full-size keyboards no longer feel as cramped. MessagEase MessagEase is another example of a new take on text input. Thankfully, this keyboard is available for free. MessagEase presents all letters in a nine-button grid. To type a common letter, you’d tap the button. To type an uncommon letter, you’d tap the button, hold down, and swipe in the appropriate direction. This gives you large buttons that can work well as touch targets, especially when typing with one hand. Like any other unique twist on a traditional keyboard, you’d have to give it a few minutes to get used to where the letters are and the new way it works. After giving it some practice, you may find this is a faster way to type on a touch-screen — especially with one hand, as the targets are so large. Google Play is full of replacement keyboards for Android phones and tablets. Keyboards are just another type of app that you can swap in. Leave a comment if you’ve found another great keyboard that you prefer using. Image Credit: Cheon Fong Liew on Flickr     

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• When is my View too smart?

  - by Kyle Burns

  In this posting, I will discuss the motivation behind keeping View code as thin as possible when using patterns such as MVC, MVVM, and MVP.  Once the motivation is identified, I will examine some ways to determine whether a View contains logic that belongs in another part of the application.  While the concepts that I will discuss are applicable to most any pattern which favors a thin View, any concrete examples that I present will center on ASP.NET MVC. Design patterns that include a Model, a View, and other components such as a Controller, ViewModel, or Presenter are not new to application development.  These patterns have, in fact, been around since the early days of building applications with graphical interfaces.  The reason that these patterns emerged is simple – the code running closest to the user tends to be littered with logic and library calls that center around implementation details of showing and manipulating user interface widgets and when this type of code is interspersed with application domain logic it becomes difficult to understand and much more difficult to adequately test.  By removing domain logic from the View, we ensure that the View has a single responsibility of drawing the screen which, in turn, makes our application easier to understand and maintain. I was recently asked to take a look at an ASP.NET MVC View because the developer reviewing it thought that it possibly had too much going on in the view.  I looked at the .CSHTML file and the first thing that occurred to me was that it began with 40 lines of code declaring member variables and performing the necessary calculations to populate these variables, which were later either output directly to the page or used to control some conditional rendering action (such as adding a class name to an HTML element or not rendering another element at all).  This exhibited both of what I consider the primary heuristics (or code smells) indicating that the View is too smart: Member variables – in general, variables in View code are an indication that the Model to which the View is being bound is not sufficient for the needs of the View and that the View has had to augment that Model.  Notable exceptions to this guideline include variables used to hold information specifically related to rendering (such as a dynamically determined CSS class name or the depth within a recursive structure for indentation purposes) and variables which are used to facilitate looping through collections while binding. Arithmetic – as with member variables, the presence of arithmetic operators within View code are an indication that the Model servicing the View is insufficient for its needs.  For example, if the Model represents a line item in a sales order, it might seem perfectly natural to “normalize” the Model by storing the quantity and unit price in the Model and multiply these within the View to show the line total.  While this does seem natural, it introduces a business rule to the View code and makes it impossible to test that the rounding of the result meets the requirement of the business without executing the View.  Within View code, arithmetic should only be used for activities such as incrementing loop counters and calculating element widths. In addition to the two characteristics of a “Smart View” that I’ve discussed already, this View also exhibited another heuristic that commonly indicates to me the need to refactor a View and make it a bit less smart.  That characteristic is the existence of Boolean logic that either does not work directly with properties of the Model or works with too many properties of the Model.  Consider the following code and consider how logic that does not work directly with properties of the Model is just another form of the “member variable” heuristic covered earlier: @if(DateTime.Now.Hour < 12) {     <div>Good Morning!</div> } else {     <div>Greetings</div> } This code performs business logic to determine whether it is morning.  A possible refactoring would be to add an IsMorning property to the Model, but in this particular case there is enough similarity between the branches that the entire branching structure could be collapsed by adding a Greeting property to the Model and using it similarly to the following: <div>@Model.Greeting</div> Now let’s look at some complex logic around multiple Model properties: @if (ModelPageNumber + Model.NumbersToDisplay == Model.PageCount         || (Model.PageCount != Model.CurrentPage             && !Model.DisplayValues.Contains(Model.PageCount))) {     <div>There's more to see!</div> } In this scenario, not only is the View code difficult to read (you shouldn’t have to play “human compiler” to determine the purpose of the code), but it also complex enough to be at risk for logical errors that cannot be detected without executing the View.  Conditional logic that requires more than a single logical operator should be looked at more closely to determine whether the condition should be evaluated elsewhere and exposed as a single property of the Model.  Moving the logic above outside of the View and exposing a new Model property would simplify the View code to: @if(Model.HasMoreToSee) {     <div>There’s more to see!</div> } In this posting I have briefly discussed some of the more prominent heuristics that indicate a need to push code from the View into other pieces of the application.  You should now be able to recognize these symptoms when building or maintaining Views (or the Models that support them) in your applications.

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• From Pocket to Instapaper

  - by Michael Freidgeim

  Some time ago I’ve described the issues that I’ve had since a new version of Read It Later, named Pocket, was introduced.I’ve waited with hope for a new upgrade, but I had a huge disappointment with the latest version 16 June 2012. It didn’t fixed any of the two major problems, that I  experienced since new Pocket was introduced-  1. iPad app still didn’t show many of the saved links. 2. ability to rename articles on iPad still wasn’t restored.I’ve posted the message into their forum. They did not show my comment on their forum( I would name it censorship, not moderation), but a few days ago I’ve received an email, recommending “try logging out of the app on your iPad, and back in again.” Their suggestion helped,  but I don’t understand, why it is not posted as a recommendation on their support site.So I decided to try InstAPaper on my iPad, Previously I’ve used it for Kindle. I never considered it before on iPad, because there were no free demo and I was very satisfied with RIL free and then RIL Pro. Currently InstAPaper cost $3, so the price is not an issue.I’ve checked that it has most of features that I am using(e.g. renaming, folders) and I am quite happy with it now. Actually I am using Pocket (or RIL free) for old bookmarks( I have 1000+ stored on my iPad) and for new bookmarks I am using InstAPaper.Having a solid experience with RIL/Pocket I’ve created a list of suggestions to Marco Arment to implement.1. Some pages stored in InstAPaper have removed essential sections of the text. E.g in many blogs comments are not stored in  InstAPaper. Some pages lost almost all of important links (e.g. http://www.lib.rus.ec/a/32416 -sorry, in Russian). RIL/Pocket has 2 modes to store offline- Web view and Article view. Web View includes all links/images of the original page, but it’s very reliable. Article view suppose to strip unrelated information, but often corrupts the content. I prefer to use offline Web view.InstAPaper should also support offline Web view, in case if stripped view removes important part of content.2.  Black full screen Saving on iPad Safari is very annoying. After user pressed a bookmark, the saving has some delay and then for a few seconds prevents from reading the text.Would be better to show as message on the top part(as in Pocket ). I am surprised, that  a full screen popup was  implemented recently as a desired feature. 3.There are no comments allowed on http://blog.instapaper.com/. I would prefer to post some of these notes as comments on http://blog.instapaper.com/ rather than write them in my blog and then send link to Marco.(I found recommendation how to add support of comments on tumblr at http://www.tumblr.com/help, but then realized that Marko was the lead developer ofTumblr.)4. Also there is no support forum. I understand that maintenance of the forum ican be a hassle, but stackexchange fSome time ago I’ve described the issues that I’ve had since a new version of Read It Later, named Pocket, was introduced.I’ve waited with hope for a new upgrade, but I had a huge disappointment with the latest version 16 June 2012. It didn’t fixed any of the two major problems, that I  experienced since new Pocket was introduced- orums can be referred on  http://www.instapaper.com/main/support page, i.e.http://webapps.stackexchange.com/search?q=Instapaper  or http://apple.stackexchange.com/search?q=Instapaper 5. Tags are more convenient than folders. i.e. an ability for the same article to have more than one tag. Also creating of new folders is not supported offline, which is an annoying limitation.6. I would like to have a narrow list - additionally to existing list modes have a subject only list or subject+site list to show more list items on a screen.7. Limit of 500 offline articles sounds quite big, but my RIL list exceeded 1000, so it could be a issue in the future.8. Search button on iPad version is visible, but doesn’t work- it forces to buy Premium subscription. I think, that it’s not correct. If the button in a paid version is visible and enabled, it should  provide  a working functionality, e.g. search in article names only. And leave full-text search for the premium support.9..Copy URL is an important operation and deserves to be in a first level of Action menu, rather than in Share sub-menu.I’ve also have comment re post http://www.marco.org/2011/04/28/removed-instapaper-free. Marco Arment  explained, why he doesn’t provide free version of Instapaper.  I believe that he is loosing essential part of his customers. When I decided which of iPad application to choose, I’ve selected RIL, because I was able to play with free version, and I liked it. I didn’t have a chance to compare RIL and InstAPaper on iPad, so I’ve bought  RIL pro. For a user there is no point to pay even $3 , if there are similar free product, that user can try and see, is it suitable for him/her.I’ve also played with Readability. It doesn’t have folders or tags(which is very important for me), but nicely supports full text search

