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• Design practice for securing data inside Azure SQL

  - by Sid

  Update: I'm looking for a specific design practice as we try to build-our-own database encryption. Azure SQL doesn't support many of the encryption features found in SQL Server (Table and Column encryption). We need to store some sensitive information that needs to be encrypted and we've rolled our own using AesCryptoServiceProvider to encrypt/decrypt data to/from the database. This solves the immediate issue (no cleartext in db) but poses other problems like Key rotation (we have to roll our own code for this, walking through the db converting old cipher text into new cipher text) metadata mapping of which tables and which columns are encrypted. This is simple when it's just couple of columns (send an email to all devs/document) but that quickly gets out of hand ... So, what is the best practice for doing application level encryption into a database that doesn't support encryption? In particular, what is a good design to solve the above two bullet points? If you had specific schema additions would love it if you could give details ("Have a NVARCHAR(max) column to store the cipher metadata as JSON" or a SQL script/commands). If someone would like to recommend a library, I'd be happy to stay away from "DIY" too. Before going too deep - I assume there isn't any way I can add encryption support to Azure by creating a stored procedure, right?

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• Computer Says No: Mobile Apps Connectivity Messages

  - by ultan o'broin

  Sharing some insight into connectivity messages for mobile applications. Based on some recent ethnography done my myself, and prompted by a real business case, I would recommend a message that: In plain language, briefly and directly tells the user what is wrong and why. Something like: Cannot connect because of a network problem. Affords the user a means to retry connecting (or attempts automatically). Mobile context of use means users use anticipate interruptibility and disruption of task, so they will try again as an effective course of action. Tells the user when connection is re-established, and off they go. Saves any work already done, implicitly. (Bonus points on the ADF critical task setting scale) The following images showing my experience reading ADF-EMG Google Groups notification my (Android ICS) Samsung Galaxy S2 during a loss of WiFi give you a good idea of a suitable kind of messaging user experience for mobile apps in this kind of scenario. Inline connection lost message with Retry button Connection re-established toaster message The UX possible is dependent on device and platform features, sure, so remember to integrate with the device capability (see point 10 of this great article on mobile design by Brent White and Lynn Hnilo-Rampoldi) but taking these considerations into account is far superior to a context-free dumbed down common error message repurposed from the desktop mentality about the connection to the server being lost, so just "Click OK" or "Contact your sysadmin.".

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• Is there any kind of established architecture for browser based MMO games?

  - by black_puppydog

  I am beginning the development of a broser based game in which players take certain actions at any point in time. Big parts of gameplay will be happening in real life and just have to be entered into the system. I believe a good kind of comparison might be a platform for managing fantasy football, although I have virtually no experience playing that, so please correct me if I am mistaken here. The point is that some events happen in the program (i.e. on the server, out of reach for the players) like pulling new results from some datasource, starting of a new round by a game master and such. Other events happen in real life (two players closing a deal on the transfer of some team member or whatnot - again: have never played fantasy football) and have to be entered into the system. The first part is pretty easy since the game masters will be "staff" and thus can be trusted to a certain degree to not mess with the system. But the second part bothers me quite a lot, especially since the actions may involve multiple steps and interactions with different players, like registering a deal with the system that then has to be approved by the other party or denied and passed on to a game master to decide. I would of course like to separate the game logic as far as possible from the presentation and basic form validation but am unsure how to do this in a clean fashion. Of course I could (and will) put some effort into making my own architectural decisions and prototype different ideas. But I am bound to make some stupid mistakes at some point, so I would like to avoid some of that by getting a little "book smart" beforehand. So the question is: Is there any kind of architectural works that I can read up on? Papers, blogs, maybe design documents or even source code? Writing this down this seems more like a business application with business rules, workflows and such... Any good entry points for that?

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• Vector-based fonts vs. bitmap fonts in (2d) games?

