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• Official and unofficial apps in the iOS, WP7, and Android marketplaces

  - by Bil Simser

  The last few months have seen people complaining about the lack of "official" apps in the Windows Phone marketplace. In fact a couple of months ago I wrote about this very thing here and if we really needed these official apps or could get by with third-party solutions. Recently a list of "Top 100 Mobile Apps" crossed my desk and it was curious. 40 iPhone apps, 40 Android apps, 10 WP7 apps, and 10 BlackBerry apps. Really? 10 for WP7? So I wondered if the media was just playing this up and maybe continuing to do what I think most vendors are doing which is treating Windows Phone as the red-headed step-child you keep in the basement while all along there's nothing wrong with them. I put together the list and went digging to see how many of the top 40 iOS and Android apps were also on the Windows Phone platform (sorry BlackBerry, you should just shut your doors right now). Here's the results. Note, these are all *free* apps. There might be other pay apps that have official representation across all mobile devices, I just chose to hunt these ones down because I'm cheap. In the top 40, I easily plucked out 20 that had official apps on all three platforms. These were: Amazon Mobile, ESPN Score Centre, Evernote, Facebook, Foursquare, Google Search, IMDB, Kindle, Shazam, Skype (yes, I know, in beta on WP7), SlackerRadio, The Weather Channel, TripIt, Twitter, Yelp, Flixster, Netflix, TuneIn Radio, Dictionary.com, Angry Birds, and Groupon. Hey, that's pretty good IMHO. 20 or so apps, all free, and all fully functional and supported (and in some cases, even better looking on the Windows Phone platform than the other platforms). A dozen or so more apps had official apps on some platforms but not all, so yes, there are gaps here. Here's a rundown of the hangers-on: Adobe Photoshop Express This looks great on the iOS platform and there's even an official version on droid. Hope Adobe brings this to WP7. There are other photo editing programs though if you go looking (maybe we can get Paint.NET to be ported to the phone?) BBC News A few apps offer news feeds but nothing official on the Windows Phone. The feeds are good but without video this app needs some WP7 love. Dropbox Again Windows Phone looses out here with no official app. There are a few third party ones that will help you along and offer most of the functionality that you need but no integration that an official app might bring. Epicurious Droid seems to be the trailer here as there are apps for it but nothing official (from what I can tell). Both iOS and WP7 have them. Flipboard It's sad with Flipboard as it's such a great newsreader. The only offiical app is for iOS but frankly the iPhone version looks horrible so without a tablet the experience here isn't that hot. Maybe with WP8. Currently there's nothing even remotely similar to this on the other platforms. Google+ Is anyone still using this? No official app for WP7 but some clones. Apparently there's no API so people are just screen scraping. Ugh. Mint.com This app has all kinds of buzz and a lot of votes on the application requests site. Official apps for iOS and droid. No WP7 love (yet). TED Quite a few TED apps on WP7 but nothing official. I think the third party ones suffice and some are pretty nice looking, taking advantage of the Metro interface and making for a good show. WebMD There's a third party app on WP7 here but nothing official. It seems to contain all the same information and functionality the official apps do so not sure if an official one is needed but its here for inclusion. The other apps in the top 40 were either very specific to the platform (for example all three of them have a "Find my Phone" app). There are others that are missing out on the WP7 platform like ooVoo, Words With Friends, and some of the Google apps (Google Voice for example). Since you can integrate your GMail account right into the Windows Phone (via linked inboxes) I'm not sure if there's a need for an official GMail app here. Looking at the numbers Windows Phone still gets the worst of the deal here with half a dozen highly popular "offical" apps that exist on the other mobile platforms and in some cases, nothing even remotely similar to the official app to compare. This doesn't include things like Instagram, PInterest, and others (don't get me started on those). Still, with over 20+ highly popular free apps all represented on all three mobile platforms I don't think it's a bad place to be in. The Windows Phone platform could get a little more love from the vendors missing here, or at least open up your APIs so the third party crowd can step in and take up the slack. P.S. these are just my observations and I might have got a few items wrong. Feel free to chime in with missing or incorrect information. I am after all human. Well, most of me is.

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• My Codemash 2011 Retrospective

  - by Greg Malcolm

  I just got back from Codemash yesterday, and still on an adrenaline buzz. Here's my take on this years encounter: The Awesome Nearly everybody in one place Codemash is the ultimate place to catch up with community friends. This is my 3rd year visiting and I've got to know a great number of very cool people through various conferences, Give Camps and other community events. I'm finding more and more that Codemash is the best place to catch up with everybody regardless of technology interest or location. Of course I always make a whole bunch more friends while I'm there! Yay! Open Spaced I found the open spaces didn't work so well last year. This year things went a lot smoother and the topics were engaging and fresh. While I miss Alan Steven's approach of running it like an agile project, it was very cool to see that it evolving. Laptops were often cracked open, not just once but frequently! For example: Jasmine - Paired on a javascript kata using the Jasmine javascript test runner J - Sat in on a J demo from local J enthusiast, Tracy Harms Watir - More pairing, this time using Ruby with the watir-webdriver through cucumber. I'd mostly forgotten that Cucumber runs just fine without Rails. It made a change to do without. The other spaces were engaging too, but I think that's enough for that topic. Javascript Shenanigans I've already mentioned that I attended a Jasmine kata session. Jasmine is close to my heart right now every since I discovered it while on the hunt for a decent Javascript testing framework for a javascript koans project earlier this year. Well, it also got covered in the Java Precompiler and Pillar's vendor session, which was great to see. Node.js was also a reoccurring theme. Node.js in a nutshell? It's an extremely scalable Event based I/O server which runs on Javascript. I'd already encountered through a Startup Weekend project and have been noticing increasing interest of late. After encountering more node.js driven excitement from my peers at codemash I absolutely had to attend the open space on it. At least 20 people turned up and by the end we had some answers, a whole ton of new questions and an impromptu user group in the form of a twitter channel (#nodemash). I have no idea where this is going to go or how big it is going to become, but if it can cross the chasm into the enterprise it could become huge... Scala Koans I'm a bit of a Koans addict, and I really need more exposure to functional languages so I gave the Scala Koans precompiler a try. Great fun! I'm really glad I attended because I found I had a whole ton of questions. Currently the koans are available here, and the answers are here. Opportunities While we're on the subject can we change the subject now? Hai Gregory, You really need to keep the drinking for later in the day. I mean seriously, you're 34 and you still do this every single time! Sure, you made it to Chad Fowler keynote ok, but you looking a rather pale weren't you? Also might have been nice to attend 'Netflicks in the Cloud' instead of 'Sleeping It Off For People Who Should Know Better'. Kthxbye PS: Stop talking to yourself Not that I entirely regret it, I've had some of my greatest insights through late night drunken conversations at the CodeMash bar. Just might be nice to reign it in a little and get something out of the next morning too. Diversity This is something that is in the back of my mind because of conversations at Codemash as well as throughout the year; I'm realizing more and more how discouraging the IT profession is for women. I notice in the community there has been a lot of attention paid to stamping out harrasment, which is good, but there also seems to be a massive PR issue. I really don't have any solutions, but I figure it can't hurt to pay more attention to whats going on... And in Other News I now have a picture of Chad Fowler giving me more cowbell! Sadly I managed to lose the cowbell later on. Hopefully it's gone to a Better Place. The Womack Family Band joined in with the musicians jam this year. There's my cowbell again! Why must you hide from me? I also finally went in the water for the first time in all the I've been coming to codemash. Why did I wait so long?!?

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• Real-world SignalR example, ditching ghetto long polling

  - by Jeff

  One of the highlights of BUILD last week was the announcement that SignalR, a framework for real-time client to server (or cloud, if you will) communication, would be a real supported thing now with the weight of Microsoft behind it. Love the open source flava! If you aren’t familiar with SignalR, watch this BUILD session with PM Damian Edwards and dev David Fowler. Go ahead, I’ll wait. You’ll be in a happy place within the first ten minutes. If you skip to the end, you’ll see that they plan to ship this as a real first version by the end of the year. Insert slow clap here. Writing a few lines of code to move around a box from one browser to the next is a way cool demo, but how about something real-world? When learning new things, I find it difficult to be abstract, and I like real stuff. So I thought about what was in my tool box and the decided to port my crappy long-polling “there are new posts” feature of POP Forums to use SignalR. A few versions back, I added a feature where a button would light up while you were pecking out a reply if someone else made a post in the interim. It kind of saves you from that awkward moment where someone else posts some snark before you. While I was proud of the feature, I hated the implementation. When you clicked the reply button, it started polling an MVC URL asking if the last post you had matched the last one the server, and it did it every second and a half until you either replied or the server told you there was a new post, at which point it would display that button. The code was not glam: // in the reply setup PopForums.replyInterval = setInterval("PopForums.pollForNewPosts(" + topicID + ")", 1500); // called from the reply setup and the handler that fetches more posts PopForums.pollForNewPosts = function (topicID) { $.ajax({ url: PopForums.areaPath + "/Forum/IsLastPostInTopic/" + topicID, type: "GET", dataType: "text", data: "lastPostID=" + PopForums.currentTopicState.lastVisiblePost, success: function (result) { var lastPostLoaded = result.toLowerCase() == "true"; if (lastPostLoaded) { $("#MorePostsBeforeReplyButton").css("visibility", "hidden"); } else { $("#MorePostsBeforeReplyButton").css("visibility", "visible"); clearInterval(PopForums.replyInterval); } }, error: function () { } }); }; What’s going on here is the creation of an interval timer to keep calling the server and bugging it about new posts, and setting the visibility of a button appropriately. It looks like this if you’re monitoring requests in FireBug: Gross. The SignalR approach was to call a message broker when a reply was made, and have that broker call back to the listening clients, via a SingalR hub, to let them know about the new post. It seemed weird at first, but the server-side hub’s only method is to add the caller to a group, so new post notifications only go to callers viewing the topic where a new post was made. Beyond that, it’s important to remember that the hub is also the means to calling methods at the client end. Starting at the server side, here’s the hub: using Microsoft.AspNet.SignalR.Hubs; namespace PopForums.Messaging { public class Topics : Hub { public void ListenTo(int topicID) { Groups.Add(Context.ConnectionId, topicID.ToString()); } } } Have I mentioned how awesomely not complicated this is? The hub acts as the channel between the server and the client, and you’ll see how JavaScript calls the above method in a moment. Next, the broker class and its associated interface: using Microsoft.AspNet.SignalR; using Topic = PopForums.Models.Topic; namespace PopForums.Messaging { public interface IBroker { void NotifyNewPosts(Topic topic, int lasPostID); } public class Broker : IBroker { public void NotifyNewPosts(Topic topic, int lasPostID) { var context = GlobalHost.ConnectionManager.GetHubContext<Topics>(); context.Clients.Group(topic.TopicID.ToString()).notifyNewPosts(lasPostID); } } } The NotifyNewPosts method uses the static GlobalHost.ConnectionManager.GetHubContext<Topics>() method to get a reference to the hub, and then makes a call to clients in the group matched by the topic ID. It’s calling the notifyNewPosts method on the client. The TopicService class, which handles the reply data from the MVC controller, has an instance of the broker new’d up by dependency injection, so it took literally one line of code in the reply action method to get things moving. _broker.NotifyNewPosts(topic, post.PostID); The JavaScript side of things wasn’t much harder. When you click the reply button (or quote button), the reply window opens up and fires up a connection to the hub: var hub = $.connection.topics; hub.client.notifyNewPosts = function (lastPostID) { PopForums.setReplyMorePosts(lastPostID); }; $.connection.hub.start().done(function () { hub.server.listenTo(topicID); }); The important part to look at here is the creation of the notifyNewPosts function. That’s the method that is called from the server in the Broker class above. Conversely, once the connection is done, the script calls the listenTo method on the server, letting it know that this particular connection is listening for new posts on this specific topic ID. This whole experiment enables a lot of ideas that would make the forum more Facebook-like, letting you know when stuff is going on around you.

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• Reference Data Management and Master Data: Are Relation ?

  - by Mala Narasimharajan

  Submitted By:  Rahul Kamath  Oracle Data Relationship Management (DRM) has always been extremely powerful as an Enterprise Master Data Management (MDM) solution that can help manage changes to master data in a way that influences enterprise structure, whether it be mastering chart of accounts to enable financial transformation, or revamping organization structures to drive business transformation and operational efficiencies, or restructuring sales territories to enable equitable distribution of leads to sales teams following the acquisition of new products, or adding additional cost centers to enable fine grain control over expenses. Increasingly, DRM is also being utilized by Oracle customers for reference data management, an emerging solution space that deserves some explanation. What is reference data? How does it relate to Master Data? Reference data is a close cousin of master data. While master data is challenged with problems of unique identification, may be more rapidly changing, requires consensus building across stakeholders and lends structure to business transactions, reference data is simpler, more slowly changing, but has semantic content that is used to categorize or group other information assets – including master data – and gives them contextual value. In fact, the creation of a new master data element may require new reference data to be created. For example, when a European company acquires a US business, chances are that they will now need to adapt their product line taxonomy to include a new category to describe the newly acquired US product line. Further, the cross-border transaction will also result in a revised geo hierarchy. The addition of new products represents changes to master data while changes to product categories and geo hierarchy are examples of reference data changes.1 The following table contains an illustrative list of examples of reference data by type. Reference data types may include types and codes, business taxonomies, complex relationships & cross-domain mappings or standards. Types & Codes Taxonomies Relationships / Mappings Standards Transaction Codes Industry Classification Categories and Codes, e.g., North America Industry Classification System (NAICS) Product / Segment; Product / Geo Calendars (e.g., Gregorian, Fiscal, Manufacturing, Retail, ISO8601) Lookup Tables (e.g., Gender, Marital Status, etc.) Product Categories City à State à Postal Codes Currency Codes (e.g., ISO) Status Codes Sales Territories (e.g., Geo, Industry Verticals, Named Accounts, Federal/State/Local/Defense) Customer / Market Segment; Business Unit / Channel Country Codes (e.g., ISO 3166, UN) Role Codes Market Segments Country Codes / Currency Codes / Financial Accounts Date/Time, Time Zones (e.g., ISO 8601) Domain Values Universal Standard Products and Services Classification (UNSPSC), eCl@ss International Classification of Diseases (ICD) e.g., ICD9 à IC10 mappings Tax Rates Why manage reference data? Reference data carries contextual value and meaning and therefore its use can drive business logic that helps execute a business process, create a desired application behavior or provide meaningful segmentation to analyze transaction data. Further, mapping reference data often requires human judgment. Sample Use Cases of Reference Data Management Healthcare: Diagnostic Codes The reference data challenges in the healthcare industry offer a case in point. Part of being HIPAA compliant requires medical practitioners to transition diagnosis codes from ICD-9 to ICD-10, a medical coding scheme used to classify diseases, signs and symptoms, causes, etc. The transition to ICD-10 has a significant impact on business processes, procedures, contracts, and IT systems. Since both code sets ICD-9 and ICD-10 offer diagnosis codes of very different levels of granularity, human judgment is required to map ICD-9 codes to ICD-10. The process requires collaboration and consensus building among stakeholders much in the same way as does master data management. Moreover, to build reports to understand utilization, frequency and quality of diagnoses, medical practitioners may need to “cross-walk” mappings -- either forward to ICD-10 or backwards to ICD-9 depending upon the reporting time horizon. Spend Management: Product, Service & Supplier Codes Similarly, as an enterprise looks to rationalize suppliers and leverage their spend, conforming supplier codes, as well as product and service codes requires supporting multiple classification schemes that may include industry standards (e.g., UNSPSC, eCl@ss) or enterprise taxonomies. Aberdeen Group estimates that 90% of companies rely on spreadsheets and manual reviews to aggregate, classify and analyze spend data, and that data management activities account for 12-15% of the sourcing cycle and consume 30-50% of a commodity manager’s time. Creating a common map across the extended enterprise to rationalize codes across procurement, accounts payable, general ledger, credit card, procurement card (P-card) as well as ACH and bank systems can cut sourcing costs, improve compliance, lower inventory stock, and free up talent to focus on value added tasks. Change Management: Point of Sales Transaction Codes and Product Codes In the specialty finance industry, enterprises are confronted with usury laws – governed at the state and local level – that regulate financial product innovation as it relates to consumer loans, check cashing and pawn lending. To comply, it is important to demonstrate that transactions booked at the point of sale are posted against valid product codes that were on offer at the time of booking the sale. Since new products are being released at a steady stream, it is important to ensure timely and accurate mapping of point-of-sale transaction codes with the appropriate product and GL codes to comply with the changing regulations. Multi-National Companies: Industry Classification Schemes As companies grow and expand across geographies, a typical challenge they encounter with reference data represents reconciling various versions of industry classification schemes in use across nations. While the United States, Mexico and Canada conform to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) standard, European Union countries choose different variants of the NACE industry classification scheme. Multi-national companies must manage the individual national NACE schemes and reconcile the differences across countries. Enterprises must invest in a reference data change management application to address the challenge of distributing reference data changes to downstream applications and assess which applications were impacted by a given change. References 1 Master Data versus Reference Data, Malcolm Chisholm, April 1, 2006.

