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• Microsoft Unveils Two Pillars of its Cloud Strategy

  The software giant announces the first beta of BizTalk Server 2010 and the release candidate for Windows Server AppFabric.

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• Random MongoDb Syntax: Updates

  - by Liam McLennan

  I have a MongoDb collection called tweets. Each document has a property system_classification. If the value of system_classification is ‘+’ I want to change it to ‘positive’. For a regular relational database the query would be: update tweets set system_classification = 'positive' where system_classification = '+' the MongoDb equivalent is: db.tweets.update({system_classification: '+'}, {$set: {system_classification:'positive'}}, false, true) Parameter Description { system_classification: '+' } the first parameter identifies the documents to select { $set: { system_classification: 'positive' } } the second parameter is an operation ($set) and the parameter to that operation {system_classification: ‘positive’} false the third parameter indicates if this is a regular update or an upsert (true for upsert) true the final parameter indicates if the operation should be applied to all selected documents (or just the first)

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• what is itunes result sorted by ?

  - by NemesisII

  This is my App on Itunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/buddy-calculator/id445261163?mt=8 My app Key word is : "calculator scientific calc equation math mathematics unit converter conversion statistic algebra" But when I search "Calculator" on Itunes, my app is not appeared (in first two pages). So I want to ask a question that how to improve the rank of my app , and what is the searched result sorted by (new first, vote or downloaded or ...) ? If I want to improve the rank, how can I do, does it cost fee or something ? Thanks you very much ^^ !

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• Google Goals process not working through similarly named pages

  - by David

  Well, I'm at a loss. I've ensured that my tracking script is in etc etc, and I've set up my goal and funnel path, but only the first step is ever being shown on the funnel. Goal URL: /checkout/checkoutComplete/ Type: Head Match ... but should this be /checkout/checkoutComplete/(.*) and set to regex rather because there are parameters after the main part of the URL (I thought that's what head match was for) Step 1: /checkout/ <-- required Step 2: /checkout/confirm/ both the above are valid and correct URLs for my domain. But for some reason, the funnel visualization shows entries into the first step, then an exits count that matches the entry count, including /checkout/confirm - but it doesn't go on to the next step! Perhaps I'm doing something obviously wrong...but I can't quite see it? Also, semi-related questions. Making a change to the funnel, does it only affect new incoming data? And how often does it update? Thanks in advance for your help.

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• What impact would a young developer in a consultancy struggling on a project have?

  - by blade3

  I am a youngish developer (working for 3 yrs). I took a job 3 months ago as an IT consultant (for the first time, I'm a consultant). In my first project, all went will till the later stages where I ran into problems with Windows/WMI (lack of documentation etc). As important as it is to not leave surprises for the client, this did happen. I was supposed to go back to finish the project about a month and a half ago, after getting a date scheduled, but this did not happen either. The project (code) was slightly rushed too and went through QA (no idea what the results are). My probation review is in a few weeks time, and I was wondering, what sort of impact would this have? My manager hasn't mentioned this project to me and apart from this, everything's been ok and he has even said, at the beginning, if you are tight on time just ask for more, so he has been accomodating (At this time, I was doing well, the problems came later).

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• Associate Tech Support to Code Development [on hold]

  - by Abhay

  I have been selected for the first phase selection criteria of a company called CITRIX for the role of Associate Tech Support. Now, we have to undergo a 3 months in-depth technical training (most probably no certificate) and will only get the job on getting through the final test which includes selecting 50% of the total selected candidates in the first phase. Actually, I want to get in the field of coding and there lies my passion. Is there any way i can into any development department of this or any other company using my current profile which i can get into ?? Actually, i was wondering whether to go for the training or go for any java based course (6 months) for certification ??? Please note : The Company is not asking for any bonds

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• Which will be faster? Switching shaders or ignore that some cases don't need full code?

  - by PolGraphic

  I have two types of 2d objects: In first case (for about 70% of objects), I need that code in the shader: float2 texCoord = input.TexCoord + textureCoord.xy But in the second case I have to use: float2 texCoord = fmod(input.TexCoord, texCoordM.xy - textureCoord.xy) + textureCoord.xy I can use second code also for first case, but it will be a little slower (fmod is useless here, input.TexCoord will be always lower than textureCoord.xy - textureCoord.xy for sure). My question is, which way will be faster: Making two independent shaders for both types of rectangles, group rectangles by types and switch shaders during rendering. Make one shader and use some if statement. Make one shader and ignore that sometimes (70% of cases) I don't need to use fmod.