  - by jmp97

  I know that many games are using bitmap fonts. Which are the advantages for vector-based font rendering / manipulation when compared to bitmap fonts and in which scenarios would they matter the most? Prefer a focus on 2d games when answering this question. If relevant, please include examples for games using either approach. Some factors you might consider: amount of text used in the game scaling of text overlaying glyphs and anti-aliasing general rendering quality font colors and styling user interface requirements localisation / unicode text wrapping and formatting cross-platform deployment 2d vs 3d Background: I am developing a simple falling blocks game in 2d, targeted for pc. I would like to add text labels for level, score, and menu buttons. I am using SFML which uses FreeType internally, so vector-based features are easily available for my project. In my view, font sizes in simple games often don't vary, and bitmap fonts should be easier for cross-platform concerns (font-formats and font rendering quality). But I am unsure if I am missing some important points here, especially since I want to polish the looks of the final game.

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• Windows Azure AppFabric SDK - June CTP - Download issues

  - by Charles Young

  Microsoft has announced availability of the June CTP for Windows Azure AppFabric. See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/appfabric/archive/2011/06/20/announcing-the-windows-azure-appfabric-june-ctp.aspx. This is an exciting release and provides greater insight into where the AppFabric team is heading in terms of developer and management tooling. Microsoft is offering space in the cloud to experiment with the CTP, but this is limited, so register early to get a namespace! You can download the SDK for the June CTP. However, we ran into a lot of trouble trying to do this today. Whenever we followed the link, we ended up on the page for the May CTP. We found what appeared to be a workaround which we were able to repeat on another box (and which I reported on Connect), but then a few minutes later I couldn't repeat it. Just now, the given link appears to be working every time in IE, but not in Firefox!   Frankly, the behaviour seems random!   It looks like the same URL points to two different pages, and I suspect that which page you end up on is hit and miss. The link to the download page is http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17691. If you end up on the wrong page, try again later and you may get to the right place. Or try googling "Windows Azure AppFabric SDK CTP – June Update" and following a link to this page. For some reason, that sometimes seems to work. Good luck!

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• What credentials should I use to access a Windows share?

  - by JMCF125

  H
  i, I have installed Samba and CIFS and all that, followed a bunch of tutorials, but still I can't access a share in the separate Windows 7 machine. Before I could access a share in Ubuntu from Windows, but although now I can't for whatever reason; the error of the attempt to mount the Windows share is the same: 13, asking for credentials (the computer with Windows is off now, but I can add the exact error message later). In /etc/fstab I have: # ... (help info) ... # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> # ... (mounting points that don't matter for the question) ... //192.168.1.2/C\:/Users/Public/Documents /srv/Z\:/ cifs user=guest,password=,uid=1000,iocharset=utf8 0 0 I also tried options such as username=guest,uid=1000,iocharset=utf8 and guest,uid=1000,iocharset=utf8, which, of course, don't work. What user am I supposed to use? (user=user; username=user; my credentials in the Windows and Ubuntu machines do not work, at least with the syntax I tried - similar to this). Even if this worked it's not actually what I want. I wanted to setup an authentication for any one trying to access the drive (it's currently 777, for the Linux share as well) and put a limit/quota on the share's use (as I see Z:on Windows, it allows for the entire C:drive to be filled). Thank you in advance. I'd be glad if you suggested a way to do this even without the last paragraph.

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• webgame engine how does it works

  - by TWCrap

  Hy all, first off all, don't yell that i shouldn't start with it, i just want to know how that works... The thing is, how does the engine of an webgame works. A game like tribalwars, grepolis and forge of empires. How does that keeping alive work. I mean, a user is building an building, and quit the browser... The building is build even when the session of the user is expired. but the points of the user is updated when the building is finished... So how does that works. What do you guys think? do they have some kind of cronjob that is fired every second, and that walks throug the database, and search for finished buildings, and update's the stuff? or do you guys think that they do it difrent?!? I hope that i was clear. -NOTE- i don't need anny code, i'm just intrested in the progress behind the game... Greetingz Marc

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• Best way: restructure an existing Team Foundation Server (TFS) solution