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• Project Management Helps AmeriCares Deliver International Aid

  - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP

  Excerpt from PROFIT - ORACLE - by Alison Weiss Handle with Care Sound project management helps AmeriCares bring international aid to those in need. The stakes are always high for AmeriCares. On a mission to restore health and save lives during times of disaster, the nonprofit international relief and humanitarian aid organization delivers donated medicines, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid to people in the U.S. and around the globe. Founded in 1982 with the express mission of responding as quickly and efficiently as possible to help people in need, the Stamford, Connecticut-based AmeriCares has delivered more than US$10.5 billion in aid to 147 countries over the past three decades. Launch the Slideshow “It’s critically important to us that we steward all the donations and that the medical supplies and medicines get to people as quickly as possible with no loss,” says Kate Sears, senior vice president for finance and technology at AmeriCares. “Whether we’re shipping IV solutions to victims of cholera in Haiti or antibiotics to Somali famine victims, we need to get the medicines there sooner because it means more people will be helped and lives improved or even saved.” Ten years ago, the tracking systems used by AmeriCares associates were paper-based. In recent years, staff started using spreadsheets, but the tracking processes were not standardized between teams. “Every team was tracking completely different information,” says Megan McDermott, senior associate, Sub-Saharan Africa partnerships, at AmeriCares. “It was just a few key things. For example, we tracked the date a shipment was supposed to arrive and the date we got reports from our partner that a hospital received aid on their end.” While the data was accurate, much detail was being lost in the process. AmeriCares management knew it could do a better job of tracking this enterprise data and in 2011 took a significant step by implementing Oracle’s Primavera P6 Professional Project Management. “It’s a comprehensive solution that has helped us improve the monitoring and controlling processes. It has allowed us to do our distribution better,” says Sears. In addition, the implementation effort has been a change agent, helping AmeriCares leadership rethink project management across the entire organization. Initially, much of the focus was on standardizing processes, but staff members also learned the importance of thinking proactively to prevent possible problems and evaluating results to determine if goals and objectives are truly being met. Such data about process efficiency and overall results is critical not only to AmeriCares staff but also to the donors supporting the organization’s life-saving missions. Efficiency Saves Lives One of AmeriCares’ core operations is to gather product donations from the private sector, establish where the most-urgent needs are, and solicit monetary support to send the aid via ocean cargo or airlift to welfare- and health-oriented nongovernmental organizations, hospitals, health networks, and government ministries based in areas in need. In 2011 alone, AmeriCares sent more than 3,500 shipments to 95 countries in response to both ongoing humanitarian needs and more than two dozen emergencies, including deadly tornadoes and storms in the U.S. and the devastating tsunami in Japan. When it comes to nonprofits in general, donors want to know that the charitable organizations they support are using funds wisely. Typically, nonprofits are evaluated by donors in terms of efficiency, an area where AmeriCares has an excellent reputation: 98 percent of expenses go directly to supporting programs and less than 2 percent represent administrative and fundraising costs. Donors, however, should look at more than simple efficiency, says Peter York, senior partner and chief research and learning officer at TCC Group, a nonprofit consultancy headquartered in New York, New York. They should also look at whether organizations have the systems in place to sustain their missions and continue to thrive. An expert on nonprofit organizational management, York has spent years studying sustainable charitable organizations. He defines them as nonprofits that are able to achieve the ongoing financial support to stay relevant and continue doing core mission work. In his analysis of well over 2,500 larger nonprofits, York has found that many are not sustaining, and are actually scaling back in size. “One of the biggest challenges of nonprofit sustainability is the general public’s perception that every dollar donated has to go only to the delivery of service,” says York. “What our data shows is that there are some fundamental capacities that have to be there in order for organizations to sustain and grow.” York’s research highlights the importance of data-driven leadership at successful nonprofits. “You’ve got to have the tools, the systems, and the technologies to get objective information on what you do, the people you serve, and the results you’re achieving,” says York. “If leaders don’t have the knowledge and the data, they can’t make the strategic decisions about programs to take organizations to the next level.” Historically, AmeriCares associates have used time-tested and cost-effective strategies to ship and then track supplies from donation to delivery to their destinations in designated time frames. When disaster strikes, AmeriCares ships by air and generally pulls out all the stops to deliver the most urgently needed aid within the first few days and weeks. Then, as situations stabilize, AmeriCares turns to delivering sea containers for the postemergency and ongoing aid so often needed over the long term. According to McDermott, getting a shipment out the door is fairly complicated, requiring as many as five different AmeriCares teams collaborating together. The entire process can take months—from when products are received in the warehouse and deciding which recipients to allocate supplies to, to getting customs and governmental approvals in place, actually shipping products, and finally ensuring that the products are received in-country. Delivering that aid is no small affair. “Our volume exceeds half a billion dollars a year worth of donated medicines and medical supplies, so it’s a sizable logistical operation to bring these products in and get them out to the right place quickly to have the most impact,” says Sears. “We really pride ourselves on our controls and efficiencies.” Adding to that complexity is the fact that the longer it takes to deliver aid, the more dire the human need can be. Any time AmeriCares associates can shave off the complicated aid delivery process can translate into lives saved. “It’s really being able to track information consistently that will help us to see where are the bottlenecks and where can we work on improving our processes,” says McDermott. Setting a Standard Productivity and information management improvements were key objectives for AmeriCares when staff began the process of implementing Oracle’s Primavera solution. But before configuring the software, the staff needed to take the time to analyze the systems already in place. According to Greg Loop, manager of database systems at AmeriCares, the organization received guidance from several consultants, including Rich D’Addario, consulting project manager in the Primavera Global Business Unit at Oracle, who was instrumental in shepherding the critical requirements-gathering phase. D’Addario encouraged staff to begin documenting shipping processes by considering the order in which activities occur and which ones are dependent on others to get accomplished. This exercise helped everyone realize that to be more efficient, they needed to keep track of shipments in a more standard way. “The staff didn’t recognize formal project management methodology,” says D’Addario. “But they did understand what the most important things are and that if they go wrong, an entire project can go off course.” Before, if a boatload of supplies was being sent to Haiti and there was a problem somewhere, a lot of time was taken up finding out where the problem was—because staff was not tracking things in a standard way. As a result, even more time was needed to find possible solutions to the problem and alert recipients that the aid might be delayed. “For everyone to put on the project manager hat and standardize the way every single thing is done means that now the whole organization is on the same page as to what needs to occur from the time a hurricane hits Haiti and when a boat pulls in to unload supplies,” says D’Addario. With so much care taken to put a process foundation firmly in place, configuring the Primavera solution was actually quite simple. Specific templates were set up for different types of shipments, and dashboards were implemented to provide executives with clear overviews of every project in the system. AmeriCares’ Loop reports that system planning, refining, and testing, followed by writing up documentation and training, took approximately four months. The system went live in spring 2011 at AmeriCares’ Connecticut headquarters. While the nonprofit has an international presence, with warehouses in Europe and offices in Haiti, India, Japan, and Sri Lanka, most donated medicines come from U.S. entities and are shipped from the U.S. out to the rest of the world. In addition, all shipments are tracked from the U.S. office. AmeriCares doesn’t expect the Primavera system to take months off the shipping time, especially for sea containers. However, any time saved is still important because it will allow aid to be delivered to people more quickly at a lower overall cost. “If we can trim a day or two here or there, that can translate into lives that we’re saving, especially in emergency situations,” says Sears. A Cultural Change Beyond the measurable benefits that come with IT-driven process improvement, AmeriCares management is seeing a change in culture as a result of the Primavera project. One change has been treating every shipment of aid as a project, and everyone involved with facilitating shipments as a project manager. “This is a revolutionary concept for us,” says McDermott. “Before, we were used to thinking we were doing logistics—getting a container from point A to point B without looking at it as one project and really understanding what it meant to manage it.” AmeriCares staff is also happy to report that collaboration within the organization is much more efficient. When someone creates a shipment in the Primavera system, the same shared template is used, which means anyone can log in to the system to see the status of a shipment. Knowledgeable staff can access a shipment project to help troubleshoot a problem. Management can easily check the status of projects across the organization. “Dashboards are really useful,” says McDermott. “Instead of going into the details of each project, you can just see the high-level real-time information at a glance.” The new system is helping team members focus on proactively managing shipments rather than simply reacting when problems occur. For example, when a container is shipped, documents must be included for customs clearance. Now, the shipping template has built-in reminders to prompt team members to ask for copies of these documents from freight forwarders and to follow up with partners to discover if a shipment is on time. In the past, staff may not have worked on securing these documents until they’d been notified a shipment had arrived in-country. Another benefit of capturing and adopting best practices within the Primavera system is that staff training is easier. “Capturing the processes in documented steps and milestones allows us to teach new staff members how to do their jobs faster,” says Sears. “It provides them with the knowledge of their predecessors so they don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel.” With the Primavera system already generating positive results, management is eager to take advantage of advanced capabilities. Loop is working on integrating the company’s proprietary inventory management system with the Primavera system so that when logistics or warehousing operators input data, the information will automatically go into the Primavera system. In the past, this information had to be manually keyed into spreadsheets, often leading to errors. Mining Historical Data Another feature on the horizon for AmeriCares is utilizing Primavera P6 Professional Project Management reporting capabilities. As the system begins to include more historical data, management soon will be able to draw on this information to conduct analysis that has not been possible before and create customized reports. For example, at the beginning of the shipment process, staff will be able to use historical data to more accurately estimate how long the approval process should take for a particular country. This could help ensure that food and medicine with limited shelf lives do not get stuck in customs or used beyond their expiration dates. The historical data in the Primavera system will also help AmeriCares with better planning year to year. The nonprofit’s staff has always put together a plan at the beginning of the year, but this has been very challenging simply because it is impossible to predict disasters. Now, management will be able to look at historical data and see trends and statistics as they set current objectives and prepare for future need. In addition, this historical data will provide AmeriCares management with the ability to review year-end data and compare actual project results with goals set at the beginning of the year—to see if desired outcomes were achieved and if there are areas that need improvement. It’s this type of information that is so valuable to donors. And, according to York, project management software can play a critical role in generating the data to help nonprofits sustain and grow. “It is important to invest in systems to help replicate, expand, and deliver services,” says York. “Project management software can help because it encourages nonprofits to examine program or service changes and how to manage moving forward.” Sears believes that AmeriCares donors will support the return on investment the organization will achieve with the Primavera solution. “It won’t be financial returns, but rather how many more people we can help for a given dollar or how much more quickly we can respond to a need,” says Sears. “I think donors are receptive to such arguments.” And for AmeriCares, it is all about the future and increasing results. The project management environment currently may be quite simple, but IT staff plans to expand the complexity and functionality as the organization grows in its knowledge of project management and the goals it wants to achieve. “As we use the system over time, we’ll continue to refine our best practices and accumulate more data,” says Sears. “It will advance our ability to make better data-driven decisions.”

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• Infiniband: a highperformance network fabric - Part I

  - by Karoly Vegh

  Introduction:At the OpenWorld this year I managed to chat with interesting people again - one of them answering Infiniband deepdive questions with ease by coffee turned out to be one of Oracle's IB engineers, Ted Kim, who actually actively participates in the Infiniband Trade Association and integrates Oracle solutions with this highspeed network. This is why I love attending OOW. He granted me an hour of his time to talk about IB. This post is mostly based on that tech interview.Start of the actual post: Traditionally datatransfer between servers and storage elements happens in networks with up to 10 gigabit/seconds or in SANs with up to 8 gbps fiberchannel connections. Happens. Well, data rather trickles through.But nowadays data amounts grow well over the TeraByte order of magnitude, and multisocket/multicore/multithread Servers hunger data that these transfer technologies just can't deliver fast enough, causing all CPUs of this world do one thing at the same speed - waiting for data. And once again, I/O is the bottleneck in computing. FC and Ethernet can't keep up. We have half-TB SSDs, dozens of TB RAM to store data to be modified in, but can't transfer it. Can't backup fast enough, can't replicate fast enough, can't synchronize fast enough, can't load fast enough. The bad news is, everyone is used to this, like back in the '80s everyone was used to start compile jobs and go for a coffee. Or on vacation. The good news is, there's an alternative. Not so-called "bleeding-edge" 8gbps, but (as of now) 56. Not layers of overhead, but low latency. And it is available now. It has been for a while, actually. Welcome to the world of Infiniband. Short history:Infiniband was born as a result of joint efforts of HPAQ, IBM, Intel, Sun and Microsoft. They planned to implement a next-generation I/O fabric, in the 90s. In the 2000s Infiniband (from now on: IB) was quite popular in the high-performance computing field, powering most of the top500 supercomputers. Then in the middle of the decade, Oracle realized its potential and used it as an interconnect backbone for the first Database Machine, the first Exadata. Since then, IB has been booming, Oracle utilizes and supports it in a large set of its HW products, it is the backbone of the famous Engineered Systems: Exadata, SPARC SuperCluster, Exalogic, OVCA and even the new DB backup/recovery box. You can also use it to make servers talk highspeed IP to eachother, or to a ZFS Storage Appliance. Following Oracle's lead, even IBM has jumped the wagon, and leverages IB in its PureFlex systems, their first InfiniBand Machines.IB Structural Overview: If you want to use IB in your servers, the first thing you will need is PCI cards, in IB terms Host Channel Adapters, or HCAs. Just like NICs for Ethernet, or HBAs for FC. In these you plug an IB cable, going to an IB switch providing connection to other IB HCAs. Of course you're going to need drivers for those in your OS. Yes, these are long-available for Solaris and Linux. Now, what protocols can you talk over IB? There's a range of choices. See, IB isn't accepting package loss like Ethernet does, and hence doesn't need to rely on TCP/IP as a workaround for resends. That is, you still can run IP over IB (IPoIB), and that is used in various cases for control functionality, but the datatransfer can run over more efficient protocols - like native IB. About PCI connectivity: IB cards, as you see are fast. They bring low latency, which is just as important as their bandwidth. Current IB cards run at 56 gbit/s. That is slightly more than double of the capacity of a PCI Gen2 slot (of ~25 gbit/s). And IB cards are equipped usually with two ports - that is, altogether you'd need 112 gbit/s PCI slots, to be able to utilize FDR IB cards in an active-active fashion. PCI Gen3 slots provide you with around ~50gbps. This is why the most IB cards are configured in an active-standby way if both ports are used. Once again the PCI slot is the bottleneck. Anyway, the new Oracle servers are equipped with Gen3 PCI slots, an the new IB HCAs support those too. Oracle utilizes the QDR HCAs, running at 40gbp/s brutto, which translates to a 32gbp/s net traffic due to the 10:8 signal-to-data information ratio. Consolidation techniques: Technology never stops to evolve. Mellanox is working on the 100 gbps (EDR) version already, which will be optical, since signal technology doesn't allow EDR to be copper. Also, I hear you say "100gbps? I will never use/need that much". Are you sure? Have you considered consolidation scenarios, where (for example with Oracle Virtual Network) you could consolidate your platform to a high densitiy virtualized solution providing many virtual 10gbps interfaces through that 100gbps? Technology never stops to evolve. I still remember when a 10mbps network was impressively fast. Back in those days, 16MB of RAM was a lot. Now we usually run servers with around 100.000 times more RAM. If network infrastrucure speends could grow as fast as main memory capacities, we'd have a different landscape now :) You can utilize SRIOV as well for consolidation. That is, if you run LDoms (aka Oracle VM Server for SPARC) you do not have to add physical IB cards to all your guest LDoms, and you do not need to run VIO devices through the hypervisor either (avoiding overhead). You can enable SRIOV on those IB cards, which practically virtualizes the PCI bus, and you can dedicate Physical- and Virtual Functions of the virtualized HCAs as native, physical HW devices to your guests. See Raghuram's excellent post explaining SRIOV. SRIOV for IB is supported since LDoms 3.1.  This post is getting lengthier, so I will rename it to Part I, and continue it in a second post. 

