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• Native Endians and Auto Conversion

  - by KnickerKicker

  so the following converts big endians to little ones uint32_t ntoh32(uint32_t v) { return (v << 24) | ((v & 0x0000ff00) << 8) | ((v & 0x00ff0000) >> 8) | (v >> 24); } works. like a charm. I read 4 bytes from a big endian file into char v[4] and pass it into the above function as ntoh32 (* reinterpret_cast<uint32_t *> (v)) that doesn't work - because my compiler (VS 2005) automatically converts the big endian char[4] into a little endian uint32_t when I do the cast. AFAIK, this automatic conversion will not be portable, so I use uint32_t ntoh_4b(char v[]) { uint32_t a = 0; a |= (unsigned char)v[0]; a <<= 8; a |= (unsigned char)v[1]; a <<= 8; a |= (unsigned char)v[2]; a <<= 8; a |= (unsigned char)v[3]; return a; } yes the (unsigned char) is necessary. yes it is dog slow. there must be a better way. anyone ?

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• What can a company possibly gain by making Android phones hard to root?

  - by Chinmay Kanchi

  As someone who recently got a HTC Hero, I had to jump through several hoops to get root access on the phone to install custom firmware. Now, Android is open-source and fairly easy to build and hack on an emulator. It seems to be against the spirit of open-source to lock down a phone so you can't hack the phone itself. Now, often, there are understandable (though not always justifiable) reasons for locking a device down. For example, it might have proprietary software on it or you might want to retain control of the platform. However, Android by its open-source nature makes such concerns moot. Everyone and their dog has access to the userland code, and HTC is forced by the GPL to release kernel sources for each of their devices. So, I fail to see any motivation for alienating the hackers, when there is no possible benefit (in my mind) to be had from doing this. Any idea why a company would want to do this? Is it just short-sightedness or am I missing possible commercial implications of this?

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• On the search for my next great .Net Read

  - by user127954

  Just got done with "The art of unit testing". It was a great read and i think everyone should go buy a copy. With that said i think the next book I'm like to read would be a architecture / Design type book that would focus heavily on building your objects / software in such a way that it would be: Low Coupling High Cohesion Easily Maintainable / Extended Easy to test Easy to Navigate / Debug The above characteristcs are the most important ones but also maybe it would also include (but not necessary) designing for: Performance - Don't want to design a system at at the end find out its dog slow :) Scalability - Again don't want to design something at the end find out it won't scale. I'd also prefer (but not necessary again): Something newer - Architectural principles seem to gradually evolve / improve over time and id like something with current thinking. .Net as illustrating language - like i said above its not mandatory but since its what i use every day id prefer it to be in .net. Doesn't really matter if its in vb.net or c# Some of the topics that would be talked about its how to minimize dependencies and using interfaces throughout your solution rather than concrete classes. Maybe it would constract /compare some of the newest design principles like DDD, Repository Pattern, Ect... I already have "Clean Code" (don't know if its this type of book or not) and "Working effectively with legacy code" on my radar but id like to read a book based upon the topic i talked about above first. Is there such a book?

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• What does it mean to say "Instance variables are not over-rided" in java?

  - by Ankit

  I am aware of the concept called field hiding in java. But still I am having a confusion in relation to instance variable being not over-ridden. According to my present knowledge, overriding a method of super-class means that the JVM will call the sub-class's over-ridden method though the super-class's method is available to the sub-class. And I read the similar thing for field hiding via the link:- Hiding Fields So, in any case we are over-ridding the instance if we change the values of the inherited instance variable in the sub-class. I am confused please help. I am using the following super-class:- public class Animal{ File picture; String food; int hunger; int width, height; int xcoord, ycoord; public void makeNoise(){ ......... } public void eat(){ ............. } public void sleep(){ .......... } public void roam(){ ............. } } It has sub-classes like Tiger, cat, dog,hippo etc. The sub-classes over-ride the makeNoise(), eat and roam() method. But each sub-class also uses a different set of values for instance variables. So as per my confusion, I am kind-of overriding all the instance variables and 3 methods of the super-class Animal; and I still have the super-class instance variables available to the sub-class with the use of the super keyword.

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• "Finding" an object instance of a known class?

  - by Sean C

  My first post here (anywhere for that matter!), re. Cocoa/Obj-C (I'm NOT up to speed on either, please be patient!). I hope I haven't missed the answer already, I did try to find it. I'm an old-school procedural dog (haven't done any programming since the mid 80's, so I probably just can't even learn new tricks), but OOP has my head spinning! My question is: is there any means at all to "discover/find/identify" an instance of an object of a known class, given that some OTHER unknown process instantiated it? eg. somthing that would accomplish this scenario: (id) anObj = [someTarget getMostRecentInstanceOf:[aKnownClass class]]; for that matter, "getAnyInstance" or "getAllInstances" might do the trick too. Background: I'm trying to write a plugin for a commercial application, so much of the heavy lifting is being done by the app, behind the scenes. I have the SDK & header files, I know what class the object is, and what method I need to call (it has only instance methods), I just can't identify the object for targetting. I've spent untold hours and days going over Apples documentation, tutorials and lots of example/sample code on the web (including here at Stack Overflow), and come up empty. Seems that everything requires a known target object to work, and I just don't have one. Since I may not be expressing my problem as clearly as needed, I've put up a web page, with diagram & working sample pages to illustrate: http://www.nulltime.com/svtest/index.html Any help or guidance will be appreciated! Thanks.

