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• Rapid Evolution of Society & Technology

  - by Michael Snow

  We caught up with Brian Solis on the phone the other day and Christie Flanagan had a chance to chat with him and learn a bit more about him and some of the concepts he'll be addressing in our Social Business Thought Leaders Webcast on Thursday 12/13/12. «--- Interview with Brian Solis  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast- mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Be sure and register for this week's webcast ---» ------------------- Guest post by Brian Solis. Reposted (Borrowed) from his posting of May 24, 2012 Dear [insert business name], what’s your promise? - Brian Solis You say you want to get closer to customers, but your actions are different than your words. You say you want to “surprise and delight” customers, but your product development teams are too busy building against a roadmap without consideration of the 5th P of marketing…people. Your employees are your number one asset, however the infrastructure of the organization has turned once optimistic and ambitious intrapreneurs into complacent cogs or worse, your greatest detractors. You question the adoption of disruptive technology by your internal champions yet you’ve not tried to find the value for yourself. You’re a change agent and you truly wish to bring about change, but you’ve not invested time or resources to answer “why” in your endeavors to become a connected or social business. If we are to truly change, we must find purpose. We must uncover the essence of our business and the value it delivers to traditional and connected consumers. We must rethink the spirit of today’s embrace and clearly articulate how transformation is going to improve customer and employee experiences and relationships now and over time. Without doing so, any attempts at evolution will be thwarted by reality. In an era of Digital Darwinism, no business is too big to fail or too small to succeed. These are undisciplined times which require alternative approaches to recognize and pursue new opportunities. But everything begins with acknowledging the 360 view of the world that you see today is actually a filtered view of managed and efficient convenience. Today, many organizations that were once inspired by innovation and engagement have fallen into a process of marketing, operationalizing, managing, and optimizing. That might have worked for the better part of the last century, but for the next 10 years and beyond, new vision, leadership and supporting business models will be written to move businesses from rigid frameworks to adaptive and agile entities. I believe that today’s executives will undergo a great test; a test of character, vision, intention, and universal leadership. It starts with a simple, but essential question…what is your promise? Notice, I didn’t ask about your brand promise. Nor did I ask for you to cite your mission and vision statements. This is much more than value propositions or manufactured marketing language designed to hook audiences and stakeholders. I asked for your promise to me as your consumer, stakeholder, and partner. This isn’t about B2B or B2C, but instead, people to people, person to person. It is this promise that will breathe new life into an organization that on the outside, could be misdiagnosed as catatonic by those who are disrupting your markets. A promise, for example, is meant to inspire. It creates alignment. It serves as the foundation for your vision, mission, and all business strategies and it must come from the top to mean anything. For without it, we cannot genuinely voice what it is we stand for or stand behind. Think for a moment about the definition of community. It’s easy to confuse a workplace or a market where everyone simply shares common characteristics. However, a community in this day and age is much more than belonging to something, it’s about doing something together that makes belonging matter The next few years will force a divide where companies are separated by intention as measured by actions and words. But, becoming a social business is not enough. Becoming more authentic and transparent doesn’t serve as a mantra for a renaissance. A promise is the ink that inscribes the spirit of the relationship between you and me. A promise serves as the words that influence change from within and change beyond the halls of our business. It is the foundation for a renewed embrace, one that must then find its way to every aspect of the organization. It’s the difference between a social business and an adaptive business. While an adaptive business can also be social, it is the culture of the organization that strives to not just use technology to extend current philosophies or processes into new domains, but instead give rise to a new culture where striving for relevance is among its goals. The tools and networks simply become enablers of a greater mission You are reading this because you believe in something more than what you’re doing today. While you fight for change within your organization, remember to aim for a higher purpose. Organizations that strive for innovation, imagination, and relevance will outperform those that do not. Part of your job is to lead a missionary push that unites the groundswell with a top down cascade. Change will only happen because you and other internal champions see what others can’t and will do what other won’t. It takes resolve. It takes the ability to translate new opportunities into business value. And, it takes courage. “This is a very noisy world, so we have to be very clear what we want them to know about us”-Steve Jobs ----------------------------------------------------------------- So -- where do you begin to evaluate the kind of experience you are delivering for your customers, partners, and employees?  Take a look at this White Paper: Creating a Successful and Meaningful Customer Experience on the Web and then have a cup of coffee while you listen to the sage advice of Guy Kawasaki in a short video below.   An interview with Guy Kawasaki on Maximizing Social Media Channels 

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• WebCenter Innovation Award Winners