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• Process Centric Banking: Loan Origination Solution

  - by Manish Palaparthy

  There is an old proverb that goes, "The difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than in theory". So, we keep doing numerous "Proof of Concepts" with our own products on various business cases to analyze them deeply, understand and explain to our customers. We then present our learnings as they happened. The awareness of each PoC should help readers increase the trustworthiness of the results coming out of these PoCs. I present one such PoC where we invested a lot of time&effort.  Process Centric Banking : Loan Origination Solution Loan Origination is a process by which a borrower applies for a new loan and the lender processes that application. Loan origination includes the series of steps taken by the bank from the point the customer shows interest in a loan product all the way to disbursal of funds. The Loan Origination process is relevant for many kind of lenders in Financial services: Banks, Credit Unions, NBFCs(Non Banking Financial Companies) and so on. For simplicity sake, I will use "Bank" as the lending institution in the rest of my article.  Loan Origination is one of the core processes for Banks as it is the process by which the it creates assets against which the Institution earns most of its profits from. A well tuned loan origination process can affect the Bank in many positive ways. Banks have always shown great interest in automating the loan origination process for the above reason. However, due the constant changes in customer environment, market dynamics, prevailing economic conditions, cost pressures & regulatory environment they run into lot of challenges. Let me categorize some of these challenges for you Customer Environment Multiple Channels: Customer can use any of the available channels (Internet Banking, Email, Fax, Branch, Phone Banking, ATM, Broker, Mobile, Snail Mail) to perform all or some of the activities related to her Visibility into the origination process: Expect immediate update on the status of loan processing & alert messages Reduced Turn Around Time: Expect loans to be processed with least turn around time Reduced loan processing fees: Partly due to market dynamics the customer expects the loan processing fee to be negligible Market Dynamics Competitive environment:  The competition keeps creating many variants of loan products to attract customers, the bank needs to create similar product variants with better offers to attract customers or keep existing ones Ability to migrate loans from one vendor to another: It has become really easy for retail customers to move from one bank to the other given the low fee of loan processing and highly attractive offers. How does the bank protect it's customer base while actively engaging with potential customers banking with competitor banks Flexibility to react to market developments: Market development greatly influence loan processing, underwriting, asset valuation, risk mitigation rules. Can the bank modify rules and policies, the idea is not just to react to market developments but to pro-actively manage new developments Economic conditions Constant change in various rates and their implications on the rates and rules applied when on-boarding a loan: How quickly can the bank apply changes to rates offered to customers when the central bank changes various rates Requirements of Audit by the central banker: Tough economic conditions have demanded much more stringent audit rules and tests. The banks needs to produce ready reports(historic & operational) for audit compliance Risk Mitigation: While risk mitigation has always been a key concern for the bank, this is the area where the bank's underwriters & risk analysts spend the maximum time when processing a loan application. In order to reduce TAT the bank cannot compromise on its risk mitigation strategies Cost pressures Reduce Cost of processing per application: To deliver a reduced loan processing fee to the customer, the bank needs to keep its cost per processing loan application low. Meet customer TAT expectations while reducing the queues and the systems being used to process the loan application: The loan application could potentially be spending a lot of time waiting in the queue for further processing. Different volumes & patterns of applications demand different queuing algorithms. The bank needs to have real-time visibility into these queues and have the flexibility to change queuing algorithms at runtime  Increase the use of electronic communication and reduce the branch channel usage: Lesser automation leads not only leads to Increased turn around time, it also impacts more costs to reach out to customers The objective of our PoC was to implement a Loan Origination Solution whose ownership lies with the bank and effectively meet the challenges listed above. We built a simple story board for the solution We then went about implementing our storyboard using Oracle BPM Suite, Webcenter Content : Imaging. The web UI has been built on ADF technolgies, while the integration with core-services has been implemented using the underlying SOA infrastructure. The BPM process model is quite exhaustive can meet all the challenges listed above to reasonable degree. A bank intending to implement an end-to-end Loan Origination Solution has multiple options at it's disposal. It can Develop a customer Loan Origination Application from scratch: Gives maximum opportunity to build what you want but inflexible to upgrade and maintain. Higher TCO in long term Buy a Packaged application & customize it: Customizing a generic loan application can be tedious and prove as difficult as above. Build it using many disparate & un-integrated tools: Initially seems easier than developing from scratch. But, without integrated tool sets this is not a viable approach either or A solution based on a Framework: Independent Services and Business Process Modeling provide decoupled architecture that is flexible. We built this framework end-to-end with processes the core process of loan origination & several sub-processes such as Analyse and define customer needs, customer credit verification, identity check processes, legal review process, New customer registration & risk assessment.

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• Customer Engagement: Are Your Customers Engaged With Your Brands?

  - by Michael Snow

  Engaging Customers is Critical for Business Growth This week we'll be spending some time looking at Customer Engagement. We all have stories about how we try to engage our customers better than ever before.  We all know that successfully engaging customers is critical to an organization’s business success. We also know that engaging our customers is more challenging today than ever before. There is so much noise to compete with for getting anyone's attention. Over the last decade and a half we’ve watched as the online channel became a primary one for conducting our business and even managing our lives. And during this whole process or evolution, the customer journey has grown increasingly complex. Customers themselves have assumed increasing power and influence over the purchase process and for setting the tone and pace of the relationships they have with brands and you see the evidence of this in the really high expectations that customers have today. They expect brand experiences that are personalized and relevant -- In other words they want experiences that demonstrate that the brand understands their interests, preferences and past interactions with them. They also expect their experience with a brand and the community surrounding it to be social and interactive – it’s no longer acceptable to have a static, one-way dialogue with your customer base or to fail to connect your customers with fellow customers, or with your employees and partners. And on top of all this, customers expect us to deliver this rich and engaging, personalized and interactive experience, in a consistent way across a variety of channels including web, mobile and social channels or even offline venues such as in-store or via a call center. And as a result, we see that delivery on these expectations and successfully engaging your customers is a great challenge today. Customers expect a personal, engaging and consistent online customer experience. Today’s consumer expects to engage with your brand and the community surrounding it in an interactive and social way. Customers have come to expect a lot for the online customer experience.  ·        They expect it to be personal: o   Accessible:  - Regardless of my device  Via my existing online identities  o   Relevant:  Content that interests me  o   Customized:  To be able to tailor my online experience  ·        They expect it to be engaging: o   Social:  So I can share content with my social networks  o   Intuitive:  To easily find what I need   o   Interactive:  So I can interact with online communities And they expect it to be consistent across the online experience – so you better have your brand and information ducks in a row. These expectations are not only limited to your customers by any means. Your employees (and partners) are also expecting to be empowered with engagement tools across their internal and external communications and interactions with customers, partners and other employees. We had a great conversation with Ted Schadler from Forrester Research entitled: "Mobile is the New Face of Engagement" that is now available On-Demand. Take a look at all the webcasts available to watch from our Social Business Thought Leader Series. Social capabilities have become so pervasive and changed customers’ expectations for their online experiences. The days of one-direction communication with customers are at an end. Today’s customers expect to engage in a dialogue with your brand and the community surrounding it in an interactive and social way. You have at a very short window of opportunity to engage a customer before they go to another site in their pursuit of information, product, or services. In fact, customers who engage with brands via social media tend to spend more that customers who don’t, between 20% and 40% more.  And your customers are also increasingly influenced by their social networks too – 40% of consumers say they factor in Facebook recommendations when making purchasing decisions.  This means a few different things for today’s businesses. Incorporating forms of social interaction such as commenting or reviews as well as tightly integrating your online experience with your customers’ social networking experiences into the online customer experience are crucial for maintaining the eyeballs on your desired pages. --- Notes/Sources: 93% - Cone Finds that Americans Expect Companies to Have a Presence in Social Media - http://www.coneinc.com/content1182 40% of consumers factor in Facebook recommendations when making decisions about purchasing (Increasing Campaign Effectiveness with Social Media, Syncapse, March 2011) 20%-40% - Customers who engage with a company via social media spend this percentage more with that company than other customers (Source: Bain & Company Report – Putting Social Media to Work)

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• 2D metaball liquid effect - how to feed output of one rendering pass as input to another shader

  - by Guye Incognito

  I'm attempting to make a shader for unity3d web project. I want to implement something like in the great answer by DMGregory in this question. in order to achieve a final look something like this.. Its metaballs with specular and shading. The steps to make this shader are. 1. Convert the feathered blobs into a heightmap. 2. Generate a normalmap from the heightmap 3. Feed the normal map and height map into a standard unity shader, for instance transparent parallax specular. I pretty much have all the pieces I need assembled but I am new to shaders and need help putting them together I can generate a heightmap from the blobs using some fragment shader code I wrote (I'm just using the red channel here cus i dont know if you can access the brightness) half4 frag (v2f i) : COLOR{ half4 texcol,finalColor; texcol = tex2D (_MainTex, i.uv); finalColor=_MyColor; if(texcol.r<_botmcut) { finalColor.r= 0; } else if((texcol.r>_topcut)) { finalColor.r= 0; } else { float r = _topcut-_botmcut; float xpos = _topcut - texcol.r; finalColor.r= (_botmcut + sqrt((xpos*xpos)-(r*r)))/_constant; } return finalColor; } turns these blobs.. into this heightmap Also I've found some CG code that generates a normal map from a height map. The bit of code that makes the normal map from finite differences is here void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) { o.Albedo = fixed3(0.5); float3 normal = UnpackNormal(tex2D(_BumpMap, IN.uv_MainTex)); float me = tex2D(_HeightMap,IN.uv_MainTex).x; float n = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x,IN.uv_MainTex.y+1.0/_HeightmapDimY)).x; float s = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x,IN.uv_MainTex.y-1.0/_HeightmapDimY)).x; float e = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x-1.0/_HeightmapDimX,IN.uv_MainTex.y)).x; float w = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x+1.0/_HeightmapDimX,IN.uv_MainTex.y)).x; float3 norm = normal; float3 temp = norm; //a temporary vector that is not parallel to norm if(norm.x==1) temp.y+=0.5; else temp.x+=0.5; //form a basis with norm being one of the axes: float3 perp1 = normalize(cross(norm,temp)); float3 perp2 = normalize(cross(norm,perp1)); //use the basis to move the normal in its own space by the offset float3 normalOffset = -_HeightmapStrength * ( ( (n-me) - (s-me) ) * perp1 + ( ( e - me ) - ( w - me ) ) * perp2 ); norm += normalOffset; norm = normalize(norm); o.Normal = norm; } Also here is the built-in transparent parallax specular shader for unity. Shader "Transparent/Parallax Specular" { Properties { _Color ("Main Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1) _SpecColor ("Specular Color", Color) = (0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0) _Shininess ("Shininess", Range (0.01, 1)) = 0.078125 _Parallax ("Height", Range (0.005, 0.08)) = 0.02 _MainTex ("Base (RGB) TransGloss (A)", 2D) = "white" {} _BumpMap ("Normalmap", 2D) = "bump" {} _ParallaxMap ("Heightmap (A)", 2D) = "black" {} } SubShader { Tags {"Queue"="Transparent" "IgnoreProjector"="True" "RenderType"="Transparent"} LOD 600 CGPROGRAM #pragma surface surf BlinnPhong alpha #pragma exclude_renderers flash sampler2D _MainTex; sampler2D _BumpMap; sampler2D _ParallaxMap; fixed4 _Color; half _Shininess; float _Parallax; struct Input { float2 uv_MainTex; float2 uv_BumpMap; float3 viewDir; }; void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) { half h = tex2D (_ParallaxMap, IN.uv_BumpMap).w; float2 offset = ParallaxOffset (h, _Parallax, IN.viewDir); IN.uv_MainTex += offset; IN.uv_BumpMap += offset; fixed4 tex = tex2D(_MainTex, IN.uv_MainTex); o.Albedo = tex.rgb * _Color.rgb; o.Gloss = tex.a; o.Alpha = tex.a * _Color.a; o.Specular = _Shininess; o.Normal = UnpackNormal(tex2D(_BumpMap, IN.uv_BumpMap)); } ENDCG } FallBack "Transparent/Bumped Specular" }

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• SPARC T4-4 Delivers World Record Performance on Oracle OLAP Perf Version 2 Benchmark

