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  • One bigger Virtual Machine in Cloud

    - by flyer
    I just setup virtual machines on one hardware with Vagrant (this is just a test environment, not production!). I want to use a Puppet to configure them and next try to setup OpenStack. I am not sure If I am understanding how this should look at the end. Is it possible to have below architecture with OpenStack after all where I will run one Virtual Machine with e.g. 12 cores? ------------------------------- | VM (12c) | ------------------------------- | NOVA | NOVA | NOVA | ------------------------------- | OpenStack | ------------------------------- | VM (4c) | VM (4c) | VM (4c) | ------------------------------- | Bare Metal (8c) | ------------------------------- I need this information to have a bigger picture to continue.

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  • One bigger Virtual Machine distributed across many OpenStack nodes [duplicate]

    - by flyer
    This question already has an answer here: Can a virtualized machine have the CPU and RAM resources of multiple underlying physical machines? 2 answers I just setup virtual machines on one hardware with Vagrant. I want to use a Puppet to configure them and next try to setup OpenStack. I am not sure If I am understanding how this should look at the end. Is it possible to have below architecture with OpenStack after all where I will run one Virtual Machine with Linux? ------------------------------- | VM with OS | ------------------------------- | NOVA | NOVA | NOVA | ------------------------------- | OpenStack | ------------------------------- | Node | Node | Node | ------------------------------- More details: In my environment Nodes are just virtual machines, but my question concerns separate Hardware nodes. If we imagine this Nodes(Novas) are placed on a separate machines (e.g. every has 4 cores) can I run one Virtual Machine across many OpenStack Nodes? Is it possible to aggregate the computation power of OpenStack in one virtual distributed operating system?

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  • One bigger Virtual Machine distributed across many Nodes [on hold]

    - by flyer
    I just setup virtual machines on one hardware with Vagrant (this is just a test environment, not production!). I want to use a Puppet to configure them and next try to setup OpenStack. I am not sure If I am understanding how this should look at the end. Is it possible to have below architecture with OpenStack after all where I will run one Virtual Machine with Linux? ------------------------------- | VM | ------------------------------- | NOVA | NOVA | NOVA | ------------------------------- | OpenStack | ------------------------------- | Node | Node | Node | ------------------------------- (In my environment Nodes are just virtual machines, but my question concerns separate Hardware nodes) After some comments... Is it a language barrier, or? This is only my 'virtual environment'. If we imagine this virtual machines are a separate Nodes (e.g. every has 4 cores) the OpenStack is still the same, right? Can I run one Virtual Machine across many Nodes with OpenStack? Is it possible to aggregate the computation power of separate machines in one virtual distributed operating system?

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  • dovecot & imap folders

    - by Flyer
    I've got a question about Trash/Drafts/Sent folders. By default when I created mailboxes via ISPManager panel, it wast Inbox.Sent, Inbox.Trash, Inbox.Drafts. which I didn't like because having sent and drafts as subfolder to inbox was kinda lame imo. I wanted those 3 to be as separate folders, not as subfolders. Creating them was no problem, just .Sent (for example) in maildir and clients can see it. The questions, how I "make" server to know that it should now send deleted mail to .Trash instead of .Inbox.trash, drafts and sent to their new fodlers respectively.

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  • OOMK kills mysql and apache when there is still a lot[?] of mem

    - by Flyer
    let me first say that I'm pretty new ti *nix systems and even more to server management. Anyway, I've got a little problem. I got VPS with 1gb mem, system is debian 6. I have few sites running on it, though some load can only be caused by one of them. Recently, OOMK started to kill mysql, causing wp and phpbb giving error that it can't connect to mysql server. Error itself is not good, especially if it happens at night and site becomes unavailable until I wake up and restart mysql. I have probably bad line in my cron which can be cause of it all (again, I'm new to it) */20 * * * * sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches Well, if you need any information, let me know, since I don't really know which information can be useful here. Also, I'd like to know if it's not too bad to have above cron task.

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  • Setting primary IP for VPS (out of 2 available)

    - by Flyer
    I've got a little problem. My VPS (Debian box) has 1 primary IP address, but now my hosting provider decided to assign me another one due to problems with first one. Let's say new IP is 91.222.152.20 and old one 91.221.190.170. How should I make 91.222.152.20 primary one, so that everything works on this address instead of 91.221.190.170 (like ftp, mysql etc) I tried editing /etc/newtwork/interfaces setting iface eth1 inet static address 91.222.152.20 netmask 255.255.252.0 network 91.222.152.0 broadcast 91.222.155.255 gateway 91.222.152.1 I know that network is 91.222.152.0/22 so I assume that above configuration should be right. Saved, rebooted and that ended pretty bad. Couldn't even ping box on old or new IP. Had to revert to working one. So question is. What am I doing wrong and how to do it right?

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  • What combination of soft to select? (your advice/opinion) [on hold]

    - by Flyer
    I'm thinking of upgrading my server soft along with OS. As of now, my VPS is running on Debian 6 with nginx (1.2.4) - apache (2.2.16). My VPS specs are 1Gb RAM, 2 cores of Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520 @ 2.27GHz. Now, here is the question. Which combo should I run? - nginx - apache (2.4.x) - PHP-fpm 5.5.x - nginx - apache (2.4.x) - mod_php 5.5.x - apache (2.4.x) - mod_php 5.5.x - apache (2.4.x) - PHP-fpm 5.5.x - nginx - PHP-fpm 5.5.x - nginx - mod_php 5.5.x I would really like some advice/opinion of people who are more experienced than me with these things. It's nothing big. Around 100-200k pageviews per month. I can also provide some screenshots of munin stats if needed.