  - by Michael Snow

  Of course, here on our WebCenter blog – we’d like to highlight and brag about our great WebCenter winners. The 2012 WebCenter Innovation Award Winners University of Louisville Location: Louisville, KY, USA Industry: Higher Education Fusion Middleware Products: WebCenter Portal, WebCenter Content, JDeveloper, WebLogic, Oracle BI, Oracle IdM University of Louisville is a state supported research university Statewide Informatics Network to improve public health The University of Louisville has implemented WebCenter as part of the LOUI (Louisville Informatics Institute) Initiative, a Statewide Informatics Network, which will improve public healthcare and lower cost through the use of novel technology and next generation analytics, decision support and innovative outcomes-based payment systems. ---------- News Limited Country/Region: Australia Industry: News/Media FMW Products: WebCenter Sites Single platform running websites for 50% of Australia's newspapers News Corp is running half of Australia's newspaper websites on this shared platform powered by Oracle WebCenter Sites and have overtaken their nearest competitors and are now leading in terms of monthly page impressions. At peak they have over 250 editors on the system publishing in real-time.Sites include: www.newsspace.com.au, www.news.com.au, www.theaustralian.com.au and many others ------ Life Technologies Corp. Country/Region: Carlsbad, CA, USAIndustry: Life SciencesFMW Products: WebCenter Portal, SOA Suite Life Technologies Corp. is a global biotechnology tools company dedicated to improving the human condition with innovative life science products. They were awarded an innovation award for their solution utilizing WebCenter Portal for remotely monitoring & repairing biotech instruments. They deployed WebCenter as a portal that accesses Life Technologies cloud based service monitoring system where all customer deployed instruments can be remotely monitored and proactively repaired.  The portal provides alerts from these cloud based monitoring services directly to the customer and to Life Technologies Field Engineers.  The Portal provides insight into the instruments and services customers purchased for the purpose of analyzing and anticipating future customer needs and creating targeted sales and service programs. ----- China Mobile Jiangsu China Mobile Jiangsu is one of the biggest subsidiaries of China Mobile. It has over 25,000 employees and 40 million mobile subscribers. Country/Region: Jiangsu, China Industry: Telecommunications FMW Products: WebCenter Portal, WebCenter Content, JDeveloper, SOA Suite, IdM They were awarded an Innovation Award for their new employee platform powered by WebCenter Portal is designed to serve their 25,000+ employees and help them drive collaboration & productivity. JSMCC (Chian Mobile Jiangsu) Employee Enterprise Portal and Collaboration Platform. It is one of the China Mobile’s most important IT innovation projects. The new platform is designed to serve for JSMCC’s 25000+ employees and to help them improve the working efficiency, changing their traditional working mode to social ways, encouraging employees on business collaboration and innovation. The solution is built on top of Oracle WebCenter Portal Framework and WebCenter Spaces while also leveraging Weblogic Server, UCM, OID, OAM, SES, IRM and Oracle Database 11g. By providing rich collaboration services, knowledge management services, sensitive document protection services, unified user identity management services, unified information search services and personalized information integration capabilities, the working efficiency of JSMCC employees has been greatly improved. Main Functionality : Information portal, office automation integration, personal space, group space, team collaboration with web2.0 services, unified search engine for multiple data sources, document management and protection. SSO for multiple platforms. -------- LADWP – Los Angeles Department for Water and Power Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest public utility company in United States with over 1.6 Million customers. LADWP provides water and power for millions of residential & commercial customers in Southern California. LADWP also bills most of these customers for sanitation services provided by another city department. Country/Region: US – Los Angeles, CA Industry: Public Utility FMW Products: WebCenter Portal, WebCenter Content, JDeveloper, SOA Suite, IdM The new infrastructure consists of: Oracle WebCenter Portal including mobile portal Oracle WebCenter Content for Content Management and Digital Asset Management (DAM) Oracle OAM (IDM, OVD, OAM) integrated with AD for enterprise identity management Oracle Siebel for CRM Oracle DB Oracle SOA Suite for integration of various subsystems and back end systems  The new portal's features include: Complete Graphical redesign based on best practices in UI Design for high usability Customer Self Service implemented through MyAccount (Bill Pay, Payment History, Bill History, Usage Analysis, Service Request Management) Financial Assistance Programs (CRM, WebCenter) Customer Rebate Programs (CRM, WebCenter) Turn On/Off/Transfer of services (Commercial & Residential) Outage Reporting eNotification (SMS, email) Multilingual (English & Spanish) – using WebCenter multi-language support Section 508 (ADA) Compliant Search – Using WebCenter SES (Secured Enterprise Search) Distributed Authorship in WebCenter Content Mobile Access (any Mobile Browser)

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Skip() and Take()

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. I’ve covered many valuable methods from System.Linq class library before, so you already know it’s packed with extension-method goodness.  Today I’d like to cover two small families I’ve neglected to mention before: Skip() and Take().  While these methods seem so simple, they are an easy way to create sub-sequences for IEnumerable<T>, much the way GetRange() creates sub-lists for List<T>. Skip() and SkipWhile() The Skip() family of methods is used to ignore items in a sequence until either a certain number are passed, or until a certain condition becomes false.  This makes the methods great for starting a sequence at a point possibly other than the first item of the original sequence.   The Skip() family of methods contains the following methods (shown below in extension method syntax): Skip(int count) Ignores the specified number of items and returns a sequence starting at the item after the last skipped item (if any).  SkipWhile(Func<T, bool> predicate) Ignores items as long as the predicate returns true and returns a sequence starting with the first item to invalidate the predicate (if any).  SkipWhile(Func<T, int, bool> predicate) Same as above, but passes not only the item itself to the predicate, but also the index of the item.  For example: 1: var list = new[] { 3.14, 2.72, 42.0, 9.9, 13.0, 101.0 }; 2:  3: // sequence contains { 2.72, 42.0, 9.9, 13.0, 101.0 } 4: var afterSecond = list.Skip(1); 5: Console.WriteLine(string.Join(", ", afterSecond)); 6:  7: // sequence contains { 42.0, 9.9, 13.0, 101.0 } 8: var afterFirstDoubleDigit = list.SkipWhile(v => v < 10.0); 9: Console.WriteLine(string.Join(", ", afterFirstDoubleDigit)); Note that the SkipWhile() stops skipping at the first item that returns false and returns from there to the rest of the sequence, even if further items in that sequence also would satisfy the predicate (otherwise, you’d probably be using Where() instead, of course). If you do use the form of SkipWhile() which also passes an index into the predicate, then you should keep in mind that this is the index of the item in the sequence you are calling SkipWhile() from, not the index in the original collection.  That is, consider the following: 1: var list = new[] { 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 }; 2:  3: // Get all items < 10, then 4: var whatAmI = list 5: .Skip(2) 6: .SkipWhile((i, x) => i > x); For this example the result above is 2.4, and not 1.2, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 as some might expect.  The key is knowing what the index is that’s passed to the predicate in SkipWhile().  In the code above, because Skip(2) skips 1.0 and 1.1, the sequence passed to SkipWhile() begins at 1.2 and thus it considers the “index” of 1.2 to be 0 and not 2.  This same logic applies when using any of the extension methods that have an overload that allows you to pass an index into the delegate, such as SkipWhile(), TakeWhile(), Select(), Where(), etc.  It should also be noted, that it’s fine to Skip() more items than exist in the sequence (an empty sequence is the result), or even to Skip(0) which results in the full sequence.  So why would it ever be useful to return Skip(0) deliberately?  One reason might be to return a List<T> as an immutable sequence.  Consider this class: 1: public class MyClass 2: { 3: private List<int> _myList = new List<int>(); 4:  5: // works on surface, but one can cast back to List<int> and mutate the original... 6: public IEnumerable<int> OneWay 7: { 8: get { return _myList; } 9: } 10:  11: // works, but still has Add() etc which throw at runtime if accidentally called 12: public ReadOnlyCollection<int> AnotherWay 13: { 14: get { return new ReadOnlyCollection<int>(_myList); } 15: } 16:  17: // immutable, can't be cast back to List<int>, doesn't have methods that throw at runtime 18: public IEnumerable<int> YetAnotherWay 19: { 20: get { return _myList.Skip(0); } 21: } 22: } This code snippet shows three (among many) ways to return an internal sequence in varying levels of immutability.  Obviously if you just try to return as IEnumerable<T> without doing anything more, there’s always the danger the caller could cast back to List<T> and mutate your internal structure.  You could also return a ReadOnlyCollection<T>, but this still has the mutating methods, they just throw at runtime when called instead of giving compiler errors.  Finally, you can return the internal list as a sequence using Skip(0) which skips no items and just runs an iterator through the list.  The result is an iterator, which cannot be cast back to List<T>.  Of course, there’s many ways to do this (including just cloning the list, etc.) but the point is it illustrates a potential use of using an explicit Skip(0). Take() and TakeWhile() The Take() and TakeWhile() methods can be though of as somewhat of the inverse of Skip() and SkipWhile().  That is, while Skip() ignores the first X items and returns the rest, Take() returns a sequence of the first X items and ignores the rest.  Since they are somewhat of an inverse of each other, it makes sense that their calling signatures are identical (beyond the method name obviously): Take(int count) Returns a sequence containing up to the specified number of items. Anything after the count is ignored. TakeWhile(Func<T, bool> predicate) Returns a sequence containing items as long as the predicate returns true.  Anything from the point the predicate returns false and beyond is ignored. TakeWhile(Func<T, int, bool> predicate) Same as above, but passes not only the item itself to the predicate, but also the index of the item. So, for example, we could do the following: 1: var list = new[] { 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 }; 2:  3: // sequence contains 1.0 and 1.1 4: var firstTwo = list.Take(2); 5:  6: // sequence contains 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 7: var underTwo = list.TakeWhile(i => i < 2.0); The same considerations for SkipWhile() with index apply to TakeWhile() with index, of course.  Using Skip() and Take() for sub-sequences A few weeks back, I talked about The List<T> Range Methods and showed how they could be used to get a sub-list of a List<T>.  This works well if you’re dealing with List<T>, or don’t mind converting to List<T>.  But if you have a simple IEnumerable<T> sequence and want to get a sub-sequence, you can also use Skip() and Take() to much the same effect: 1: var list = new List<double> { 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 }; 2:  3: // results in List<T> containing { 1.2, 2.2, 2.3 } 4: var subList = list.GetRange(2, 3); 5:  6: // results in sequence containing { 1.2, 2.2, 2.3 } 7: var subSequence = list.Skip(2).Take(3); I say “much the same effect” because there are some differences.  First of all GetRange() will throw if the starting index or the count are greater than the number of items in the list, but Skip() and Take() do not.  Also GetRange() is a method off of List<T>, thus it can use direct indexing to get to the items much more efficiently, whereas Skip() and Take() operate on sequences and may actually have to walk through the items they skip to create the resulting sequence.  So each has their pros and cons.  My general rule of thumb is if I’m already working with a List<T> I’ll use GetRange(), but for any plain IEnumerable<T> sequence I’ll tend to prefer Skip() and Take() instead. Summary The Skip() and Take() families of LINQ extension methods are handy for producing sub-sequences from any IEnumerable<T> sequence.  Skip() will ignore the specified number of items and return the rest of the sequence, whereas Take() will return the specified number of items and ignore the rest of the sequence.  Similarly, the SkipWhile() and TakeWhile() methods can be used to skip or take items, respectively, until a given predicate returns false.    Technorati Tags: C#, CSharp, .NET, LINQ, IEnumerable<T>, Skip, Take, SkipWhile, TakeWhile