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• Dynamically loading external HTML in a div using Java Script

  - by user354051

  I have prepared some demo examples for the topic. There is page name "changelog.html" here: http://pantheon-studios.in/test/jquery/changelog.html This is working fine if loaded directly. I am trying to load this page dynamically into: http://pantheon-studios.in/test/jquery/index.html Here changelog.html doesn't behaving as expected. I think the init script on changelog.html is not getting executed or something else is happening when loading it dynamically. Like wise I do have couple of other pages using various jQuery and other java scripts plugins. Some of those needs initialization like animatedcollapse.js in the above example, and couple of them doesn't need initialization, you can directly call the script and go. I also gave a try using: jQuery.getScript("anim.js") after dynamically loading "changelog.html" but doesn't work. The "anim.js" contains animatedcollapse.addDiv('cat', 'fade=0,speed=400,group=pets,hide=1'); animatedcollapse.addDiv('dog', 'fade=0,speed=400,group=pets,hide=1'); animatedcollapse.addDiv('rabbit', 'fade=0,speed=400,group=pets,hide=1'); animatedcollapse.init(); I would really appreciate is some one point me out the right direction. I am completely new to web programming so please have some patience with me. Thanks

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• How do I implement a group of strings that starts randomly, but is bound by relevance upon selection?

  - by Freakishly

  Okay the title may be a little confusing, but here's what I'm trying to do :) I have a game in XNA where every tap from the user draws a moving circle on the screen. The circle has a tag, say 'dogs' displayed on it. So imagine multiple taps on the screen, and we have all these circles of various colors and sizes moving around the screen with different (but constant) velocities. Each circle with different tags: 'dogs', 'cats' and so on... Clicking on empty space generates a new circle at that point. Clicking on one of the circles "selects" it, turning it into a greeen shade and slowing its velocity down to a fraction of what it was. Clicking on it again "unselects" it, and restores its original color and velocity (trajectory does not change). With each circle comes a tag, and as of now I'm populating these tags randomly from a string array (which means there's a chance tags will repeat). I would like the tags for newly created circles to be relevant to previous "selected" tags. So when I click on 'dogs', I would like 'German Shepherd' but I would also like 'dog parks' and 'lemurs' assuming dogs get along well with lemurs. What would be the best way to approach this problem. In my head I have a massive many-to-many mapping, but I can't seem to translate it to code. Thanks for looking. FYI I'm using the sample project from here: http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/windows/introduction-to-xna-on-windows-phone-7/

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• "Abstract static" method - how?

  - by polyglot

  There are already several SO questions on why there is not abstract static method/field as such, but I'm wondering about how one would go about implementing the following psuedo-code: class Animal { abstract static int getNumberOfLegs(); // not possible } class Chicken inherits Animal { static int getNumberOfLegs() { return 2; } class Dog inherits Animal { static int getNumberOfLegs() { return 4; } Here is the problem: Assuming that I want make sure that every class that inherits Animal to contain getNumberOfLegs() method (i.e. almost like an interface, except I do want the abstract class to implement several methods that are common to all child classes, hence pure interface does not work here). getNumberOfLegs() obviously should be a static method (assuming that in a perfect world we dont' have crippled chicken and dogs so getNumberOfLegs is not instance-dependent). Without an "abstract static" method/field, one can either leave the method out from Animal class, then there is the risk that some child class do not have that method. Or one can make getNumberOfLegs an instance method, but then one would have to instantiate a class to find out how many legs that animal has - even though it is not necessary. How do one usually go about implementing this situation?

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• In Ruby or Python can the very idea of Class be rewritten?

  - by John Berryman

  Howdy All... first time at stack overflow. I'm looking into using some of the metaprogramming features provided by Ruby or Python, but first I need to know the extent to which they will allow me to extend the language. The main thing I need to be able to do is to rewrite the concept of Class. This doesn't mean that I want to rewrite a specific class during run time, but rather I want to make my own conceptualization of what a Class is. To be a smidge more specific here, I want to make something that is like what people normally call a Class, but I want to follow an "open world" assumption. In the "closed world" of normal Classes, if I declare Poodle to be a subclass of Dog to be a subclass of Animal, then I know that Poodle is not going to also be a type of FurCoat. However, in an open world Class, then the Poodle object I've defined may or may not be and object of type FurCoat and we won't know for sure until I explain that I can wear the poodle. (Poor poodle.) This all has to do with a study I'm doing concerning OWL ontologies. Just so you know, I've tried to find information online, but due to the overloading of terms here I haven't found anything helpful. Super thanks, John

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• getting string.substring(N) not to choke when N > string.length

  - by aape

  I'm writing some code that takes a report from the mainframe and converts it to a spreadsheet. They can't edit the code on the MF to give me a delimited file, so I'm stuck dealing with it as fixed width. It's working okay now, but I need to get it more stable before I release it for testing. My problem is that in any given line of data, say it could have three columns of numbers, each five chars wide at positions 10, 16, and 22. If on this one particular row, there's no data for the last two cols, it won't be padded with spaces; rather, the length of the string will be only 14. So, I can't just blindly have dim s as string = someStream.readline a = s.substring(10, 5) b = s.substring(16, 5) c = s.substring(22, 5) because it'll choke when it substrings past the length of the string. I know I could test the length of the string before processing each row, and I have automated the filling of some of the vsariables using a counter and a loop, and using the counter*theWidthOfTheGivenVariable to jump around, but this project was a dog to start with (come on! turning a report into a spreadsheet?), but there are many different types of rows (it's not just a grid), and the code's getting ugly fast. I'd like this to be clean, clear, and maintainable for the poor sucker that gets this after me. If it matters, here's my code so far (it's really crufty at the moment). You can see some of my/its idiocy in the processSection#data subs So, I'm wondering 1) is there a way baked in to .NET to have string.substring not error when reading past the end of a string without wrapping it in a try...catch? and 2) would it be appropriate in this situation to write a new string class that inherits from string that has a more friendly substring function in it? ETA: Thanks for all the advice and knowledge everyone. I'll go with the extension. Hopefully one of these years, I'll get my chops up enough to pay someone back in kind. :)