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  • event.target doesn't work

    - by rdesign
    Hey guys, I've wrote some jquery code with some draggable elements and one droparea. Unfortunately my droparea can't make a difference between various object. Here's my code. <script type="text/javascript"> $(function() { $("#droparea").droppable({ drop: function(event) { var $target = $(event.target); if($target.is("#flyer")) { alert("adasd"); } } }); }); </script> </head> <body> <div id="droparea"></div> <div class="polaroid" id="flyer"> <img src="images/muesliFlyer.png" alt="flyer" /> </div> Without the if it works. But then I can't get the dropped object. Any ideas why my target isn't recognized? thanks a lot.

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  • Getting Android drivers to work on Windows 8 Community Preview

    - by mdkess
    I made a post about this on android.stackexchange.com, and they referred me to here. I have an HTC Flyer and a Motorola Droid X, and for both, I've been unable to connect to USB debugging to do Android development. With the Motorola Droid X, the MotoHelper installer won't run, saying that I'm running an Unknown OS Version. With the HTC Flyer, HTC's Sync software installs successfully, but again the device doesn't connect. I realize that this is beta software, but is there anything that I can do to get this working? I've been relying on switching back to my laptop running Linux to test out my Android builds on the device. Of course, I'm not in any production environment - just playing around with the new OS, but not being able to write code on it makes less fun.

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  • Ruby: rules for implicit hashes

    - by flyer
    Why second output shows me only one element of Array? Is it still Array or Hash already? def printArray(arr) arr.each { | j | k, v = j.first printf("%s %s %s \n", k, v, j) } end print "Array 1\n" printArray( [ {kk: { 'k1' => 'v1' }}, {kk: { 'k2' => 'v2' }}, {kk: { 'k3' => 'v3' }}, ]) print "Array 2\n" printArray( [ kk: { 'k1' => 'v1' }, kk: { 'k2' => 'v2' }, kk: { 'k3' => 'v3' }, ]) exit # Output: # # Array 1 # kk {"k1"=>"v1"} {:kk=>{"k1"=>"v1"}} # kk {"k2"=>"v2"} {:kk=>{"k2"=>"v2"}} # kk {"k3"=>"v3"} {:kk=>{"k3"=>"v3"}} # Array 2 # kk {"k3"=>"v3"} {:kk=>{"k3"=>"v3"}}

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  • Tips for communication between JS browser game and node.js server?

    - by Petteri Hietavirta
    I am tinkering around with some simple Canvas based cave flyer game and I would like to make it multiplayer eventually. The plan is to use Node.js on the server side. The data sent over would consists of position of each player, direction, velocity and such. The player movements are simple force physics, so I should be able to extrapolate movements before next update from server. Any tips or best practices on the communications side? I guess web sockets are the way to go. Should I send information in every pass of the game loop or with specified intervals? Also, I don't mind if it doesn't work with older browsers.

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  • HOPE Programm bis 31. Dezember 2012 verlängert!

    - by A&C Redaktion
    Hochperformante IT zu bezahlbaren Preisen ist für Kunden aus Forschung und Lehre eine ganz besondere Herausforderung. Den speziellen Anforderungen und Bedürfnissen dieses hauptsächlich durch Partner bedienten Segments kommt Oracle gerne entgegen: Wir haben unser F&L-Programm "Hardware from Oracle - Pricing for Education" (HOPE) bis zum 31.12.2012 verlängert, das folgende Hardware-Produkte zu stark vergünstigten Konditionen beinhaltet: Oracle SPARC T4 Server – bis zu 5x schneller als ihre Vorgängersysteme, dabei 100% kompatibel zu allen SPARC/Solaris Applikationen Oracle x86 Server – Linux und Solaris, Virtualisierung und Systems Management inklusive Oracle ZFS Storage Appliances – Enterprise NAS mit führender Leistung, Kosteneffizienz und Benutzerfreundlichkeit Oracle Tape Systeme – Bewährte StorageTek Band- und Bibliothekslösungen Oracle Database Appliance – Hochverfügbare und einfach zu verwaltende Appliance für die Oracle Datenbank 11gR2, mit „Pay-As-You-Grow“-Lizenzmodell Mehr Details und Ihre Ansprechpartner bei Oracle finden Sie in unserem aktuellen deutschsprachigen Flyer.

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  • Refurbished System Windows License Key and OEM Media

    - by Timothy R. Butler
    According to this question, it is legal to use a Windows 7 OEM license that is presently installed as a 32-bit install with a 64-bit version of Windows 7. With that in mind, I purchased several refurbished systems through TigerDirect. When I received the computers today, I found that they have a Windows 7 license key attached to them that says it is a "refurbished key." A flyer in the box also seemed to imply that this key would not work with regular OEM media. Has anyone tried using regular OEM media with a refurbished key? I had hoped to create a new 64-bit WIM image that I could use on these systems, but I don't want to try replacing the default install with this new 64-bit install only to find that the key won't validate. If it requires a special customized image, is it possible to convert another type of Windows 7 disc into the required sort much as one can convert a retail disc to an OEM one (and vise versa)?