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• Silverlight Cream for November 27, 2011 -- #1176

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Matt Eland, Parag Joshi, Jerrel Blankenship, and Joost van Schaik. Above the Fold: WP7: "Safe event detachment base class for Windows Phone 7 behaviors" Joost van Schaik Shoutouts: Michael Palermo's latest Desert Mountain Developers is up Michael Washington's latest Visual Studio #LightSwitch Daily is up From SilverlightCream.com:31 Days of Mango | Day #22: App ConnectMatt Eland takes the reigns of Jeff's blog for Day 22 and is talking about App Connect... App Connect allows apps to be listed on Quick Cards relative to an app's subject matter, and Quick Cards are items that appear in searches to let users find out more info... check out the blog post if you're not familiar with this31 Days of Mango | Day #21: SocketsJeff's Day 21 is written by Parag Joshi, and is on sockets... and is building a WP7 app for posting restaurant orders to a Silverlight OOB app running on a host machine... good sized tutorial and discussion, plus a project to download and play with31 Days of Mango | Day #20: Creating RingtonesJerrel Blankenship has Day 20 for Jeff Blankenburg's 31 Days of Mango and is discussing Ringtones... how to create and save a custom ringtone for your userSafe event detachment base class for Windows Phone 7 behaviorsJoost van Schaik revisits his Safe Event Detachment pattern for WP7 and built a base class to take care of the initialization involved to be kind to us, the developers... code includedStay in the 'Light!Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCreamJoin me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User GroupTechnorati Tags:Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows PhoneMIX10

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Constraining Generics with Where Clause