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• Comparing objects and inheritance

  - by ereOn

  Hi, In my program I have the following class hierarchy: class Base // Base is an abstract class { }; class A : public Base { }; class B : public Base { }; I would like to do the following: foo(const Base& one, const Base& two) { if (one == two) { // Do something } else { // Do something else } } I have issues regarding the operator==() here. Of course comparing an instance A and an instance of B makes no sense but comparing two instances of Base should be possible. (You can't compare a Dog and a Cat however you can compare two Animals) I would like the following results: A == B = false A == A = true or false, depending on the effective value of the two instances B == B = true or false, depending on the effective value of the two instances My question is: is this a good design/idea ? Is this even possible ? What functions should I write/overload ? My apologies if the question is obviously stupid or easy, I have some serious fever right now and my thinking abilities are somewhat limited :/ Thank you.

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• How to keep track of call statistics? C++

  - by tf.rz

  I'm working on a project that delivers statistics to the user. I created a class called Dog, And it has several functions. Speak, woof, run, fetch, etc. I want to have a function that spits out how many times each function has been called. I'm also interested in the constructor calls and destructor calls as well. I have a header file which defines all the functions, then a separate .cc file that implements them. My question is, is there a way to keep track of how many times each function is called? I have a function called print that will fetch the "statistics" and then output them to standard output. I was considering using static integers as part of the class itself, declaring several integers to keep track of those things. I know the compiler will create a copy of the integer and initialize it to a minimum value, and then I'll increment the integers in the .cc functions. I also thought about having static integers as a global variable in the .cc. Which way is easier? Or is there a better way to do this? Any help is greatly appreciated!

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• How can I make "month" columns in Sql?

  - by Beska

  I've got a set of data that looks something like this (VERY simplified): productId Qty dateOrdered --------- --- ----------- 1 2 10/10/2008 1 1 11/10/2008 1 2 10/10/2009 2 3 10/12/2009 1 1 10/15/2009 2 2 11/15/2009 Out of this, we're trying to create a query to get something like: productId Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec --------- ---- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 1 2008 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 1 2009 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 2 2009 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 0 The way I'm doing this now, I'm doing 12 selects, one for each month, and putting those in temp tables. I then do a giant join. Everything works, but this guy is dog slow. I know this isn't much to go on, but knowing that I barely qualify as a tyro in the db world, I'm wondering if there is a better high level approach to this that I might try. (I'm guessing there is.) (I'm using MS Sql Server, so answers that are specific to that DB are fine.) (I'm just starting to look at "PIVOT" as a possible help, but I don't know anything about it yet, so if someone wants to comment about that, that might be helpful as well.)

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• Django: getting the list of related records for a list of objects

  - by Silver Light

  Hello! I have two models related one-to many: class Person(models.Model): name = models.CharField(max_length=255); surname = models.CharField(max_length=255); age = models.IntegerField(); class Dog(models.Model): name = models.CharField(max_length=255); owner = models.ForeignKey('Person'); I want to output a list of persons below each person a list of dogs he has. Here's how I can do it: in view: persons = Person.objects.all()[0:100]; in template: {% for p in persons %} {{ p.name }} has dogs:<br /> {% for d in persons.dog_set.all %} - {{ d.name }}<br /> {% endfor %} {% endfor %} But if I do it like that, Django will execute 101 SQL queries which is very inefficient. I tried to make a custom manager, which will get all the persons, then all the dogs and links them in python, but then I can't use paginator (my another question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2532475/django-paginator-raw-sql-query ) and it looks quite ugly. Is there a more graceful way doing this?

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• Generating an identifier for objects so that they can be added to a hashtable I have created

  - by dukenukem

  I have a hashtable base class and I am creating different type of hashtable by deriving from it. I only allow it to accept objects that implement my IHashable interface.For example - class LinearProbingHashTable<T> : HashTableBase<T> where T: IHashable { ... ... ... } interface IHashable { /** * Every IHashable implementation should provide an indentfying value for use in generating a hash key. */ int getIdentifier(); } class Car : IHashable { public String Make { get; set; } public String Model { get; set; } public String Color { get; set; } public int Year { get; set; } public int getIdentifier() { /// ??? } } Can anyone suggest a good method for generating an identifier for the car that can be used by the hash function to place it in the hash table? I am actually really looking for a general purpose solution to generating an id for any given class. I would like to have a base class for all classes, HashableObject, that implements IHashable and its getIdentifier method. So then I could just derive from HashableObject which would automatically provide an identifier for any instances. Which means I wouldn't have to write a different getIdentifier method for every object I add to the hashtable. public class HashableObject : IHashable { public int getIdentifier() { // Looking for code here that would generate an id for any object... } } public class Dog : HashableObject { // Dont need to implement getIdentifier because the parent class does it for me }

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• LINQ Many to Many With In or Contains Clause (and a twist)

  - by Chris

  I have a many to many table structure called PropertyPets. It contains a dual primary key consisting of a PropertyID (from a Property table) and one or more PetIDs (from a Pet table). Next I have a search screen where people can multiple select pets from a jquery multiple select dropdown. Let's say somebody selects Dogs and Cats. Now, I want to be able to return all properties that contain BOTH dogs and cats in the many to many table, PropertyPets. I'm trying to do this with Linq to Sql. I've looked at the Contains clause, but it doesn't seem to work for my requirement: var result = properties.Where(p => search.PetType.Contains(p.PropertyPets)); Here, search.PetType is an int[] array of the Id's for Dog and Cat (which were selected in the multiple select drop down). The problem is first, Contains requires a string not an IEnumerable of type PropertyPet. And second, I need to find the properties that have BOTH dogs and cats and not just simply containing one or the other. Thank you for any pointers.