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  • Heading to GTC 2010

    - by Daniel Moth
    Next week the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2010 takes place in San Jose, CA and I am lucky enough to be attending the entire week. It has been an extremely long time (in fact, I can't remember the last time) where I am registered as an attendee at a conference (full pass/access) without being a speaker *and* without having any booth duty! Having said that, we (our team at Microsoft) will be running GPU debugging UX studies throughout the entire week (similar to what I had previously advertised). If you are attending GTC 2010 and you are interested, look for the related flyer in your conference bag. The conference is an excellent opportunity to connect in-person with various individuals that I have only met virtually. From an educational perspective there is a very long and interesting session list, with multiple concurrent slots, making it very hard to choose between them, but I have managed to create my (packed) schedule. I am most looking forward to sessions on the programming languages and tools, both from Microsoft and MS partners. For full conference details, visit the GTC 2010 official page. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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  • Find the gender from a name

    - by Ramesh
    Hi guys, I recently confronted with a weird yet interesting question. The questions is as follows: Need to write a program which can give the gender as output based on the name. Example: INPUT -- John Michael Britney OUTPUT-- male male female So this is the output I expect. I tried a lot to solve, but I really was not able to crack it. I will be really thankful to this site for giving me an opportunity to share this question. Actually this is asked in a programming contest as a flyer problem, so I thought this can be programmed.

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  • No password is complex enough

    - by Blue Warrior NFB
    I have one user in my AD domain who seems to not be able to self-select a password. I may have another one, but they're on a different enough password-expiration schedule that I can't remember who it is right now. I can set a password via ADU&C just fine, but when he tries it via C-A-D he gets the "doesn't meet complexity" message. Figuring he was just doing something like 'pAssword32', I did some troubleshooting of my own and sure enough it doesn't want to take a password that way. He's one of our users that habitually uses a local account and then maps drives using his AD credentials so he doesn't get the your password will expire in 4 days, maybe you should change it prompts, so he's a frequent "my password expired, can you fix it" flyer. I don't want to keep having him set it via ADU&C over my shoulder every N days. I'm just fine setting temp passwords of 48 characters of keyboard-slamming and letting him change it something memorable. My environment is at the Windows 2008 R2 functional level, and I am using fine-grained password policies. In fact, I have two such policies: For normal users (minimum length, remembered passwords) For special utility accounts The password complexities I've tried match both policies for length and char-set selection. The permissions on the User object themselves look normal, SELF does indeed have the "Change Password" right. Is there some other place I should be looking for things that can affect this?

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  • MSCC: Career & IT Fair 2014

    Already a couple of weeks ago, I've been addressed by Ibraahim and Yunus to see whether it would be interesting to participate in the 1st Career & IT Fair organised by the UoM Computer Club. Well, luckily we met at the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp and I wasn't too sure whether it would be possible for me to attend after all. The main reason is given because of work demand and furthermore due to the fact that the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community currently has no advertising material at all. Here's the brief statement of the event: "The UOM Students' Computer Club in collaboration with the UOM Students' Union and UOM CSE Department is organising a 'Career & IT Fair' on the 23rd and 24th April 2014. This event has for objective to provide a platform to tertiary students, secondary students as well as vocational students, the opportunity to meet job recruiters." Luckily, I was reminded that the 23rd is a Wednesday, and therefore I decided that it might be interesting to move our weekly Code & Coffee session to the university and hence be able to attend the career fair. As it turned out it was a great choice and thankfully Pritvi, Nadim as well as Ishwon volunteered to be around at the "community booth". Thankfully, the computer club gave us - the MSCC and the LUGM - one of their spaces in the lobby area of the Paul Octave Wiéhé Auditorium. My impression about the event Very well and professionally organised. Seriously, the lads over at the UoM Computer Club did a great job in organising their 2 days event, and felt very comfortable at any time. Actually, it was kind of amusing to some of the members constantly running around and checking everything. Even though that the whole process went smooth and easy off the hand. There were a couple of interesting pieces of information and announcements during the opening ceremony. For example, the Computer Science faculty is a very young one and has been initiated back in 1988 only - just by 4 staff members at that time. Now, after 25 years they have achieved quite a lot and there are currently 1.000+ active students attending the numerous lectures and courses. But there is no room to rest on previous achievements, and I was kind of surprised to hear that there are plans to extend the campus, and offer new lectures in the fields of nanotechnology, big data handling, and - crossing fingers - the introduction and establishment of a space control centre. Mauritius is already part of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and hopefully there will be more activities into that direction in the near future. Community - Awareness and collaboration As stated earlier, I could only spent one morning but luckily other members of the MSCC and the LUGM stayed during the whole two days and provided answers to any interested person. As for me, I took the opportunity to get in touch with the other companies in the lobby. Mainly, to create some awareness about our IT communities but also to see whether there might be options for future engagement in common activities, too. So far, I was able to speak to representatives of the following companies: ACCA Mauritius Business at Work Infomil LinkByNet Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands & French Pacific Spherinity Training Institute Spoon Consulting Ltd. State Informatics Ltd. Unfortunately, I only had a quick chat with an HR representative of LinkByNet but I fully count on our MSCC members like Nitin or LUGM member Ronny to spread our intentions over there.  So far, all of the representatives were really interested in our concepts and activities and I'm currently catching up with an introduction flyer for the MSCC that I'm going to send out to all those contacts via mail. It would be great to have more craftsmen as well as professional support on board. Some pictures from the event MSCC: Fantastic outlook for the near future. Announcements were made on Big data, nanotechnology, and space control centre in Mauritius. Interesting! MSCC: The lobby area was cramped with students. Great way to exchange and network. Good luck to all candidates! Passing the relay staff to... I recommend you to continue to read about the first Career & IT Fair on Ish's blog. He has a great summary and more details on those two days of IT activities than I have. Thanks and feel free to leave a comment (or two)... 