  - by James Michael Hare

  Back when I was primarily a C++ developer, I loved C++ templates.  The power of writing very reusable generic classes brought the art of programming to a brand new level.  Unfortunately, when .NET 1.0 came about, they didn’t have a template equivalent.  With .NET 2.0 however, we finally got generics, which once again let us spread our wings and program more generically in the world of .NET However, C# generics behave in some ways very differently from their C++ template cousins.  There is a handy clause, however, that helps you navigate these waters to make your generics more powerful. The Problem – C# Assumes Lowest Common Denominator In C++, you can create a template and do nearly anything syntactically possible on the template parameter, and C++ will not check if the method/fields/operations invoked are valid until you declare a realization of the type.  Let me illustrate with a C++ example: 1: // compiles fine, C++ makes no assumptions as to T 2: template <typename T> 3: class ReverseComparer 4: { 5: public: 6: int Compare(const T& lhs, const T& rhs) 7: { 8: return rhs.CompareTo(lhs); 9: } 10: }; Notice that we are invoking a method CompareTo() off of template type T.  Because we don’t know at this point what type T is, C++ makes no assumptions and there are no errors. C++ tends to take the path of not checking the template type usage until the method is actually invoked with a specific type, which differs from the behavior of C#: 1: // this will NOT compile! C# assumes lowest common denominator. 2: public class ReverseComparer<T> 3: { 4: public int Compare(T lhs, T rhs) 5: { 6: return lhs.CompareTo(rhs); 7: } 8: } So why does C# give us a compiler error even when we don’t yet know what type T is?  This is because C# took a different path in how they made generics.  Unless you specify otherwise, for the purposes of the code inside the generic method, T is basically treated like an object (notice I didn’t say T is an object). That means that any operations, fields, methods, properties, etc that you attempt to use of type T must be available at the lowest common denominator type: object.  Now, while object has the broadest applicability, it also has the fewest specific.  So how do we allow our generic type placeholder to do things more than just what object can do? Solution: Constraint the Type With Where Clause So how do we get around this in C#?  The answer is to constrain the generic type placeholder with the where clause.  Basically, the where clause allows you to specify additional constraints on what the actual type used to fill the generic type placeholder must support. You might think that narrowing the scope of a generic means a weaker generic.  In reality, though it limits the number of types that can be used with the generic, it also gives the generic more power to deal with those types.  In effect these constraints says that if the type meets the given constraint, you can perform the activities that pertain to that constraint with the generic placeholders. Constraining Generic Type to Interface or Superclass One of the handiest where clause constraints is the ability to specify the type generic type must implement a certain interface or be inherited from a certain base class. For example, you can’t call CompareTo() in our first C# generic without constraints, but if we constrain T to IComparable<T>, we can: 1: public class ReverseComparer<T> 2: where T : IComparable<T> 3: { 4: public int Compare(T lhs, T rhs) 5: { 6: return lhs.CompareTo(rhs); 7: } 8: } Now that we’ve constrained T to an implementation of IComparable<T>, this means that our variables of generic type T may now call any members specified in IComparable<T> as well.  This means that the call to CompareTo() is now legal. If you constrain your type, also, you will get compiler warnings if you attempt to use a type that doesn’t meet the constraint.  This is much better than the syntax error you would get within C++ template code itself when you used a type not supported by a C++ template. Constraining Generic Type to Only Reference Types Sometimes, you want to assign an instance of a generic type to null, but you can’t do this without constraints, because you have no guarantee that the type used to realize the generic is not a value type, where null is meaningless. Well, we can fix this by specifying the class constraint in the where clause.  By declaring that a generic type must be a class, we are saying that it is a reference type, and this allows us to assign null to instances of that type: 1: public static class ObjectExtensions 2: { 3: public static TOut Maybe<TIn, TOut>(this TIn value, Func<TIn, TOut> accessor) 4: where TOut : class 5: where TIn : class 6: { 7: return (value != null) ? accessor(value) : null; 8: } 9: } In the example above, we want to be able to access a property off of a reference, and if that reference is null, pass the null on down the line.  To do this, both the input type and the output type must be reference types (yes, nullable value types could also be considered applicable at a logical level, but there’s not a direct constraint for those). Constraining Generic Type to only Value Types Similarly to constraining a generic type to be a reference type, you can also constrain a generic type to be a value type.  To do this you use the struct constraint which specifies that the generic type must be a value type (primitive, struct, enum, etc). Consider the following method, that will convert anything that is IConvertible (int, double, string, etc) to the value type you specify, or null if the instance is null. 1: public static T? ConvertToNullable<T>(IConvertible value) 2: where T : struct 3: { 4: T? result = null; 5:  6: if (value != null) 7: { 8: result = (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T)); 9: } 10:  11: return result; 12: } Because T was constrained to be a value type, we can use T? (System.Nullable<T>) where we could not do this if T was a reference type. Constraining Generic Type to Require Default Constructor You can also constrain a type to require existence of a default constructor.  Because by default C# doesn’t know what constructors a generic type placeholder does or does not have available, it can’t typically allow you to call one.  That said, if you give it the new() constraint, it will mean that the type used to realize the generic type must have a default (no argument) constructor. Let’s assume you have a generic adapter class that, given some mappings, will adapt an item from type TFrom to type TTo.  Because it must create a new instance of type TTo in the process, we need to specify that TTo has a default constructor: 1: // Given a set of Action<TFrom,TTo> mappings will map TFrom to TTo 2: public class Adapter<TFrom, TTo> : IEnumerable<Action<TFrom, TTo>> 3: where TTo : class, new() 4: { 5: // The list of translations from TFrom to TTo 6: public List<Action<TFrom, TTo>> Translations { get; private set; } 7:  8: // Construct with empty translation and reverse translation sets. 9: public Adapter() 10: { 11: // did this instead of auto-properties to allow simple use of initializers 12: Translations = new List<Action<TFrom, TTo>>(); 13: } 14:  15: // Add a translator to the collection, useful for initializer list 16: public void Add(Action<TFrom, TTo> translation) 17: { 18: Translations.Add(translation); 19: } 20:  21: // Add a translator that first checks a predicate to determine if the translation 22: // should be performed, then translates if the predicate returns true 23: public void Add(Predicate<TFrom> conditional, Action<TFrom, TTo> translation) 24: { 25: Translations.Add((from, to) => 26: { 27: if (conditional(from)) 28: { 29: translation(from, to); 30: } 31: }); 32: } 33:  34: // Translates an object forward from TFrom object to TTo object. 35: public TTo Adapt(TFrom sourceObject) 36: { 37: var resultObject = new TTo(); 38:  39: // Process each translation 40: Translations.ForEach(t => t(sourceObject, resultObject)); 41:  42: return resultObject; 43: } 44:  45: // Returns an enumerator that iterates through the collection. 46: public IEnumerator<Action<TFrom, TTo>> GetEnumerator() 47: { 48: return Translations.GetEnumerator(); 49: } 50:  51: // Returns an enumerator that iterates through a collection. 52: IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator() 53: { 54: return GetEnumerator(); 55: } 56: } Notice, however, you can’t specify any other constructor, you can only specify that the type has a default (no argument) constructor. Summary The where clause is an excellent tool that gives your .NET generics even more power to perform tasks higher than just the base "object level" behavior.  There are a few things you cannot specify with constraints (currently) though: Cannot specify the generic type must be an enum. Cannot specify the generic type must have a certain property or method without specifying a base class or interface – that is, you can’t say that the generic must have a Start() method. Cannot specify that the generic type allows arithmetic operations. Cannot specify that the generic type requires a specific non-default constructor. In addition, you cannot overload a template definition with different, opposing constraints.  For example you can’t define a Adapter<T> where T : struct and Adapter<T> where T : class.  Hopefully, in the future we will get some of these things to make the where clause even more useful, but until then what we have is extremely valuable in making our generics more user friendly and more powerful!   Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Little Wonders,BlackRabbitCoder,where,generics

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• Web Experience Management: Segmentation & Targeting - Chalk Talk with John

  - by Michael Snow

  Today's post comes from our WebCenter friend, John Brunswick.  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Having trouble getting your arms around the differences between Web Content Management (WCM) and Web Experience Management (WEM)?  Told through story, the video below outlines the differences in an easy to understand manner. By following the journey of Mr. and Mrs. Smith on their adventure to find the best amusement park in two neighboring towns, we can clearly see what an impact context and relevancy play in our decision making within online channels.  Just as when we search to connect with the best products and services for our needs, the Smiths have their grandchildren coming to visit next week and finding the best park is essential to guarantee a great family vacation.  One town effectively Segments and Targets visitors to enhance their experience, reducing the effort needed to learn about their park. Have a look below to join the Smiths in their search.    Learn MORE about how you might measure up: Deliver Engaging Digital Experiences Drive Digital Marketing SuccessAccess Free Assessment Tool