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• Install package with dependencies offline

  - by ArtemStorozhuk

  Right now I have 2 computers: Has connection to the internet and has installed package A. Doesn't have connection to the WEB. On this PC I need to install package A. I decided to download all needed packages using first PC and transfer them to the second PC via USB. I have searched how to get all needed packages for some deb installation and here's what I've found. But when I run: apt-get --print-uris --yes install A | grep ^\' | cut -d\' -f2 > downloads.list on first PC I got empty file because this package is already installed there (and I don't want to uninstall it). Also package A is very complicated and depends on package B which depends on package C and package C is not installed on the second PC. So how can I download all needed packages? Or is there any other way of installing it? Thanks for the help.

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• What is this algorithm for converting strings into numbers called?

  - by CodexArcanum

  I've been doing some work in Parsec recently, and for my toy language I wanted multi-based fractional numbers to be expressible. After digging around in Parsec's source a bit, I found their implementation of a floating-point number parser, and copied it to make the needed modifications. So I understand what this code does, and vaguely why (I haven't worked out the math fully yet, but I think I get the gist). But where did it come from? This seems like a pretty clever way to turn strings into floats and ints, is there a name for this algorithm? Or is it just something basic that's a hole in my knowledge? Did the folks behind Parsec devise it? Here's the code, first for integers: number' :: Integer -> Parser Integer number' base = do { digits <- many1 ( oneOf ( sigilRange base )) ; let n = foldl (\x d -> base * x + toInteger (convertDigit base d)) 0 digits ; seq n (return n) } So the basic idea here is that digits contains the string representing the whole number part, ie "192". The foldl converts each digit individually into a number, then adds that to the running total multiplied by the base, which means that by the end each digit has been multiplied by the correct factor (in aggregate) to position it. The fractional part is even more interesting: fraction' :: Integer -> Parser Double fraction' base = do { digits <- many1 ( oneOf ( sigilRange base )) ; let base' = fromIntegral base ; let f = foldr (\d x -> (x + fromIntegral (convertDigit base d))/base') 0.0 digits ; seq f (return f) Same general idea, but now a foldr and using repeated division. I don't quite understand why you add first and then divide for the fraction, but multiply first then add for the whole. I know it works, just haven't sorted out why. Anyway, I feel dumb not working it out myself, it's very simple and clever looking at it. Is there a name for this algorithm? Maybe the imperative version using a loop would be more familiar?

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• At which architecture level are you running BDD tests (e.g. Cucumber)

  - by Pete

  I have in the last year gotten quite fond of using SpecFlow (which is a .NET port of Cucumber) I have used it both to test a ASP.NET MVC application at the web layer, i.e. using browser automation, but also at the controller layer. The first gives me a higher confidence in the correctness of the application, because JavaScript is tested, and improper controller configuration is also caught. But those tests are slower to execute, and more complex to implement, than those just testing on the controller layer. My tests are full functional tests, i.e. they exercise all layers of the application, all the way down to the database. So the first thing before any scenario is that the database is cleared of data, allowing the test to assume that only data specified in the "Given" block exists. Then I see example on how to use it, where they test just exercise the model layer. So what are your experiences with these tools? Which layer of the application do you test?

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• Wireless Connection Troubles

  - by James

  I just recently switched from Windows 7 over to Ubuntu 12.04 and have been experiencing some issues connecting to my home's wireless network. The only way I can get it to connect to the network is by disabling IPv4 and IPv6 settings. Even then while it says its connected to the network (3 bars), I'm unable to access the Internet. It connected for a little while after I first installed Ubuntu, but after the first reboot I haven't been able to access the web at all. I have very basic knowledge when it comes to computers and barely any when dealing with Ubuntu and Linux. I'm very happy with Ubuntu apart from this one issue, as before my computer was overheating and crashing, I've yet to experience any of those problems since installing Ubuntu. The information I can give may be very limited since I'm having to use my cell phone to figure out the solution to this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

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• SEO With a Linkwheel

  You will be amazed to know that more than 68 % of internet users do not go farther than first page on search results. That means you have to be among the top page ranks to have any business online. If you are not among those listed on the first page of search results, you are missing out on most of the users searching for products, information and content on Google and other search engines. Linkwheel is a wonderful strategy for search engine optimization (SEO). If done well, your search engine rankings will skyrocket in a very short time.