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• Pet Store Loyalty Programs: I'm Not Loyal Yet!

  - by ruth.donohue

  After two years of constantly being asked (aka "pestered) by my now eight-year-old daughter for a dog (or any pet that is more interactive than a goldfish), I've finally compromised with a hamster purely by chance. Friends of ours had recently brought home a female hamster, and (surprise, surprise) two weeks later, they were looking for homes for 11 baby hamster pups. Since the pups were not yet ready to be weaned from their mother, my daughter and I had several weeks to get ready -- and we spent that extra time visiting a number of local pet stores and purchasing an assortment of hamster books, toys, exercise equipment, food, bedding, and cage -- not cheap! Now, I'm usually an online shopper (i.e. I love reading user reviews and comparing prices), but for kids, there is absolutely no online substitute for actually walking into a store and physically picking out something you want. We have two competing pet shops within close proximity to where we live, and I signed up for their rewards programs to get discounts on select items. I'm sure it takes a while to get my data into the system (after all, I did fill out a form the old-fashioned way), but as it has been more than two weeks for one store and over a week for the other, the window of opportunity is getting smaller as we by now pretty much have most of what we think we need. Everything I've purchased has been purely hamster or small animal related, so in an ideal world, the stores would have me easily figured out as a hamster owner. Here is what I would be expecting of a loyalty rewards program: Point me to some useful links, either information provied by the company or external websites where I can learn more. Any value-add a business can provide to make my life easier makes me a much more loyal customer. What things can I expect as a new pet owner? Any hamster communities? Any hamster-related events? Any vets that specialize in small animals in the vicinity? Send me an email with other related products I may be interested in. Upsell and cross-sell to me. We've go the basics and a couple of luxuries, but at this point, I'm pretty excited (surprisingly) about the hamster, and my daughter is footing the bill with her birthday and Christmas money. She and I would be more than happy to spend her money! Get this information to me faster. As I mentioned, my window of opportunity is getting smaller, as eithe rmy daughter's money will run out on other things or we'll start losing the thrill of buying new hamster toys and treats. I realize this is easier said than done, and undoubtedly, the stores are getting value knowing my basic customer information and purchase history. Buth, they could really benefit by delivering a loyalty program that really earned my loyalty. "Goldeen" needs a new water bottle, yogurt chips, and chew toys as he doesn't seem to like the ones we bought. So for now, I'll just go to whichever store is the most convenient. Oh, and just for fun (not related to this post), here are a couple of videos my daughter really got a kick out of watching: Hamster on a Piano Tic in a Spin-Dryer

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• Release Management as Orchestra

  - by ericajanine

  I read an excellent, concise article (http://www.buildmeister.com/articles/software_release_management_best_practices) on the basics of release management practices. In the article, it states "Release Management is often likened to the conductor of an orchestra, with the individual changes to be implemented the various instruments within it." I played in music ensembles for years, so this is especially close to my heart as example. I learned most of my discipline from hours and hours of practice at the hand of a very skilled conductor and leader. I also learned that the true magic in symphonic performance is one where everyone involved is focused on one sound, one goal. In turn, that solid focus creates a sound and experience bigger than just mechanics alone accomplish. In symphony, a conductor's true purpose is to make you, a performer, better so the overall sound and end product is better. The big picture (the performance of the composition) is the end-game, and all musicians in the orchestra know without question their part makes up an important but incomplete piece of that performance. A good conductor works with each section (e.g. group) to ensure their individual pieces are solid. Let's restate: The conductor leads and is responsible for ensuring those pieces are solid. While the performers themselves are doing the work, the conductor is the final authority on when the pieces are ready or not. If not, the conductor initiates the efforts to get them ready or makes the decision to scrap their parts altogether for the sake of an overall performance. Let it sink in, because it's clear--It is not the performer's call if they play their part as agreed, it's the conductor's final call to allow it. In comparison, if a software release manager is a conductor, the only way for that manager to be effective is to drive the overarching process and execution of individual pieces of a software development lifecycle. It does not mean the release manager performs each and every piece, it means the release manager has oversight and influence because the end-game is a successful software enhancin a useable environment. It means the release manager, not the developer or development manager, has the final call if something goes into a software release. Of course, this is not a process of autocracy or dictation of absolute rule, it's cooperative effort. But the release manager must have the final authority to make a decision if something is ready to be added to the bigger piece, the overall symphony of software changes being considered for package and release. It also goes without saying a release manager, like a conductor, must have full autonomy and isolation from other software groups. A conductor is the one on the podium waving a little stick at the each section and cueing them for their parts, not yelling from the back of the room while also playing a tuba and taking direction from the horn section. I have personally seen where release managers are relegated to being considered little more than coordinators, red-tapers to "satisfy" the demands of an audit group without being bothered to actually respect all that a release manager gives a group willing to employ them fully. In this dysfunctional scenario, development managers, project managers, business users, and other stakeholders have been given nearly full clearance to demand and push their agendas forward, causing a tail-wagging-the-dog scenario where an inherent conflict will ensue. Depending on the strength, determination for peace, and willingness to overlook a built-in expectation that is wrong, the release manager here must face the crafted conflict head-on and diffuse it as quickly as possible. Then, the release manager must clearly make a case why a change cannot be released without negative impact to all parties involved. If a political agenda is solely driving a software release, there IS no symphony, there is no "software lifecycle". It's just out-of-tune noise. More importantly, there is no real conductor. Sometimes, just wanting to make a beautiful sound is not enough. If you are a release manager, are you freed up enough to move, to conduct the sections of software creation to ensure a solid release performance is possible? If not, it's time to take stock in what your role actually is and see if that is what you truly want to achieve in your position. If you are, then you can successfully build your career and that of the people in your groups to create truly beautiful software (music) together.