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for October 22, 2013

  - by OTN ArchBeat

  The road ahead for WebLogic 12c | Edwin Biemond Oracle ACE Edwin Biemond shares his thoughts on announced new features in Oracle WebLogic 12.1.3 & 12.1.4 and compares those upcoming releases to Oracle WebLogic 12.1.2. Oracle BI Apps 11.1.1.7.1 – GoldenGate Integration - Part 2: Setup and Configuration | Michael Rainey Michael Rainey continues his series with another technical article for you GoldenGate fans. There's A Virtual Developer Day in Your Future Have you experienced OTN VDD? Relax, it's not something that requires medical attention. But an OTN Virtual Developer Day event will enlarge your brain with hands-on information on Oracle technologies. Upcoming events will cover Oracle WebLogic and Coherence (Nov 5) and Oracle ADF (Nov 19). My Summary of Oracle Open World 2013 | Luis Weir SOA/Middleware specialist Luis Weir's first trip to Oracle OpenWorld was what you might call a total immersion experience. His blog post includes details about what kept him very, very busy during his OOW13 experience. Live Blog: Book Review of Building Modular Cloud Apps with OSGi by Bert Ertman and Paul Bakker | Lucas Jellema This interesting post from Oracle ACE Director Lucas Jellema is a work in progress. He's updating as he goes. Check it out. Thought for the Day padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px;"> "In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show." — Timothy Leary, American psychologist and writer (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) Source: brainyquote.com

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• "Page Size" and "Orientation" are disabled when printing from some applications

  - by Michael

  There are many different Print dialogs but one is very common and is used by Gimp, Shutter, Evloution and Simple Scan. In all these apps the "Page Size" and "Orientation" are disabled. The same dialog in Firefox, Thunderbird and GEdit works OK. I program in Gambas3 which uses this dialog in conjunction with the GTK+ library and it also has these options disabled. If I use the QT4 library then a different print dialog is displayed with no problems. Anybody else notice this problem and found a solution?

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• Delayed Durability–I start to like it!

  - by Michael Zilberstein

  In my previous post about the subject I’ve complained that according to BOL , this feature is enabled for Hekaton only. Panagiotis Antonopoulos from Microsoft commented that actually BOL is wrong – delayed durability can be used with all sorts of transactions, not just In-Memory ones. There is a database-level setting for delayed durability: default value is “Disabled”, other two options are “Allowed” and “Forced”. We’ll switch between “Disabled” and “Forced” and measure IO generated by a simple...(read more)

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• What are some good examples of exuberant in-game instructions for telling the player to repeatedly smash a button?

  - by Michael

  What are some good examples of exuberant in-game instructions for telling the player to repeatedly and quickly press a button or perform an action? I'm especially interested in examples in retro games (e.g., from the NES, SNES, and 1980-90s arcade eras), and I would love to see examples with text, graphics, or both. To illustrate, here are a few examples of the type of instructions that I'm thinking of: Smash the A button to lift something heavy! Toggle the joystick back and forth to break free! Quickly press the button to build power in a meter! I'm working on a 2D iOS game with retro-style pixel art, and there's a point where I want the player to quickly tap on a sprite to complete an action. I have a serviceable starting point -- the word "TAP" flashing with an arrow repeatedly moving downward beneath it: But it still doesn't feel quite right. I would love to see some actual examples from the golden days of 2D gaming to use as reference material. I know examples abound, but I'm just struggling to think of any concrete ones at the moment. Can you think of any examples of this type of thing in old games?

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• Search engine optimization Links

  - by Michael Freidgeim

  Below there are a few links, that I used for my Search engine optimization research:     http://websearch.about.com/od/designforsearch/ss/tendesigntips.htm     Keyword Selection Guidelines   Where To Use Keywords  Google Search Engine Optimization http://websearch.about.com/od/keywordsandphrases/a/sitedesign.htm     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization       http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291

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• How to implement a score database in Android

  - by Michael Seun Araromi

  I making a 2d game for android using opengl-es technology. It is a space shooting game where the player shoots enemy ships. I want to keep a track of score for the amount of enemy ships destroyed and a record of a local highscore, I want the score to be incremented whenever an enemy is destroyed. I also want a way of displaying both score and highscore on the game screen. I am not farmiliar with databases at all and I will appreciate a clear answer or a link to a good tutorial for my cause. Thanks

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• Corona SDK: Animation takes a long time to play after "prepare" step

  - by Michael Taufen

  First off, I'm using the current publicly available build, version 2011.704 I'm building a platformer, and have a character that runs along and jumps when the screen is tapped. While jumping, the animation code has him assume a svelte jumping pose, and upon the detection of a collision with the ground, he returns to running. All of this happens. The problem is that there is this strange gap of time, about 1/2 a second by the feel of it, where my character sits on the first frame of the run animation after landing, before it actually starts playing. This leads me to believe that the problem is somewhere between the "prepare" step of loading up a sprite set's animation sequence and the "play" step. Thanks in advance for any help :). My code for when my character lands is as follows: local function collisionHandler ( event ) if (event.object1.myName == "character") and (event.object2.type == "terrain") then inAir = false characterInstance:prepare( "run" ) -- TODO: time between prepare and play is curiously long... characterInstance:play() end end

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• How to Create SharePoint List and Insert List Item programmatically from a Windows Forms Application.