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  • Windows 8 Launch&ndash;Why OEM and Retailers Should STFU

    - by D'Arcy Lussier
    Microsoft has gotten a lot of flack for the Surface from OEM/hardware partners who create Windows-based devices and I’m sure, to an extent, retailers who normally stock and sell Windows-based devices. I mean we all know how this is supposed to work – Microsoft makes the OS, partners make the hardware, retailers sell the hardware. Now Microsoft is breaking the rules by not only offering their own hardware but selling them via online and through their Microsoft branded stores! The thought has been that Microsoft is trying to set a standard for the other hardware companies to reach for. Maybe. I hope, at some level, Microsoft may be covertly responding to frustrations associated with trusting the OEMs and Retailers to deliver on their part of the supply chain. I know as a consumer, I’m very frustrated with the Windows 8 launch. Aside from the Surface sales, there’s nothing happening at the retail level. Let me back up and explain. Over the weekend I visited a number of stores in hopes of trying out various Windows 8 devices. Out of three retailers (Staples, Best Buy, and Future Shop), not *one* met my expectations. Let me be honest with you Staples, I never really have high expectations from your computer department. If I need paper or pens, whatever, but computers – you’re not the top of my list for price or selection. Still, considering you flaunted Win 8 devices in your flyer I expected *something* – some sign of effort that you took the Windows 8 launch seriously. As I entered the 1910 Pembina Highway location in Winnipeg, there was nothing – no signage, no banners – nothing that would suggest Windows 8 had even launched. I made my way to the laptops. I had to play with each machine to determine which ones were running Windows 8. There wasn’t anything on the placards that made it obvious which were Windows 8 machines and which ones were Windows 7. Likewise, there was no easy way to identify the touch screen laptop (the HP model) from the others without physically touching the screen to verify. Horrible experience. In the same mall as the Staples I mentioned above, there’s a Future Shop. Surely they would be more on the ball. I walked in to the 1910 Pembina Highway location and immediately realized I would not get a better experience. Except for the sign by the front door mentioning Windows 8, there was *nothing* in the computer department pointing you to the Windows 8 devices. Like in Staples, the Win 8 laptops were mixed in with the Win 7 ones and there was nothing notable calling out which ones were running Win 8. I happened to hit up the St. James Street location today, thinking since its a busier store they must have more options. To their credit, they did have two staff members decked out in Windows 8 shirts and who were helping a customer understand Windows 8. But otherwise, there was nothing highlighting the Windows 8 devices and they were again mixed in with the rest of the Win 7 machines. Finally, we have the St. James Street Best Buy location here in Winnipeg. I’m sure Best Buy will have their act together. Nope, not even close. Same story as the others: minimal signage (there was a sign as you walked in with a link to this schedule of demo days), Windows 8 hardware mixed with the rest of the PC offerings, and no visible call-outs identifying which were Win 8 based. This meant that, like Future Shop and Staples, if you wanted to know which machine had Windows 8 you had to go and scrutinize each machine. Also, there was nothing identifying which ones were touch based and which were not. Just Another Day… To these retailers, it seemed that the Windows 8 launch was just another day, with another product to add to the showroom floor. Meanwhile, Apple has their dedicated areas *in all three stores*. It was dead simple to find where the Apple products were compared to the Windows 8 products. No wonder Microsoft is starting to push their own retail stores. No wonder Microsoft is trying to funnel orders through them instead of relying on these bloated retail big box stores who obviously can’t manage a product launch. It’s Not Just The Retailers… Remember when the Acer CEO, Founder, and President of Computer Global Operations all weighed in on how Microsoft releasing the Surface would have a “huge negative impact for the ecosystem and other brands may take a negative reaction”? Also remember the CEO stating “[making hardware] is not something you are good at so please think twice”? Well the launch day has come and gone, and so far Microsoft is the only one that delivered on having hardware available on the October 26th date. Oh sure, there are laptops running Windows 8 – but all in one desktop PCs? I’ve only seen one or two! And tablets are *non existent*, with some showing an early to late November availability on Best Buy’s website! So while the retailers could be doing more to make it easier to find Windows 8 devices, the manufacturers could help by *getting devices into stores*! That’s supposedly something that these companies are good at, according to the Acer CEO. So Here’s What the Retailers and Manufacturers Need To Do… Get Product Out The pivotal timeframe will be now to the end of November. We need to start seeing all these fantastic pieces of hardware ship – including the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro, the Acer Iconia, the Asus TAICHI 21, and the sexy Samsung Series 7 27” desktop. It’s not enough to see product announcements, we need to see actual devices. Make It Easy For Customers To Find Win8 Devices You want to make it easy to sell these things? Make it easy for people to find them! Have staff on hand that really know how these devices run and what can be done with them. Don’t just have a single demo day, have people who can demo it every day! Make It Easy to See the Features There’s touch screen desktops, touch screen laptops, tablets, non-touch laptops, etc. People need to easily find the features for each machine. If I’m looking for a touch-laptop, I shouldn’t need to sift through all the non-touch laptops to find them – at the least, I need to quickly be able to see which ones are touch. I feel silly even typing this because this should be retail 101 and I have no retail background (but I do have an extensive background as a customer). In Summary… Microsoft launching the Surface and selling them through their own channels isn’t slapping its OEM and retail partners in the face; its slapping them to wake the hell up and stop coasting through Windows launch events like they don’t matter. Unless I see some improvements from vendors and retailers in November, I may just hold onto my money for a Surface Pro even if I have to wait until early 2013. Your move OEM/Retailers. *Update – While my experience has been in Winnipeg, similar experiences have been voiced from colleagues in Calgary and Edmonton.