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• Access Denied

  - by Tony Davis

  When Microsoft executives wake up in the night screaming, I suspect they are having a nightmare about their own version of Frankenstein's monster. Created with the best of intentions, without thinking too hard of the long-term strategy, and having long outlived its usefulness, the monster still lives on, occasionally wreaking vengeance on the innocent. Its name is Access; a living synthesis of disparate body parts that is resistant to all attempts at a mercy-killing. In 1986, Microsoft had no database products, and needed one for their new OS/2 operating system, the successor to MSDOS. In 1986, they bought exclusive rights to Sybase DataServer, and were also intent on developing a desktop database to capture Ashton-Tate's dominance of that market, with dbase. This project, first called 'Omega' and later 'Cirrus', eventually spawned two products: Visual Basic in 1991 and Access in late 1992. Whereas Visual Basic battled with PowerBuilder for dominance in the client-server market, Access easily won the desktop database battle, with Dbase III and DataEase falling away. Access did an excellent job of abstracting and simplifying the task of building small database applications in a short amount of time, for a small number of departmental users, and often for a transient requirement. There is an excellent front end and forms generator. We not only see it in Access but parts of it also reappear in SSMS. It's good. A business user can pull together useful reports, without relying on extensive technical support. A skilled Access programmer can deliver a fairly sophisticated application, whilst the traditional client-server programmer is still sharpening his pencil. Even for the SQL Server programmer, the forms generator of Access is useful for sketching out application designs. So far, so good, but here's where the problems start; Access ties together two different products and the backend of Access is the bugbear. The limitations of Jet/ACE are well-known and documented. They range from MDB files that are prone to corruption, especially as they grow in size, pathetic security, and "copy and paste" Backups. The biggest problem though, was an infamous lack of scalability. Because Microsoft never realized how long the product would last, they put little energy into improving the beast. Microsoft 'ate their own dog food' by using Access for Microsoft Exchange and Outlook. They choked on it. For years, scalability and performance problems with Exchange Server have been laid at the door of the Jet Blue engine on which it relies. Substantial development work in Exchange 2010 was required, just in order to improve the engine and storage schema so that it more efficiently handled the reading and writing of mails. The alternative of using SQL Server just never panned out. The Jet engine was designed to limit concurrent users to a small number (10-20). When Access applications outgrew this, bitter experience proved that there really is no easy upgrade path from Access to SQL Server, beyond rewriting the whole lot from scratch. The various initiatives to do this never quite bridged the cultural gulf between Access and a true relational database So, what are the obvious alternatives for small, strategic database applications? I know many users who, for simple 'list maintenance' requirements are very happy using Excel databases. Surely, now that PowerPivot has led the way, it is time for Microsoft to offer a new RAD package for database application development; namely an Excel-based front end for SQL Server Express. In that way, we'll have a powerful and familiar front end, to a scalable database, and a clear upgrade path when an app takes off and needs to go enterprise. Cheers, Tony.

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• How to Waste Your Marketing Budget

  - by Mike Stiles

  Philosophers have long said if you find out where a man’s money is, you’ll know where his heart is. Find out where money in a marketing budget is allocated, and you’ll know how adaptive and ready that company is for the near future. Marketing spends are an investment. Not unlike buying stock, the money is placed in areas the marketer feels will yield the highest return. Good stock pickers know the lay of the land, the sectors, the companies, and trends. Likewise, good marketers should know the media available to them, their audience, what they like & want, what they want their marketing to achieve…and trends. So what are they doing? And how are they doing? A recent eTail report shows nearly half of retailers planned on focusing on SEO, SEM, and site research technologies in the coming months. On the surface, that’s smart. You want people to find you. And you’re willing to let the SEO tail wag the dog and dictate the quality (or lack thereof) of your content such as blogs to make that happen. So search is prioritized well ahead of social, multi-channel initiatives, email, even mobile - despite the undisputed explosive growth and adoption of it by the public. 13% of retailers plan to focus on online video in the next 3 months. 29% said they’d look at it in 6 months. Buying SEO trickery is easy. Attracting and holding an audience with wanted, relevant content…that’s the hard part. So marketers continue to kick the content can down the road. Pretty risky since content can draw and bind customers to you. Asked to look a year ahead, retailers started thinking about CRM systems, customer segmentation, and loyalty, (again well ahead of online video, social and site personalization). What these investors are missing is social is spreading across every function of the enterprise and will be a part of CRM, personalization, loyalty programs, etc. They’re using social for engagement but not for PR, customer service, and sales. Mistake. Allocations are being made seemingly blind to the trends. Even more peculiar are the results of an analysis Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins made. She looked at how much time people spend with media types and how marketers are investing in those media. 26% of media consumption is online, marketers spend 22% of their ad budgets there. 10% of media time is spent with mobile, but marketers are spending 1% of their ad budgets there. 7% of media time is spent with print, but (get this) marketers spend 25% of their ad budgets there. It’s like being on Superman’s Bizarro World. Mary adds that of the online spending, most goes to search while spends on content, even ad content, stayed flat. Stock pickers know to buy low and sell high. It means peering with info in hand into the likely future of a stock and making the investment in it before it peaks. Either marketers aren’t believing the data and trends they’re seeing, or they can’t convince higher-ups to acknowledge change and adjust their portfolios accordingly. Follow @mikestilesImage via stock.xchng

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• Looking for a real-world example illustrating that composition can be superior to inheritance