  - by Michael M. Bangoy

  In this post I’m going to demonstrate how to create SharePoint List and also Insert Items on the List from a Windows Forms Application. 1. Open Visual Studio and create a new project. On the project template select Windows Form Application under C#. 2. In order to communicate with Sharepoint from a Windows Forms Application we need to add the 2 Sharepoint Client DLL located in c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\ISAPI.  3. Select the Microsoft.Sharepoint.Client.dll and Microsoft.Sharepoint.Client.Runtime.dll. (Your solution should look like the one below) 4. Open the Form1 in design view and from the Toolbox menu add a button on the form surface. Your form should look like the one below. 5. Double click the button to open the code view. Add Using statement to reference the Sharepoint Client Library then create method for the Create List. Your code should like the codes below. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Security; using System.Windows.Forms; using SP = Microsoft.SharePoint.Client; namespace ClientObjectModel {     public partial class Form1 : Form     {         // url of the Sharepoint site         const string _context = "urlofthesharepointsite";         public Form1()         {             InitializeComponent();         }         private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)         {                    }         private void cmdcreate_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)         {             try             {                 // declare the ClientContext Object                 SP.ClientContext _clientcontext = new SP.ClientContext(_context);                 SP.Web _site = _clientcontext.Web;                 // declare a ListCreationInfo                 SP.ListCreationInformation _listcreationinfo = new SP.ListCreationInformation();                 // set the Title and the Template of the List to be created                 _listcreationinfo.Title = "NewListFromCOM";                 _listcreationinfo.TemplateType = (int)SP.ListTemplateType.GenericList;                 // Call the add method to the ListCreatedInfo                 SP.List _list = _site.Lists.Add(_listcreationinfo);                 // Add Description field to the List                 SP.Field _Description = _list.Fields.AddFieldAsXml(@"                                     <Field Type='Text'                                         DisplayName='Description'>                                     </Field>", true, SP.AddFieldOptions.AddToDefaultContentType);                 // declare the List item Creation object for creating List Item                 SP.ListItemCreationInformation _itemcreationinfo = new SP.ListItemCreationInformation();                 // call the additem method of the list to insert a new List Item                 SP.ListItem _item = _list.AddItem(_itemcreationinfo);                 _item["Title"] = "New Item from Client Object Model";                 _item["Description"] = "This item was added by a Windows Forms Application";                 // call the update method                 _item.Update();                 // execute the query of the clientcontext                 _clientcontext.ExecuteQuery();                 // dispose the clientcontext                 _clientcontext.Dispose();                 MessageBox.Show("List Creation Successfull");             }             catch(Exception ex)             {                 MessageBox.Show("Error creating list" + ex.ToString());             }          }     } } 6. Hit F5 to run the application. A message will be displayed on the screen if the operation is successful and also if it fails. 7. To make that the operation of our Windows Form Application has really created the List and Inserted an item on it. Let’s open our SharePoint site. Once the SharePoint is open click on the Site Actions then View All Site Content. 7. Click the List to open it and check if an Item is inserted. That’s it. Hope this helps.

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• Microsoft Wireless Keyboard 3000 v2.0 doesnt recognize "Flip Key"

  - by Michael Clare

  The Microsoft Wireless Keyboard 3000 v2.0 has a new key called a "flip key" where the right windows button should be (to the right of the right alt key). This is a picture, the key in question is called "Windows Flip": http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/digital-media-keyboard-3000#details I am using Ubuntu 11.10 and this key is not recognized at all by the system: I have run "sudo showkey" with no results. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I would like to map this to be a Right-Super key as it should be.

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Comparer&lt;T&gt;.Default

  - by James Michael Hare

  I’ve been working with a wonderful team on a major release where I work, which has had the side-effect of occupying most of my spare time preparing, testing, and monitoring.  However, I do have this Little Wonder tidbit to offer today. Introduction The IComparable<T> interface is great for implementing a natural order for a data type.  It’s a very simple interface with a single method: 1: public interface IComparer<in T> 2: { 3: // Compare two instances of same type. 4: int Compare(T x, T y); 5: }  So what do we expect for the integer return value?  It’s a pseudo-relative measure of the ordering of x and y, which returns an integer value in much the same way C++ returns an integer result from the strcmp() c-style string comparison function: If x == y, returns 0. If x > y, returns > 0 (often +1, but not guaranteed) If x < y, returns < 0 (often –1, but not guaranteed) Notice that the comparison operator used to evaluate against zero should be the same comparison operator you’d use as the comparison operator between x and y.  That is, if you want to see if x > y you’d see if the result > 0. The Problem: Comparing With null Can Be Messy This gets tricky though when you have null arguments.  According to the MSDN, a null value should be considered equal to a null value, and a null value should be less than a non-null value.  So taking this into account we’d expect this instead: If x == y (or both null), return 0. If x > y (or y only is null), return > 0. If x < y (or x only is null), return < 0. But here’s the problem – if x is null, what happens when we attempt to call CompareTo() off of x? 1: // what happens if x is null? 2: x.CompareTo(y); It’s pretty obvious we’ll get a NullReferenceException here.  Now, we could guard against this before calling CompareTo(): 1: int result; 2:  3: // first check to see if lhs is null. 4: if (x == null) 5: { 6: // if lhs null, check rhs to decide on return value. 7: if (y == null) 8: { 9: result = 0; 10: } 11: else 12: { 13: result = -1; 14: } 15: } 16: else 17: { 18: // CompareTo() should handle a null y correctly and return > 0 if so. 19: result = x.CompareTo(y); 20: } Of course, we could shorten this with the ternary operator (?:), but even then it’s ugly repetitive code: 1: int result = (x == null) 2: ? ((y == null) ? 0 : -1) 3: : x.CompareTo(y); Fortunately, the null issues can be cleaned up by drafting in an external Comparer.  The Soltuion: Comparer<T>.Default You can always develop your own instance of IComparer<T> for the job of comparing two items of the same type.  The nice thing about a IComparer is its is independent of the things you are comparing, so this makes it great for comparing in an alternative order to the natural order of items, or when one or both of the items may be null. 1: public class NullableIntComparer : IComparer<int?> 2: { 3: public int Compare(int? x, int? y) 4: { 5: return (x == null) 6: ? ((y == null) ? 0 : -1) 7: : x.Value.CompareTo(y); 8: } 9: }  Now, if you want a custom sort -- especially on large-grained objects with different possible sort fields -- this is the best option you have.  But if you just want to take advantage of the natural ordering of the type, there is an easier way.  If the type you want to compare already implements IComparable<T> or if the type is System.Nullable<T> where T implements IComparable, there is a class in the System.Collections.Generic namespace called Comparer<T> which exposes a property called Default that will create a singleton that represents the default comparer for items of that type.  For example: 1: // compares integers 2: var intComparer = Comparer<int>.Default; 3:  4: // compares DateTime values 5: var dateTimeComparer = Comparer<DateTime>.Default; 6:  7: // compares nullable doubles using the null rules! 8: var nullableDoubleComparer = Comparer<double?>.Default;  This helps you avoid having to remember the messy null logic and makes it to compare objects where you don’t know if one or more of the values is null. This works especially well when creating say an IComparer<T> implementation for a large-grained class that may or may not contain a field.  For example, let’s say you want to create a sorting comparer for a stock open price, but if the market the stock is trading in hasn’t opened yet, the open price will be null.  We could handle this (assuming a reasonable Quote definition) like: 1: public class Quote 2: { 3: // the opening price of the symbol quoted 4: public double? Open { get; set; } 5:  6: // ticker symbol 7: public string Symbol { get; set; } 8:  9: // etc. 10: } 11:  12: public class OpenPriceQuoteComparer : IComparer<Quote> 13: { 14: // Compares two quotes by opening price 15: public int Compare(Quote x, Quote y) 16: { 17: return Comparer<double?>.Default.Compare(x.Open, y.Open); 18: } 19: } Summary Defining a custom comparer is often needed for non-natural ordering or defining alternative orderings, but when you just want to compare two items that are IComparable<T> and account for null behavior, you can use the Comparer<T>.Default comparer generator and you’ll never have to worry about correct null value sorting again.     Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Little Wonders,BlackRabbitCoder,IComparable,Comparer