  - by Brian

  Oracle's SPARC T4-4 server delivered world record performance with subsecond response time on the Oracle OLAP Perf Version 2 benchmark using Oracle Database 11g Release 2 running on Oracle Solaris 11. The SPARC T4-4 server achieved throughput of 430,000 cube-queries/hour with an average response time of 0.85 seconds and the median response time of 0.43 seconds. This was achieved by using only 60% of the available CPU resources leaving plenty of headroom for future growth. The SPARC T4-4 server operated on an Oracle OLAP cube with a 4 billion row fact table of sales data containing 4 dimensions. This represents as many as 90 quintillion aggregate rows (90 followed by 18 zeros). Performance Landscape Oracle OLAP Perf Version 2 Benchmark 4 Billion Fact Table Rows System Queries/hour Users* Response Time (sec) Average Median SPARC T4-4 430,000 7,300 0.85 0.43 * Users - the supported number of users with a given think time of 60 seconds Configuration Summary and Results Hardware Configuration: SPARC T4-4 server with 4 x SPARC T4 processors, 3.0 GHz 1 TB memory Data Storage 1 x Sun Fire X4275 (using COMSTAR) 2 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array (each with 80 FMODs) Redo Storage 1 x Sun Fire X4275 (using COMSTAR with 8 HDD) Software Configuration: Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3) with Oracle OLAP option Benchmark Description The Oracle OLAP Perf Version 2 benchmark is a workload designed to demonstrate and stress the Oracle OLAP product's core features of fast query, fast update, and rich calculations on a multi-dimensional model to support enhanced Data Warehousing. The bulk of the benchmark entails running a number of concurrent users, each issuing typical multidimensional queries against an Oracle OLAP cube consisting of a number of years of sales data with fully pre-computed aggregations. The cube has four dimensions: time, product, customer, and channel. Each query user issues approximately 150 different queries. One query chain may ask for total sales in a particular region (e.g South America) for a particular time period (e.g. Q4 of 2010) followed by additional queries which drill down into sales for individual countries (e.g. Chile, Peru, etc.) with further queries drilling down into individual stores, etc. Another query chain may ask for yearly comparisons of total sales for some product category (e.g. major household appliances) and then issue further queries drilling down into particular products (e.g. refrigerators, stoves. etc.), particular regions, particular customers, etc. Results from version 2 of the benchmark are not comparable with version 1. The primary difference is the type of queries along with the query mix. Key Points and Best Practices Since typical BI users are often likely to issue similar queries, with different constants in the where clauses, setting the init.ora prameter "cursor_sharing" to "force" will provide for additional query throughput and a larger number of potential users. Except for this setting, together with making full use of available memory, out of the box performance for the OLAP Perf workload should provide results similar to what is reported here. For a given number of query users with zero think time, the main measured metrics are the average query response time, the median query response time, and the query throughput. A derived metric is the maximum number of users the system can support achieving the measured response time assuming some non-zero think time. The calculation of the maximum number of users follows from the well-known response-time law N = (rt + tt) * tp where rt is the average response time, tt is the think time and tp is the measured throughput. Setting tt to 60 seconds, rt to 0.85 seconds and tp to 119.44 queries/sec (430,000 queries/hour), the above formula shows that the T4-4 server will support 7,300 concurrent users with a think time of 60 seconds and an average response time of 0.85 seconds. For more information see chapter 3 from the book "Quantitative System Performance" cited below. -- See Also Quantitative System Performance Computer System Analysis Using Queueing Network Models Edward D. Lazowska, John Zahorjan, G. Scott Graham, Kenneth C. Sevcik external local Oracle Database 11g – Oracle OLAP oracle.com OTN SPARC T4-4 Server oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement Copyright 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Results as of 11/2/2012.

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• What to "CRM" in San Francisco? CRM Highlights for OpenWorld '12

  - by Tony Berk

  There is plenty to SEE for CRM during OpenWorld in San Francisco, September 30 - October 4! As I mentioned in my earlier post about some of the keynote sessions, Is There a Cloud Over OpenWorld?, I'm going try to highlight some key sessions to help you find the best sessions for you. Interested to find out where Oracle CRM products are headed, then find your "roadmap" session. Here are some of the sessions in the CRM Track that you might want to consider attending for products you currently own or might consider for the future. I think you'll agree, there is quite a bit of investment going on across Oracle CRM. Please use OpenWorld Schedule Builder or check the OpenWorld Content Catalog for all of the session details and any time or location changes. Tip: Pre-enrolled session registrants via Schedule Builder are allowed into the session rooms before anyone else, so Schedule Builder will guarantee you a seat. Many of the sessions below will likely be at capacity. General Session: Oracle Fusion CRM—Improving Sales Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ease of Use (Session ID: GEN9674) - Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM. Anthony Lye, Senior VP, Oracle leads this general session focused on Oracle Fusion CRM. Oracle Fusion CRM optimizes territories, combines quota management and incentive compensation, integrates sales and marketing, and cleanses and enriches data—all within a single application platform. Oracle Fusion can be configured, changed, and extended at runtime by end users, business managers, IT, and developers. Oracle Fusion CRM can be used from the Web, from a smartphone, from Microsoft Outlook, or from an iPad. Deloitte, sponsor of the CRM Track, will also present key concepts on CRM implementations. Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management: Overview/Strategy/Customer Experiences/Roadmap (CON9407) - Oct 1, 3:15PM - 4:15PM. In this session, learn how Oracle Fusion CRM enables companies to create better sales plans, generate more quality leads, and achieve higher win rates and find out why customers are adopting Oracle Fusion CRM. Gain a deeper understanding of the unique capabilities only Oracle Fusion CRM provides, and learn how Oracle’s commitment to CRM innovation is driving a wide range of future enhancements. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Vision and Roadmap (CON9764) - Oct 1, 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service combines Web, social, and contact center experiences for a unified, cross-channel service solution in the cloud, enabling organizations to increase sales and adoption, build trust, strengthen relationships, and reduce costs and effort. Come to this session to hear from Oracle experts about where the product is going and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Siebel CRM Overview, Strategy, and Roadmap (CON9700) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. The world’s most complete CRM solution, Oracle’s Siebel CRM helps organizations differentiate their businesses. Come to this session to learn about the Siebel product roadmap and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value for its customers on this platform. Additionally, the session covers how Siebel customers can leverage many Oracle assets such as Oracle WebCenter Sites; InQuira, RightNow, and ATG/Endeca applications, and Oracle Policy Automation in conjunction with their current Siebel investments. Oracle Fusion Social CRM Strategy and Roadmap: Future of Collaboration and Social Engagement (CON9750) - Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM. Social is changing the customer experience! Come find out how Oracle can help you know your customers better, encourage brand affinity, and improve collaboration within your ecosystem. This session reviews Oracle’s social media solution and shows how you can discover hidden insights buried in your enterprise and social data. Also learn how Oracle Social Network revolutionizes how enterprise users work, collaborate, and share to achieve successful outcomes. Oracle CRM On Demand Strategy and Roadmap (CON9727) - Oct 1, 10:45AM - 11:45AM. Oracle CRM On Demand is a powerful cloud-based customer relationship management solution. Come to this session to learn directly from Oracle experts about future product plans and hear how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Knowledge Management Roadmap and Strategy (CON9776) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Learn how to harness the knowledge created as a natural byproduct of day-to-day interactions to lower costs and improve customer experience by delivering the right answer at the right time across channels. This session includes an overview of Oracle’s product roadmap and vision for knowledge management for both the Oracle RightNow and Oracle Knowledge (formerly InQuira) product families. Oracle Policy Automation Roadmap: Supercharging the Customer Experience (CON9655) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Oracle Policy Automation delivers rapid customer value by streamlining the capture, analysis, and deployment of policies across every facet of the customer experience. This session discusses recent Oracle Policy Automation enhancements for policy analytics; the latest Oracle Policy Automation Connector for Siebel; and planned new capabilities, including availability with the Oracle RightNow product line. There is much more, so stay tuned for more highlights or check out the Content Catalog and search for your areas of interest. Which session are you most interested in? Make your suggestions! But no voting for Pearl Jam or Kings of Leon. Those are after hours! 

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• Not getting desired results with SSAO implementation

  - by user1294203

  After having implemented deferred rendering, I tried my luck with a SSAO implementation using this Tutorial. Unfortunately, I'm not getting anything that looks like SSAO, you can see my result below. You can see there is some weird pattern forming and there is no occlusion shading where there needs to be (i.e. in between the objects and on the ground). The shaders I implemented follow: #VS #version 330 core uniform mat4 invProjMatrix; layout(location = 0) in vec3 in_Position; layout(location = 2) in vec2 in_TexCoord; noperspective out vec2 pass_TexCoord; smooth out vec3 viewRay; void main(void){ pass_TexCoord = in_TexCoord; viewRay = (invProjMatrix * vec4(in_Position, 1.0)).xyz; gl_Position = vec4(in_Position, 1.0); } #FS #version 330 core uniform sampler2D DepthMap; uniform sampler2D NormalMap; uniform sampler2D noise; uniform vec2 projAB; uniform ivec3 noiseScale_kernelSize; uniform vec3 kernel[16]; uniform float RADIUS; uniform mat4 projectionMatrix; noperspective in vec2 pass_TexCoord; smooth in vec3 viewRay; layout(location = 0) out float out_AO; vec3 CalcPosition(void){ float depth = texture(DepthMap, pass_TexCoord).r; float linearDepth = projAB.y / (depth - projAB.x); vec3 ray = normalize(viewRay); ray = ray / ray.z; return linearDepth * ray; } mat3 CalcRMatrix(vec3 normal, vec2 texcoord){ ivec2 noiseScale = noiseScale_kernelSize.xy; vec3 rvec = texture(noise, texcoord * noiseScale).xyz; vec3 tangent = normalize(rvec - normal * dot(rvec, normal)); vec3 bitangent = cross(normal, tangent); return mat3(tangent, bitangent, normal); } void main(void){ vec2 TexCoord = pass_TexCoord; vec3 Position = CalcPosition(); vec3 Normal = normalize(texture(NormalMap, TexCoord).xyz); mat3 RotationMatrix = CalcRMatrix(Normal, TexCoord); int kernelSize = noiseScale_kernelSize.z; float occlusion = 0.0; for(int i = 0; i < kernelSize; i++){ // Get sample position vec3 sample = RotationMatrix * kernel[i]; sample = sample * RADIUS + Position; // Project and bias sample position to get its texture coordinates vec4 offset = projectionMatrix * vec4(sample, 1.0); offset.xy /= offset.w; offset.xy = offset.xy * 0.5 + 0.5; // Get sample depth float sample_depth = texture(DepthMap, offset.xy).r; float linearDepth = projAB.y / (sample_depth - projAB.x); if(abs(Position.z - linearDepth ) < RADIUS){ occlusion += (linearDepth <= sample.z) ? 1.0 : 0.0; } } out_AO = 1.0 - (occlusion / kernelSize); } I draw a full screen quad and pass Depth and Normal textures. Normals are in RGBA16F with the alpha channel reserved for the AO factor in the blur pass. I store depth in a non linear Depth buffer (32F) and recover the linear depth using: float linearDepth = projAB.y / (depth - projAB.x); where projAB.y is calculated as: and projAB.x as: These are derived from the glm::perspective(gluperspective) matrix. z_n and z_f are the near and far clip distance. As described in the link I posted on the top, the method creates samples in a hemisphere with higher distribution close to the center. It then uses random vectors from a texture to rotate the hemisphere randomly around the Z direction and finally orients it along the normal at the given pixel. Since the result is noisy, a blur pass follows the SSAO pass. Anyway, my position reconstruction doesn't seem to be wrong since I also tried doing the same but with the position passed from a texture instead of being reconstructed. I also tried playing with the Radius, noise texture size and number of samples and with different kinds of texture formats, with no luck. For some reason when changing the Radius, nothing changes. Does anyone have any suggestions? What could be going wrong?

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• Best Practices - Dynamic Reconfiguration

  - by jsavit

  This post is one of a series of "best practices" notes for Oracle VM Server for SPARC (formerly named Logical Domains) Overview of dynamic Reconfiguration Oracle VM Server for SPARC supports Dynamic Reconfiguration (DR), making it possible to add or remove resources to or from a domain (virtual machine) while it is running. This is extremely useful because resources can be shifted to or from virtual machines in response to load conditions without having to reboot or interrupt running applications. For example, if an application requires more CPU capacity, you can add CPUs to improve performance, and remove them when they are no longer needed. You can use even use Dynamic Resource Management (DRM) policies that automatically add and remove CPUs to domains based on load. How it works (in broad general terms) Dynamic Reconfiguration is done in coordination with Solaris, which recognises a hypervisor request to change its virtual machine configuration and responds appropriately. In essence, Solaris receives a message saying "you now have 16 more CPUs numbered 16 to 31" or "8GB more RAM starting at address X" or "here's a new network or disk device - have fun with it". These actions take very little time. Solaris then can start using the new resource. In the case of added CPUs, that means dispatching processes and potentially binding interrupts to the new CPUs. For memory, Solaris adds the new memory pages to its "free" list and starts using them. Comparable actions occur with network and disk devices: they are recognised by Solaris and then used. Removing is the reverse process: after receiving the DR message to free specific CPUs, Solaris unbinds interrupts assigned to the CPUs and stops dispatching process threads. That takes very little time. primary # ldm list NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-cv- SP 16 4G 1.0% 6d 22h 29m ldom1 active -n---- 5000 16 8G 0.9% 6h 59m primary # ldm set-core 5 ldom1 primary # ldm list NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-cv- SP 16 4G 0.2% 6d 22h 29m ldom1 active -n---- 5000 40 8G 0.1% 6h 59m primary # ldm set-core 2 ldom1 primary # ldm list NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-cv- SP 16 4G 1.0% 6d 22h 29m ldom1 active -n---- 5000 16 8G 0.9% 6h 59m Memory pages are vacated by copying their contents to other memory locations and wiping them clean. Solaris may have to swap memory contents to disk if the remaining RAM isn't enough to hold all the contents. For this reason, deallocating memory can take longer on a loaded system. Even on a lightly loaded system it took several 7 or 8 seconds to switch the domain below between 8GB and 24GB of RAM. primary # ldm set-mem 24g ldom1 primary # ldm list NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-cv- SP 16 4G 0.1% 6d 22h 36m ldom1 active -n---- 5000 16 24G 0.2% 7h 6m primary # ldm set-mem 8g ldom1 primary # ldm list NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-cv- SP 16 4G 0.7% 6d 22h 37m ldom1 active -n---- 5000 16 8G 0.3% 7h 7m What if the device is in use? (this is the anecdote that inspired this blog post) If CPU or memory is being removed, releasing it pretty straightforward, using the method described above. The resources are released, and Solaris continues with less capacity. It's not as simple with a network or I/O device: you don't want to yank a device out from underneath an application that might be using it. In the following example, I've added a virtual network device to ldom1 and want to take it away, even though it's been plumbed. primary # ldm rm-vnet vnet19 ldom1 Guest LDom returned the following reason for failing the operation: Resource Information ---------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------- /devices/virtual-devices@100/channel-devices@200/network@1 Network interface net1 VIO operation failed because device is being used in LDom ldom1 Failed to remove VNET instance That's what I call a helpful error message - telling me exactly what was wrong. In this case the problem is easily solved. I know this NIC is seen in the guest as net1 so: ldom1 # ifconfig net1 down unplumb Now I can dispose of it, and even the virtual switch I had created for it: primary # ldm rm-vnet vnet19 ldom1 primary # ldm rm-vsw primary-vsw9 If I had to take away the device disruptively, I could have used ldm rm-vnet -f but that could disrupt whoever was using it. It's better if that can be avoided. Summary Oracle VM Server for SPARC provides dynamic reconfiguration, which lets you modify a guest domain's CPU, memory and I/O configuration on the fly without reboot. You can add and remove resources as needed, and even automate this for CPUs by setting up resource policies. Taking things away can be more complicated than giving, especially for devices like disks and networks that may contain application and system state or be involved in a transaction. LDoms and Solaris cooperative work together to coordinate resource allocation and de-allocation in a safe and effective way. For best practices, use dynamic reconfiguration to make the best use of your system's resources.