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  • Understanding the value of Customer Experience & Loyalty for the Telecommunications Industry

    - by raul.goycoolea
    Worried by economic woes and market forces, especially in mature markets, communications service providers (CSPs) increasingly focus on improving customer experience. In fact, it seems difficult to find a major message by a C-level executive in the developed world that does not include something on "meeting and exceeding customers' needs". Frequently in customer satisfaction studies by prominent firms, CSPs fall short of the leadership demonstrated by other industries that take customer-centric approaches to their bottom-line strategies. Consider the following:Despite the continued impact of global economic crisis, in July 2010, Apple Computer posted record revenue and net quarterly profit. Those who attribute the results primarily to the iPhone 4 launch should note that Apple also shipped around 30% more Macintosh computers than the same period the previous year. Even sales of the iPod line increased by 8% in a highly commoditized, shrinking media player market. Finally, Apple began selling iPads during the quarter, with total sales of more than 3 million units. What does Apple have that the others lack? Well, some great products (and services) to be sure, but it also excels at customer service and support, marketing, and distribution, and has one of the strongest brands globally. Its products are useful, simple to use, easy to acquire and augment, high quality, and considered very cool. They also evoke such an emotional response from many of Apple's customers, which they turn up their noses at competitive products.In other words, Apple appears to have mastered virtually every aspect of customer experience and the resultant loyalty of its customer base - even in difficult financial times. Through that unwavering customer focus, Apple continues to drive its revenues and profits to new heights. Other customer loyalty leaders like Wal-Mart, Google, Toyota and Honda are also doing well by focusing on customer experience as an essential driver of profitability. Service providers should note this performance and ask themselves how they might leverage the same principles to increase their own profitability. After all, that is what customer experience and loyalty are all about: profitability.To successfully manage all the critical touch points of customer experience, CSPs must shun the one-size-fits-all approach. They can no longer afford to view customer service fundamentally as an act of altruism - which mentality dates back to the industry's civil service days, when CSPs were typically government organizations that were critical to economic development and public safety.As regulators and public officials have pushed, and continue to push, service providers to new heights of reliability - using incentives and punishments - most CSPs already have some of the fundamental building blocks of customer service in place. Yet despite that history and experience, service providers still lag other industries in providing what is seen as good customer service.As we observed in the TMF's 2009 Insights Research report, Customer Experience Management: Driving Loyalty & Profitability there has been resurgence in interest by CSPs. More and more of them have stated ambitions to catch up other industries, and they are realizing that good customer service is a powerful strategy for increasing business performance and profitability, not an act of good will.CSPs are recognizing the connection between customer experience and profitability, as demonstrated in many studies. For example, according to research by Bain & Company, a 5 percent improvement in customer retention rates can yield as much as a 75 percent increase in profits for companies across a range of industries.After decades of customer experience strategy formulation, Bain partner and business author, Frederick Reichheld, considers "would you recommend us to a friend?" as the ultimate question for a customer. How many times have you or your friends recommended an iPod, iPhone or a Mac? What do your children recommend to their peers? Their peers to them?There are certain steps service providers have to take to create more personalized relationships with their customers, as well as reduce churn and increase profitability, all while becoming leaner and more agile. First, they have to define customer experience, we define it as the result of the sum of observations, perceptions, thoughts and feelings arising from interactions and relationships between customers and their service provider(s). Virtually every customer touch point - whether directly or indirectly linked to service providers and their partners - contributes to customer perception, satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately profitability. Gaining leadership in customer experience and satisfaction will not be a simple task, as it is affected by virtually every customer-facing aspect of the service provider, and in turn impacts the service provider deeply - especially on the all-important bottom line. The scope of issues affecting customer experience is complex and dynamic.With new services, devices and applications extending the basis of customer experience to domains beyond the direct control of the service provider, it is likely to increase in complexity and dynamism.Customer loyalty = increased profitsAs stated earlier, customer experience programs are not fundamentally altruistic exercises, but a strategic means of improving competitiveness and profitability in the short and long term. Loyalty is essential to deriving long term profits from customers.Some of the earliest loyalty programs date back to the 1930s, when packaged goods companies offered embedded coupons for rewards to buyers, and eventually retail chains began offering reward programs to frequent shoppers. These programs continued for decades but were leapfrogged in the 1980s by more aggressive programs from the airlines.This movement was led by American Airlines, which launched the first full-scale loyalty marketing program of the modern era with the AAdvantage frequent flyer scheme. It was the first to reward frequent fliers with notional air miles that could be accumulated and later redeemed for free travel. Figure 1: Opportunities example of Customer loyalty driven profitOther airlines and travel providers were quick to grasp the incredible value of providing customers with an incentive to use their company exclusively. Within a few years, dozens of travel industry companies launched similar initiatives and now loyalty programs are achieving near-ubiquity in many service industries, especially those in which it is difficult to differentiate offerings by product attributes.The belief is that increased profitability will result from customer retention efforts because:•    The cost of acquisition occurs only at the beginning of a relationship: the longer the relationship, the lower the amortized cost;•    Account maintenance costs decline as a percentage of total costs, or as a percentage of revenue, over the lifetime of the relationship;•    Long term customers tend to be less inclined to switch and less price sensitive which can result in stable unit sales volume and increases in dollar-sales volume;•    Long term customers may initiate word-of-mouth