  - by dhh

  In my department we are developing several smaller AddOns for some unified communication server. For versioning and distributed development we use a Team Foundation Server 2012. But: there is only one large TFS solution for all of our applications and libraries: Main Solution Applications App 1 App 2 App 3 Externals Libraries Lib 1 Lib 2 Tools The "Application" path contains all main applications. Those are not depending on each other, but they depend on the Libraries and Externals projects. The "Externals" path contains some external DLLs referenced in our Applications and Libraries. The Libraries path contains commonly used libs (UI templates, Helper classes, etc.). They do not depend on each other and they are referenced in the Libraries and the Tools projects. The Tools path contains some helper programs like setup helpers, update web services, etc. Now, there's some major points why I'd like to change this structure: We can't use server builds. It's uncomfortable to manage TFS scrum management with sprints, impediments, etc. with a solution structure like that. Every developer always has access to all projects in the solution. A complete build lasts too long if one accidentally hits [F6] in Visual Studio... What would you change in this solution? How would you break those projects into smaller Solutions, how should those solutions be structured. My first approach would be, to create one TFS project for each Application, Library and Tool. But how can I ensure that e.g. App 2 always contains the newest version of Lib 1? Do I have to monitor changes on Lib 1 and update App 2 manually as soon as the Lib changes? Or can I somehow force Visual Studio to always use the newest version of an external project somehow?

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• How to run around another football player

  - by Lumis

  I have finished a simple 2D one-on-one indoor football Android game. The thing that it seemed so simple to me, a human being, turned out to be difficult for a computer: how to go around the opponent … At the moment the game logic of the computer player is that if it hits into the human player will step back few points on the pixel greed and then try again to go towards the ball. The problem is if the human player is in-between then the computer player will oscillate in one place, which does not look very nice and the human opponent can use this weakness to control the game. You can see this in the photo – at the moment the computer will go along the red line indefinitely. I tried few ideas but it proved not easy to do it when both the human player and the ball are constantly moving so at each step computer would change directions and “oscillate” again. Once when the computer player reaches the ball it will kick it with certain amount of random strength and direction towards the human’s goal. The question here is how to formulate the logic of going around the ever moving human opponent and how to translate it into the co-ordinate system and frame by frame animation… any suggestions welcome.

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• Screen going black, further investigation reveals healthy ram and hard disk, and several kernel oops logs

  - by Virulan

  Six days ago, I went to go take a shower, and I suspended Ubuntu as usual, to save battery life. I came back, and the screen was black. REISUB and general fiddling around did nothing. Restarted, and still had nothing on the screen. Since then, this has happened several times, and the only fix is to 1) force shut laptop, 2) take out battery, 3) hold power button, 4) put battery back in, 5) boot. I have investigated further into the matter, doing a ram test and a hard disk check. Both turned out fine, but then my attention turned towards the error messages I was receiving upon bootup, the whole "System program problem detected" dealio. I did some digging and found four kernel oops logs in my /var/crash. What I can understand of them points to two things, 1) they are connected to my suspending problems, since there are four them (I have had four suspending crashes), and they both confirm that there was a issue with waking up from suspend, and 2) the crashes might have to do with Python (possibly could be jumping to conclusions), since mentions of Python are peppered throughout the logs. At this point, I am unsure of how to continue, and I have come here for help. Is there any way I can fix this? Should I start by uploading the logs here?

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• Polygon is rotating too fast

  - by Manderin87

  I am going to be using a polygon collision detection method to test when objects collide. I am attempting to rotate a polygon to match the sprites rotation. However, the polygon is rotating too fast, much faster than the sprite is. I feel its a timing issue, but the sprite rotates like it is supposed to. Can anyone look at my code and tell me what could be causing this issue? public void rotate(float x0, float y0, double angle) { for(Point point : mPoints) { float x = (float) (x0 + (point.x - x0) * Math.cos(Utilities.toRadians(angle)) - (point.y - y0) * Math.sin(Utilities.toRadians(angle))); float y = (float) (y0 + (point.x - x0) * Math.sin(Utilities.toRadians(angle)) + (point.y - y0) * Math.cos(Utilities.toRadians(angle))); point.x = x; point.y = y; } } This algorithm works when done singly, but once I plug it into the update method the rotation is too fast. The Points used are: P1 608, 368 P2 640, 464 P3 672, 400 Origin x0 is: 640 400 The angle goes from 0 to 360 as the sprite rotates. When the codes executes the triangle looks like a star because its moving so fast. The rotation is done in the sprites update method. The rotation method just increases the sprites degree by .5 when it executes. public void update() { if(isActive()) { rotate(); mBounding.rotate(mPosition.x, mPosition.y, mDegree); } }