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• JPRT: A Build & Test System

  - by kto

  DRAFT A while back I did a little blogging on a system called JPRT, the hardware used and a summary on my java.net weblog. This is an update on the JPRT system. JPRT ("JDK Putback Reliablity Testing", but ignore what the letters stand for, I change what they mean every day, just to annoy people :\^) is a build and test system for the JDK, or any source base that has been configured for JPRT. As I mentioned in the above blog, JPRT is a major modification to a system called PRT that the HotSpot VM development team has been using for many years, very successfully I might add. Keeping the source base always buildable and reliable is the first step in the 12 steps of dealing with your product quality... or was the 12 steps from Alcoholics Anonymous... oh well, anyway, it's the first of many steps. ;\^) Internally when we make changes to any part of the JDK, there are certain procedures we are required to perform prior to any putback or commit of the changes. The procedures often vary from team to team, depending on many factors, such as whether native code is changed, or if the change could impact other areas of the JDK. But a common requirement is a verification that the source base with the changes (and merged with the very latest source base) will build on many of not all 8 platforms, and a full 'from scratch' build, not an incremental build, which can hide full build problems. The testing needed varies, depending on what has been changed. Anyone that was worked on a project where multiple engineers or groups are submitting changes to a shared source base knows how disruptive a 'bad commit' can be on everyone. How many times have you heard: "So And So made a bunch of changes and now I can't build!". But multiply the number of platforms by 8, and make all the platforms old and antiquated OS versions with bizarre system setup requirements and you have a pretty complicated situation (see http://download.java.net/jdk6/docs/build/README-builds.html). We don't tolerate bad commits, but our enforcement is somewhat lacking, usually it's an 'after the fact' correction. Luckily the Source Code Management system we use (another antique called TeamWare) allows for a tree of repositories and 'bad commits' are usually isolated to a small team. Punishment to date has been pretty drastic, the Queen of Hearts in 'Alice in Wonderland' said 'Off With Their Heads', well trust me, you don't want to be the engineer doing a 'bad commit' to the JDK. With JPRT, hopefully this will become a thing of the past, not that we have had many 'bad commits' to the master source base, in general the teams doing the integrations know how important their jobs are and they rarely make 'bad commits'. So for these JDK integrators, maybe what JPRT does is keep them from chewing their finger nails at night. ;\^) Over the years each of the teams have accumulated sets of machines they use for building, or they use some of the shared machines available to all of us. But the hunt for build machines is just part of the job, or has been. And although the issues with consistency of the build machines hasn't been a horrible problem, often you never know if the Solaris build machine you are using has all the right patches, or if the Linux machine has the right service pack, or if the Windows machine has it's latest updates. Hopefully the JPRT system can solve this problem. When we ship the binary JDK bits, it is SO very important that the build machines are correct, and we know how difficult it is to get them setup. Sure, if you need to debug a JDK problem that only shows up on Windows XP or Solaris 9, you'll still need to hunt down a machine, but not as a regular everyday occurance. I'm a big fan of a regular nightly build and test system, constantly verifying that a source base builds and tests out. There are many examples of automated build/tests, some that trigger on any change to the source base, some that just run every night. Some provide a protection gateway to the 'golden' source base which only gets changes that the nightly process has verified are good. The JPRT (and PRT) system is meant to guard the source base before anything is sent to it, guarding all source bases from the evil developer, well maybe 'evil' isn't the right word, I haven't met many 'evil' developers, more like 'error prone' developers. ;\^) Humm, come to think about it, I may be one from time to time. :\^{ But the point is that by spreading the build up over a set of machines, and getting the turnaround down to under an hour, it becomes realistic to completely build on all platforms and test it, on every putback. We have the technology, we can build and rebuild and rebuild, and it will be better than it was before, ha ha... Anybody remember the Six Million Dollar Man? Man, I gotta get out more often.. Anyway, now the nightly build and test can become a 'fetch the latest JPRT build bits' and start extensive testing (the testing not done by JPRT, or the platforms not tested by JPRT). Is it Open Source? No, not yet. Would you like to be? Let me know. Or is it more important that you have the ability to use such a system for JDK changes? So enough blabbering on about this JPRT system, tell me what you think. And let me know if you want to hear more about it or not. Stay tuned for the next episode, same Bloody Bat time, same Bloody Bat channel. ;\^) -kto

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• VS2010 crashes when opening a vsp generated using VS 2012

  - by Tarun Arora

  I recently profiled some web applications using Visual Studio 2012, a vsp (Visual Studio Profile) file was generated as a result of the profiling session. I could successfully open the vsp file in Visual Studio 2012 as expected but when I tried to open the vsp file in Visual Studio 2010 the VS2010 IDE crashed. As a responsible citizen I raised bug # 762202 on Microsoft Connect site using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Feedback Client. Note – In case you didn’t already know, VSP generated in Visual Studio 2012 is not backward compatible. Please refer below for the steps to reproduce the issue and the resolution of the connect bug. 1. Behaviour and Steps to Reproduce the Issue Description I have generated a vsp file by using the Visual Studio 2012 Standalone profiler. When I try and open the vsp file in Visual Studio 2010 the IDE crashes. I understand that a vsp generated by using VS 2012 cannot be opened in VS 2010, but the IDE crashing is not the behaviour I would expect to see. Steps to Reproduce the Issue 1. Pick up the Stand lone profiler from the VS 2012 installation media. The folder has both x 64 and x86 installer, since the machine I am using is x64 bit. I have installed the x64 version of the standalone profiler. 2. I have configured the system path by setting the 'environment variable' path to where the profiler is installed. In my case this is, C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Team Tools\Performance Tools 3. Created a new environment variable _NT_SYMBOL_PATH and set its value to CACHE*C:\SYMBOLSCACHE;SRV*C:\SYMBOLSCACHE*HTTP://MSDL.MICROSOFT.COM/DOWNLOAD/SYMBOLS;\\FOO\BUILD1234 4. Open up CMD as an administrator and run 'VSPerfASPNETCmd /tip http://localhost:56180/ /o:C:\Temp\SampleEISK.vsp' 5. This generates the following message on the cmd       Microsoft (R) VSPerf ASP.NET Command, Version 11.0.0.0     Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.     Configuring and attaching to ASP.NET process. Please wait.     Setting up profiling environment.     Starting monitor.     Launching ASP.NET service.     Attaching Monitor to process.     Launching Internet Explorer.     The profiler is attached to ASP.net. Please run your application scenario now.     Press Enter to stop data collection...   6. I perform certain actions and then I come back to the cmd and hit enter to shut down the profiling. Once I do this, the following message is written to the cmd, Press Enter to stop data collection... Profiling now shut down. Report file "C:\Temp\SampleEISK.vsp" was generated. Running VsPerfReport, packing symbols into the .VSP. Shutting down profiling and restarting ASP.NET. Please wait. Restarting w3wp.exe.   7. I look in the C:\Temp folder and I can see the SampleEISK.vsp file generated. I can successfully open this file in Visual Studio 2012. 8. When I am trying to open the vsp file in VS 2010 the VS 2010 IDE crashes. Kaboooom! What I would expect to happen I expect to receive a message "VS 2010 does not support the vsp file generated by VS 2012". What actually happened The VS 2010 IDE crashed 2. Resolution This is a valid bug! However, there isn’t much value in releasing a hotfix for this issue. Refer below to the resolution provided by the Visual Studio Profiler Team.  Thank you for taking the time to report this issue. We completely agree that Visual Studio 2010 should not crash. However in this particular case this is not a bug we are going to retroactively release a fix to 2010 for at this point. Given that a fix would not unblock the scenario of opening a 2012 created file on Visual Studio 2010, and there is not an active update channel for Visual Studio 2010 other than manually locating and installing hot fixes, we will not be fixing this particular issue. Best Regards, Visual Studio Profiler Team   Though it would be great to improve the behaviour however, this is not a defect that would stop you from progressing in any way. It’s important to note however that VSP files generated by Visual Studio 2012 are not backward compatible so you should refrain from opening these files in Visual Studio 2010.

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• Cloud to On-Premise Connectivity Patterns

  - by Rajesh Raheja

  Do you have a requirement to convert an Opportunity in Salesforce.com to an Order/Quote in Oracle E-Business Suite? Or maybe you want the creation of an Oracle RightNow Incident to trigger an on-premise Oracle E-Business Suite Service Request creation for RMA and Field Scheduling? If so, read on. In a previous blog post, I discussed integrating TO cloud applications, however the use cases above are the reverse i.e. receiving data FROM cloud applications (SaaS) TO on-premise applications/databases that sit behind a firewall. Oracle SOA Suite is assumed to be on-premise with with Oracle Service Bus as the mediation and virtualization layer. The main considerations for the patterns are are security i.e. shielding enterprise resources; and scalability i.e. minimizing firewall latency. Let me use an analogy to help visualize the patterns: the on-premise system is your home - with your most valuable possessions - and the SaaS app is your favorite on-line store which regularly ships (inbound calls) various types of parcels/items (message types/service operations). You need the items at home (on-premise) but want to safe guard against misguided elements of society (internet threats) who may masquerade as postal workers and vandalize property (denial of service?). Let's look at the patterns. Pattern: Pull from Cloud The on-premise system polls from the SaaS apps and picks up the message instead of having it delivered. This may be done using Oracle RightNow Object Query Language or SOAP APIs. This is particularly suited for certain integration approaches wherein messages are trickling in, can be centralized and batched e.g. retrieving event notifications on an hourly schedule from the Oracle Messaging Service. To compare this pattern with the home analogy, you are avoiding any deliveries to your home and instead go to the post office/UPS/Fedex store to pick up your parcel. Every time. Pros: On-premise assets not exposed to the Internet, firewall issues avoided by only initiating outbound connections Cons: Polling mechanisms may affect performance, may not satisfy near real-time requirements Pattern: Open Firewall Ports The on-premise system exposes the web services that needs to be invoked by the cloud application. This requires opening up firewall ports, routing calls to the appropriate internal services behind the firewall. Fusion Applications uses this pattern, and auto-provisions the services on the various virtual hosts to secure the topology. This works well for service integration, but may not suffice for large volume data integration. Using the home analogy, you have now decided to receive parcels instead of going to the post office every time. A door mail slot cut out allows the postman can drop small parcels, but there is still concern about cutting new holes for larger packages. Pros: optimal pattern for near real-time needs, simpler administration once the service is provisioned Cons: Needs firewall ports to be opened up for new services, may not suffice for batch integration requiring direct database access Pattern: Virtual Private Networking The on-premise network is "extended" to the cloud (or an intermediary on-demand / managed service offering) using Virtual Private Networking (VPN) so that messages are delivered to the on-premise system in a trusted channel. Using the home analogy, you entrust a set of keys with a neighbor or property manager who receives the packages, and then drops it inside your home. Pros: Individual firewall ports don't need to be opened, more suited for high scalability needs, can support large volume data integration, easier management of one connection vs a multitude of open ports Cons: VPN setup, specific hardware support, requires cloud provider to support virtual private computing Pattern: Reverse Proxy / API Gateway The on-premise system uses a reverse proxy "API gateway" software on the DMZ to receive messages. The reverse proxy can be implemented using various mechanisms e.g. Oracle API Gateway provides firewall and proxy services along with comprehensive security, auditing, throttling benefits. If a firewall already exists, then Oracle Service Bus or Oracle HTTP Server virtual hosts can provide reverse proxy implementations on the DMZ. Custom built implementations are also possible if specific functionality (such as message store-n-forward) is needed. In the home analogy, this pattern sits in between cutting mail slots and handing over keys. Instead, you install (and maintain) a mailbox in your home premises outside your door. The post office delivers the parcels in your mailbox, from where you can securely retrieve it. Pros: Very secure, very flexible Cons: Introduces a new software component, needs DMZ deployment and management Pattern: On-Premise Agent (Tunneling) A light weight "agent" software sits behind the firewall and initiates the communication with the cloud, thereby avoiding firewall issues. It then maintains a bi-directional connection either with pull or push based approaches using (or abusing, depending on your viewpoint) the HTTP protocol. Programming protocols such as Comet, WebSockets, HTTP CONNECT, HTTP SSH Tunneling etc. are possible implementation options. In the home analogy, a resident receives the parcel from the postal worker by opening the door, however you still take precautions with chain locks and package inspections. Pros: Light weight software, IT doesn't need to setup anything Cons: May bypass critical firewall checks e.g. virus scans, separate software download, proliferation of non-IT managed software Conclusion The patterns above are some of the most commonly encountered ones for cloud to on-premise integration. Selecting the right pattern for your project involves looking at your scalability needs, security restrictions, sync vs asynchronous implementation, near real-time vs batch expectations, cloud provider capabilities, budget, and more. In some cases, the basic "Pull from Cloud" may be acceptable, whereas in others, an extensive VPN topology may be well justified. For more details on the Oracle cloud integration strategy, download this white paper.

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• Cloud to On-Premise Connectivity Patterns

  - by Rajesh Raheja

  Do you have a requirement to convert an Opportunity in Salesforce.com to an Order/Quote in Oracle E-Business Suite? Or maybe you want the creation of an Oracle RightNow Incident to trigger an on-premise Oracle E-Business Suite Service Request creation for RMA and Field Scheduling? If so, read on. In a previous blog post, I discussed integrating TO cloud applications, however the use cases above are the reverse i.e. receiving data FROM cloud applications (SaaS) TO on-premise applications/databases that sit behind a firewall. Oracle SOA Suite is assumed to be on-premise with with Oracle Service Bus as the mediation and virtualization layer. The main considerations for the patterns are are security i.e. shielding enterprise resources; and scalability i.e. minimizing firewall latency. Let me use an analogy to help visualize the patterns: the on-premise system is your home - with your most valuable possessions - and the SaaS app is your favorite on-line store which regularly ships (inbound calls) various types of parcels/items (message types/service operations). You need the items at home (on-premise) but want to safe guard against misguided elements of society (internet threats) who may masquerade as postal workers and vandalize property (denial of service?). Let's look at the patterns. Pattern: Pull from Cloud The on-premise system polls from the SaaS apps and picks up the message instead of having it delivered. This may be done using Oracle RightNow Object Query Language or SOAP APIs. This is particularly suited for certain integration approaches wherein messages are trickling in, can be centralized and batched e.g. retrieving event notifications on an hourly schedule from the Oracle Messaging Service. To compare this pattern with the home analogy, you are avoiding any deliveries to your home and instead go to the post office/UPS/Fedex store to pick up your parcel. Every time. Pros: On-premise assets not exposed to the Internet, firewall issues avoided by only initiating outbound connections Cons: Polling mechanisms may affect performance, may not satisfy near real-time requirements Pattern: Open Firewall Ports The on-premise system exposes the web services that needs to be invoked by the cloud application. This requires opening up firewall ports, routing calls to the appropriate internal services behind the firewall. Fusion Applications uses this pattern, and auto-provisions the services on the various virtual hosts to secure the topology. This works well for service integration, but may not suffice for large volume data integration. Using the home analogy, you have now decided to receive parcels instead of going to the post office every time. A door mail slot cut out allows the postman can drop small parcels, but there is still concern about cutting new holes for larger packages. Pros: optimal pattern for near real-time needs, simpler administration once the service is provisioned Cons: Needs firewall ports to be opened up for new services, may not suffice for batch integration requiring direct database access Pattern: Virtual Private Networking The on-premise network is "extended" to the cloud (or an intermediary on-demand / managed service offering) using Virtual Private Networking (VPN) so that messages are delivered to the on-premise system in a trusted channel. Using the home analogy, you entrust a set of keys with a neighbor or property manager who receives the packages, and then drops it inside your home. Pros: Individual firewall ports don't need to be opened, more suited for high scalability needs, can support large volume data integration, easier management of one connection vs a multitude of open ports Cons: VPN setup, specific hardware support, requires cloud provider to support virtual private computing Pattern: Reverse Proxy / API Gateway The on-premise system uses a reverse proxy "API gateway" software on the DMZ to receive messages. The reverse proxy can be implemented using various mechanisms e.g. Oracle API Gateway provides firewall and proxy services along with comprehensive security, auditing, throttling benefits. If a firewall already exists, then Oracle Service Bus or Oracle HTTP Server virtual hosts can provide reverse proxy implementations on the DMZ. Custom built implementations are also possible if specific functionality (such as message store-n-forward) is needed. In the home analogy, this pattern sits in between cutting mail slots and handing over keys. Instead, you install (and maintain) a mailbox in your home premises outside your door. The post office delivers the parcels in your mailbox, from where you can securely retrieve it. Pros: Very secure, very flexible Cons: Introduces a new software component, needs DMZ deployment and management Pattern: On-Premise Agent (Tunneling) A light weight "agent" software sits behind the firewall and initiates the communication with the cloud, thereby avoiding firewall issues. It then maintains a bi-directional connection either with pull or push based approaches using (or abusing, depending on your viewpoint) the HTTP protocol. Programming protocols such as Comet, WebSockets, HTTP CONNECT, HTTP SSH Tunneling etc. are possible implementation options. In the home analogy, a resident receives the parcel from the postal worker by opening the door, however you still take precautions with chain locks and package inspections. Pros: Light weight software, IT doesn't need to setup anything Cons: May bypass critical firewall checks e.g. virus scans, separate software download, proliferation of non-IT managed software Conclusion The patterns above are some of the most commonly encountered ones for cloud to on-premise integration. Selecting the right pattern for your project involves looking at your scalability needs, security restrictions, sync vs asynchronous implementation, near real-time vs batch expectations, cloud provider capabilities, budget, and more. In some cases, the basic "Pull from Cloud" may be acceptable, whereas in others, an extensive VPN topology may be well justified. For more details on the Oracle cloud integration strategy, download this white paper.