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• Grub Rescue Error: Unknown Filesystem

  - by James

  I was trying to dual boot Windows with Linux (linux installed first). I read that it was easier to do so if windows was installed first. So I tried to install windows, by creating a partition for it. There wasn't enough room on the drive so I tried changing the filesystem of my existing partition to support windows. Now whenever I try to start my computer I get the grub rescue screen. I've tried booting from CD and USB with ubuntu and also with windows, but nothing happens. I ran ls in grub rescue and got hd0, (hd0,msdos5), cd (with an install disc inserted), fd0, and fd1. However if I run ls on any of these I receive the error: unknown filesystem. Can anyone help me out?

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• Windows 7 not booting from Ubuntu 12.10 boot menu

  - by Raj Inevitable

  Am having windows 7 in one hard drive. I installed Ubuntu in second hard drive. Am configured BIOS to boot second hard drive first (Ubuntu OS). and then i updated grub, so its shows windows 7 in the boot list. I can boot in to ubuntu, but i can't boot into windows 7, its shows error A disk read error occured Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart . then am configured BIOS again to load windows 7 first, it shows windows 7 and ubuntu in the boot list, windows 7 is working, but i can't boot into ubuntu.. Help to solve this problem.. i want dual boot from any one of the drive...

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• How to make a queue switches from FIFO mode to priority mode?

  - by enzom83

  I would like to implement a queue capable of operating both in the FIFO mode and in the priority mode. This is a message queue, and the priority is first of all based on the message type: for example, if the messages of A type have higher priority than the messages of the B type, as a consequence all messages of A type are dequeued first, and finally the messages of B type are dequeued. Priority mode: my idea consists of using multiple queues, one for each type of message; in this way, I can manage a priority based on the message type: just take first the messages from the queue at a higher priority and progressively from lower priority queues. FIFO mode: how to handle FIFO mode using multiple queues? In other words, the user does not see multiple queues, but it uses the queue as if it were a single queue, so that the messages leave the queue in the order they arrive when the priority mode is disabled. In order to achieve this second goal I have thought to use a further queue to manage the order of arrival of the types of messages: let me explain better with the following code snippet. int NUMBER_OF_MESSAGE_TYPES = 4; int CAPACITY = 50; Queue[] internalQueues = new Queue[NUMBER_OF_MESSAGE_TYPES]; Queue<int> queueIndexes = new Queue<int>(CAPACITY); void Enqueue(object message) { int index = ... // the destination queue (ie its index) is chosen according to the type of message. internalQueues[index].Enqueue(message); queueIndexes.Enqueue(index); } object Dequeue() { if (fifo_mode_enabled) { // What is the next type that has been enqueued? int index = queueIndexes.Dequeue(); return internalQueues[index].Dequeue(); } if (priority_mode_enabled) { for(int i=0; i < NUMBER_OF_MESSAGE_TYPES; i++) { int currentQueueIndex = i; if (!internalQueues[currentQueueIndex].IsEmpty()) { object result = internalQueues[currentQueueIndex].Dequeue(); // The following statement is fundamental to a subsequent switching // from priority mode to FIFO mode: the messages that have not been // dequeued (since they had lower priority) remain in the order in // which they were queued. queueIndexes.RemoveFirstOccurrence(currentQueueIndex); return result; } } } } What do you think about this idea? Are there better or more simple implementations?

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• Network strange problem

  - by Ali

  I have a CPanel server with 5 IPs and a few domains. During night, access to main domain through HTTP return 324 no response many times. After several refresh it comes but many assets won't load and return 324. Using HTTPS is fine. During day HTTP is also fine. But another domain on that very sever works fine all the day through HTTP. The server DNS are ns1 and ns2 of the first domain. Second domain is on the shared IP and first domain has a dedicated IP. I cant resolve the problem :( and appreciate any help so much!