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• Keep a programming language backwards compatible vs. fixing its flaws

  - by Radu Murzea

  First, some context (stuff that most of you know anyway): Every popular programming language has a clear evolution, most of the time marked by its version: you have Java 5, 6, 7 etc., PHP 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 etc. Releasing a new version makes new APIs available, fixes bugs, adds new features, new frameworks etc. So all in all: it's good. But what about the language's (or platform's) problems? If and when there's something wrong in a language, developers either avoid it (if they can) or they learn to live with it. Now, the developers of those languages get a lot of feedback from the programmers that use them. So it kind of makes sense that, as time (and version numbers) goes by, the problems in those languages will slowly but surely go away. Well, not really. Why? Backwards compatibility, that's why. But why is this so? Read below for a more concrete situation. The best way I can explain my question is to use PHP as an example: PHP is loved thousands of people and hated by just as many thousands. All languages have flaws, but apparently PHP is special. Check out this blog post. It has a very long list of so called flaws in PHP. Now, I'm not a PHP developer (not yet), but I read through all of it and I'm sure that a big chunk of that list are indeed real issues. (Not all of it, since it's potentially subjective). Now, if I was one of the guys who actively develops PHP, I would surely want to fix those problems, one by one. However, if I do that, then code that relies on a particular behaviour of the language will break if it runs on the new version. Summing it up in 2 words: backwards compatibility. What I don't understand is: why should I keep PHP backwards compatible? If I release PHP version 8 with all those problems fixed, can't I just put a big warning on it saying: "Don't run old code on this version !"? There is a thing called deprecation. We had it for years and it works. In the context of PHP: look at how these days people actively discourage the use of the mysql_* functions (and instead recommend mysqli_* and PDO). Deprecation works. We can use it. We should use it. If it works for functions, why shouldn't it work for entire languages? Let's say I (the developer of PHP) do this: Launch a new version of PHP (let's say 8) with all of those flaws fixed New projects will start using that version, since it's much better, clearer, more secure etc. However, in order not to abandon older versions of PHP, I keep releasing updates to it, fixing security issues, bugs etc. This makes sense for reasons that I'm not listing here. It's common practice: look for example at how Oracle kept updating version 5.1.x of MySQL, even though it mostly focused on version 5.5.x. After about 3 or 4 years, I stop updating old versions of PHP and leave them to die. This is fine, since in those 3 or 4 years, most projects will have switched to PHP 8 anyway. My question is: Do all these steps make sense? Would it be so hard to do? If it can be done, then why isn't it done? Yes, the downside is that you break backwards compatibility. But isn't that a price worth paying ? As an upside, in 3 or 4 years you'll have a language that has 90 % of its problems fixed.... a language much more pleasant to work with. Its name will ensure its popularity. EDIT: OK, so I didn't expressed myself correctly when I said that in 3 or 4 years people will move to the hypothetical PHP 8. What I meant was: in 3 or 4 years, people will use PHP 8 if they start a new project.

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• My Feelings About Microsoft Surface

  - by Valter Minute

  Advice: read the title carefully, I’m talking about “feelings” and not about advanced technical points proved in a scientific and objective way I still haven’t had a chance to play with a MS Surface tablet (I would love to, of course) and so my ideas just came from reading different articles on the net and MS official statements. Remember also that the MVP motto begins with “Independent” (“Independent Experts. Real World Answers.”) and this is just my humble opinion about a product and a technology. I know that, being an MS MVP you can be called an “MS-fanboy”, I don’t care, I hope that people can appreciate my opinion, even if it doesn’t match theirs. The “Surface” brand can be confusing for techies that knew the “original” surface concept but I think that will be a fresh new brand name for most of the people out there. But marketing department are here to confuse people… so I can understand this “recycle” of an existing name. So Microsoft is entering the hardware arena… for me this is good news. Microsoft developed some nice hardware in the past: the xbox, zune (even if the commercial success was quite limited) and, last but not least, the two arc mices (old and new model) that I use and appreciate. In the past Microsoft worked with OEMs and that model lead to good and bad things. Good thing (for microsoft, at least) is market domination by windows-based PCs that only in the last years has been reduced by the return of the Mac and tablets. Google is also moving in the hardware business with its acquisition of Motorola, and Apple leveraged his control of both the hardware and software sides to develop innovative products. Microsoft can scare OEMs and make them fly away from windows (but where?) or just lead the pack, showing how devices should be designed to compete in the market and bring back some of the innovation that disappeared from recent PC products (look at the shelves of your favorite electronics store and try to distinguish a laptop between the huge mass of anonymous PCs on displays… only Macs shine out there…). Having to compete with MS “official” hardware will force OEMs to develop better product and bring back some real competition in a market that was ruled only by prices (the lower the better even when that means low quality) and no innovative features at all (when it was the last time that a new PC surprised you?). Moving into a new market is a big and risky move, but with Windows 8 Microsoft is playing a crucial move for its future, trying to be back in the innovation run against apple and google. MS can’t afford to fail this time. I saw the new devices (the WinRT and Pro) and the specifications are scarce, misleading and confusing. The first impression is that the device looks like an iPad with a nice keyboard cover… Using “HD” and “full HD” to define display resolution instead of using the real figures and reviving the “ClearType” brand (now dead on Win8 as reported here and missed by people who hate to read text on displays, like myself) without providing clear figures (couldn’t you count those damned pixels?) seems to imply that MS was caught by surprise by apple recent “retina” displays that brought very high definition screens on tablets.Also there are no specifications about the processors used (even if some sources report NVidia Tegra for the ARM tablet and i5 for the x86 one) and expected battery life (a critical point for tablets and the point that killed Windows7 x86 based tablets). Also nothing about the price, and this will be another critical point because other platform out there already provide lots of applications and have a good user base, if MS want to enter this market tablets pricing must be competitive. There are some expansion ports (SD and USB), so no fixed storage model (even if the specs talks about 32-64GB for RT and 128-256GB for pro). I like this and don’t like the apple model where flash memory (that it’s dirt cheap used in thumdrives or SD cards) is as expensive as gold (or cocaine to have a more accurate per gram measurement) when mounted inside a tablet/phone. For big files you’ll be able to use external media and an SD card could be used to store files that don’t require super-fast SSD-like access times, I hope. To be honest I really don’t like the marketplace model and the limitation of Windows RT APIs (no local database? from a company that based a good share of its success on VB6+Access!) and lack of desktop support on the ARM (even if the support is here and has been used to port office). It’s a step toward the consumer market (where competitors are making big money), but may impact enterprise (and embedded) users that may not appreciate Windows 8 new UI or the limitations of the new app model (if you aren’t connected you are dead ). Not having compatibility with the desktop will require brand new applications and honestly made all the CPU cycles spent to convert .NET IL into real machine code in the past like a huge waste of time… as soon as a new processor architecture is supported by Windows you still have to rewrite part of your application (and MS is pushing HTML5+JS and native code more than .NET in my perception). On the other side I believe that the development experience provided by Visual Studio is still miles (or kilometres) ahead of the competition and even the all-uppercase menu of VS2012 hasn’t changed this situation. The new metro UI got mixed reviews. On my side I should say that is very pleasant to use on a touch screen, I like the minimalist design (even if sometimes is too minimal and hides stuff that, in my opinion, should be visible) but I should also say that using it with mouse and keyboard is like trying to pick your nose with boxing gloves… Metro is also very interesting for embedded devices where touch screen usage is quite common and where having an application taking all the screen is the norm. For devices like kiosks, vending machines etc. this kind of UI can be a great selling point. I don’t need a new tablet (to be honest I’m pretty happy with my wife’s iPad and with my PC), but I may change my opinion after having a chance to play a little bit with those new devices and understand what’s hidden under all this mysterious and generic announcements and specifications!