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• Applying for internship

  - by Margus

  At the moment I'm thinking about applying for internship at Eesti Energia. I seem to be eligible, but before contacting them I need to learn how to compile an informative and complete CV and cover letter. I do not consider myself as shallow minded, but also I'm not sure how to convincingly justify the stand of interest and how internship will help me in my future career. Course of life Tallinna Tehnikagümnaasium 2003 - 2006 Tallinna Tehnikaülikool 2006 – 2009 Military service at Signal Batallion Tallinna Tehnikaülikool 2010 – ... I started my academic career as Computer and Systems Engineer, but as I excelled in programming classes, I changed my major to Software Engineer and taken my specialty in web applications and logic. Nowadays I mainly use Java, Mathematica and C# to solve problems. For 2 times, I have taken part in ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, where my team won the nationals and did pretty well in Europe. Also as part of notable thing in my academic career, my team wrote the Kalah game AI, that won in University's main programming class AI tournament. My hobbies are mind games and occasional problem solving. Few years ago I also competed in International Checkers EM (requires being in top 3 in nationals) as part of cadet and junior age group - I did not come close to winning, but I exceeded about half of the players each time. In high school and gymnasium I took part and later was the captain of team, that passes regionals and made it to top 3 of nationals (and later won) in (blitz) russian checkers. That was impressive because, it was a team effort as we only had (depending on year) 2-3 strong players. Although I started programming exactly 9,5 years ago I have no work experience. Well actually thats not true, as I completed my army duty, I was hired for a year (days still counting) to be apart of communicational (emergency) infrastructure action group where I'm the teams IT specialist (it's more complicated). So I consider myself to be aware of: rough conditions, teamwork, high stress tolerance, being on time and what responsibility means. As negative things I can mention: I do not have drivers licence. Although only Estonian and English are noted as requirements, then Russian is most likely required as well and I barely understand some of it. Reasons why I want to apply there, are: I need to do at least 4-6 week traineeship and it's in the right field I have the requirements and tasks seem easy enough Company is well known and has fairly good reputation Family and friend think, that it would be acceptable place to work Myriad of options to do final thesis about open up Work place is located in the same city I live atm. At moment, I see myself having a hard time explain why I would prefer it or where I see myself in 10 years if I was offered a job there. Question I have some idea how Curriculum Vitæ should look like, or I can google for template, but I'm not sure how to write informative one. Last I did one, it looked like: picture + contact information + education. Vaguely I only remember, that cover letter should be custom tailored for each place you apply containing ...

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• Installing Django on Windows

  - by Pranav

  Ever needed to install Django in a Microsoft Windows environment, here is a quick start guide to make that happen: Read through the official Django installation documentation, it might just save you a world of hut down the road. Download Python for your version of Windows. Install Python, my preference here is to put it into the Program Files folder under a folder named Python<Version> Add your chosen Python installation path into your Windows path environment variable. This is an optional step, however it allows you to just type python in the command line and have it fire up the Python interpreter. An easy way of adding it is going into Control Panel, System and into the Environment Variables section. Download Django, you can either download a compressed file or if you’re comfortable with using version control – check it out from the Django Subversion repository. Create a folder named django under your <Python installation directory>\Lib\site-packages\ folder. Using my example above that would have been C:\Program Files\Python25\Lib\site-packages\. If you chose to download the compressed file, open it and extract the contents of the django folder into your newly created folder. If you’d prefer to check it out from Subversion, the normal check out points are http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk/ for the latest development copy or a named release which you’ll find under http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/tags/releases/. Done, you now have a working Django installation on Windows. At this point, it’d be pertinent to confirm that everything is working properly, which you can do by following the first Django tutorial. The tutorial will make mention of django-admin.py, which is a utility which offers some basic functionality to get you off the ground. The file is located in the bin folder under your Django installation directory. When you need to use it, you can either type in the full path to it or simply add that file path into your environment variables as well. Hope this helps!