  - by Job

  I watched a bunch of lectures on Clojure and functional programming by Rich Hickey as well as some of the SICP lectures, and I am sold on many concepts of functional programming. I incorporated some of them into my C# code at a previous job, and luckily it was easy to write C# code in a more functional style. At my new job we use Python and multiple inheritance is all the rage. My co-workers are very smart but they have to produce code fast given the nature of the company. I am learning both the tools and the codebase, but the architecture itself slows me down as well. I have not written the existing class hierarchy (neither would I be able to remember everything about it), and so, when I started adding a fairly small feature, I realized that I had to read a lot of code in the process. At the surface the code is neatly organized and split into small functions/methods and not copy-paste-repetitive, but the flip side of being not repetitive is that there is some magic functionality hidden somewhere in the hierarchy chain that magically glues things together and does work on my behalf, but it is very hard to find and follow. I had to fire up a profiler and run it through several examples and plot the execution graph as well as step through a debugger a few times, search the code for some substring and just read pages at the time. I am pretty sure that once I am done, my resulting code will be short and neatly organized, and yet not very readable. What I write feels declarative, as if I was writing an XML file that drives some other magic engine, except that there is no clear documentation on what the XML should look like and what the engine does except for the existing examples that I can read as well as the source code for the 'engine'. There has got to be a better way. IMO using composition over inheritance can help quite a bit. That way the computation will be linear rather than jumping all over the hierarchy tree. Whenever the functionality does not quite fit into an inheritance model, it will need to be mangled to fit in, or the entire inheritance hierarchy will need to be refactored/rebalanced, sort of like an unbalanced binary tree needs reshuffling from time to time in order to improve the average seek time. As I mentioned before, my co-workers are very smart; they just have been doing things a certain way and probably have an ability to hold a lot of unrelated crap in their head at once. I want to convince them to give composition and functional as opposed to OOP approach a try. To do that, I need to find some very good material. I do not think that a SCIP lecture or one by Rich Hickey will do - I am afraid it will be flagged down as too academic. Then, simple examples of Dog and Frog and AddressBook classes do not really connivence one way or the other - they show how inheritance can be converted to composition but not why it is truly and objectively better. What I am looking for is some real-world example of code that has been written with a lot of inheritance, then hit a wall and re-written in a different style that uses composition. Perhaps there is a blog or a chapter. I am looking for something that can summarize and illustrate the sort of pain that I am going through. I already have been throwing the phrase "composition over inheritance" around, but it was not received as enthusiastically as I had hoped. I do not want to be perceived as a new guy who likes to complain and bash existing code while looking for a perfect approach while not contributing fast enough. At the same time, my gut is convinced that inheritance is often the instrument of evil and I want to show a better way in a near future. Have you stumbled upon any great resources that can help me?

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• Need advice on which PCI SATA Controller Card to Purchase

  - by Matt1776

  I have a major issue with the build of a machine I am trying to get up and running. My goal is to create a file server that will service the needs of my software development, personal media storage and streaming/media server needs, as well as provide a strong platform for backing up all this data in a routine, cron-job oriented German efficiency sort of way. The issue is a simple one - all my drives are SATA drives and my motherboard controller only contains 4 ports. Solving the issue has proven to be an unmitigated nightmare. I would like advice on the purchase of the following: 4 Port internal SATA / 2 Port external eSATA PCI SATA Controller Card that has the following features and/or advantages: It must function. If I plug it in and attach drives, I expect my system to still make it to the Operating System login screen. It must function on CentOS, and I mean it must function WELL and with MINIMAL hassle. If hassle is unavoidable, there shall be CLEAR CUT and EASY TO FOLLOW instructions on how to install drivers and other supporting software. I do not need nor want fakeRAID - I will be setting up any RAID configurations from within the operating system. Now, if I am able to find such a mythical device, I would be eternally grateful to whomever would be able to point me in the right direction, a direction which I assume will be paved with yellow bricks. I am prepared to pay a considerable sum of money (as SATA controller cards go) and so paying anywhere between 60 to 120 dollars will not be an issue whatsoever. Does such a magical device exist? The following link shows an "example" of the type of thing I am looking for, however, I have no way of verifying that once I plug this baby in that my system will still continue to function once I've attached the drives, or that once I've made it to the OS, I will be able to install whatever drivers or software programs I need to make it work with relative ease. It doesn't have to be dog-shit simple, but it cannot involve kernels or brain surgery. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00552PLN4/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B003GSGMPU&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1HJG60XTZFJ48Z173HKY So does anyone have a suggestion regarding the subject I am asking about? PCI SATA Controller Cards? It would help if you've had experience with the component before - that is after all why I am asking here - for those who have had experience that I do not have. Bear in mind that this is for a home setup and that I do not have a company credit card. I have a budget with a 'relative' upper limit of about $150.00.

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• How to Use Windows’ Advanced Search Features: Everything You Need to Know