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• #OOW 2012 : IaaS, Private Cloud, Multitenant Database, and X3H2M2

  - by Eric Bezille

  The title of this post is a summary of the 4 announcements made by Larry Ellison today, during the opening session of Oracle Open World 2012... To know what's behind X3H2M2, you will have to wait a little, as I will go in order, beginning with the IaaS - Infrastructure as a Service - announcement. Oracle IaaS goes Public... and Private... Starting in 2004 with Fusion development, Oracle Cloud was launch last year to provide not only SaaS Application, based on standard development, but also the underlying PaaS, required to build the specifics, and required interconnections between applications, in and outside of the Cloud. Still, to cover the end-to-end Cloud  Services spectrum, we had to provide an Infrastructure as a Service, leveraging our Servers, Storage, OS, and Virtualization Technologies, all "Engineered Together". This Cloud Infrastructure, was already available for our customers to build rapidly their own Private Cloud either on SPARC/Solaris or x86/Linux... The second announcement made today bring that proposition a big step further : for cautious customers (like Banks, or sensible industries) who would like to benefits from the Cloud value of "as a Service", but don't want their Data out in the Cloud... We propose to them to operate the same systems, Exadata, Exalogic & SuperCluster, that are providing our Public Cloud Infrastructure, behind their firewall, in a Private Cloud model. Oracle 12c Multitenant Database This is also a major announcement made today, on what's coming with Oracle Database 12c : the ability to consolidate multiple databases with no extra additional  cost especially in terms of memory needed on the server node, which is often THE consolidation limiting factor. The principle could be compare to Solaris Zones, where, you will have a Database Container, who is "owning" the memory and Database background processes, and "Pluggable" Database in this Database Container. This particular feature is a strong compelling event to evaluate rapidly Oracle Database 12c once it will be available, as this is major step forward into true Database consolidation with Multitenancy on a shared (optimized) infrastructure. X3H2M2, enabling the new Exadata X3 in-Memory Database Here we are :  X3H2M2 stands for X3 (the new version of Exadata announced also today) Heuristic Hierarchical Mass Memory, providing the capability to keep most if not all the Data in the memory cache hierarchy. Of course, this is the major software enhancement of the new X3 Exadata machine, but as this is a software, our current customers would be able to benefit from it on their existing systems by upgrading to the new release. But that' not the only thing that we did with X3, at the same time we have upgraded everything : the CPUs, adding more cores per server node (16 vs. 12, with the arrival of Intel E5 / Sandy Bridge), the memory with 512GB memory as well per node,  and the new Flash Fire card, bringing now up to 22 TB of Flash cache. All of this 4TB of RAM + 22TB of Flash being use cleverly not only for read but also for write by the X3H2M2 algorithm... making a very big difference compare to traditional storage flash extension. But what does those extra performances brings to you on an already very efficient system: double your performances compare to the fastest storage array on the market today (including flash) and divide you storage price x10 at the same time... Something to consider closely this days... Especially that we also announced the availability of a new Exadata X3-2 8th rack : a good starting point. As you have seen a major opening for this year again with true innovation. But that was not the only thing that we saw today, as before Larry's talk, Fujitsu did introduce more in deep the up coming new SPARC processor, that they are co-developing with us. And as such Andrew Mendelsohn - Senior Vice President Database Server Technologies came on stage to explain that the next step after I/O optimization for Database with Exadata, was to accelerate the Database at execution level by bringing functions in the SPARC processor silicium. All in all, to process more and more Data... The big theme of the day... and of the Oracle User Groups Conferences that were also happening today and where I had the opportunity to attend some interesting sessions on practical use cases of Big Data one in Finances and Fraud profiling and the other one on practical deployment of Oracle Exalytics for Data Analytics. In conclusion, one picture to try to size Oracle Open World ... and you can understand why, with such a rich content... and this only the first day !

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• Soft lockup after upgrade - cannot install from live CD

  - by nbm

  I dual-boot MacIntel Core 2 duo. nVidia graphics. Ran upgrade from ubuntu 13.10 to 14.04 (64 bit). On restart ran into {numbers} Bug: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 22s! [swapper/0:1] Tried loading earlier kernel: same problem Tried re-installing ubuntu from a liveCD that has worked in the past: version 13.04. Same problem. Tried re-partitioning hard drive using Mac OS X disk utility and then installing ubuntu 14.04LTS from liveCD. Same problem. Not possible to verify liveCD disk (creates same "soft lockup" bug.) Tried installing from the liveCD with version 13.04 that I know works (that's how I got Ubuntu on this machine in the first place.) Same problem. I know this is not a hardware problem as OS X works just fine, I am using it right now on the same machine. I have been using various versions of Ubuntu for 2 years. Things I cannot do: Open a terminal Verify CD image Start ubuntu from CD (same soft lockup problem) This problem is similar to some other questions, none of which have been satisfactorily answered: Ubuntu 14.04 soft lockup on Vostro 3500 Cannot do fresh install of Ubuntu 13.04 while booting from DVD: "soft lockup" bug Live CD stalls when installing Ubuntu 13.10 UPDATE 6/11/14: Following some much-appreciated advice from bain (see below) I burned a 12.04LTS disk and started with kernel parameters: noapic, no1apic, acpi=off, nomodeset, elevator=deadline, and clocksource=jiffies. With all of these parameters I was able to load the 12.04LTS CD ("Try without installing"). It worked fine. However, as soon as I tried to install Ubuntu from the CD, my wired ethernet (eth0) connection would hang. There are already various askubuntu questions and bug reports about this problem, none of which had answers for me. (E.g., dhclient eth0 does nothing, none of the various reset commands does anything, manually setting IP &etc does nothing. I could reliably kill the ethernet connection by clicking "install ubuntu" every single time.) I could go ahead and install 12.04 without an internet connection, but the install would freeze after mostly completing (I tried several times.) There were some relevant error messages in the details of the install output script that, IIRC, had to do with searching for missing files and not being able to access eth0 (internet) to get them. To be honest I gave up at that point and I'm not sure I wrote those down. If I find some notes I will post them. At this point I no longer have Ubuntu on my system. I wiped the partitions and am using exclusively OS X. I am leaving this question in case it helps anyone else with similar problems. I love open source and I love Linux, and the next machine I get I will probably just build from Arch. At the moment I miss repositories and a lot of other things about Ubuntu, but the OS X terminal is 'nix, I can pretty much use all the open source apps I like, and while I am not a fan of the Apple software it gets the job done for me. Unlike Ubuntu, which can't even install. I realize this isn't necessarily a place for a soapbox speech, but when I first installed 12.04 several years ago there were already people in the community complaining that Canonical was going too "commercial". But I loved it. Several years later and all I've seen is Canonical adding more not-so-useful bells and whistles to Ubuntu while continually failing to fix basic problems on upgrades. With a dual-boot (and sometimes triple-boot) system it always took me some tweaking to get an upgrade to work, and to some extent that is okay. But at this point I feel like Canonical ought to just put a price tag on Ubuntu. All I see is more commercialism and advertising and product tie-ins, and ongoing problems do not get fixed. I am a big fan of open-source, not-for profit enterprise. I am also a big fan of for-profit enterprise, which certainly has its place and usefulness. I am not a fan of companies who pretend to be in favor of open source but really are just out to make a buck, and IMNSHO that is what Canonical has become. This is a great community and I wish you all the best, but my next install of Linux will not be Ubuntu.