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• Weird UIView transforms in Retina iPhone

  - by ggambett

  I'm having a problem I don't understand. I'm developing an OpenGL app for iOS. Because at some points I want to force the orientation of the view programatically, and Apple for whatever reason doesn't make it easy (or even possible), I'm doing it by hand. I return always NO in shouldAutoRotateToInterfaceOrientation, and when I want to change the orientation (to portrait, for example), I do something like this in the UIView: [self setTransform:CGAffineTransformMake(1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0)]; [self setBounds:CGRectMake(0, 0, 768, 1024)]; This works fine. In order to support Retina devices, I started checking [UIScreen mainScreen].scale, and setting self.contentScaleFactor accordingly. I also modified the code above to account for the new dimensions, like this: [self setTransform:CGAffineTransformMake(1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0)]; [self setBounds:CGRectMake(0, 0, 2*768, 2*1024)]; Same rotation, different size. The weird result with this is that I get a "screen" with the right size, but offsetted half a screen to the bottom and the left. To correct for this, I need to do the following: [self setTransform:CGAffineTransformMake(1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0)]; [self setBounds:CGRectMake(-768, -1024, 2*768 - 768, 2*1024 - 1024)]; This works, but it's ugly, I also need to make similar corrections when I get touch coordinates, and worst of all, I don't understand what's going on or why the above "correction" works. Can anyone shed some light on this issue?

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for December 12, 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  “Cloud Integration in Minutes” – True or False? | Bruce Tierney The answer is 'True, but..." according to Bruce Tierney. "Connecting on-premise and cloud applications “in minutes” is true…provided you only consider the connectivity subset of integration and have a small number of cloud integration touch points." Get the rest of the story in Bruce's detailed post. Tech World Discovers New Species: The Cloud Architect | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com This Wired article by Cade Metz boils down to one essential conclusion: Cloud computing is a significant departure from "data center designs of the past," and the demand for the specialized skills of the cloud architect will only increase. But you already knew that, right? Oracle B2B - Synchronous Request Reply | A-Team - SOA "Beginning with Oracle SOA Suite PS5 (11.1.1.6), B2B supports synchronous request reply over http using the b2b/syncreceiver servlet," says C. D. Wright of the Fusion Middleware A-Team. His post includes a demo and everything you need to run it. Thought for the Day "Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do… The best way to predict the future is to invent it." — Alan Kay (Month Day, Year - Month Day, Year) Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• Need ideas on how to give my levels structure

  - by akuritsu

  I am making an iOS game for a project at school. It is going to be a tiny bit like Fruit Ninja, as in it will have different things on the screen, and when you hit them, they die, and you get points. The trouble is that unlike Fruit Ninja, my game will have different types of sprites, all doing different things (moving different places, doing different things, etc). The one thing that is bad about having all of these sprites that do different things is that it is hard for them to look neat on the screen all together. I was planning on having a couple of different gamemodes: Time Trial You have 120 seconds to kill as many sprites as possible. Survival You have three lives, every time you try to hit a sprite and miss, you lose a life. ???? Whatever I think of. I am a rookie to game design in general, and I don't know the best way to make my game look good, and play well. I could have all of these sprites on the screen at the same time, or I could have them come in waves, for example 10 of sprite_a come on, and once they are killed, 10 of sprite_b come on, etc... Please give me your opinion about which one I should code. If you have any other suggestions for either a third gamemode, or a completely different way to make the levels, feel free to tell me.

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• As a programmer, what's the most valuable non-English (human) language to learn?