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• Them and us

  - by Plip

  As much as we try and create inclusive societies throughout the globe time and time again we revert to our tribal and clan origins back in the distant past, be those line split across the obvious like  Nationality, Religion or even the Football teams we follow. Microsoft to me has always been a “them”. I was always on the outside looking in, free to say as I wished and have an external objective viewpoint. Now, after my first week (well four days but who’s counting) Microsoft is an “us” for me. So when I look up in the Atrium of Building 1 at Microsoft’s UK headquarters I see banners like the one above and I already genuinely feel a part of this much bigger community. I looked up at that and I felt a sense of pride to be part of something bigger, something which is out there touching peoples lives everywhere (for the good and the bad). My objectivity has made me who I am today. I’m open to other ideas and concepts, I’ve worked hard to be understanding across the board be it from technology through to cultural differences in my life and it’s vital to me that I preserve that so I now have to learn how I balance the “them” of Microsoft to the “us” of Microsoft and maintain the objectivity. It’s my job to advise people on the best way to do things, which won’t always mean “Use Microsoft Technology X”, sometimes it’ll be my responsibility to say “Don’t use Microsoft Technology X”. My first and foremost responsibility is to the customer, to give them the best advice that I can and I want to maintain that. Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be tarred by some as a Microsoft guy, for many years I’ve had just that, but those out there in the non Microsoft communities I’ve engaged in I think know that I’m the first to say when I think something is a bit naff. So, here’s my ask to you ‘the community’. Keep me honest. If I start to sound like a fanboi I want you to find me and give me a slap. It’s all too easy to forget reality sometimes and I want to make sure I stay well and truly routed in that reality. Also, no matter how much I embed myself within Microsoft I fear I will never understand Microsoft’s marketing team. In the Gents just under the WP7 banner shown above I was faced with this. Draw your own conclusions on what it’s message is.

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• Changing Disk Allocation for Ubuntu on Dual-Boot System

  - by OtagoHarbour

  When I first installed Ubuntu, I had a new PC with Windows 7 installed. It was my first installation of Ubuntu so I only allocated 45% of the disk for Ubuntu. Now I find that I have been using Ubuntu exclusively so I would like to change the allocation of the disk so Ubuntu has say 75% of the disk and Win. 7 25%. Is there a way to do this without reformatting the disk. I am using Ubuntu 11.10 with Gnome. Thanks, Peter

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• Single or multiple return statements in a function [on hold]

  - by Juan Carlos Coto

  When writing a function that can have several different return values, particularly when different branches of code return different values, what is the cleanest or sanest way of returning? Please note the following are really contrived examples meant only to illustrate different styles. Example 1: Single return def my_function(): if some_condition: return_value = 1 elif another_condition: return_value = 2 else: return_value = 3 return return_value Example 2: Multiple returns def my_function(): if some_condition: return 1 elif another_condition: return 2 else: return 3 The second example seems simpler and is perhaps more readable. The first one, however, might describe the overall logic a bit better (the conditions affect the assignment of the value, not whether it's returned or not). Is the second way preferable to the first? Why?

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• My blog which gets 300+ daily impressions has stopped appearing on the 1st page of Google

  - by Sangram

  I have a blog regarding Placement papers from December 2010. My monthly impressions are around 4000. For the last 2 days, my blog has disappeared from Google search engine result pages. Impressions have reduced drastically. Please check Stat reports: My blog is still on the search engine because when I search site: mydomain.com on Google, I can see my all pages indexed over there… But my pages which used to appear on the first or second pages of Google do not appear any more. Example: If I search with query GE round 2 code writing test on bing.com or Yahoo search, the first link on the result page is my blog. But if you do same on Google, my URLs do not appear even on the 1st 3 result pages. I used to get lots of visitors by these search query earlier.