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• Right-Time Retail Part 2

  - by David Dorf

  This is part two of the three-part series. 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Right-Time Integration Of course these real-time enabling technologies are only as good as the systems that utilize them, and it only takes one bottleneck to slow everyone else down. What good is an immediate stock-out notification if the supply chain can’t react until tomorrow? Since being formed in 2006, Oracle Retail has been not only adding more integrations between systems, but also modernizing integrations for appropriate speed. Notice I tossed in the word “appropriate.” Not everything needs to be real-time – again, we’re talking about Right-Time Retail. The speed of data capture, analysis, and execution must be synchronized or you’re wasting effort. Unfortunately, there isn’t an enterprise-wide dial that you can crank-up for your estate. You’ll need to improve things piecemeal, with people and processes as limiting factors while choosing the appropriate types of integrations. There are three integration styles we see in the retail industry. First is batch. I know, the word “batch” just sounds slow, but this pattern is less about velocity and more about volume. When there are large amounts of data to be moved, you’ll want to use batch processes. Our technology of choice here is Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), which provides a fast version of Extract-Transform-Load (ETL). Instead of the three-step process, the load and transform steps are combined to save time. ODI is a key technology for moving data into Retail Analytics where we can apply science. Performing analytics on each sale as it occurs doesn’t make any sense, so we batch up a statistically significant amount and submit all at once. The second style is fire-and-forget. For some types of data, we want the data to arrive ASAP but immediacy is not necessary. Speed is less important than guaranteed delivery, so we use message-oriented middleware available in both Weblogic and the Oracle database. For example, Point-of-Service transactions are queued for delivery to Central Office at corporate. If the network is offline, those transactions remain in the queue and will be delivered when the network returns. Transactions cannot be lost and they must be delivered in order. (Ever tried processing a return before the sale?) To enhance the standard queues, we offer the Retail Integration Bus (RIB) to help the management and monitoring of fire-and-forget messaging in the enterprise. The third style is request-response and is most commonly implemented as Web services. This is a synchronous message where the sender waits for a response. In this situation, the volume of data is small, guaranteed delivery is not necessary, but speed is very important. Examples include the website checking inventory, a price lookup, or processing a credit card authorization. The Oracle Service Bus (OSB) typically handles the routing of such messages, and we’ve enhanced its abilities with the Retail Service Backbone (RSB). To better understand these integration patterns and where they apply within the retail enterprise, we’re providing the Retail Reference Library (RRL) at no charge to Oracle Retail customers. The library is composed of a large number of industry business processes, including those necessary to support Commerce Anywhere, as well as detailed architectural diagrams. These diagrams allow implementers to understand the systems involved in integrations and the specific data payloads. Furthermore, with our upcoming release we’ll be providing a new tool called the Retail Integration Console (RIC) that allows IT to monitor and manage integrations from a single point. Using RIC, retailers can quickly discern where integration activity is occurring, volume statistics, average response times, and errors. The dashboards provide the ability to dive down into the architecture documentation to gather information all the way down to the specific payload. Retailers that want real-time integrations will also need real-time monitoring of those integrations to ensure service-level agreements are maintained. Part 3 looks at marketing.

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• Some Early Considerations

  - by Chris Massey

  Following on from my previous post, I want to say "thank you" to everyone who has got in touch and got involved – you are pioneers! An update on where we are right now: paper prototypes v1 To be more specific, we’ve picked two of the ideas that seem to have more pros than cons, turned them into Balsamiq mockups, and are getting them fleshed out with realistic content. We’ll initially make these available to the aforementioned pioneers (thank you again), roll in the feedback, and then open up to get more data on what works and what doesn’t. If you’ve got any questions about this (or what we’re working on right now), feel free to ask me in the comments below. I’ve had a few people express an interest in the process we’re going through, and I’m more than happy to share details more frequently as we go along – not least because you, dear reader, will help us stay on target and create something Good. To start with, here’s a quick flashback to bring you all up to speed. A Brief Retrospective As you may already know, we’re creating a new publishing asset specifically focused on providing great content for web developers. We don’t yet know exactly what this thing will look like, or exactly how it will work, but we know we want to create something that is useful different. For my part, I’m seriously excited at the prospect of building a genuinely digital publishing system (as opposed to what most publishing is these days, which is print-style publishing which just happens to be on the web). The main challenge at this point is working out our build-measure-assess loop to speed up our experimental turn-around, and that’ll get better as we run more trials. Of course, there are a few things we’ve been pondering at this early conceptual stage: Do we publishing about heterogeneous technology stacks from day 1, or do we start with ASP.NET (which we’re familiar with) & branch out later? There are challenges with either approach. What publishing "modes" are already being well-handled? For example, the likes of Pluralsight, TekPub, and Treehouse have pretty much nailed video training (debate about price, if you like), and unless we think we can do it faster / better / cheaper (unlikely, for the record), we should leave them to it. Where should we base whatever we create? Should we create a completely new asset under a new name, graft something onto Simple-Talk (like the labs), or just build something directly into Simple-Talk? It sounds trivial, but it does have at least some impact on infrastructure and what how we manage the different types of content we (will) have. Are there any obvious problems or niches that we think could address really well, or should we just throw ideas out and see what readers respond to? What kind of users do we want to provide for? This actually deserves a little bit of unpacking… Why are you here? We currently divide readers into (broadly) the categories: Category 1: I know nothing about X, and I’d like to learn about it. Category 2: I know something about X, but I’d like to learn how to do something specific with it. Category 3: Ah man, I have a problem with X, and I need to fix it now. Now that I think about it, I might also include a 4th class of reader: Category 4: I’m looking for something interesting to engage my brain. These are clearly task-based categorizations, and depending on which task you’re performing when you arrive here, you’re going to need different types of content, or will have specific discovery needs. One of the questions that’s at the back of my mind whenever I consider a new idea is “How many of the categories will this satisfy?” As an example, typical video training is very well suited to categories 1, 2, and 4. StackOverflow is very well suited to category 3, and serves as a sign-posting system to the rest. Clearly it’s not necessary to satisfy every category need to be useful and popular, but being aware of what behavior readers might be exhibiting when they arrive will help us tune our ideas appropriately. < / Flashback > We don’t have clean answers to most of these considerations – they’re things we’re aware of, and each idea we look at is going to be best suited to a different mix of the options I’ve described. Our first experimental loop will be coming full circle in the next few days, so we should start to see how the different possibilities vary between ideas. Free to chime in with questions and suggestions about anything I’ve just brain-dumped, or at any stage as we go along. If you see anything that intrigued or enrages you, or just have an idea you’d like to share, I’d love to hear from you.

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• Oracle 11g R2 1???????~????????(Exadata??)?????

  - by Yusuke.Yamamoto

  ??2010?11?17???Oracle Database 11g Release2(R2) ???????1???? ????Oracle Database 11g R2 ?????????????????????????? ???? 2010/11/17:????? 2011/01/07:???????(Exadata/??) 2011/01/18:???????(Exadata/?????????????) 2011/02/22:???????(Exadata/?????:IT Leaders ????????) 2011/04/21:?????? 2011/04/21:???????(????????????) 2011/04/21:???????(Exadata/???????????????????????????????????) 2011/06/27:Oracle Exadata Database Machine ????1,000??? ?? Oracle Database 11g R2 ??????? Oracle Database 11g ?????????(????) ??????? Oracle Database 11g R2(???/????) Oracle Database 11g R2 ??????? ?? ??? 2009?11?11? Oracle Exadata Database Machine Version 2 ???? 2009?11?17? Oracle Database 11g R2 ???? 2010?02?01? ?????????????????????????????? 2010?03?31? SAP ? Oracle Database 11g R2 ??????????ISV????????·??????????? 2010?05?18? Windows Server 2008 R2 / Windows 7 ?????????Oracle Database 10g R2 ??? 2010?06?23? Oracle Application Express 4.0 ???? 2010?07?09? ?? Windows RDBMS ?????(2009?)????????? 2010?08?17? TPC-C Benchmark Price/Performance ???????? 2010?09?13? Patch Set 11.2.0.2 for Linux ????(??) 2010?10?20? Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2 ???? 2010?11?17? Oracle Database 11g R2 ????1?? 2010?11?19? ?? Windows RDBMS ?????(2010????)????????????? 2011?03?29? Oracle SQL Developer 3.0 ???? 2011?06?27? Oracle Exadata Database Machine ????1,000????????????????·?????????????? Oracle Database 11g ?????????(????) ????????????????????????????????(????)? ????(??????????) ??????????(???) ????? ????(???) ?????·???????·??? ????? ????·??????·?? ???? ???????(??????????????)|???99.999%???????500???????????? - ITpro ??????????? ????(????) ???(???) ????????(???) ??????(???????????) Oracle Exadata Database Machine ????? Oracle Database 11g ??(????)? ??????????????????????????????????? ????(??????) ????????????? ?????·???????·??? ??(??????????????) ?????(??????????) ?????????(????????) ?????????? ????(???????) ?????? ????/????·???????? ???????????(???????/NTT??????????) ????????????? ???? ???????????? ?????? ??? ?????|DWH?????????????? - IT Leaders(????????)|DWH?????????????? - IT Leaders ????(???????????) Customer Voice ????:????IT?????24??365????????????????????? ?Oracle9i Database ?????????????????????Oracle Database 11g ???????????????????????? Oracle9i Database ???????????????? Customer Voice ??????:Oracle Database 11g????????????????????? ?Oracle ASM ???????????????????I/O????????????????????????????????????? ??????? Oracle Database 11g R2(???/????) ???????????????? Oracle 11g R2 ????????? - IT Leaders ??????????11g R2?5???? - ??SE????Oracle??? - Think IT ????????????????????????~Oracle Database 11g Release2 ????????? - oracletech.jp ??????????? Oracle Database 11g Release 2(11gR2)|??????????? ???????|???????????