promotions and referrals, which cost the company nothing and arguably are the most effective form of advertising;•    Long-term customers are more likely to buy ancillary products and higher margin supplemental products;•    Long term customers tend to be satisfied with their relationship with the company and are less likely to switch to competitors, making market entry or competitors gaining market share difficult;•    Regular customers tend to be less expensive to service, as they are familiar with the processes involved, require less 'education', and are consistent in their order placement;•    Increased customer retention and loyalty makes the employees' jobs easier and more satisfying. In turn, happy employees feed back into higher customer satisfaction in a virtuous circle. Figure 2: The virtuous circle of customer loyaltyFigure 2 represents a high-level example of a virtuous cycle driven by customer satisfaction and loyalty, depicting how superiority in product and service offerings, as well as strong customer support by competent employees, lead to higher sales and ultimately profitability. As stated above, this is not a new concept, but succeeding with it is difficult. It has eluded many a company driven to achieve profitability goals. Of course, for this circle to be virtuous, the customer relationship(s) must be profitable.Trying to maintain the loyalty of unprofitable customers is not a viable business strategy. It is, therefore, important that marketers can assess the profitability of each customer (or customer segment), and either improve or terminate relationships that are not profitable. This means each customer's 'relationship costs' must be understood and compared to their 'relationship revenue'. Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the most commonly used metric here, as it is generally accepted as a representation of exactly how much each customer is worth in monetary terms, and therefore a determinant of exactly how much a service provider should be willing to spend to acquire or retain that customer.CLV models make several simplifying assumptions and often involve the following inputs:•    Churn rate represents the percentage of customers who end their relationship with a company in a given period;•    Retention rate is calculated by subtracting the churn rate percentage from 100;•    Period/horizon equates to the units of time into which a customer relationship can be divided for analysis. A year is the most commonly used period for this purpose. Customer lifetime value is a multi-period calculation, often projecting three to seven years into the future. In practice, analysis beyond this point is viewed as too speculative to be reliable. The model horizon is the number of periods used in the calculation;•    Periodic revenue is the amount of revenue collected from a customer in a given period (though this is often extended across multiple periods into the future to understand lifetime value), such as usage revenue, revenues anticipated from cross and upselling, and often some weighting for referrals by a loyal customer to others; •    Retention cost describes the amount of money the service provider must spend, in a given period, to retain an existing customer. Again, this is often forecast across multiple periods. Retention costs include customer support, billing, promotional incentives and so on;•    Discount rate means the cost of capital used to discount future revenue from a customer. Discounting is an advanced method used in more sophisticated CLV calculations;•    Profit margin is the projected profit as a percentage of revenue for the period. This may be reflected as a percentage of gross or net profit. Again, this is generally projected across the model horizon to understand lifetime value.A strong focus on managing these inputs can help service providers realize stronger customer relationships and profits, but there are some obstacles to overcome in achieving accurate calculations of CLV, such as the complexity of allocating costs across the customer base. There are many costs that serve all customers which must be properly allocated across the base, and often a simple proportional allocation across the whole base or a segment may not accurately reflect the true cost of serving that customer;  This is made worse by the fragmentation of customer information, which is likely to be across a variety of product or operations groups, and may be difficult to aggregate due to different representations.In addition, there is the complexity of account relationships and structures to take into consideration. Complex account structures may not be understood or properly represented. For example, a profitable customer may have a separate account for a second home or another family member, which may appear to be unprofitable. If the service provider cannot relate the two accounts, CLV is not properly represented and any resultant cancellation of the apparently unprofitable account may result in the customer churning from the profitable one.In summary, if service providers are to realize strong customer relationships and their attendant profits, there must be a very strong focus on data management. This needs to be coupled with analytics that help business managers and those who work in customer-facing functions offer highly personalized solutions to customers, while maintaining profitability for the service provider. It's clear that acquiring new customers is expensive. Advertising costs, campaign management expenses, promotional service pricing and discounting, and equipment subsidies make a serious dent in a new customer's profitability. That is especially true given the rising subsidies for Smartphone users, which service providers hope will result in greater profits from profits from data services profitability in future.  The situation is made worse by falling prices and greater competition in mature markets.Customer acquisition through industry consolidation isn't cheap either. A North American service provider spent about $2,000 per subscriber in its acquisition of a smaller company earlier this year. While this has allowed it to leapfrog to become the largest mobile service provider in the country, it required a total investment of more than $28 billion (including assumption of the acquiree's debt).While many operating cost synergies clearly made this deal more attractive to the acquiring company, this is certainly an expensive way to acquire customers: the cost per subscriber in this case is not out of line with the prices others have paid for acquisitions.While growth by acquisition certainly increases overall revenues, it often creates tremendous challenges for profitability. Organic growth through increased customer loyalty and retention is a more effective driver of profit, as well as a stronger predictor of future profitability. Service providers, especially those in mature markets, are increasingly recognizing this and taking steps toward a creating a more personalized, flexible and satisfying experience for their customers.In summary, the clearest path to profitability for companies in virtually all industries is through customer retention and maximization of lifetime value. Service providers would do well to recognize this and focus attention on profitable customer relationships.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, February 22, 2011