  - by Chris Hoffman

  You should never have to hunt down a lost file on modern versions of Windows — just perform a quick search. You don’t even have to wait for a cartoon dog to find your files, like on Windows XP. The Windows search indexer is constantly running in the background to make quick local searches possible. This enables the kind of powerful search features you’d use on Google or Bing — but for your local files. Controlling the Indexer By default, the Windows search indexer watches everything under your user folder — that’s C:\Users\NAME. It reads all these files, creating an index of their names, contents, and other metadata. Whenever they change, it notices and updates its index. The index allows you to quickly find a file based on the data in the index. For example, if you want to find files that contain the word “beluga,” you can perform a search for “beluga” and you’ll get a very quick response as Windows looks up the word in its search index. If Windows didn’t use an index, you’d have to sit and wait as Windows opened every file on your hard drive, looked to see if the file contained the word “beluga,” and moved on. Most people shouldn’t have to modify this indexing behavior. However, if you store your important files in other folders — maybe you store your important data a separate partition or drive, such as at D:\Data — you may want to add these folders to your index. You can also choose which types of files you want to index, force Windows to rebuild the index entirely, pause the indexing process so it won’t use any system resources, or move the index to another location to save space on your system drive. To open the Indexing Options window, tap the Windows key on your keyboard, type “index”, and click the Indexing Options shortcut that appears. Use the Modify button to control the folders that Windows indexes or the Advanced button to control other options. To prevent Windows from indexing entirely, click the Modify button and uncheck all the included locations. You could also disable the search indexer entirely from the Programs and Features window. Searching for Files You can search for files right from your Start menu on Windows 7 or Start screen on Windows 8. Just tap the Windows key and perform a search. If you wanted to find files related to Windows, you could perform a search for “Windows.” Windows would show you files that are named Windows or contain the word Windows. From here, you can just click a file to open it. On Windows 7, files are mixed with other types of search results. On Windows 8 or 8.1, you can choose to search only for files. If you want to perform a search without leaving the desktop in Windows 8.1, press Windows Key + S to open a search sidebar. You can also initiate searches directly from Windows Explorer — that’s File Explorer on Windows 8. Just use the search box at the top-right of the window. Windows will search the location you’ve browsed to. For example, if you’re looking for a file related to Windows and know it’s somewhere in your Documents library, open the Documents library and search for Windows. Using Advanced Search Operators On Windows 7, you’ll notice that you can add “search filters” form the search box, allowing you to search by size, date modified, file type, authors, and other metadata. On Windows 8, these options are available from the Search Tools tab on the ribbon. These filters allow you to narrow your search results. If you’re a geek, you can use Windows’ Advanced Query Syntax to perform advanced searches from anywhere, including the Start menu or Start screen. Want to search for “windows,” but only bring up documents that don’t mention Microsoft? Search for “windows -microsoft”. Want to search for all pictures of penguins on your computer, whether they’re PNGs, JPEGs, or any other type of picture file? Search for “penguin kind:picture”. We’ve looked at Windows’ advanced search operators before, so check out our in-depth guide for more information. The Advanced Query Syntax gives you access to options that aren’t available in the graphical interface. Creating Saved Searches Windows allows you to take searches you’ve made and save them as a file. You can then quickly perform the search later by double-clicking the file. The file functions almost like a virtual folder that contains the files you specify. For example, let’s say you wanted to create a saved search that shows you all the new files created in your indexed folders within the last week. You could perform a search for “datecreated:this week”, then click the Save search button on the toolbar or ribbon. You’d have a new virtual folder you could quickly check to see your recent files. One of the best things about Windows search is that it’s available entirely from the keyboard. Just press the Windows key, start typing the name of the file or program you want to open, and press Enter to quickly open it. Windows 8 made this much more obnoxious with its non-unified search, but unified search is finally returning with Windows 8.1.     

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• &ldquo;My life at Oracle&rdquo;

  - by cristian.condurache(at)oracle.com

  Hello everybody! My name is Eva and I currently work in Oracle Italy as Sales Programs Manager for the Technology Sales organization. Since 2009, I also proudly represent the Oracle Education Foundation within my country as the Ambassador for Italy. My career path in this amazing company began 5 years ago as a fresh graduate: after various years studying abroad, in Germany and Ireland mainly, I was looking for a valuable and concrete opportunity which could fulfill my energetic spirit. I wanted to develop myself inside a stimulating and “fast” business environment.. and here came Oracle and I really couldn’t ask for anything better!  THE PARTNER EXPERIENCE The first department I had the chance to work into was the Alliances and Channels organization, where I had the opportunity to join a brilliant team of great and visionary guys. I began having the responsibility to analyze and rationalize the portfolio of Oracle business partners and to identify potential cross-area solutions, which had to be highlighted both on the local market and internationally: this ended up with the implementation of the “Partner Community” model, a business environment of selected Oracle partners, specialized on the different technology focus areas. This new concept was then recognized as an EMEA Best Practice and replicated internationally. Having the opportunity to strengthen day after day strategic relationships with several business partners and study the market positioning of their technology solutions, I was given the role to develop the “Oracle Partner Network Innovation Award” in Italy: the EMEA competition encouraging and rewarding proven and successful technology innovations, creating high value for our common customers and generating new business potential. Several Italian partner solutions won different prizes and I decided that it was worth collecting all those valuable projects, winners and short-listed, inside two specific books in order also to provide them an international market visibility: OPN Innovation Award Booklet 2007 and OPN Innovation Award Booklet 2008 Inside the Alliances and Channels department I really had the opportunity to do    amazing things, like for example working side-by-side with one of the most exceptional teams in Oracle I have ever worked with: the EMEA Recruitment Team. Together, in fact, we conceived a brand new business initiative for our partners, called “Oracle Campus Joint Program”. This program was awarded as an EMEA Best Practice and acknowledged by both Italian public institutions and press media. Italy   is currently running its 5th edition.   Briefly, the “Oracle Campus Joint Program” aims at facing the growing issue of lack of  technology competences and skills on the market. By identifying a specific technology area and developing an intensive 4-6 week Oracle University training course and by collaborating with important academic institutes, international “gurus” and professionals, our business partners are able to benefit from a pool of brilliant top talented young consultants and offer them a significant career opportunity. BUSINESS BUT NOT ONLY: THE NO-PROFIT EXPERIENCE OF ORACLE Currently my mission in Oracle is to continue driving the implementation of strategic business development and sales programs for the entire Oracle Technology stack, involving both partners and the end-customers. But as a completely distinguished role from the day-today business, I’m also honored to represent in Italy the charity global organization founded by Oracle - the Oracle Education Foundation - and drive its corporate citizenship and marketing programs. Oracle Education Foundation is an independent charitable organization funded by Oracle and is dedicated to helping students develop 21st century skills through project learning and the use of technology. It provides “ThinkQuest” as a free program to primary and secondary (K12) schools. Just some significant numbers: today 548,000 students/teachers in 47 countries use ThinkQuest and the Oracle Education Foundation partners with 40+ no-profit or government organizations globally. ABOUT MYSELF AND MY INTERESTS About myself…I’m very enthusiastic and positive, trying always to transform difficult issues in challenging opportunities. My day usually begins very early in the morning with running, swimming or when I need to collect some “zen” energies with a yoga session or better with a long walk with my dog. I definitely love animals and generally speaking I’m very keen on environmental issues and try, as much as I can, to carry out a healthy and “planet respectful” lifestyle. My thirst for knowledge pushed me some time ago to begin a new personal challenge: I decided to enroll, dedicating a good part of my free time, for a second university degree: I chose “Neuroeconomics”, an innovative academic path which combines psychology, economics, and neuroscience and studies how people make decisions and the role of the brain when people evaluate these decisions, categorizing risks and rewards and generally interacting with each other. I’ve been very glad to talk about my experience in this article, as working for Oracle is something very stimulating. This company ensures you the opportunity to face new challenges, work with highly talented people and be professionally highlighted also globally. Motivation, good results and innovation is always pursued, recognized and fully supported. Thanks and wish you all an amazing career! If you have any question please contact [email protected]. For our job opportunities, please look at http://campus.oracle.com.   Technorati Tags: EMEA,Oracle Partners,Oracle Campus,Oracle Education,experience,EMEA Recruitment Team