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• Oracle 11gR2:????(RAC/Exadata), ??, ????

  - by Yusuke.Yamamoto

  Oracle Database 11g ?????????????(RAC/Exadata)????????????? ???? 2010/11/17:????? 2011/01/07:???????:Exadata/?? 2011/01/18:???????:Exadata/????????????? 2011/04/21:???????:???????????? 2011/04/21:???????:Exadata/??????????????????????????????????? 2011/06/27:??????:Oracle Exadata Database Machine ????1,000??? 2011/07/06:???????:Exadata/????(?????????????????) 2011/07/08:??????:SAP?Oracle Exadata Database Machine??? 2011/07/15:???????:Exadata/????NTT????KDDI????????????? 2011/07/19:???????:Exadata/????(?????????????????) 2011/08/29:???????:Exadata/?????????(?????????) 2011/08/29:???????:Exadata/????? 2011/08/29:???????:Exadata/????(??????????????) 2011/10/27:???????:Exadata/??? 2011/11/08:???????:Exadata/NTT??? 2012/02/16:???????:Exadata/??????????????? 2012/03/21:???????:Exadata/?????????????(?????????????????) 2012/03/22:???????:Exadata/????? ?? Oracle Database 11g R2 ??????? Oracle Database 11g ?????????(????) Oracle Database 11g ?????????(????:Exadata?) ??????? Oracle Database 11g R2(???/????) Oracle Database 11g R2 ??????? ?? ??? 2009?11?11? Oracle Exadata Database Machine Version 2 ???? 2009?11?17? Oracle Database 11g R2 ???? 2010?02?01? ?????????????????????????????? 2010?03?31? SAP ? Oracle Database 11g R2 ??????????ISV????????·??????????? 2010?05?18? Windows Server 2008 R2 / Windows 7 ?????????Oracle Database 10g R2 ??? 2010?06?23? Oracle Application Express 4.0 ???? 2010?07?09? ?? Windows RDBMS ?????(2009?)????????? 2010?08?17? TPC-C Benchmark Price/Performance ???????? 2010?09?13? Patch Set 11.2.0.2 for Linux ???? 2010?10?20? Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2 ???? 2010?11?17? Oracle Database 11g R2 ????1?? 2010?11?19? ?? Windows RDBMS ?????(2010????)????????????? 2011?03?29? Oracle SQL Developer 3.0 ???? 2011?06?27? Oracle Exadata Database Machine ????1,000????????????????·?????????????? 2011?07?08? SAP ? Oracle Exadata Database Machine ??? 2011?09?01? Oracle Database Express Edition 11g Release 2 ???? 2011?09?23? Patch Set 11.2.0.3 for Linux ???? 2011?11?14? Oracle Database Appliance ???? Oracle Database 11g ?????????(????) ????????????????????????????????(????)? ?[RAC]:Oracle Real Application Clusters(RAC) ???????? ????(??????????) [RAC] ??????????(???) ????? [RAC] ????(???) ?????·???????·??? [RAC] ????? ????·??????·?? ???? ???????(??????????????) [RAC]|???99.999%???????500???????????? - ITpro ??????????? [RAC] ????(????) [RAC] ???(???) ????????(???) [RAC] ??????(???????????) [RAC] Oracle Database 11g ?????????(????:Exadata?) ????????????????????????????????(????)? ?Exadata ??????Oracle Database 11g / Oracle Real Application Clusters(RAC) ?? ?()??????????????? KDDI(??????????????) NTT??? NTT???(???????????) ??????????????? ??? ????(??????) ????????????? ?????·???????·??? ??(??????????????) ?????(??????????) ?????????(SCSK) ?????(????????????) ??????????(???????????) ????(???????) ??????? ?????? ????/????·???????? ???????????(???????/NTT??????????) ????? ?????????????(????/????????????) ???? ????????????|?????? ????|?????????????2013?2????3??????????? - ITpro ??? ?????? ??? ?????(SCSK)|DWH?????????????? - IT Leaders ????(???????????)|???????????·??????????????????????? - oracledatabase.jp Customer Voice ????:????IT?????24??365????????????????????? ?Oracle9i Database ?????????????????????Oracle Database 11g ???????????????????????? Oracle9i Database ???????????????? Customer Voice ??????:Oracle Database 11g????????????????????? ?Oracle ASM ???????????????????I/O????????????????????????????????????? ??????? Oracle Database 11g R2(???/????) ???????????????? Oracle 11g R2 ????????? - IT Leaders ??????????11g R2?5???? - ??SE????Oracle??? - Think IT ????????????????????????~Oracle Database 11g Release2 ????????? - oracletech.jp ??????????? Oracle Database 11g Release 2(11gR2)|??????????? Oracle Exadata|??????????? ???????|???????????

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• Trac vs. Redmine vs. JIRA vs. FogBugz for one-man shop?

  - by kizzx2

  Background I am a one-man freelancer looking for a project management software that can provide the following requirements. I have used Trac for about a year now. Tried Redmine and FogBugz on Demand for a couple of weeks. Never tried JIRA before. Basically, I'm looking for a piece of software that: Facilitates developer-client communication/collaboration Does time tracking Requirements Record time estimates/Time tracking Clients must be able to create/edit his own tickets/cases Clients must not see Developer created tickets/cases (internal) Affordable (price) with multiple clients Nice-to-haves Supports multiple projects in one installation Free eclipse integration (Mylyn) Easy time-tracking without using the Web UI (Trac's post commit hook or Redmine's commit message scanning) Clients can access the Wiki Export the data to standard formats My evaluation Trac can basically fulfill most of the above requirements, but with lots of customizations and plug-ins that it doesn't feel so clean. One downside is that the main trunk (0.11) has been around for a year or more and I still haven't seen much tendency of any upgrades coming up. Redmine has the cleanest Web UI. It's design philosophy seems to be the most elegant, with its innovative commit message scanning and stuff. However, the current version doesn't seem to be very mature and stable yet. It doesn't support internal (private) tickets and the time-tracking commit message patch doesn't support the trunk version. The good thing about it is that the main trunk still seems to be actively developed. FogBugz is actually a very well written piece of software. However the idea of paying $25/month for the client to be able to log-in to the system seems a little bit too far off for an individual developer. The free version supports letting clients create/view their own cases using email, which is a sub-optimal alternative to having a full-fledged list of the user's own cases. That also means clients can't read/write wiki pages. Its time-tracking approach is innovative and good though. However the fact that all the eclipse integration (Bugclipse, Foglyn) are commercial. Yet other investments before I can use my bug-tracker! If I revert back to the Web UI, it's not really a fast rendering Web service. Also, the in-built report functions are excellent (e.g. evidence based scheduling) JIRA is something I have zero experience with. Can someone with JIRA experience recommend why it might be a good fit for this particular situation? Question Can we share experience on this? Any specific plugins/customizations would that would best suit the requirements for this case?