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• Application Composer: Exposing Your Customizations in BI Analytics and Reporting

  - by Richard Bingham

  Introduction This article explains in simple terms how to ensure the customizations and extensions you have made to your Fusion Applications are available for use in reporting and analytics. It also includes four embedded demo videos from our YouTube channel (if they don't appear check the browser address bar for a blocking shield icon). If you are new to Business Intelligence consider first reviewing our getting started article, and you can read more about the topic of custom subject areas in the documentation book Extending Sales. There are essentially four sections to this post. First we look at how custom fields added to standard objects are made available for reporting. Secondly we look at creating custom subject areas on the standard objects. Next we consider reporting on custom objects, starting with simple standalone objects, then child custom objects, and finally custom objects with relationships. Finally this article reviews how flexfields are exposed for reporting. Whilst this article applies to both Cloud/SaaS and on-premises deployments, if you are an on-premises developer then you can also use the BI Administration Tool to customize your BI metadata repository (the RPD) and create new subject areas. Whilst this is not covered here you can read more in Chapter 8 of the Extensibility Guide for Developers. Custom Fields on Standard Objects If you add a custom field to your standard object then it's likely you'll want to include it in your reports. This is very simple, since all new fields are instantly available in the "[objectName] Extension" folder in existing subject areas. The following two minute video demonstrates this. Custom Subject Areas for Standard Objects You can create your own subject areas for use in analytics and reporting via Application Composer. An example use-case could be to simplify the seeded subject areas, since they sometimes contain complex data fields and internal values that could confuse business users. One thing to note is that you cannot create subject areas in a sandbox, as it is not supported by BI, so once your custom object is tested and complete you'll need to publish the sandbox before moving forwards. The subject area creation processes is essentially two-fold. Once the request is submitted the ADF artifacts are generated, then secondly the related metadata is sent to the BI presentation server API's to make the updates there. One thing to note is that this second step may take up to ten minutes to complete. Once finished the status of the custom subject area request should show as 'OK' and it is then ready for use. Within the creation processes wizard-like steps there are three concepts worth highlighting: Date Flattening - this feature permits the roll up of reports at various date levels, such as data by week, month, quarter, or year. You simply check the box to enable it for that date field. Measures - these are your own functions that you can build into the custom subject area. They are related to the field data type and include min-max for dates, and sum(), avg(), and count() for  numeric fields. Implicit Facts - used to make the BI metadata join between your object fields and the calculated measure fields. The advice is to choose the most frequently used measure to ensure consistency. This video shows a simple example, where a simplified subject area is created for the customer 'Contact' standard object, picking just a few fields upon which users can then create reports. Custom Objects Custom subject areas support three types of custom objects. First is a simple standalone custom object and for which the same process mentioned above applies. The next is a custom child object created on a standard object parent, and finally a custom object that is related to a parent object - usually through a dynamic choice list. Whilst the steps in each of these last two are mostly the same, there are differences in the way you choose the objects and their fields. This is illustrated in the videos below.The first video shows the process for creating a custom subject area for a simple standalone custom object. This second video demonstrates how to create custom subject areas for custom objects that are of parent:child type, as well as those those with dynamic-choice-list relationships. &lt;span id=&quot;XinhaEditingPostion&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt; Flexfields Dynamic and Extensible Flexfields satisfy a similar requirement as custom fields (for Application Composer), with flexfields common across the Fusion Financials, Supply Chain and Procurement, and HCM applications. The basic principle is when you enable and configure your flexfields, in the edit page under each segment region (for both global and context segments) there is a BI Enabled check box. Once this is checked and you've completed your configuration, you run the Scheduled Process job named 'Import Oracle Fusion Data Extensions for Transactional Business Intelligence' to generate and migrate the related BI artifacts and data. This applies for dynamic, key, and extensible flexfields. Of course there is more to consider in terms of how you wish your flexfields to be implemented and exposed in your reports, and details are given in Chapter 4 of the Extending Applications guide.

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• What to "CRM" in San Francisco? CRM Highlights for OpenWorld '12

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  There is plenty to SEE for CRM during OpenWorld in San Francisco, September 30 - October 4! Here are some of the sessions in the CRM Track that you might want to consider attending for products you currently own or might consider for the future. I think you'll agree, there is quite a bit of investment going on across Oracle CRM. Please use OpenWorld Schedule Builder or check the OpenWorld Content Catalog for all of the session details and any time or location changes. Tip: Pre-enrolled session registrants via Schedule Builder are allowed into the session rooms before anyone else, so Schedule Builder will guarantee you a seat. Many of the sessions below will likely be at capacity. General Session: Oracle Fusion CRM—Improving Sales Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ease of Use (Session ID: GEN9674) - Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM. Anthony Lye, Senior VP, Oracle leads this general session focused on Oracle Fusion CRM. Oracle Fusion CRM optimizes territories, combines quota management and incentive compensation, integrates sales and marketing, and cleanses and enriches data—all within a single application platform. Oracle Fusion can be configured, changed, and extended at runtime by end users, business managers, IT, and developers. Oracle Fusion CRM can be used from the Web, from a smartphone, from Microsoft Outlook, or from an iPad. Deloitte, sponsor of the CRM Track, will also present key concepts on CRM implementations. Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management: Overview/Strategy/Customer Experiences/Roadmap (CON9407) - Oct 1, 3:15PM - 4:15PM. In this session, learn how Oracle Fusion CRM enables companies to create better sales plans, generate more quality leads, and achieve higher win rates and find out why customers are adopting Oracle Fusion CRM. Gain a deeper understanding of the unique capabilities only Oracle Fusion CRM provides, and learn how Oracle’s commitment to CRM innovation is driving a wide range of future enhancements. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Vision and Roadmap (CON9764) - Oct 1, 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service combines Web, social, and contact center experiences for a unified, cross-channel service solution in the cloud, enabling organizations to increase sales and adoption, build trust, strengthen relationships, and reduce costs and effort. Come to this session to hear from Oracle experts about where the product is going and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Siebel CRM Overview, Strategy, and Roadmap (CON9700) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. The world’s most complete CRM solution, Oracle’s Siebel CRM helps organizations differentiate their businesses. Come to this session to learn about the Siebel product roadmap and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value for its customers on this platform. Additionally, the session covers how Siebel customers can leverage many Oracle assets such as Oracle WebCenter Sites; InQuira, RightNow, and ATG/Endeca applications, and Oracle Policy Automation in conjunction with their current Siebel investments. Oracle Fusion Social CRM Strategy and Roadmap: Future of Collaboration and Social Engagement (CON9750) - Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM. Social is changing the customer experience! Come find out how Oracle can help you know your customers better, encourage brand affinity, and improve collaboration within your ecosystem. This session reviews Oracle’s social media solution and shows how you can discover hidden insights buried in your enterprise and social data. Also learn how Oracle Social Network revolutionizes how enterprise users work, collaborate, and share to achieve successful outcomes. Oracle CRM On Demand Strategy and Roadmap (CON9727) - Oct 1, 10:45AM - 11:45AM. Oracle CRM On Demand is a powerful cloud-based customer relationship management solution. Come to this session to learn directly from Oracle experts about future product plans and hear how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Knowledge Management Roadmap and Strategy (CON9776) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Learn how to harness the knowledge created as a natural byproduct of day-to-day interactions to lower costs and improve customer experience by delivering the right answer at the right time across channels. This session includes an overview of Oracle’s product roadmap and vision for knowledge management for both the Oracle RightNow and Oracle Knowledge (formerly InQuira) product families. Oracle Policy Automation Roadmap: Supercharging the Customer Experience (CON9655) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Oracle Policy Automation delivers rapid customer value by streamlining the capture, analysis, and deployment of policies across every facet of the customer experience. This session discusses recent Oracle Policy Automation enhancements for policy analytics; the latest Oracle Policy Automation Connector for Siebel; and planned new capabilities, including availability with the Oracle RightNow product line. There is much more, so stay tuned for more highlights or check out the Content Catalog and search for your areas of interest. 

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• Eloqua Experience 2013: Mystique, Modern Marketing and Masterful Engagement

  - by Mike Stiles

  The following is a guest post from Erick Mott, a social business leader at Oracle Eloqua. There’s a growing gap between 20th century marketing and a modern marketing way of doing business. I can’t think of a better example of modern marketing in action than what more than 2,000 people experienced in San Francisco at #EE13; customer-obsession, multichannel content, and real-time engagement all coming together at one extraordinary event. This was my first Eloqua Experience as a new Oracle Eloqua employee. In weeks prior, I heard about the mystique but didn’t know what to expect. What I’ve come to understand with more clarity is everything we do revolves around customer success, and we operate and educate at all times with these five tenets in mind: 1. Targeting: Really Know Your Buyer 2. Engagement: Create a 1:1 Relationship 3. Conversion: Visualize Guided Thinking 4. Analysis: Learn What’s Working 5. Marketing Technology: Enable and Extend the Cloud Product News from Eloqua Experience 2013 We made some announcements that John Stetic, VP of Products, Oracle Eloqua covers in this brief ‘Modern Marketing Minute’ video recorded after Wednesday’s keynote; summarized below, too: Oracle Eloqua AdFocus: While understanding the impact of a specific marketing channel was formerly relegated to marketers’ wish lists, the channels we now focus on are digital, social, and mobile. AdFocus gives marketers a single platform to dynamically create, manage and measure display ads alongside owned and earned media. AdFocus enables marketers to target only key accounts or prospects you want to reach with display ads, as well as provide creative content or personalized ad copy based on their persona and activities. Oracle Eloqua Profiler: The details of what we now know about customers have expanded into a universal customer profile, which can be used to create highly targeted segments. Marketers now can take data that’s not even stored in Eloqua to help targeted and score prospects for a complete, multichannel view of the customer. Profiler gives sales reps one, detailed view of the prospect to extend views beyond Oracle Eloqua asset activity (emails, forms, page views) to any external assets stored in Oracle Eloqua. Marketing Resource Management: New capabilities create more secure and controlled access to marketing resources and data. New integrations provide greater insight into campaign resources and management through a central marketing calendar and simplify resource management. Integrated Sales and Marketing Funnel: An integrated sales and marketing funnel view gives marketing and sales users, cross-functional teams, and executive management a consistent and clear view of pipeline performance. It also quickly provides users with historical metrics across different time spans and conditions. Eloqua AppCloud: More than 20 new AppCloud partners have been added to the community, which now includes 100+ apps. Eloqua AppCloud now provides modern marketers with an even broader range of marketing applications that help expand and enrich sales and marketing efforts; easily accessible in the Topliners Community. Social Capabilities: Recent integration between Oracle Eloqua and Oracle Social Relationship Management (SRM) deliver a comprehensive, scalable and integrated modern marketing solution. New capabilities include better tracking of social activities for a more complete customer profile. Engage Facebook custom audiences with AdFocus to deliver ads and meaningful experiences through trusted social networks. Biggest and Best Eloqua Experience. There’s a lot of talk in the industry about the Marketing Cloud. At Oracle Eloqua, we have been on a mission of delivering the most advanced and integrated modern marketing technology on the planet. It’s not just a concept but reality with proven execution, as seen first-hand this week in San Francisco. In this video, Kevin Akeroyd, SVP of Oracle Eloqua, provides some highlights of what made this year’s Eloqua Experience, exceptional, including Steve Woods’ presentation about the journey of modern marketers and Andrea Ward’s conversation with Vince Gilligan, creator of the Breaking Bad television series. The 2013 Markie Awards The Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud was best exemplified for me as 19 Markies were awarded to customers for their exceptional creativity and results as modern marketers. Wow, what a night to remember with so many committed and talented people working to create an extraordinary experience! To learn more about how to become a modern marketer, check out these resources. We look forward to seeing you next year at Eloqua Experience. More on Erick: 20 years experience at Oracle, Ektron, Sitecore, Lyris, Habeas, Nokia, creatorbase, Mark Monitor, Cisco Systems, GlobalFluency, Sun Microsystems, Philips NV, Elm Products and CBS TV. Patent holder with agency, Fortune 500, media, and startup company expertise. @mikestiles

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• Boot log from remotely managed/hacked iPhone for analysis