  - by Andrew M

  I was thinking that with my developer skills, learning new languages like French, German etc. might be easier for me now. I could setup the verbs as objects in Python and use dir(verb) to find its methods, tenses and stuff ;-) But seriously, if you're a professional developer, in my case in the UK, what's the best foreign language to learn from an employment perspective? I'm thinking, like Hindi - if all our programming jobs are getting outsourced to India, might as well position yourself to be the on-site, go-between guy. Mandarin - if the Chinese become the pre-eminent economy, the new USA, in ten or twenty years, then speaking their language would open up a huge market to you. Russian - maybe another major up-and-comer, but already closer to Western standards. More IT-sector growth here than anywhere else in the coming years? Japanese - drivers of global technology, being able to speak their language could give you a big competitive advantage over other Westerners But I'm just guessing/musing with all these points. If you have an opinion, or even better, some evidence, I'd like to hear it. If the programming things falls through then at least it'll make for more interesting holidays.

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• Advanced TSQL training

  - by Dave Ballantyne

  Over the past few years, Ive had it on my to do list to write and deliver and full-scale SQLServer training course and not just an hour long bite size session at user groups and conferences.  To me, SQLServer development is not just knowing and remembering the syntax of commands.  Sometimes I semi-jest that i have “Written a merge statement without looking up the syntax”, but I know from my interactions on and off line that I am far from alone in this.  In any case we have an awesome tool in the internet which is great at looking things up. When developing SQL Server based solutions,  of more importance is knowing the internals of the engine.  SQL Server is a complex piece of software and we need to be able to understand to a fairly low level ( you can always dive deeper ) the choices that it makes and why it makes them in order to deliver performant, reliable, predictable and scalable systems to our customers and end-users. This is the view i shall be taking over two days in March (19th and 20th) in London and ,TBH, one I dont see taken often enough. Early bird discounts are available until 31Dec. Full details of the course and a high level view of the bullet points we shall be covering are available at the Technitrain site ( http://tinyurl.com/TSQLTraining )

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• Boundary conditions for testing

  - by Loggie

  Ok so in a programming test I was given the following question. Question 1 (1 mark) Spot the potential bug in this section of code: void Class::Update( float dt ) { totalTime += dt; if( totalTime == 3.0f ) { // Do state change m_State++; } } The multiple choice answers for this question were. a) It has a constant floating point number where it should have a named constant variable b) It may not change state with only an equality test c) You don't know what state you are changing to d) The class is named poorly I wrongly answered this with answer C. I eventually received feedback on the answers and the feedback for this question was Correct answer is a. This is about understanding correct boundary conditions for tests. The other answers are arguably valid points, but do not indicate a potential bug in the code. My question here is, what does this have to do with boundary conditions? My understanding of boundary conditions is checking that a value is within a certain range, which isn't the case here. Upon looking over the question, in my opinion, B should be the correct answer when considering the accuracy issues of using floating point values.

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• Opportunities in Cloud Computing

  - by Paul Sorensen

  A recent article from CIO Journal indicates that there is an extreme labor shortage (in certain technology areas) that is is leading to upward pressure on wages for IT Workers. This represents a great opportunity for those with certain skill-sets, among which include Java (Oracle certification is mentioned specifically). The article points out that a key driver of the labor shortage is the expansion of cloud computing. Cloud computing is set up to make life extremely simple for end-users, but the model pushes the complexity to back-end systems which are sophisticated, enterprise-level computing stacks (Oracle has an extensive set of cloud computing solutions). These complex systems require very highly-skilled IT professionals (the best-of-the-best) to successfully develop, implement, administer and maintain them. What this mean for you is that there is opportunity for those who have the appropriate skills at the appropriate levels. If you want to be a part of this opportunity you should do a self-assessment of your own skill-sets and experience. Based upon your results you can decide where it would be most appropriate to spend your time and resources for the highest return on your investment. By expanding and sharpening your skills and by gaining greater experience you will be better prepared to take advantage of career opportunities (like this) that come along periodically. As you evaluate your needs remember that Oracle University has a tremendous selection of high-quality eduction offerings (including training and certification) that can you help move your career forward. Thanks and best of luck!