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• Three Global Telecoms Soar With Siebel

  - by michael.seback

  Deutsche Telekom Group Selects Oracle's Siebel CRM to Underpin Next-Generation CRM Strategy The Deutsche Telekom Group (DTAG), one of the world's leading telecommunications companies, and a customer of Oracle since 2001, has invested in Oracle's Siebel CRM as the standard platform for its Next Generation CRM strategy; a move to lower the cost of managing its 120 million customers across its European businesses. Oracle's Siebel CRM is planned to be deployed in Germany and all of the company's European business within five years. "...Our Next-Generation strategy is a significant move to lower our operating costs and enhance customer service for all our European customers. Not only is Oracle underpinning this strategy, but is also shaping the way our company operates and sells to customers. We look forward to working with Oracle over the coming years as the technology is extended across Europe," said Dr. Steffen Roehn, CIO Deutsche Telekom AG... "The telecommunications industry is currently undergoing some major changes. As a result, companies like Deutsche Telekom are needing to be more intelligent about the way they use technology, particularly when it comes to customer service. Deutsche Telekom is a great example of how organisations can use CRM to not just improve services, but also drive more commercial opportunities through the ability to offer highly tailored offers, while the customer is engaged online or on the phone," said Steve Fearon, vice president CRM, EMEA Read more. Telecom Argentina S.A. Accelerates Time-to-Market for New Communications Products and Services Telecom Argentina S.A. offers basic telephone, urban landline, and national and international long-distance services...."With Oracle's Siebel CRM and Oracle Communication Billing and Revenue Management, we started a technological transformation that allows us to satisfy our critical business needs, such as improving customer service and quickly launching new phone and internet products and services." - Saba Gooley, Chief Information Officer, Wire Line and Internet Services, Telecom Argentina S.A.Read more. Türk Telekom Develops Benefits-Driven CRM Roadmap Türk Telekom Group provides integrated telecommunication services from public switched telephone network (PSTN) and global systems for mobile communications technology (GSM). to broadband internet...."Oracle Insight provided us with a structured deployment approach that makes sense for our business. It quantified the benefits of the CRM solution allowing us to engage with the relevant business owners; essential for a successful transformation program." - Paul Taylor, VP Commercial Transformation, Türk Telekom Read more.

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• Batch file to Delete Old Virtual Directories.

  - by Michael Freidgeim

  On some servers we have many old Virtual Directories created for previous versions of our application. IIS user interface allows to delete only one in a time. Fortunately we can use IIS scripts as described in How to manage Web sites and Web virtual directories by using command-line scripts in IIS 6.0 I've created batch file DeleteOldVDirs.cmd rem http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816568 rem syntax: iisvdir /delete WebSite [/Virtual Path]Name [/s Computer [/u [Domain\]User /p Password]] REM list all directories and create batch of deletes iisvdir /query "Default Web Site" echo "Enter Ctrl-C  if you want to stop deleting" Pause iisvdir /delete "Default Web Site/VDirName1" iisvdir /delete "Default Web Site/VDirName2" ...   If the name of WebSite or Virtual directory contain spaces(e.g  "Default Web Site"), don't forget to use double quotes. Note that the batch doesn't delete physical directories from flie system.You need to delete them using Windows Explorer, but it does support multiple selection!

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• sys.dm_exec_query_profiles – FAQ

  - by Michael Zilberstein

  As you probably know, this DMV is new in SQL Server 2014. It had been first announced in CTP1 but only in BOL . Now in CTP2 everyone can “play” with it. Since BOL is a little bit unclear (understatement detected), I’ve prepared this small FAQ as a result of discussion with Adam Machanic ( blog | twitter ) and Matan Yungman ( blog | twitter ). Q: What did you expect from sys.dm_exec_query_profiles? A: Expectations were very high – it promised, for the first time, ability to see _actual_ execution...(read more)

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• Calculating collision force with AfterCollision/NormalImpulse is unreliable when IgnoreCCD = false?

  - by Michael

  I'm using Farseer Physics Engine 3.3.1 in a very simple XNA 4 test game. (Note: I'm also tagging this Box2D, because Farseer is a direct port of Box2D and I will happily accept Box2D answers that solve this problem.) In this game, I'm creating two bodies. The first body is created using BodyFactory.CreateCircle and BodyType.Dynamic. This body can be moved around using the keyboard (which sets Body.LinearVelocity). The second body is created using BodyFactory.CreateRectangle and BodyType.Static. This body is static and never moves. Then I'm using this code to calculate the force of collision when the two bodies collide: staticBody.FixtureList[0].AfterCollision += new AfterCollisionEventHandler(AfterCollision); protected void AfterCollision(Fixture fixtureA, Fixture fixtureB, Contact contact) { float maxImpulse = 0f; for (int i = 0; i < contact.Manifold.PointCount; i++) maxImpulse = Math.Max(maxImpulse, contact.Manifold.Points[i].NormalImpulse); // maxImpulse should contain the force of the collision } This code works great if both of these bodies are set to IgnoreCCD=true. I can calculate the force of collision between them 100% reliably. Perfect. But here's the problem: If I set the bodies to IgnoreCCD=false, that code becomes wildly unpredictable. AfterCollision is called reliably, but for some reason the NormalImpulse is 0 about 75% of the time, so only about one in four collisions is registered. Worse still, the NormalImpulse seems to be zero for completely random reasons. The dynamic body can collide with the static body 10 times in a row in virtually exactly the same way, and only 2 or 3 of the hits will register with a NormalImpulse greater than zero. Setting IgnoreCCD=true on both bodies instantly solves the problem, but then I lose continuous physics detection. Why is this happening and how can I fix it? Here's a link to a simple XNA 4 solution that demonstrates this problem in action: http://www.mediafire.com/?a1w242q9sna54j4

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• Helper method to Replace/Remove characters that do not match the Regular Expression