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• Off The Beaten Path—Three Things Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful For

  - by Christine Randle

  By: Jim Lein, Senior Director, Oracle Accelerate Last Sunday I went on a walkabout.  That’s when I just step out the door of my Colorado home and hike through the mountains for hours with no predetermined destination. I favor “social trails”, the unmapped routes pioneered by both animal and human explorers.  These tracks  are usually more challenging than established, marked routes and you can’t be 100% sure of where you’re going to end up. But I’ve found the rewards to be much greater. For awhile, I pondered on how—depending upon your perspective—the current economic situation worldwide could be viewed as either a classic “the glass is half empty” or a “the glass is half full” scenario. Midsize companies buy Oracle to grow and so I’m continually amazed and fascinated by the success stories our customers relate to me.  Oracle’s successful midsize companies are growing via innovation, agility, and opportunity. For them, the glass isn’t half full—it’s overflowing. Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful for: Innovation The sun angling through the pine trees reminded me of a conversation with a European customer a year ago May.  You might not recognize the name but, chances are, your local evening weather report relies on this company’s weather observation, monitoring and measurement products.  For decades, the company was recognized in its industry for product innovation, but its recent rapid growth comes from tailoring end to end product and service solutions based on the needs of distinctly different customer groups across industrial, public sector, and defense sectors.  Hours after that phone call I was walking my dog in a local park and came upon a small white plastic box sprouting short antennas and dangling by a nylon cord from a tree branch.  I cut it down. The name of that customer’s company was stamped on the housing. “It’s a radiosonde from a high altitude weather balloon,” he told me the next day. “Keep it as a souvenir.”  It sits on my fireplace mantle and elicits many questions from guests. Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful for: Agility In July, I had another interesting discussion with the CFO of an Asia-Pacific company which owns and operates a large portfolio of leisure assets. They are best known for their epic outdoor theme parks. However, their primary growth today is coming from a chain of indoor amusement centers in the USA where billiards, bowling, and laser tag take the place of roller coasters, kiddy rides, and wave pools. With mountains and rivers right out my front door, I’m not much for theme parks, but I’ll take a spirited game of laser tag any day.  This company has grown dramatically since first implementing Oracle ERP more than a decade ago. Their profitable expansion into a completely foreign market is derived from the ability to replicate proven and efficient best business practices across diverse operating environments.  They recently went live on Oracle’s Fusion HCM and Taleo. Their CFO explained to me how, with thousands of employees in three countries, Fusion HCM and Taleo would enable them to remain incredibly agile by acting on trends linking individual employee performance to their management, establishing and maintaining those best practices. Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful for: Opportunity I have three GPS apps on my iPhone. I use them mainly to keep track of my stats—distance, time, and vertical gain. However, every once in awhile I need to find the most efficient route back home before dark from my current location (notice I didn’t use the word “lost”). In August I listened in on an interview with the CFO of another European company that designs and delivers telematics solutions—the integrated use of telecommunications and informatics—for managing the mobile workforce. These solutions enable customers to achieve evolutionary step-changes in their performance and service delivery. Forgive the overused metaphor, but this is route optimization on steroids.  The company’s executive team saw an opportunity in this emerging market and went “all in”. Consequently, they are being rewarded with tremendous growth results and market domination by providing the ability for their clients to collect and analyze performance information related to fuel consumption, service workforce safety, and asset productivity. This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for health, family, friends, and a career with an innovative company that helps companies leverage top tier software to drive and manage growth. And I’m thankful to have learned the lesson that good things happen when you get off the beaten path—both when hiking and when forging new routes through a complex world economy. Halfway through my walkabout on Sunday, after scrambling up a long stretch of scree-covered hill, I crested a ridge with an obstructed view of 14,265 ft Mt Evans just a few miles to the west.  There, nowhere near a house or a trail, someone had placed a wooden lounge chair. Its wood was worn and faded but it was sturdy. I had lunch and a cold drink in my pack. Opportunity knocked and I seized it. Happy Thanksgiving.  

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