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• Handy Generic JQuery Functions

  - by Steve Wilkes

  I was a bit of a late-comer to the JQuery party, but now I've been using it for a while it's given me a host of options for adding extra flair to the client side of my applications. Here's a few generic JQuery functions I've written which can be used to add some neat little features to a page. Just call any of them from a document ready function. Apply JQuery Themeroller Styles to all Page Buttons   The JQuery Themeroller is a great tool for creating a theme for a site based on colours and styles for particular page elements. The JQuery.UI library then provides a set of functions which allow you to apply styles to page elements. This function applies a JQuery Themeroller style to all the buttons on a page - as well as any elements which have a button class applied to them - and then makes the mouse pointer turn into a cursor when you mouse over them: function addCursorPointerToButtons() {     $("button, input[type='submit'], input[type='button'], .button") .button().css("cursor", "pointer"); } Automatically Remove the Default Value from a Select Box   Required drop-down select boxes often have a default option which reads 'Please select...' (or something like that), but once someone has selected a value, there's no need to retain that. This function removes the default option from any select boxes on the page which have a data-val-remove-default attribute once one of the non-default options has been chosen: function removeDefaultSelectOptionOnSelect() {     $("select[data-val-remove-default='']").change(function () {         var sel = $(this);         if (sel.val() != "") { sel.children("option[value='']:first").remove(); }     }); } Automatically add a Required Label and Stars to a Form   It's pretty standard to have a little * next to required form field elements. This function adds the text * Required to the top of the first form on the page, and adds *s to any element within the form with the class editor-label and a data-val-required attribute: function addRequiredFieldLabels() {     var elements = $(".editor-label[data-val-required='']");     if (!elements.length) { return; }     var requiredString = "<div class='editor-required-key'>* Required</div>";     var prependString = "<span class='editor-required-label'> * </span>"; var firstFormOnThePage = $("form:first");     if (!firstFormOnThePage.children('div.editor-required-key').length) {         firstFormOnThePage.prepend(requiredString);     }     elements.each(function (index, value) { var formElement = $(this);         if (!formElement.children('span.editor-required-label').length) {             formElement.prepend(prependString);         }     }); } I hope those come in handy :)

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• How to replace GRUB with BURG without overwriting MBR?

  - by StepTNT

  I'd like to install BURG but I don't want it to overwrite my MBR. That's because I've got two bootloaders in my system : Default Windows 7 in MBR Grub in /dev/sda2 With the first power button, it will boot into Windows and with the second button it boots from /dev/sda2, loading Grub and then Kubuntu. Now I want to replace GRUB with BURG. I've installed Burg with burg-install /dev/sda2 --force because I don't want my MBR to be overwritten (pressing the first power button MUST load Windows and avoid showing any sign of Linux). Setup was completed without errors, If I open burg-manager it loads my settings, allowing me to change them and to test everything with burg-emu, so I've changed my settings but the second power button still loads GRUB (Even a different version from the default Kubuntu one). How can I replace GRUB that's on /dev/sda2 with BURG and without overwriting MBR?

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• Podcast with AJI about iOS development coming from a .NET background

  - by Tim Hibbard

  I talked with Jeff and John from AJI Software the other day about developing for the iOS platform. We chatted about learning Xcode and Objective-C, provisioning devices and the app publishing process. We all have a .NET background and made lots of comparisons between the two platforms/ecosystems/fanbois. They even let me throw in a plug for Christian Radio Locator. Jeff was my first contact with the Kansas City .NET community. It was probably about 10 years ago. He pushed me to talk more (and rescued me from my first talk that bombed) and blog more. One time a group of us took a 16 hour car trip to South Carolina for a code camp and live podcasted the whole thing. Good times.Listen to the show Click here to subscribe to more AJI Reports in the future.

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• Impressions and Reactions from Alliance 2012