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, February 22, 2011Popular ReleasesSearchable Property Updater for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Searchable Property Updater (1.0.121.59): Initial releaseJHINFORM7: JHINFORM 7 VR. 0.0.2: Versión 0.0.1 En estado de desarrolloSilverlight????[???]: silverlight????[???]2.0: ???????,?????,????????silverlight????。DBSourceTools: DBSourceTools_1.3.0.0: Release 1.3.0.0 Changed editors from FireEdit to ICSharpCode.TextEditor. Complete re-vamp of Intellisense ( further testing needed). Hightlight Field and Table Names in sql scripts. Added field dropdown on all tables and views in DBExplorer. Added data option for viewing data in Tables. Fixed comment / uncomment bug as reported by tareq. Included Synonyms in scripting engine ( nickt_ch ).IronPython: 2.7 Release Candidate 1: We are pleased to announce the first Release Candidate for IronPython 2.7. This release contains over two dozen bugs fixed in preparation for 2.7 Final. See the release notes for 60193 for details and what has already been fixed in the earlier 2.7 prereleases. - IronPython TeamCaliburn Micro: A Micro-Framework for WPF, Silverlight and WP7: Caliburn.Micro 1.0 RC: This is the official Release Candicate for Caliburn.Micro 1.0. The download contains the binaries, samples and VS templates. VS Templates The templates included are designed for situations where the Caliburn.Micro source needs to be embedded within a single project solution. This was targeted at government and other organizations that expressed specific requirements around using an open source project like this. NuGet This release does not have a corresponding NuGet package. The NuGet pack...Caliburn: A Client Framework for WPF and Silverlight: Caliburn 2.0 RC: This is the official Release Candidate for Caliburn 2.0. It contains all binaries, samples and generated code docs.A2Command: 2011-02-21 - Version 1.0: IntroductionThis is the full release version of A2Command 1.0, dated February 21, 2011. These notes supersede any prior version's notes. All prior releases may be found on the project's website at http://a2command.codeplex.com/releases/ where you can read the release notes for older versions as well as download them. This version of A2Command is intended to replace any previous version you may have downloaded in the past. There were several bug fixes made after Release Candidate 2 and all...Chiave File Encryption: Chiave 0.9: Application for file encryption and decryption using 512 Bit rijndael encyrption algorithm with simple to use UI. Its written in C# and compiled in .Net version 3.5. It incorporates features of Windows 7 like Jumplists, Taskbar progress and Aero Glass. Feedbacks are Welcome!....Rawr: Rawr 4.0.20 Beta: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Beta Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a pre-alpha release of the WPF version, there are likely to be a lot of issues. If you have a problem, please follow the Posting Guidelines and put it into the Issue Trac...Azure Storage Samples: Version 1.0 (February 2011): These downloads contain source code. Each is a complete sample that fully exercises Windows Azure Storage across blobs, queues, and tables. The difference between the downloads is implementation approach. Storage DotNet CS.zip is a .NET StorageClient library implementation in the C# language. This library come with the Windows Azure SDK. Contains helper classes for accessing blobs, queues, and tables. Storage REST CS.zip is a REST implementation in the C# language. The code to implement R...MiniTwitter: 1.66: MiniTwitter 1.66 ???? ?? ?????????? 2 ??????????????????? User Streams ?????????Windows Phone 7 Isolated Storage Explorer: WP7 Isolated Storage Explorer v1.0 Beta: Current release features:WPF desktop explorer client Visual Studio integrated tool window explorer client (Visual Studio 2010 Professional and above) Supported operations: Refresh (isolated storage information), Add Folder, Add Existing Item, Download File, Delete Folder, Delete File Explorer supports operations running on multiple remote applications at the same time Explorer detects application disconnect (1-2 second delay) Explorer confirms operation completed status Explorer d...Document.Editor: 2011.6: Whats new for Document.Editor 2011.6: New Left to Right and Left to Right support New Indent more/less support Improved Home tab Improved Tooltips/shortcut keys Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsCatel - WPF and Silverlight MVVM library: 1.2: Catel history ============= (+) Added (*) Changed (-) Removed (x) Error / bug (fix) For more information about issues or new feature requests, please visit: http://catel.codeplex.com =========== Version 1.2 =========== Release date: ============= 2011/02/17 Added/fixed: ============ (+) DataObjectBase now supports Isolated Storage out of the box: Person.Save(myStream) stores a whole object graph in Silverlight (+) DataObjectBase can now be converted to Json via Person.ToJson(); (+)...??????????: All-In-One Code Framework ??? 2011-02-18: ?????All-In-One Code Framework?2011??????????!!http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1code&DownloadId=128165 ?????,?????AzureBingMaps??????,??Azure,WCF, Silverlight, Window Phone????????,????????????????????????。 ???: Windows Azure SQL Azure Windows Azure AppFabric Windows Live Messenger Connect Bing Maps ?????: ??????HTML??? ??Windows PC?Mac?Silverlight??? ??Windows Phone?Silverlight??? ?????:http://blog.csdn.net/sjb5201/archive/2011...Image.Viewer: 2011: First version of 2011Silverlight Toolkit: Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit - Feb 2011: Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit OverviewSilverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit offers developers additional controls for Windows Phone application development, designed to match the rich user experience of the Windows Phone 7. Suggestions? Features? Questions? Ask questions in the Create.msdn.com forum. Add bugs or feature requests to the Issue Tracker. Help us shape the Silverlight Toolkit with your feedback! Please clearly indicate that the work items and issues are for the phone t...thinktecture WSCF.blue: WSCF.blue V1 Update (1.0.11): Features Added a new option that allows properties on data contract types to be marked as virtual. Bug Fixes Fixed a bug caused by certain project properties not being available on Web Service Software Factory projects. Fixed a bug that could result in the WrapperName value of the MessageContractAttribute being incorrect when the Adjust Casing option is used. The menu item code now caters for CommandBar instances that are not available. For example the Web Item CommandBar does not exist ...Terminals: Version 2 - RC1: The Third build includes the fix for NLA support. A merged in patch dropped the UI support. Its back now. All patch's except 1 are left. Cheers, -Rob The Second build is up. It takes most patch's sent in from the community. One such patch was around security & how the application handles Passwords. You may find that all of your passwords are now invalidated. You may need to reenter all of your credentials. This would be a good time to use the Credential Manager for each connecti...New ProjectsAllTalk: This is a chat client for Windows Phone 7.AssertFramework: AssertFramework is an implementation of Visual Studio/MSTest assert classes. The Asset and StringAssert classes have been implemented so far. CollectionAssert will be implemented next.AsyncInRuby: Async Web Development in RubyAuto Numbering for CRM 4.0: Reuse and standardize Auto Numbering for CRM 4.0BitRaise: Raise money bit by bit!BoxGame: BoxGame is a small project to develop a RPG in XNA.CCI Explorer (An alternative of .NET Reflector): CCI Explorer is an alternative to RedGate Reflector. It use the Microsoft Common Compiler Infrastructure to decompil and view source executable code. The application is writing in WPF and use the MVVM pattern.Configuration Manager Client Health Check Tool: There are many pitfalls with maintaining ConfigMgr managed systems so they install the client software and can continuously report to the hierarchy. This project provides a scripted solution that detects many issues and automates their repair.cppERF: Class ERF function. Test on VC++ 2008 express, and cygwin.CUITe (Coded UI Test enhanced) Framework: CUITe (Coded UI Test enhanced) Framework is a thin layer developed on top of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Test's Coded UI Test engine which helps reduce code, increases readability and maintainability, while also providing a bunch of cool features for the automation engineer.DocMetaMan : Bulk document Upload and MetaData (Taxonomy) Setter: DocMetaMap lets user select a root folder and upload the documents to selected document library in SharePoint 2010. The tool presents a nice GUI prompting the user to select the metadata / taxonomy to be associated with the documents before uploading them to SharePoint. DotNetNuke Azure Accelerator: DNN Azure Accelerator is a project based on the Azure Accelerators Project to publish the famous DotNetNuke Community CMS in the Windows Azure Platform.GK PlatyPi Robotics - Team 2927: Graham-Kapowsin HS Robotics Club's code repository.HgReport: This is a Mercurial reporting engine written in .NET 3.5. The program will allow you to write your own report templates and execute them against a local Mercurial repository to produce text reports, including HTML, with statistics and other items from the repository history.Image Steganography: 'Image Steganography' allows you to embed text and files into images, with optional encryption.im-me-messenger: A simple instant messenger application for the IM-ME messenging gadgetISEFun: PowerShell module(s) to simplify work in it. It contains PowerShell scripts, compiled libs and some formating files. Several modules will come in one batch as optional features.Kailua - The forgotten methods in the ADO.NET API.: Provide standard calls for vendor specific functionality through ADO.NET. Additional functionality includes: enumerate databases, tables, views, columns, stored procedures, parameters; get an autogenerated primary key; return top N rows; and more. Also some non-ADO classes.Linkual: Linkual makes it easier for blog authors to publish their articles in multiple languages. They will no longer have to set up a separate blog for each language. It is developed in C# and ASP.NET MVC.Lumen - Index discovery and querying: Index discovery and querying framework based on Lucene.netMars Rover Exercise: A squad of robotic rovers are to be landed by NASA on a plateau on Mars. This plateau, which is curiously rectangular, must be navigated by the rovers so that their on board cameras can get a complete view of the surrounding terrain to send back to Earth. Message splitting envelope in Biztalk 2009: Message splitting envelope in Biztalk 2009. The project contains: Source code, Examples. Article describing how to develop it: http://www.biztalkbrasil.com.br/2011/02/envelope-sample-using-flat-file.html.Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Development Framework: Framework for developing Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Applications.Potluck Central: Event Manger is a simple place were you can manage your potlucks.PowerSqueakTasks: For now PowerSqueakTasks primary goal is to integrate MsBuild with Powershell. It provides one simple task, that executes Powershell script in a batch manner - creates PS variables using MSBuild item metadata and then runs specified script over them.PSS Airbus Sound Extender: This application offers users of PSS Airbus the sound extension (like electricity, air-conditioning, apu) for standard PSS Airbus 32x planes. Tested with FS2004 and PSS A319. No sound files are distribute with the package, but explaining manual, how to achieve them, is included.SCCM Client Center Automation Library: SCCM Client Automation library (previously smsclictr.automation.dll) is a .NET Library (C#) to automate and access SCCM (Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager) 2007 Agent functions over WMI.Seng 401 Awesome TSS: Telephone switching system for SENG401 course project. Developed in Visual C#.Silverlight????[???]: flyer???????????,????????。????????silverlight??????????。Simple Notify: SimpleNotify is a lightweight client-server implementation that allows you to notify many users in your network with custom messages in a very simple way. There are a couple of ways how you want to push these messages to your clients. SimpleNotify is developed in C#.Slingshot: SlingshotSmartTTS: A smart text to speech app!SystemSoupRMS: SaaS RMStest project101: test source controlUse BizTalk Logging Events in BizUnit Tests: This project will demonstrate how to use the instrumentation from the Microsoft BizTalk CAT Team logging framework to help you test the internals of your BizTalk solutionWalkme HealthVault Application: Walking application for HealthVault.WikiChanges: WikiChanges is a "Recent Changes" monitor for MediaWiki installations that uses non-intrusive, non-annoying yet useful notifications on the corner with link shortcuts to pages, diff, hist, undo and various other links.Win4 Movie Project: This application is being developed for a class group projectWPF UI Authorization infrastructure (MVVM controlled): This infrastructure provide Attribute base authorization for UI elements within WPF applications

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