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• How to set text in Y-axis, instead of numbers, in a RadChart component from Telerik with Bar-type

  - by radbyx

  Hi, I have made an bar RadChart with "SeriesOrientation="Horizontal"". I have the text showing at the end for each bars, but instead I would like that text to be listet in the y-axis, instead of the 1,2,3.. numbers. It seems like i'm not allow to set any text in the y-axis, is there a property I can set? Here is my code snippes: === .ascx === <asp:UpdatePanel ID="UpdatePanel1" runat="server"> <ContentTemplate> <telerik:RadChart ID="RadChart1" runat="server" Skin="WebBlue" AutoLayout="true" Height="350px" Width="680px" SeriesOrientation="Horizontal"> <Series> <telerik:ChartSeries DataYColumn="UnitPrice" Name="Product Unit Price"> </telerik:ChartSeries> </Series> <PlotArea> <YAxis> <Appearance> <TextAppearance TextProperties-Font="Verdana, 8.25pt, style=Bold" /> </Appearance> </YAxis> <XAxis DataLabelsColumn="TenMostExpensiveProducts"> </XAxis> </PlotArea> <ChartTitle> <TextBlock Text="Ten Most Expensive Products" /> </ChartTitle> </telerik:RadChart> </ContentTemplate> </asp:UpdatePanel> ========================= === .ascx === protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { RadChart1.AutoLayout = false; RadChart1.Legend.Visible = false; // Create a ChartSeries and assign its name and chart type ChartSeries chartSeries = new ChartSeries(); chartSeries.Name = "Name"; chartSeries.Type = ChartSeriesType.Bar; // add new items to the series, // passing a value and a label string chartSeries.AddItem(98, "Product1"); chartSeries.AddItem(95, "Product2"); chartSeries.AddItem(100, "Product3"); chartSeries.AddItem(75, "Product4"); chartSeries.AddItem(1, "Product5"); // add the series to the RadChart Series collection RadChart1.Series.Add(chartSeries); // add the RadChart to the page. // this.Page.Controls.Add(RadChart1); // RadChart1.Series[0].Appearance.LegendDisplayMode = ChartSeriesLegendDisplayMode.Nothing; // RadChart1.Series[0].DataYColumn = "Uptime"; RadChart1.PlotArea.XAxis.DataLabelsColumn = "Name"; RadChart1.PlotArea.XAxis.Appearance.TextAppearance.TextProperties.Font = new System.Drawing.Font("Verdana", 8); RadChart1.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.White; RadChart1.Height = 350; RadChart1.Width = 570; RadChart1.DataBind(); } I want to have the text: "Product1", "Product2", ect in the y-axis, can anyone help? Thx.

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• Jquery and live act wired but act ok after force refresh in IE

  - by Y.G.J

  hi guys - somthing is wrong with my code and i can't get what it is... i have a div id = "personaltab" i have a form in side it to login the user with username and password. if success the jquery empty the div and puts in the form of the bidding. if the user try to bid the other ajax that assign to the button is working but for some reason skips the empty and just adding the responded ajax to the div i have checked that in IE and chrome and it is working fine in chrome here are my codes $("#login").click(function() { var id = $("input#pid").val(); var user = $("input#puser").val(); var pass = $("input#ppass").val(); var dataString = 'id='+ id + '&user='+ user + '&pass=' + pass; if (user == "") { alert("error"); $("input#puser").focus(); return false; } if (pass == "") { alert("error"); $("input#ppass").focus(); return false; } $.ajax({ type: "POST", url: "loginpersonal.asp", data: dataString, success: function(msg) { if (msg=="False") { alert("error"); $("#personaltab").show(); } else { $("#personaltab").fadeOut("normal",function(){ $("#personaltab").empty(); $("#personaltab").append(msg); $("#personaltab").slideDown(); }); } }, error: function (XMLHttpRequest, textStatus, errorThrown) { alert('error'); } }); return false; }); $("#sendbid").live("click", function(){ var startat = $("input[name=startat]").val(); var sprice = $("input[name=sprice]").val(); if (parseInt(sprice)<=parseInt(startat)) { alert("error"); $("input[name=sprice]").focus(); return false; } else { var payment = $("select[name=payment]").val(); if ($('input[name=credit]').is(':checked') ){ var credit = true; } var prodid = $("input[name=id]").val(); var dataString = 'id='+ prodid + '&price='+ sprice + '&payment=' + payment + '&credit=' + credit; $.ajax({ type: "POST", url: "loginpersonal.asp", data: dataString, success: function(msg) { $("#personaltab").empty(); $("#personaltab").append(msg); $("#personaltab").show(); }, error: function (XMLHttpRequest, textStatus, errorThrown) { alert('error'); } }); } return false; });

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• Integrating POP3 client functionality into a C# application?

  - by flesh

  I have a web application that requires a server based component to periodically access POP3 email boxes and retrieve emails. The service then needs to process the emails which will involve: Validating the email against some business rules (does it contain a valid reference in the subject line, which user sent the mail, etc.) Analysing and saving any attachments to disk Take the email body and attachment details and create a new item in the database Or update an existing item where the reference matches the incoming email subject line What is the best way to approach this? I really don't want to have to write a POP3 client from scratch, but I need to be able to customize the processing of emails. Ideally I would be able to plug in some component that does the access and retrieval for me, returning arrays of attachments, body text, subject line, etc. ready for my processing... [ UPDATE: Reviews ] OK, so I have spent a fair amount of time looking into (mainly free) .NET POP3 libraries so I thought I'd provide a short review of some of those mentioned below and a few others: Pop3.net - free - works OK, very basic in terms of functionality provided. This is pretty much just the POP3 commands and some base64 encoding, but it's very straight forward - probably a good introduction Pop3 Wizard - commercial / some open source code - couldn't get this to build, missing DLLs, I wouldn't bother with this C#Mail - free - works well, comes with Mime parser and SMTP client, however the comments are in Japanese (not a big deal) and it didn't work with SSL 'out of the box' - I had to change the SslStream constructor after which it worked no problem OpenPOP - free - hasn't been updated for about 5 years so it's current state is .NET 1.0, doesn't support SSL but that was no problem to resolve - I just replaced the existing stream with an SslStream and it worked. Comes with Mime parser. Of the free libraries, I'd go for C#Mail or OpenPOP. I looked at a few commercial libraries: Chillkat, Rebex, RemObjects, JMail.net. Based on features, price and impression of the company I would probably go for Rebex and may in the future if my requirements change or I run into production issues with either of C#Mail or OpenPOP. In case anyone's needs it, this is the replacement SslStream constructor that I used to enable SSL with C#Mail and OpenPOP: SslStream stream = new SslStream(clientSocket.GetStream(), false, delegate(object sender, X509Certificate cert, X509Chain chain, SslPolicyErrors errors) { return true; });

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• Best ASP.NET E-Commerce Framework (aspDotNetStoreFront, AbleCommerce, BVCommerce, MediaChase,...)

  - by EfficionDave

  I need a full-featured asp.net E-Commerce solution for a project. It needs to be easily extensible as I need to extend it to integrate with a custom Flash based personalization engine. It should also have a great administrative back-end that handles inventory tracking, report, labels, shipping, ... so that the client can really use it as the basis for their business. I've used quite a few different E-Commerce systems including OSCommerce, Zen Cart, Catalook, and eTailer. While I was impressed with Zen Cart and eTailer, this project is big enough that I want to try a more serious, commercial offering. I'm particularly interested in thoughts on aspdotnetstorefront, BVCommerce, AbleCommerce, and MediaChase. [UPDATE] I've done quite a bit of evaluation since I posted this question and will give some of my findings below: BVCommerce - The price point is nice, the product seems fairly well regarded, and I've heard good things about customizing/extending it, it just doesn't seem like it's going to meet my needs as an Top Tier ECommerce solution. After viewing the tutorial videos, the Admin interface just seems too basic and outdated. aspDotNetStorefront - The integration with DotNetNuke was it's biggest selling point for me but after reading peoples opinions, it's integration seems quite weak. It's sounds like there's a significant learning curve and the architecture just doesn't sound like it's as clean as it should be. AbleCommerce - After a rather thorough evaluation, I have selected AbleCommerce for at least my next project. The Admin interface is beautiful and has a nice list of features. The E-Commerce portion of the user side is very well done, highly skin-able (using Master Pages and a couple other techniques), and the checkout workflow has all the features I need while still being very clean. Source to the API can be bought for $500 but you generally won't need it. There are some 3rd party modules available but there's not currently a large market for these. The biggest glaring weakness of AbleCommerce I've found is their CMS capabilities are very limited and not at all well suited for a non-technical user to make most site content updates. But I have a good solution for that that I plan adapting into AbleCommerce. They will automatically generate a site for you to play with to your heart's content for 30 days. It is defniitely worth checking out.

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• Can Spring.Net function as PostSharp?