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• Planning development when academic research is involved

  - by Another Anonymous User

  Dear fellow programmers, how do you do "software planning" when academic research is involved? And, on a side note, how do you convince your boss that writing software is not like building a house and it's more like writing a novel? The gory details are below. I am in charge of a small dev team working in a research lab. We started developing a software with the purpose of going public one day (i.e. sell and make money off that). Such software depends on, amongst other things, at least two independent research lines: that is, there are at least two Ph.D. candidates that will, hopefully, one day come out with a working implementation of what we need. The main software depends also on other, more concrete resources that we as developers can take care of: graphics rendering, soft bodies deformation, etc. My boss asked me to write the specifications, requirements AND a bloody GANTT chart of the entire project. Faced with the fact that I don't have a clue about the research part, and that such research is fundamental for the software, he said "make assumptions." For the clarity of the argument, he is a professor whose Ph.D. students should come up with the research we need. And he comes from a strictly engineering background: plan everything first, write down specifications and only then write down code that "it's the last part". What I am doing now: I broke down the product in features; each 'feature' is, de facto, a separate product; Each feature is built on top of the previous one; Once a feature (A) has a working prototype the team can start working on the next feature (B), while QA for is being done for A (if money allows, more people can be brought in, etc.); Features that depend on research will come last: by then, hopefully, the research part will be completed (when is still a big question) ; Also, I set the team to use SCRUM for the development of 'version 1.0', due in a few months. This deadline could be set based on reasonable assumptions: we listed all required features, we counted our availability, and we gave a reasonable estimate. So my questions, again, are: How do I make my boss happy while at the same time get something out the door? How do I write specifications for something we -the developers- have no clue whether it's possible to do or not? (We still haven't decided which libraries to use for some tasks; we'll do so when we'll need to) How do I get the requirements for that, given that there are yet no clients nor investors, just lots of interests and promises? How do I get peace in the world? I am sure at least one of my questions will be answered :) ps: I am writing this anonymously since a potential investor might backfire if this is discovered. Hope you'll understand. However I must say I do not like this mentality of 'hiding the truth': this program will likely benefit many, and not being able to talk openly about this (with my name and my reputation attached) feels like censorship. But alas, I care more about your suggestions now.

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• Working as a contractor--questions part II

  - by universe_hacker

  This is a follow-up to this discussion: Working as a contractor--questions I still would like to get more info on the following points, when working as a contractor as opposed to direct employee: Housing: for short-term contracts (let's say 6 months or less) that are not in your home area, where and how do you search for short-term, flexible housing? Especially since an employer would typically want you to start immediately, so you don't have the time to go out and explore. Also, would you typically look for furnished apartments because the cost transporting your own furniture for a few months is not justified? Work hours and pay: are contractors more strictly supervised (as far as getting specified work done) because they get paid by the hour? There are also supposed to get overtime pay (at a higher rate) if they work more than 40 hours per week, does this really happen? Or do they work unpaid extra hours just like many regular employees? Some potential employers have mentioned paying the "per diem", which is essentially a non-taxable daily allowance, which is supposed to be used for living expenses. This money gets subtracted from you per-hour rate, but the advantage is that you pay less tax. However, from the information I have seen, the per diem can only be paid if you maintain a "permanent" residence you intend to return to. Is this checked in practice, and if yes, how?

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• What are the advantages to use vector-based fonts over bitmap fonts in (2d) games?

  - by jmp97

  I know that many games are using bitmap fonts. Which are the advantages for vector-based font rendering / manipulation when compared to bitmap fonts and in which scenarios would they matter the most? Prefer a focus on 2d games when answering this question. If relevant, please include examples for games using either approach. Some factors you might consider: amount of text used in the game scaling of text overlaying glyphs and anti-aliasing general rendering quality font colors and styling user interface requirements localisation / unicode text wrapping and formatting cross-platform deployment 2d vs 3d Background: I am developing a simple falling blocks game in 2d, targeted for pc. I would like to add text labels for level, score, and menu buttons. I am using SFML which uses FreeType internally, so vector-based features are easily available for my project. In my view, font sizes in simple games often don't vary, and bitmap fonts should be easier for cross-platform concerns (font-formats and font rendering quality). But I am unsure if I am missing some important points here, especially since I want to polish the looks of the final game.