  - by user739873

  Alliance 2012 has come to a conclusion.  What strikes me about every Alliance conference is the amazing amount of collaboration and cooperation I see across higher education in the sharing of best practices around the entire Oracle PeopleSoft software suite, not just the student information system (Oracle’s PeopleSoft Campus Solutions).  In addition to the vibrant U.S. organization, it's gratifying to see the growth in the international attendance again this year, with an EMEA HEUG organizing to complement the existing groups in the Netherlands, South Africa, and the U.K.  Their first meeting is planned for London in October, and I suspect they'll be surprised at the amount of interest and attendance. In my discussions with higher education IT and functional leadership at Alliance there were a number of instances where concern was expressed about Oracle's commitment to higher education as an industry, primarily because of a lack of perceived innovation in the applications that Oracle develops for this market. Here I think perception and reality are far apart, and I'd like to explain why I believe this to be true. First let me start with what I think drives this perception. Predominately it's in two areas. The first area is the user interface, both for students and faculty that interact with the system as "customers", and for those employees of the institution (faculty, staff, and sometimes students as well) that use the system in some kind of administrative role. Because the UI hasn't changed all that much from the PeopleSoft days, individuals perceive this as a dead product with little innovation and therefore Oracle isn't investing. The second area is around the integration of the higher education suite of applications (PeopleSoft Campus Solutions) and the rest of the Oracle software assets. Whether grown organically or acquired, there is an impressive array of middleware and other software products that could be leveraged much more significantly by the higher education applications than is currently the case today. This is also perceived as lack of investment. Let me address these two points.  First the UI.  More is being done here than ever before, and the PAG and other groups where this was discussed at Alliance 2012 were more numerous than I've seen in any past meeting. Whether it's Oracle development leveraging web services or some extremely early but very promising work leveraging the recent Endeca acquisition (see some cool examples here) there are a lot of resources aimed at this issue.  There are also some amazing prototypes being developed by our UX (user experience team) that will eventually make their way into the higher education applications realm - they had an impressive setup at Alliance.  Hopefully many of you that attended found this group. If not, the senior leader for that team Jeremy Ashley will be a significant contributor of content to our summer Industry Strategy Council meeting in Washington in June. In the area of integration with other elements of the Oracle stack, this is also an area of focus for the company and my team.  We're making this a priority especially in the areas of identity management and security, leveraging WebCenter more effectively for content, imaging, and mobility, and driving towards the ultimate objective of WebLogic Suite as our platform for SOA, links to learning management systems (SAIP), and content. There is also much work around business intelligence centering on OBI applications. But at the end of the day we get enormous value from the HEUG (higher education user group) and the various subgroups formed as a part of this community that help us align and prioritize our investments, whether it's around better integration with other Oracle products or integration with partner offerings.  It's one of the healthiest, mutually beneficial relationships between customers and an Education IT concern that exists on the globe. And I can't avoid mentioning that this kind of relationship between higher education and the corporate IT community that can truly address the problems of efficiency and effectiveness, institutional excellence (which starts with IT) and student success.  It's not (in my opinion) going to be solved through community source - cost and complexity only increase in that model and in the end higher education doesn't ultimately focus on core competencies: educating, developing, and researching.  While I agree with some of what Michael A. McRobbie wrote in his EDUCAUSE Review article (Information Technology: A View from Both Sides of the President’s Desk), I take strong issue with his assertion that the "the IT marketplace is just the opposite of long-term stability...."  Sure there has been healthy, creative destruction in the past 2-3 decades, but this has had the effect of, in the aggregate, benefiting education with greater efficiency, more innovation and increased stability as larger, more financially secure firms acquire and develop integrated solutions. Cole

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• Navigation in Win8 Metro Style applications