  - by Alex K

  A few months back I've discovered PostSharp, and for a time, it was good. But then legal came back with an answer saying that they don't like the licence of the old versions. Then the department told me that 2.0's price was unacceptably high (for the number of seats we need)... I was extremely disapponted, but not disheartened. Can't be the only such framework, I thought. I kept looking for a replacement, but most of it was either dead, ill maintained (especially in documentation department), for academic use, or all of the above (I'm looking at you Aspect.Net) Then I've discovered Spring.Net, and for a time, it was good. I've been reading the documentation and it went on to paint what seemed to be a supperior picture of an AOP nirvana. No longer was I locked to attributes to mark where I wanted code interception to take place, but it could be configured in XML and changes to it didn't require re-compile. Great. Then I looked at the samples and saw the following, in every single usage scenario: // Create AOP proxy using Spring.NET IoC container. IApplicationContext ctx = ContextRegistry.GetContext(); ICommand command = (ICommand)ctx["myServiceCommand"]; command.Execute(); if (command.IsUndoCapable) { command.UnExecute(); } Why must the first two lines of code exist? It ruins everything. This means I cannot simply provide a user with a set of aspects and attributes or XML configs that they can use by sticking appropriate attributes on the appropriate methods/classes/etc or editing the match pattern in XML. They have to modify their program logic to make this work! Is there a way to make Spring.Net behave as PostSharp in this case? (i.e. user only needs to add attributes/XML config, not edit content of any methods. Alternatively, is there a worthy and functioning alternative to PostSharp? I've seen a few question titled like this on SO, but none of them were actually looking to replace PostSharp, they only wanted to supplement its functionality. I need full replacement.

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• custom listview adapter getView method being called multiple times, and in no coherent order

  - by edzillion

  I have a custom list adapter: class ResultsListAdapter extends ArrayAdapter<RecordItem> { in the overridden 'getView' method I do a print to check what position is and whether it is a convertView or not: @Override public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) { System.out.println("getView " + position + " " + convertView); The output of this (when the list is first displayed, no user input as yet) 04-11 16:24:05.860: INFO/System.out(681): getView 0 null 04-11 16:24:29.020: INFO/System.out(681): getView 1 android.widget.RelativeLayout@43d415d8 04-11 16:25:48.070: INFO/System.out(681): getView 2 android.widget.RelativeLayout@43d415d8 04-11 16:25:49.110: INFO/System.out(681): getView 3 android.widget.RelativeLayout@43d415d8 04-11 16:25:49.710: INFO/System.out(681): getView 0 android.widget.RelativeLayout@43d415d8 04-11 16:25:50.251: INFO/System.out(681): getView 1 null 04-11 16:26:01.300: INFO/System.out(681): getView 2 null 04-11 16:26:02.020: INFO/System.out(681): getView 3 null 04-11 16:28:28.091: INFO/System.out(681): getView 0 null 04-11 16:37:46.180: INFO/System.out(681): getView 1 android.widget.RelativeLayout@43cff8f0 04-11 16:37:47.091: INFO/System.out(681): getView 2 android.widget.RelativeLayout@43cff8f0 04-11 16:37:47.730: INFO/System.out(681): getView 3 android.widget.RelativeLayout@43cff8f0 AFAIK, though I couldn't find it stated explicitly, getView() is only called for visible rows. Since my app starts with four visible rows at least the position numbers cycling from 0-3 makes sense. But the rest is a mess: Why is getview called for each row four times? Where are these convertViews coming from when I haven't scrolled yet? I did a bit of reseach, and without getting a good answer, I did notice that people were associating this issue with layout issues. So in case, here's the layout that contains the list: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:orientation="vertical" > <TextView android:id="@+id/pageDetails" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" /> <ListView android:id="@+id/list" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:drawSelectorOnTop="false" /> </LinearLayout> and the layout of each individual row: <RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="108dp" android:padding="4dp"> <ImageView android:id="@+id/thumb" android:layout_width="120dp" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_alignParentTop="true" android:layout_alignParentBottom="true" android:layout_alignParentLeft="true" android:layout_marginRight="8dp" android:src="@drawable/loading" /> <TextView android:id="@+id/price" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="18dp" android:layout_toRightOf="@id/thumb" android:layout_alignParentBottom="true" android:singleLine="true" /> <TextView android:id="@+id/date" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="18dp" android:layout_alignParentBottom="true" android:layout_alignParentRight="true" android:paddingRight="4dp" android:singleLine="true" /> <TextView android:id="@+id/title" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:textSize="17dp" android:layout_toRightOf="@id/thumb" android:layout_alignParentRight="true" android:layout_alignParentTop="true" android:paddingRight="4dp" android:layout_alignWithParentIfMissing="true" android:gravity="center" /> Thank you for your time

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• Programmatically specifying Django model attributes

  - by mojbro

  Hi! I would like to add attributes to a Django models programmatically, at run time. For instance, lets say I have a Car model class and want to add one price attribute (database column) per currency, given a list of currencies. What is the best way to do this? I had an approach that I thought would work, but it didn't exactly. This is how I tried doing it, using the car example above: from django.db import models class Car(models.Model): name = models.CharField(max_length=50) currencies = ['EUR', 'USD'] for currency in currencies: Car.add_to_class('price_%s' % currency.lower(), models.IntegerField()) This does seem to work pretty well at first sight: $ ./manage.py syncdb Creating table shop_car $ ./manage.py dbshell shop=# \d shop_car Table "public.shop_car" Column | Type | Modifiers -----------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------- id | integer | not null default nextval('shop_car_id_seq'::regclass) name | character varying(50) | not null price_eur | integer | not null price_usd | integer | not null Indexes: "shop_car_pkey" PRIMARY KEY, btree (id) But when I try to create a new Car, it doesn't really work anymore: >>> from shop.models import Car >>> mycar = Car(name='VW Jetta', price_eur=100, price_usd=130) >>> mycar <Car: Car object> >>> mycar.save() Traceback (most recent call last): File "<console>", line 1, in <module> File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/base.py", line 410, in save self.save_base(force_insert=force_insert, force_update=force_update) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/base.py", line 495, in save_base result = manager._insert(values, return_id=update_pk) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/manager.py", line 177, in _insert return insert_query(self.model, values, **kwargs) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 1087, in insert_query return query.execute_sql(return_id) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/subqueries.py", line 320, in execute_sql cursor = super(InsertQuery, self).execute_sql(None) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/query.py", line 2369, in execute_sql cursor.execute(sql, params) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/util.py", line 19, in execute return self.cursor.execute(sql, params) ProgrammingError: column "price_eur" specified more than once LINE 1: ...NTO "shop_car" ("name", "price_eur", "price_usd", "price_eur... ^

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• MS Access 2003 - Unbound Form uses INSERT statement to save to table; what about subforms?

  - by Justin

  So I have an unbound form that I use to save data to a table on button click. Is there a way I can have subforms for entry that will allow me to save data to the table within that same button click? Basically I want to add more entry options for the user, and while I know other ways to do it, I am particularly curious about doing it this way (if it can be done). So lets say the 'parent form' is frmMain. And there are two child forms "sub1" and "sub2". Just for example sake lets say on frmMain there are two text boxes: txtTitle & txtAuthor. sub1 and sub2 both have a text Box on them that represent something like prices. The idea is Title & author of a book, and then a price at each store (simplified). So I tried this (because I thought it was worth a shot): Dim db as DAO.database Dim sql as String sql = "INSERT INTO (Title, Author, PriceA, PriceB) VALUES (" if not isnull(me.txtTitle) then sql = sql & """" & me.txtTitle & """," Else sql = sql & " NULL," End If if not IsNull(me.txtAuthor) then sql = sql & " """ & me.txtAuthor & """," else sql = sql & " NULL," end if if not IsNull (forms!sub1.txtPrice) then sql = sql & " """ & forms!sub1.txtPrice & """," else sql = sql & " NULL," end if without finishing the code, i think you may see the GOTCHA i am headed for. I tried this and got an "Access cannot find the form "" ". I think I can pretty much see why on this approach too, because when I click the button that calls the new sub form into the parent form, the values that were just entered are not held/saved as sub1 closes and sub2 opens. I should mention that the idea above is not intended to be a one or the other approach, rather both sub forms used everytime. so this is an example. i want to use this method (if possible) to have about 7 different sub form choices in one form, and be able to save to a table via a SQL statement. I realize that there may be better ways, but I am just wondering if I can get there with this approach out of curiousity. Thanks as always!