  - by Michael Freidgeim

  I have a few fields, that use regEx for validation. In case if provided field has unaccepted characters, I don't want to reject the whole field, as most of validators do, but just remove invalid characters. I am expecting to keep only Character Classes for allowed characters and created a helper method to strip unaccepted characters. The allowed pattern should be in Regex format, expect them wrapped in square brackets. function will insert a tilde after opening squere bracket , according to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4460290/replace-chars-if-not-match.  [^ ] at the start of a character class negates it - it matches characters not in the class.I anticipate that it could work not for all RegEx describing valid characters sets,but it works for relatively simple sets, that we are using.         /// <summary>               /// Replaces  not expected characters.               /// </summary>               /// <param name="text"> The text.</param>               /// <param name="allowedPattern"> The allowed pattern in Regex format, expect them wrapped in brackets</param>               /// <param name="replacement"> The replacement.</param>               /// <returns></returns>               /// //        http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4460290/replace-chars-if-not-match.               //http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6154426/replace-remove-characters-that-do-not-match-the-regular-expression-net               //[^ ] at the start of a character class negates it - it matches characters not in the class.               //Replace/Remove characters that do not match the Regular Expression               static public string ReplaceNotExpectedCharacters( this string text, string allowedPattern,string replacement )              {                     allowedPattern = allowedPattern.StripBrackets( "[", "]" );                      //[^ ] at the start of a character class negates it - it matches characters not in the class.                      var result = Regex .Replace(text, @"[^" + allowedPattern + "]", replacement);                      return result;              }static public string RemoveNonAlphanumericCharacters( this string text)              {                      var result = text.ReplaceNotExpectedCharacters(NonAlphaNumericCharacters, "" );                      return result;              }        public const string NonAlphaNumericCharacters = "[a-zA-Z0-9]";There are a couple of functions from my StringHelper class  http://geekswithblogs.net/mnf/archive/2006/07/13/84942.aspx , that are used here.    //                           /// <summary>               /// 'StripBrackets checks that starts from sStart and ends with sEnd (case sensitive).               ///           'If yes, than removes sStart and sEnd.               ///           'Otherwise returns full string unchanges               ///           'See also MidBetween               /// </summary>               /// <param name="str"></param>               /// <param name="sStart"></param>               /// <param name="sEnd"></param>               /// <returns></returns>               public static string StripBrackets( this string str, string sStart, string sEnd)              {                      if (CheckBrackets(str, sStart, sEnd))                     {                           str = str.Substring(sStart.Length, (str.Length - sStart.Length) - sEnd.Length);                     }                      return str;              }               public static bool CheckBrackets( string str, string sStart, string sEnd)              {                      bool flag1 = (str != null ) && (str.StartsWith(sStart) && str.EndsWith(sEnd));                      return flag1;              }               public static string WrapBrackets( string str, string sStartBracket, string sEndBracket)              {                      StringBuilder builder1 = new StringBuilder(sStartBracket);                     builder1.Append(str);                     builder1.Append(sEndBracket);                      return builder1.ToString();              }v

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• Scaling Down Pixel Art?

  - by Michael Stum

  There's plenty of algorithms to scale up pixel art (I prefer hqx personally), but are there any notable algorithms to scale it down? In my case, the game is designed to run at 1280x720, but if someone plays at a lower resolution I want it to still look good. Most Pixel Art discussions center around 320x200 or 640x480 and upscaling for use in console emulators, but I wonder how modern 2D games like the Monkey Island Remake look good on lower resolutions? (Ignoring the options of having multiple versions of assets (essentially, mipmapping))

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• Code review recommendations and Code Smells

  - by Michael Freidgeim

  Some time ago Twitter told that I am similar to Boris Lipschitz . Indeed he is also .Net programmer from Russia living in Australia. I‘ve read his list of Code Review points and found them quite comprehensive. A few points  were not clear for me, and it forced me for a further reading.In particular the statement “Exception should not be used to return a status or an error code.” wasn’t fully clear for me, because sometimes we store an exception as an object with all error details and I believe it’s a valid approach. However I agree that throwing exceptions should be avoided, if you expect to return error as a part of a normal flow. Related link: http://codeutopia.net/blog/2010/03/11/should-a-failed-function-return-a-value-or-throw-an-exception/ Another point slightly puzzled me“If Thread.Sleep() is used, can it be replaced with something else, ei Timer, AutoResetEvent, etc” . I believe, that there are very rare cases, when anyone using Thread.Sleep in any production code. Usually it is used in mocks and prototypes.I had to look further to clarify “Dependency injection is used instead of Service Location pattern”.Even most of articles has some preferences to Dependency injection, there are also advantages to use Service Location. E.g see http://geekswithblogs.net/KyleBurns/archive/2012/04/27/dependency-injection-vs.-service-locator.aspx. http://www.cookcomputing.com/blog/archives/000587.html  refers to Concluding Thoughts of Martin Fowler The choice between Service Locator and Dependency Injection is less important than the principle of separating service configuration from the use of services within an applicationThe post had a link to excellent article Code Smells of Jeff Atwood, but the statement, that “code should not pass a review if it violates any of the  code smells” sound too strict for my environment. In particular, I disagree with “Dead Code” recommendation “Ruthlessly delete code that isn't being used. That's why we have source control systems!”. If there is a chance that not used code will be required in a future, it is convenient to keep it as commented or #if/#endif blocks with appropriate explanation, why it could be required in the future. TFS is a good source control system, but context search in source code of current solution is much easier than finding something in the previous versions of the code.I also found a link to a good book “Clean Code.A.Handbook.of.Agile.Software”

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• Systems of Engagement

  - by Michael Snow

  12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}  Engagement Week 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} This week we’ll be looking at the ever evolving topic of systems of engagement. This topic continues generating widespread discussion around how we connect with businesses, employers, governments, and extended social communities across multiple channels spanning web, mobile and human face to face contact. Earlier in our Social Business Thought Leader Webcast Series, we had AIIM President John Mancini presenting "Moving from Records to Engagement to Insight" discussing the factors that are driving organizations to think more strategically about the intersection of content management, social technologies, and business processes. John spoke about how Content Management and Enterprise IT are being changed by social technologies and how new technologies are being used to drive innovation and transform processes along and what the implications of this transformation are for information professionals. He used these two slides below to illustrate the evolution from Systems of Record to Systems of Engagement. The AIIM White Paper is available for download from the AIIM website. Later this week (09/20), we'll have another session in our Social Business Thought Leader Webcast Series featuring  R “Ray” Wang (@rwang0) Principal Analyst & CEO from Constellation Research presenting: "Engaging Customers in the Era of Overexposure"  More info to come tomorrow on the upcoming webcast this week. ~~~~~~ In the spirit of spreading good karma - one of the first things that came to mind as I was thinking about "Engagement" was the evolution of the Marriage Proposal.  Someone sent me a link to this link a couple of months ago and it raises the bar on all proposals. I hope you'll enjoy!

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• SBUG --> UK Connected Systems User Group

  - by Michael Stephenson

  Following a recent user group meeting we have decided that the UK SOA/BPM User Group will be renamed to the UK Connected Systems User Group.  The reasons for this are as follows: 1. Other user groups who cover the same topics as us are all called something similar 2. We feel the name change will help to increase user group membership The focus and topics of the user group will remain the same.

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