  - by user1319903

  in reference to my other post. syslog captured immediately after a hard reset for analysis of foul play. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:36 PM - dataaccessd [53] (Notice): 137860|CoreDAV|Warn |Account "iCloud" couldn't reach the server at p03-contacts.icloud.com: Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1009 "The Internet connection appears to be offline." UserInfo=0xde63920 {NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://%[email protected]/159665024/principal/, NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://%[email protected]/ /principal/, NSLocalizedDescription=The Internet connection appears to be offline., NSUnderlyingError=0xde7dc00 "The Internet connection appears to be offline."} Apr 8, 2012 10:08:36 PM - UserEventAgent [12] (Warning): TRACE: connection interrupted Apr 8, 2012 10:08:36 PM - UserEventAgent [12] (Warning): DEBUG: disconnected Apr 8, 2012 10:08:36 PM - UserEventAgent [12] (Warning): TRACE: Canceling Apr 8, 2012 10:08:36 PM - UserEventAgent [12] (Warning): TRACE: connection invalid Apr 8, 2012 10:08:35 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): launchd[82] Builtin profile: container (sandbox) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:35 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): launchd[82] Container: /private/var/mobile/Applications/048D35CA-6427-4EC8-8B76-A194697A7CE9 [69] (sandbox) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:35 PM - wifid [29] (Error): WiFi:[355640915.904103]: Client dataaccessd set type to background application Apr 8, 2012 10:08:35 PM - dataaccessd [53] (Notice): 137860|DA|Warn |Delegate 5ADDBE3B-D5FD-43E1-87D4-C1153733EFAB finished a refresh but it is not registered with the refresh manager Apr 8, 2012 10:08:34 PM - timed [31] (Notice): (Note ) CoreTime: Not setting system time to 04/09/2012 05:08:34 from GPS because time is unchanged Apr 8, 2012 10:08:34 PM - timed [31] (Notice): (Note ) CoreTime: Not setting time zone to America/Los_Angeles from NITZ Apr 8, 2012 10:08:33 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleKeyStore:cp_key_store_action(1) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:33 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleKeyStore:Sending lock change Apr 8, 2012 10:08:32 PM - profiled [20] (Notice): (Note ) profiled: Device unlock notification received Apr 8, 2012 10:08:31 PM - softwareupdated [37] (Notice): 3e828d98 : Cleaning up unused prepared updates Apr 8, 2012 10:08:27 PM - mstreamd [43] (Warning): PSDLog: Can't return photoStreamsPublishStreamID because no Apple Account has Photo Streams enabled Apr 8, 2012 10:08:27 PM - mstreamd [43] (Notice): (Note ) mstreamd: Not listening to push notifications. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:27 PM - mstreamd [43] (Warning): PSDLog: Can't return photoStreamsPublishStreamID because no Apple Account has Photo Streams enabled Apr 8, 2012 10:08:27 PM - mstreamd [43] (Notice): (Note ) mstreamd: Not listening to push notifications. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:27 PM - mstreamd [43] (Notice): (Note ) mstreamd: Retrieved push tokens. Dev: 0, Prod: 0 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:27 PM - mstreamd [43] (Notice): (Note ) mstreamd: Media stream daemon starting... Apr 8, 2012 10:08:26 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Notice): SMSCTServer is available and ready to rock. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:26 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Error): mms: * isMmsConfigured = 1 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:26 PM - MobilePhone [79] (Warning): Connection lost, retrying with key exchange. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:26 PM - MobilePhone [79] (Warning): Connection lost, retrying with key exchange. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:26 PM - MobilePhone [79] (Warning): Connection lost, retrying with key exchange. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:26 PM - MobilePhone [79] (Warning): Connection lost, retrying with key exchange. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:25 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Warning): BT: failed to get connectable state with error 111 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:25 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Error): WiFi: Consulting "no-sdio-devices" property. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:25 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Error): WiFi: "no-sdio-devices" property not found. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:25 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Warning): SMS Plugin initialized. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:25 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Warning): Telephony plugin initialized Apr 8, 2012 10:08:25 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Warning): SIMToolkit plugin for SpringBoard initialized. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:25 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Error): WiFi: Consulting "no-sdio-devices" property. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:25 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Error): WiFi: "no-sdio-devices" property not found. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:25 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Warning): WiFi picker plugin initialized Apr 8, 2012 10:08:25 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Warning): EKAlarmEngine: Region monitoring not available or enabled. Trigger ignored! Apr 8, 2012 10:08:24 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::setPowerStateGated: 0 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:24 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::power_off_hardware Apr 8, 2012 10:08:24 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Notice): IOMobileFrameBufferGetMirroringCapability returning -536870201 via kIOMFBConnectMethod_GetMirroringCapability  Apr 8, 2012 10:08:24 PM - aggregated [61] (Warning): PLAggregateState Error: Leaving state unplugged_screen_off even though we are not in it, doing nothing Apr 8, 2012 10:08:24 PM - aggregated [61] (Warning): PLAggregateState Error: Entering state unplugged_screen_on even though we are already in it, doing nothing Apr 8, 2012 10:08:24 PM - wifid [29] (Error): WiFi:[355640904.616440]: Disable WoW requested by "spd" Apr 8, 2012 10:08:24 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Warning): Application windows are expected to have a root view controller at the end of application launch Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Warning): BTM: attaching to BTServer Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::ISP_LoadFirmware_gated: fw len=1232920 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::ISP_LoadFirmware_gated - firmware checksum: 0x05935019 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::power_on_hardware Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::ISP_Init - No set-file loaded for camera channel 0 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::ISP_Init - No set-file loaded for camera channel 1 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::ISP_InitialSensorDetection - found sensor on chan 0: 0x0145 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::ISP_InitialSensorDetection - found sensor on chan 1: 0x7736 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::power_off_hardware Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::ISP_LoadSetfile_gated (camChan=0) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::ISP_LoadSetfile_gated (camChan=1) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::setPowerStateGated: 1 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleH4CamIn::power_on_hardware Apr 8, 2012 10:08:23 PM - profiled [20] (Notice): (Note ) profiled: Locking device Apr 8, 2012 10:08:22 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): HighlandParkResourceMgr::AddFirmware() {'cdma', '    '} added to resources Apr 8, 2012 10:08:22 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice::gated_registerFunction Register function PTP Apr 8, 2012 10:08:22 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice::gated_registerFunction all functions registered- we are ready to start usb stack Apr 8, 2012 10:08:22 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice::handleUSBCableDisconnect Apr 8, 2012 10:08:22 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): HighlandParkResourceMgr::AddFirmware() {'gsm ', 'nb  '} added to resources Apr 8, 2012 10:08:22 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): HighlandParkResourceMgr::AddFirmware() {'gsm ', 'wb  '} added to resources Apr 8, 2012 10:08:22 PM - MRMLowDiskUEA [12] (Notice): MobileDelete: LowDisk Plugin: start Apr 8, 2012 10:08:22 PM - MRMLowDiskUEA [12] (Notice): kqueue registration successful Apr 8, 2012 10:08:22 PM - mediaserverd [44] (Error): 22:08:22.522867 com.apple.AVConference: /SourceCache/GameKitServices/GameKitServices-344.21/AVConference.subproj/Sources/AVConferenceServer.m:1867: AVConferenceServerStart Apr 8, 2012 10:08:22 PM - CommCenter [18] (Notice): Carrier bundle value for recipient address: 28818773 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice - Configuration: PTP Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice          Interface: PTP Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice - Configuration: iPod USB Interface Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice          Interface: USBAudioControl Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice          Interface: USBAudioStreaming Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice          Interface: IapOverUsbHid Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice - Configuration: PTP + Apple Mobile Device Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice          Interface: PTP Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice          Interface: AppleUSBMux Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice - Configuration: PTP + Apple Mobile Device + Apple USB Ethernet Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice          Interface: PTP Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice          Interface: AppleUSBMux Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice          Interface: AppleUSBEthernet Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): IOAccessoryPortUSB::start Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice::gated_registerFunction Register function USBAudioControl Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): virtual bool AppleUSBDeviceMux::start(IOService*) build: Feb  1 2012 23:16:46 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): init_waste Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice::gated_registerFunction Register function AppleUSBMux Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice::gated_registerFunction Register function IapOverUsbHid Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice::gated_registerFunction Register function USBAudioStreaming Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleSynopsysOTGDevice::gated_registerFunction Register function AppleUSBEthernet Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleUSBEthernetDevice::start: Host MAC address = 02:(this Mac address does not physically exist) -edit Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleUSBEthernetDevice: Ethernet address  Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): BTServer[66] Builtin profile: BlueTool (sandbox) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): BTServer[66] Builtin profile: BlueTool (sandbox) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - hpfd [50] (Notice): firmware resource loaded { 'cdma' '    ' } Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - wifid [29] (Error): WiFi:[355640901.282776]: Could not read APPLE80211_IOC_SUPPORTED_CHANNELS err=82 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - wifid [29] (Error): WiFi:[355640901.312786]: Client itunesstored is background application Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - timed [31] (Notice): (Note ) CoreTime: Want active time in 38.24hrs. Need active time in 121.57hrs. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Notice): MultitouchHID: detection mode: 255-0 (deferring until bootloaded) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - CLTM [12] (Error): CLTM: resetting temps: now = 1333948101, last update = -2147483648 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - locationd [28] (Error): WiFi:[355640901.852993]: WiFiManager now available Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - OTACrashCopier [62] (Notice): (Warn ) Failed to read attributes from '/var/mobile/Library/OTALogging/.last_successful_submission_marker' Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - hpfd [50] (Notice): firmware resource loaded { 'gsm ' 'nb  ' } Apr 8, 2012 10:08:21 PM - hpfd [50] (Notice): firmware resource loaded { 'gsm ' 'wb  ' } Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::initFirmware(): successful initialization Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore:initFirmware(): 2496 PropTxStatus feature is not enabled for this platform  Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::initDongle():: creating virtual interface with prefix = ap Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::initDongle(): Core Driver Initialization Time 19.38798583 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): 000019.281423 hsic-baseband::safetyNet: port is not connected Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 _create_cesm_vault: try to create blob Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 load_activation_records: This is the default record Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 _create_cesm_vault: blob written Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 ping_configd: Not setting host name, it already has one: Pete's iPod  Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 lookup_baseband_info_new: radio not ready: kCTPostponementStatusNotReady Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 load_activation_records: This is the default record Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Error): WiFi: Consulting "no-sdio-devices" property. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Error): WiFi: "no-sdio-devices" property not found. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 determine_activation_state_new: Original act. state: Activated Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 determine_activation_state_new: radio not ready, don't change activation status, wait for notification, status: kCTPostponementStatusNotReady Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 determine_activation_state_new: Activation state now is Activated Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Warning): lockdown says the device is: [Activated], state is 3 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Warning): lockdown says we've previously registered: [1], state is 1 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 notification_worker: now listening for CT notifications Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 notification_worker: we've registered for notifications, now make sure we didn't miss one... Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 load_activation_records: This is the default record Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 determine_activation_state_new: Original act. state: Activated Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 determine_activation_state_new: radio not ready, don't change activation status, wait for notification, status: kCTPostponementStatusNotReady Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 determine_activation_state_new: Activation state now is Activated Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Notice): Posting 'com.apple.iokit.hid.displayStatus' notifyState=1 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:20 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Notice): __IOHIDLoadBundles: Loaded 1 HID plugin Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - wifiFirmwareLoader [30] (Warning): [    18.778 sec] Downloaded firmware, 192512 bytes Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleKeyStore:cp_key_store_action(0) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleMultitouchN1SPI: downloaded 128 bytes of prox calibration data ("built-in") Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleMultitouchN1SPI: downloaded 1024 bytes of calibration data ("built-in") Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::attachBusGated(): Bus Driver Initialization Time 18.266927958 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore:attachBusGated(): Starting with MAC Address: 00:f4:b9:2f:d9:8d Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANFirmwareManager::setNVRAMData(): received 778 bytes Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore: Ethernet address 00:f4:b9:2f:d9:8d Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): Loading syscfg. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleMultitouchN1SPI: downloaded 56264 bytes of firmware data ("0x0084.bin") in 152ms. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::apple80211_ioctl() Driver not yet initialized, cannot process ioctl Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::apple80211_ioctl() Driver not yet initialized, cannot process ioctl Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AirPort: Enabled AppleBCMWLANCore (link 0, sys 0, user 0) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::apple80211_ioctl() Driver not yet initialized, cannot process ioctl Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::apple80211_ioctl() Driver not yet initialized, cannot process ioctl Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANBusInterfaceHSIC::loadFirmware(): DL Ver: chip 0x4330, chiprev 0x4 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): BTServer[66] Builtin profile: BlueTool (sandbox) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): BCMWLAN Firmware Version: wl0: Dec 22 2011 19:03:58 version 5.95.45 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::initFirmware(): Firmware supports ap mode; enabling apsta feature (currently enabled) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::initFirmware(): country code set to XX Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - configd [14] (Notice): network configuration changed. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCmdManager::processResponse(): Firmware Error "BCOM Unsupported" on command "WLC_SET_VAR: bus:txglom" (263). Transaction ID 3, length 0 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::initFirmware(): Glomming not supported on this device: BCOM Unsupported Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::initFirmware: apsta set to 1 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): AppleBCMWLANCore::handleEventPacket(): WLC_E_FIFO_CREDIT_MAP,length 6 [9 2 5 3 2] Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - iapd [49] (Error): Timed out trying to acquire capabilities data. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - softwareupdated [37] (Notice): 3e828d98 : Cleaning up unused prepared updates Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - com.apple.misd [63] (Notice): allowing special port forwarding for test fixtures Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - hpfd [50] (Notice): resource request { 'N94 ', '    ' } Apr 8, 2012 10:08:19 PM - mstreamd [43] (Notice): (Note ) mstreamd: mstreamd starting up. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): launchd[44] Builtin profile: mediaserverd (sandbox) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): launchd[49] Builtin profile: iapd (sandbox) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): launchd[53] Builtin profile: dataaccessd (sandbox) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): launchd[60] Builtin profile: apsd (sandbox) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): launchd[66] Builtin profile: BTServer (sandbox) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - mDNSResponder [46] (Error): mDNSResponder mDNSResponder-329.10 (Jan 15 2012 19:07:41) starting iOSVers 9 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - mDNSResponder [46] (Error): Note: SetDomainSecrets: no keychain support Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - mDNSResponder [46] (Error): Note: Compiled without SnowLeopard Fine-Grained Power Management support Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - fseventsd [51] (Critical): event logs in /private/var/.fseventsd out of sync with volume.  destroying old logs. (10083 7 10090) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - fseventsd [51] (Critical): log dir: /private/var/.fseventsd getting new uuid: 8778E61A-0283-4067-B7DF-F75D109983D1 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - fseventsd [51] (Error): failed to make the directory /.fseventsd (30/Read-only file system) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - fseventsd [51] (Critical): could not open < (No such file or directory) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - fseventsd [51] (Critical): log dir: /tmp getting new uuid: 3919EB54-A54F-4289-864A-5158A25EF9DA Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - wifid [29] (Error): WiFi:[355640898.328610]: WiFi Preferences is up to date Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - mDNSResponder [46] (Error): D2DInitialize succeeded Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - fairplayd.N94 [52] (Notice): Vroum Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - wifid [29] (Error): WiFi:[355640898.537219]: WiFiManager starting, version: WiFiManager-260.9 Feb  4 2012 13:25:16 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - configd [14] (Error): WiFi:[355640898.539342]: WiFiManager now available Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - keybagd [39] (Error): 3e828d98 main: System Keybag loaded Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - wifiFirmwareLoader [30] (Warning): [    18.268 sec] Found AppleBCMWLANBusInterface; downloading FW.. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - wifiFirmwareLoader [30] (Warning): Loading "/usr/share/firmware/wifi/4330b2/bcm94330OlympicUNO3.txt", file size = 778 bytes Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - wifiFirmwareLoader [30] (Warning): [    18.276 sec] Sending NVRAM, 778 bytes Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - wifiFirmwareLoader [30] (Warning): Loading "/usr/share/firmware/wifi/4330b2/n94.trx", file size = 192512 bytes Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - wifiFirmwareLoader [30] (Warning): [    18.300 sec] Sending firmware, 192512 bytes Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - lockdownd [23] (Error): libMobileGestalt copyEthernetMacAddress: got 00:f4:b9:2f:d9:8f from syscfg Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - mediaserverd [44] (Notice): 2012-04-08 10:08:18.817015 PM [AirTunes] HAL plugin started Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - lockdownd [23] (Error): libMobileGestalt createCFStringWithCFData: Cannot convert NULL data to string Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - lockdownd [23] (Error): libMobileGestalt copyBasebandBoardSnum: Could not convert baseband board snum data to string Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - lockdownd [23] (Error): libMobileGestalt createCFStringWithCFData: Cannot convert NULL data to string Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - lockdownd [23] (Error): libMobileGestalt copyWirelessBoardSnum: Could not convert wireless board snum data to string Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 lockstart_local: Build= 9B179 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:18 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 _load_product_type: using Raptor Certs Apr 8, 2012 10:08:17 PM - wifiFirmwareLoader [30] (Warning): [    17.590 sec] wlan AppleUSBHSICDevice found Apr 8, 2012 10:08:17 PM - wifiFirmwareLoader [30] (Warning): [    17.590 sec] WLAN Enumeration attempt 0 / 6: Apr 8, 2012 10:08:17 PM - wifiFirmwareLoader [30] (Warning): [    17.591 sec] Waiting for AppleBCMWLANBusInterface to enumerate... Apr 8, 2012 10:08:16 PM - CommCenter [18] (Notice): MMS thread running Apr 8, 2012 10:08:16 PM - CommCenter [18] (Notice): Communications Center Started. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:16 PM - CommCenter [18] (Notice): STOP LOCATION UPDATE Apr 8, 2012 10:08:16 PM - locationd [28] (Error): WiFi:[355640896.704327]: bootstrap_look_up of WiFiManager server failed Apr 8, 2012 10:08:16 PM - locationd [28] (Error): WiFi:[355640896.705542]: bootstrap_look_up of WiFiManager server failed Apr 8, 2012 10:08:16 PM - locationd [28] (Error): WiFi:[355640896.706648]: bootstrap_look_up of WiFiManager server failed Apr 8, 2012 10:08:16 PM - locationd [28] (Error): WiFi:[355640896.707418]: bootstrap_look_up of WiFiManager server failed Apr 8, 2012 10:08:15 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): bool AppleRGBOUT::power_down_hardware(), RGB_CTRL (0x00000000) clk_down_ready is not set after 60 msecs Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - lockdownd [23] (Notice): 3e828d98 main: Starting Up Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): IOReturn AppleRGBOUT::set_display_device_gated(uint32_t), 1 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): virtual void AppleRGBOUT::do_power_state_change(): fSoft: 1 fHard: 1 swapBusy: 1  fController: 0 - 1 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): bool AppleRGBOUT::power_up_hardware() Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): set_crc_notification_state 0 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): virtual void AppleRGBOUT::do_power_state_change(): fSoft: 0 fHard: 1 swapBusy: 0  fController: 1 - 0 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): bool AppleRGBOUT::power_down_hardware() Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): IOReturn IOMobileFramebufferUserClient::set_hotplug_notify(void *, void *) 0x314b3f0d 0xe215600 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): IOReturn IOMobileFramebufferUserClient::set_hotplug_notify(void *, void *) 0x849d5000 0x876e8828 0x314b3f0d 0xe215600 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): bool AppleRGBOUT::power_down_hardware(), clock down RGBOUT Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - SpringBoard [15] (Notice): IOMobileFrameBufferGetMirroringCapability returning -536870201 via kIOMFBConnectMethod_GetMirroringCapability  Apr 8, 2012 10:08:14 PM - backupd [21] (Warning): INFO: Account changed (enabled=0, accountID=159665024) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - kernel [0] (Debug): launchd[17] Builtin profile: ptpd (sandbox) Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - UserEventAgent [12] (Warning): Factory called Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - configd [14] (Error): WiFi:[355640893.157493]: bootstrap_look_up of WiFiManager server failed Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - configd [14] (Error): WiFi:[355640893.158197]: bootstrap_look_up of WiFiManager server failed Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - configd [14] (Error): WiFi:[355640893.158878]: bootstrap_look_up of WiFiManager server failed Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - UserEventAgent [12] (Notice): (Note ) PIH: MCUEAPlugin initialized. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - UserEventAgent [12] (Error): Querying interface Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - configd [14] (Error): ioctl(SIOCGIFCAP) failed: Device not configured Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - configd [14] (Error): ioctl(SIOCGIFCAP) failed: Device not configured Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - configd [14] (Notice): setting hostname to "Petes-iPod" Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - configd [14] (Notice): network configuration changed. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - UserEventAgent [12] (Warning): TRACE: sending {    command = kMBMessageAccountChanged; } Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - profiled [20] (Notice): (Note ) profiled: Service starting... Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - profiled [20] (Notice): (Note ) profiled: Performing boot time checks. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - profiled [20] (Notice): (Note ) MC: Checking for MDM installation... Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - profiled [20] (Notice): (Note ) MC: ...finished checking for MDM installation. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - profiled [20] (Notice): (Note ) profiled: Checking for new carrier profile... Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - profiled [20] (Notice): (Note ) profiled: Installing new carrier profile. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:13 PM - profiled [20] (Notice): (Note ) profiled: Carrier profile has already been installed. Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - com.apple.launchd [1] (Warning): (com.apple.ptpd) The exception server is already claimed! Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: mitigation behavior enabled Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: camera equations enabled Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: thermal monitoring enabled Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: registered for wake notification Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: set decay on sensor 0 to 16384 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: set decay on sensor 1 to 546 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: set decay on sensor 2 to 5461 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: set decay on sensor 3 to 6553 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: set decay on sensor 4 to 5461 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: set decay on sensor 5 to 5461 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: set decay on sensor 6 to 16384 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: set decay on sensor 9 to 5461 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: set decay on sensor 10 to 5461 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: Set AppleARMPerformanceControllerDVDFactor1 dithering level to 101% Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: Set AppleARMPerformanceControllerDVDFactor0 dithering level to 100% Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: Set charge rate index to 0 Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: HID not ready cannot set BL Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: setting thermal status level to 0 (0) [-32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768] Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: set allowable transmit power limit to 24.000 dBm [-32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768, -32768] Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Error): CLTM: Could not close relay file Apr 8, 2012 10:08:12 PM - CLTM [12] (Notice): CLTM: thermtgraphrelay is not present