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• LINQ InsertOnSubmit Required Fields needed for debugging

  - by Derek Hunziker

  Hi All, I've been using the ADO.NET Strogly-Typed DataSet model for about 2 years now for handling CRUD and stored procedure executions. This past year I built my first MVC app and I really enjoyed the ease and flexibility of LINQ. Perhaps the biggest selling point for me was that with LINQ I didn't have to create "Insert" stored procedures that would return the SCOPE_IDENTITY anymore (The auto-generated insert statements in the DataSet model were not capable of this without modification). Currently, I'm using LINQ with ASP.NET 3.5 WebForms. My inserts are looking like this: ProductsDataContext dc = new ProductsDataContext(); product p = new product { Title = "New Product", Price = 59.99, Archived = false }; dc.products.InsertOnSubmit(p); dc.SubmitChanges(); int productId = p.Id; So, this product example is pretty basic, right, and in the future, I'll probably be adding more fields to the database such as "InStock", "Quantity", etc... The way I understand it, I will need to add those fields to the database table and then delete and re-add the tables to the LINQ to SQL Class design view in order to refresh the DataContext. Does that sound right? The problem is that any new fields that are non-null are NOT caught by the ASP.NET build processes. For example, if I added a non-null field of "Quantity" to the database, the code above would still build. In the DataSet model, the stored procedure method would accept a certain amount of parameters and would warn me that my Insert would fail if I didn't include a quantity value. The same goes for LINQ stored procedure methods, however, to my knowledge, LINQ doesn't offer a way to auto generate the insert statements and that means I'm back to where I started. The bottom line is if I used insert statements like the one above and I add a non-null field to my database, it would break my app in about 10-20 places and there would be no way for me to detect it. Is my only option to do a solution-side search for the keyword "products.InsertOnSubmit" and make sure the new field is getting assigned? Is there a better way? Thanks!

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• ASP.NET FormView: "Object of type 'System.Int32' cannot be converted to type 'System.String"

  - by Vinzcent

  Hey I have a problem with my FromView. I would like to show some data from a Database Table in my FormView. But some data is from the tupe Int32, while this data should be in a TextBox, a string. How do you convert these Int32's. FormView and my ObjectDataSource <asp:FormView ID="fvDetailOrder" runat="server"> <ItemTemplate> Aantal:<br /> <asp:Label CssClass="txtBox" ID="Label15" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("COUNT") %>' /><br /> Prijs:<br /> <asp:Label CssClass="txtBox" ID="Label16" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("PRICE") %>' /><br /> Korting:<br /> <asp:Label CssClass="txtBox" ID="Label17" runat="server" Text='' /><br /> Totaal:<br /> <asp:Label CssClass="txtBox" ID="Label18" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("AMOUNT") %>' /><br /> Betaald:<br /> <asp:Label CssClass="txtBox" ID="Label19" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("PAID") %>' /><br /> Datum betaling:<br /> <asp:Label CssClass="txtBox" ID="Label20" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("PDATE") %>' /><br /> </ItemTemplate> </asp:FormView> <asp:ObjectDataSource ID="objdsOrderID" runat="server" OnSelecting="objdsOrderID_Selecting" SelectMethod="getOrdersByID" TypeName="DAL.OrdersDAL"> <SelectParameters> <asp:Parameter Name="id" Type="Int32" /> </SelectParameters> </asp:ObjectDataSource> My Code behind protected void gvOrdersAdmin_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) { fvDetailOrder.DataSource = objdsOrderID; fvDetailOrder.DataBind(); // <-- HERE I GET THE ERROR } protected void objdsOrderID_Selecting(object sender, ObjectDataSourceSelectingEventArgs e) { e.InputParameters["id"] = gvOrdersAdmin.DataKeys[gvOrdersAdmin.SelectedRow.RowIndex].Values[0]; ; } My Data Acces Layer public static DataTable getOrdersByID(string id) { string sql = "SELECT 'AUTHOR' = tblAuthors.FIRSTNAME + ' ' + tblAuthors.LASTNAME, tblBooks.*, tblGenres.*, tblLanguages.*, tblOrders.* FROM tblAuthors INNER JOIN tblBooks ON tblAuthors.AUTHOR_ID = tblBooks.AUTHOR_ID INNER JOIN tblGenres ON tblBooks.GENRE_ID = tblGenres.GENRE_ID INNER JOIN tblLanguages ON tblBooks.LANG_ID = tblLanguages.LANG_ID INNER JOIN tblOrders ON tblBooks.BOOK_ID = tblOrders.BOOK_ID" + " WHERE tblOrders.ID = @id;"; SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter(sql, GetConnectionString()); da.SelectCommand.Parameters["id"].Value = id; DataSet ds = new DataSet(); da.Fill(ds, "Orders"); return ds.Tables["Orders"]; } Thanks a lot, Vincent

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• CSS selectors : should I make my CSS easier to read or optimise the speed

  - by Laurent Bourgault-Roy

  As I was working on a small website, I decided to use the PageSpeed extension to check if their was some improvement I could do to make the site load faster. However I was quite surprise when it told me that my use of CSS selector was "inefficient". I was always told that you should keep the usage of the class attribute in the HTML to a minimum, but if I understand correctly what PageSpeed tell me, it's much more efficient for the browser to match directly against a class name. It make sense to me, but it also mean that I need to put more CSS classes in my HTML. It make my .css file harder to read. I usually tend to mark my CSS like this : #mainContent p.productDescription em.priceTag { ... } Which make it easy to read : I know this will affect the main content and that it affect something in a paragraph tag (so I wont start to put all sort of layout code in it) that describe a product and its something that need emphasis. However it seem I should rewrite it as .priceTag { ... } Which remove all context information about the style. And if I want to use differently formatted price tag (for example, one in a list on the sidebar and one in a paragraph), I need to use something like that .paragraphPriceTag { ... } .listPriceTag { ... } Which really annoy me since I seem to duplicate the semantic of the HTML in my classes. And that mean I can't put common style in an unqualified .priceTag { ... } and thus I need to replicate the style in both CSS rule, making it harder to make change. (Altough for that I could use multiple class selector, but IE6 dont support them) I believe making code harder to read for the sake of speed has never been really considered a very good practice . Except where it is critical, of course. This is why people use PHP/Ruby/C# etc. instead of C/assembly to code their site. It's easier to write and debug. So I was wondering if I should stick with few CSS classes and complex selector or if I should go the optimisation route and remove my fancy CSS selectors for the sake of speed? Does PageSpeed make over the top recommandation? On most modern computer, will it even make a difference?

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• How do I get a screenshot of a given website using C#

  - by Ender

  I'm writing a specialised crawler and parser for internal use and I require the ability to take a screenshot of a web page in order to check what colours are being used throughout. The program will take in around ten web addresses and will save them as a bitmap image, from there I plan to use LockBits in order to create a list of the five most used colours within the image. To my knowledge it's the easiest way to get the colours used within a web page but if there is an easier way to do it please chime in with your suggestions. Anyway, I was going to use this program until I saw the price tag. I'm also fairly new to C#, having only used it for a few months. Can anyone provide me with a solution to my problem of taking a screenshot of a web page in order to extract the colour scheme? EDIT: Sorry for not getting back to this sooner, but I've been busy with some other things. Anyway, the code seems to work well, but the problem I am having right now is that I am running it within a form, and naturally with Application.Run() being called I cannot run two instances of the same form at once. It recommended Form.showDialog() but that broke everything. Can anyone give me a hand with this code? public static void buildScreenshotFromURL(string url) { int width = 800; int height = 600; using (WebBrowser browser = new WebBrowser()) { browser.Width = width; browser.Height = height; browser.ScrollBarsEnabled = true; // This will be called when the page finishes loading browser.DocumentCompleted += new System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventHandler(OnDocumentCompleted); //browser.DocumentCompleted += OnDocumentCompleted; browser.Navigate(url); // This prevents the application from exiting until // Application.Exit is called // Application.Run() does not work as it cannot be called twice, recommended form.showDialog() // but still issues Application.Run(); } } public static void OnDocumentCompleted(object sender, WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e) { // Define size of thumbnail neded int thumbSize = 50; // Now that the page is loaded, save it to a bitmap WebBrowser browser = (WebBrowser)sender; using (Graphics graphics = browser.CreateGraphics()) { using (Bitmap bitmap = new Bitmap(browser.Width, browser.Height, graphics)) { Rectangle bounds = new Rectangle(0, 0, bitmap.Width, bitmap.Height); browser.DrawToBitmap(bitmap, bounds); Bitmap thumbBitmap = new Bitmap(bitmap.GetThumbnailImage(thumbSize, thumbSize, thumbCall, IntPtr.Zero)); thumbBitmap.Save("screenshot.png", ImageFormat.Png); handleImage(thumbBitmap); } }

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