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• College Ratings via the Federal Government

  - by user9147039

  A few weeks back you might remember news about a higher education rating system proposal from the Obama administration. As I've discussed previously, political and stakeholder pressures to improve outcomes and increase transparency are stronger than ever before. The executive branch proposal is intended to make progress in this area. Quoting from the proposal itself, "The ratings will be based upon such measures as: Access, such as percentage of students receiving Pell grants; Affordability, such as average tuition, scholarships, and loan debt; and Outcomes, such as graduation and transfer rates, graduate earnings, and advanced degrees of college graduates.” This is going to be quite complex, to say the least. Most notably, higher ed is not monolithic. From community and other 2-year colleges, to small private 4-year, to professional schools, to large public research institutions…the many walks of higher ed life are, well, many. Designing a ratings system that doesn't wind up with lots of unintended consequences and collateral damage will be difficult. At best you would end up potentially tarnishing the reputation of certain institutions that were actually performing well against the metrics and outcome measures that make sense in their "context" of education. At worst you could spend a lot of time and resources designing a system that would lose credibility with its "customers". A lot of institutions I work with already have in place systems like the one described above. They are tracking completion rates, completion timeframes, transfers to other institutions, job placement, and salary information. As I talk to these institutions there are several constants worth noting: • Deciding on which metrics to measure is complicated. While employment and salary data are relatively easy to track, qualitative measures are more difficult. How do you quantify the benefit to someone who studies in one field that may not compensate him or her as well as another field but that provides huge personal fulfillment and reward is a difficult measure to quantify? • The data is available but the systems to transform the data into actual information that can be used in meaningful ways are not. Too often in higher ed information is siloed. As such, much of the data that need to be a part of a comprehensive system sit in multiple organizations, oftentimes outside the reach of core IT. • Politics and culture are big barriers. One of the areas that my team and I spend a lot of time talking about with higher ed institutions all over the world is the imperative to optimize for student success. This, like the tracking of the students’ achievement after graduation, requires a level or organizational capacity that does not currently exist. The primary barrier is the culture of "data islands" in higher ed, and the need for leadership to drive out the divisions between departments, schools, colleges, etc. and institute academy-wide analytics and data stewardship initiatives that will enable student success. • Data quality is a very big issue. So many disparate systems exist (some on premise, some "in the cloud") that keep data about "persons" using different means to identify them. Establishing a single source of truth about an individual and his or her data is difficult without some type of data quality policy and tools. Good tools actually exist but are seldom leveraged. Don't misunderstand - I think it's a great idea to drive additional transparency and accountability into the system of higher education. And not just at home, but globally. Students and parents need access to key data to make informed, responsible choices. The tools exist to not only enable this kind of information to be shared but to capture the very metrics stakeholders care most about and in a way that makes sense in the context of a given institution's "place" in the overall higher ed panoply.

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• Dirt compression from vehicle tires

  - by Mungoid

  So I kinda have this working but its not correct because it just averages, so I wanted to know if anyone here has any ideas. I'm trying to simulate loose dirt compression under the tires of a vehicle to reduce the potential bumpiness of 'chunky' terrain. Currently how I do this is that I have a bounding box shape around my tires, set a little lower so they intersect with the terrain. Each frame, I (currently) average all of the heights of each point in the terrain that are within the box bounds of that tire, and then set them all to that average. Clearly this won't work in most cases because, for example, if i'm on a hill, the terrain will deform way too much. One way I thought was to have a max and min amount the points could raise and lower but that still doesn't seem to work properly and sometimes looks more like steps than smooth dirt. I wanna say that there is probably a bit more to this that what i'm currently doing but I am not sure where to look. Could anyone here shed some light on this subject? Would I benefit any by maybe looking up some smoothing algorith or something similar?

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