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• Routing audio to Bluetooth Headset (non-A2DP) on Android

  - by Jayesh

  I have a non-A2DP single ear BT headset (Plantronics 510) and would like to use it with my Android HTC Magic to listen to low quality audio like podcasts/audio books. After much googling I found that only phone call audio can be routed to the non-A2DP BT headsets. (I would like to know if you have found a ready solution to route all kinds of audio to non-A2DP BT headsets) So I figured, somehow programmatically I can channel the audio to the stream that carries phone call audio. This way I will fool the phone to carry my mp3 audio to my BT headset. I wrote following simple code. import android.content.*; import android.app.Activity; import android.os.Bundle; import android.media.*; import java.io.*; import android.util.Log; public class BTAudioActivity extends Activity { private static final String TAG = "BTAudioActivity"; private MediaPlayer mPlayer = null; private AudioManager amanager = null; @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.main); amanager = (AudioManager) getSystemService(Context.AUDIO_SERVICE); amanager.setBluetoothScoOn(true); amanager.setMode(AudioManager.MODE_IN_CALL); mPlayer = new MediaPlayer(); try { mPlayer.setDataSource(new FileInputStream( "/sdcard/sample.mp3").getFD()); mPlayer.setAudioStreamType(AudioManager.STREAM_VOICE_CALL); mPlayer.prepare(); mPlayer.start(); } catch(Exception e) { Log.e(TAG, e.toString()); } } @Override public void onDestroy() { mPlayer.stop(); amanager.setMode(AudioManager.MODE_NORMAL); amanager.setBluetoothScoOn(false); super.onDestroy(); } } As you can see I tried combinations of various methods that I thought will fool the phone to believe my audio is a phone call: Using MediaPlayer's setAudioStreamType(STREAM_VOICE_CALL) using AudioManager's setBluetoothScoOn(true) using AudioManager's setMode(MODE_IN_CALL) But none of the above worked. If I remove the AudioManager calls in the above code, the audio plays from speaker and if I replace them as shown above then the audio stops coming from speakers, but it doesn't come through the BT headset. So this might be a partial success. I have checked that the BT headset works alright with phone calls. There must be a reason for Android not supporting this. But I can't let go of the feeling that it is not possible to programmatically reroute the audio. Any ideas? P.S. above code needs following permission <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS"/>

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• Invalid or expired security context token in WCF web service

  - by Damian

  All, I have a WCF web service (let's called service "B") hosted under IIS using a service account (VM, Windows 2003 SP2). The service exposes an endpoint that use WSHttpBinding with the default values except for maxReceivedMessageSize, maxBufferPoolSize, maxBufferSize and some of the time outs that have been increased. The web service has been load tested using Visual Studio Load Test framework with around 800 concurrent users and successfully passed all tests with no exceptions being thrown. The proxy in the unit test has been created from configuration. There is a sharepoint application that use the Office Sharepoint Server Search service to call web services "A" and "B". The application will get data from service "A" to create a request that will be sent to service "B". The response coming from service "B" is indexed for search. The proxy is created programmatically using the ChannelFactory. When service "A" takes less than 10 minutes, the calls to service "B" are successfull. But when service "A" takes more time (~20 minutes) the calls to service "B" throw the following exception: Exception Message: An unsecured or incorrectly secured fault was received from the other party. See the inner FaultException for the fault code and detail Inner Exception Message: The message could not be processed. This is most likely because the action 'namespace/OperationName' is incorrect or because the message contains an invalid or expired security context token or because there is a mismatch between bindings. The security context token would be invalid if the service aborted the channel due to inactivity. To prevent the service from aborting idle sessions prematurely increase the Receive timeout on the service endpoint's binding. The binding settings are the same, the time in both client server and web service server are synchronize with the Windows Time service, same time zone. When i look at the server where web service "B" is hosted i can see the following security errors being logged: Source: Security Category: Logon/Logoff Event ID: 537 User NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM Logon Failure: Reason: An error occurred during logon Logon Type: 3 Logon Process: Kerberos Authentication Package: Kerberos Status code: 0xC000006D Substatus code: 0xC0000133 After reading some of the blogs online, the Status code means STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE and the substatus code means STATUS_TIME_DIFFERENCE_AT_DC. but i already checked both server and client clocks and they are syncronized. I also noticed that the security token seems to be cached somewhere in the client server because they have another process that calls the web service "B" using the same service account and successfully gets data the first time is called. Then they start the proccess to update the office sharepoint server search service indexes and it fails. Then if they called the first proccess again it will fail too. Has anyone experienced this type of problems or have any ideas? Regards, --Damian

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• C# remote web request certificate error

  - by Ben

  Hi. I am currently integrating a payment gateway into an application. Following a successful transaction the remote payment gateway posts details of the transaction back to my application (ITN). It posts to a HttpHandler that is used to read and validate the data. Part of the validation performed is a POST made by the handler to a validation service provided by the payment gateway. This effectively posts some of the original form values received back to the payment gateway to ensure they are valid. The url that I am posting back to is: "https://sandbox.payfast.co.za/eng/query/validate" and the code I am using: /// <summary> /// Posts the data back to the payment processor to validate the data received /// </summary> public static bool ValidateITNRequestData(NameValueCollection formVariables) { bool isValid = true; try { using (WebClient client = new WebClient()) { string validateUrl = (UseSandBox) ? SandboxValidateUrl : LiveValidateUrl; byte[] responseArray = client.UploadValues(validateUrl, "POST", formVariables); // get the resposne and replace the line breaks with spaces string result = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(responseArray); result = result.Replace("\r\n", " ").Replace("\r", "").Replace("\n", " "); if (result == null || !result.StartsWith("VALID")) { isValid = false; LogManager.InsertLog(LogTypeEnum.OrderError, "PayFast ITN validation failed", "The validation response was not valid."); } } } catch (Exception ex) { LogManager.InsertLog(LogTypeEnum.Unknown, "Unable to validate ITN data. Unknown exception", ex); isValid = false; } return isValid; } However, on calling WebClient.UploadValues the following exception is raised: System.Net.WebException: The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel. ---> System.Security.Authentication.AuthenticationException: The remote certificate is invalid according to the validation procedure. at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendAuthResetSignal(ProtocolToken message, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest, Exception exception) at For the sake of brevity I haven't listed the full call stack (I can do if anyone thinks it will help). The remote certificate does appear to be valid. To get around the problem I did try adding a new RemoteCertificateValidationCallback that always returned true but just ended up getting the following exception: System.Security.SecurityException: Request for the permission of type 'System.Security.Permissions.SecurityPermission, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' failed. at System.Security.CodeAccessSecurityEngine.Check(Object demand, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean isPermSet) at System.Security.CodeAccessPermission.Demand() at System.Net.ServicePointManager.set_ServerCertificateValidationCallback(RemoteCertificateValidationCallback value) at NopSolutions.NopCommerce.Payment.Methods.PayFast.PayFastPaymentProcessor.ValidateITNRequestData(NameValueCollection formVariables) The action that failed was: Demand The type of the first permission that failed was: System.Security.Permissions.SecurityPermission The Zone of the assembly that failed was: MyComputer So I am not sure this will work in medium trust? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks Ben

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• System.ServiceModel.Syndication.SyndicationFeed throws when the RSS document includes a <script> blo

  - by Cheeso

  The code: using (XmlReader xmlr = XmlReader.Create(new StringReader(allXml))) { var items = from item in SyndicationFeed.Load(xmlr).Items select item; } The exception: Exception: System.Xml.XmlException: Unexpected node type Element. ReadElementString method can only be called on elements with simple or empty content. Line 11, position 25. at System.Xml.XmlReader.ReadElementString() at System.ServiceModel.Syndication.Rss20FeedFormatter.ReadXml(XmlReader reader, SyndicationFeed result) at System.ServiceModel.Syndication.Rss20FeedFormatter.ReadFeed(XmlReader reader) at System.ServiceModel.Syndication.Rss20FeedFormatter.ReadFrom(XmlReader reader) at System.ServiceModel.Syndication.SyndicationFeed.Load[TSyndicationFeed](XmlReader reader) at System.ServiceModel.Syndication.SyndicationFeed.Load(XmlReader reader) at Ionic.ToolsAndTests.ReadRss.Run() in c:\dev\dotnet\ReadRss.cs:line 90 The XML content: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/roller-ui/styles/rss.xsl" media="screen"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" > <channel> <title>Software architecture, software engineering, and Renaissance Jazz</title> <link>https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/gradybooch</link> <atom:link rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" href="https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/gradybooch/feed/entries/rss?lang=en" /> <description>Software architecture, software engineering, and Renaissance Jazz</description> <language>en-us</language> <copyright>Copyright <script type='text/javascript'> document.write(blogsDate.date.localize (1273534889181));</script></copyright> <lastBuildDate>Mon, 10 May 2010 19:41:29 -0400</lastBuildDate> As you can see, on line 11, at position 25, there's a script block inside the <copyright> element. Other people have reported similar errors with other XML documents. The way I worked around this was to do a StreamReader.ReadToEnd, then do Regex.Replace on the result of that to yank out the script block, before passing the modified string to XmlReader.Create(). Feels like a hack. Has anyone got a better approach? I don't like this because I have to read in a 125k string into memory. Is it valid rss to include "complex content" like that - a script block inside an element?

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