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  In Windows 8, Touch is, as they say, a first class citizen. Now, to be honest: they also said that in Windows 7. However in Win8 this is actually true. Applications are meant to be used by touch. Yes, you can still use mouse, keyboard and pen and your apps should take that into account but touch is where you should focus on initially. Will all users have touch enabled devices? No, not in the first place. I don’t think touchscreens will be on every device sold next year. But in 5 years? Who knows? Don’t forget: if your app is successful it will be around for a long time and by that time touchscreens will be everywhere. Another reason to embrace touch is that it’s easier to develop a touch-oriented app and then to make sure that keyboard, nouse and pen work as doing it the other way around. Porting a mouse-based application to a touch based application almost never works. The reverse gives you much more chances for success. That being said, there are some things that you need to think about. Most people have more than one finger, while most users only use one mouse at the time. Still, most touch-developers translate their mouse-knowledge to the touch and think they did a good job. Martin Tirion from Microsoft said that since Touch is a new language people face the same challenges they do when learning a new real spoken language. The first thing people try when learning a new language is simply replace the words in their native language to the newly learned words. At first they don’t care about grammar. To a native speaker of that other language this sounds all wrong but they still will be able to understand what the intention was. If you don’t believe me: try Google translate to translate something for you from your language to another and then back and see what happens. The same thing happens with Touch. Most developers translate a mouse-click into a tap-event and think they’re done. Well matey, you’re not done. Not by far. There are things you can do with a mouse that you cannot do with touch. Think hover. A mouse has the ability to ‘slide’ over UI elements. Touch doesn’t (I know: with Pen you can do this but I’m talking about actual fingers here). A touch is either there or it isn’t. And right-click? Forget about it. A click is a click.  Yes, you have more than one finger but the machine doesn’t know which finger you use… The other way around is also true. Like I said: most users only have one mouse but they are likely to have more than one finger. So how do we take that into account? Thinking about this is really worth the time: you might come up with some surprisingly good ideas! Still: don’t forget that not every user has touch-enabled hardware so make sure your app is useable for both groups. Keep this in mind: we’re going to need it later on! Now. Apps should be easy to use. You don’t want your user to read through pages and pages of documentation before they can use the app. Imagine that spotter next to an airfield suddenly seeing a prototype of a Concorde 2 landing on the nearby runway. He probably wants to enter that information in our app NOW and not after he’s taken a 3 day course. Even if he still has to download the app, install it for the first time and then run it he should be on his way immediately. At least, fast enough to note down the details of that unique, rare and possibly exciting sighting he just did. So.. How do we do this? Well, I am not talking about games here. Games are in a league of their own. They fall outside the scope of the apps I am describing. But all the others can roughly be characterized as being one of two flavors: the navigation is either flat or hierarchical. That’s it. And if it’s hierarchical it’s no more than three levels deep. Not more. Your users will get lost otherwise and we don’t want that. Flat is simple. Just imagine we have one screen that is as high as our physical screen is and as wide as you need it to be. Don’t worry if it doesn’t fit on the screen: people can scroll to the right and left. Don’t combine up/down and left/right scrolling: it’s confusing. Next to that, since most users will hold their device in landscape mode it’s very natural to scroll horizontal. So let’s use that when we have a flat model. The same applies to the hierarchical model. Try to have at most three levels. If you need more space, find a way to group the items in such a way that you can fit it in three, very wide lanes. At the highest level we have the so called hub level. This is the entry point of the app and as such it should give the user an immediate feeling of what the app is all about. If your app has categories if items then you might show these categories here. And while you’re at it: also show 2 or 3 of the items itself here to give the user a taste of what lies beneath. If the user selects a category you go to the section part. Here you show several sections (again, go as wide as you need) with again some detail examples. After that: the details layer shows each item. By giving some samples of the underlaying layer you achieve several things: you make the layer attractive by showing several different things, you show some highlights so the user sees actual content and you provide a shortcut to the layers underneath. The image below is borrowed from the http://design.windows.com website which has tons and tons of examples: For our app we’ll use this layout. So what will we show? Well, let’s see what sorts of features our app has to offer. I’ll repeat them here: Note planes Add pictures of that plane Notify friends of new spots Share new spots on social media Write down arrival times Write down departure times Write down the runway they take I am sure you can think of some more items but for now we'll use these. In the hub we’ll show something that represents “Spots”, “Friends”, “Social”. Apparently we have an inner list of spotter-friends that are in the app, while we also have to whole world in social. In the layer below we show something else, depending on what the user choose. When they choose “Spots” we’ll display the last spots, last spots by our friends (so we can actually jump from this category to the one next to it) and so on. When they choose a “spot” (or press the + icon in the App bar, which I’ll talk about next time) they go to the lowest and final level that shows details about that spot, including a picture, date and time and the notes belonging to that entry. You’d be amazed at how easy it is to organize your app this way. If you don’t have enough room in these three layers you probably could easily get away with grouping items. Take a look at our hub: we have three completely different things in one place. If you still can’t fit it all in in a logical and consistent way, chances are you are trying to do too much in this app. Go back to your mission statement, determine if it is specific enough and if your feature list helps that statement or makes it unclear. Go ahead. Give it a go! Next time we’ll talk about the look and feel, the charms and the app-bar….

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