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• Login for webapp, needs to be available for support staff

  - by Christian W

  I know the title is a little off, but it's hard to explain the problem in a short sentence. I am the administrator of a legacy webapp that lets users create surveys and distribute them to a group of people. We have two kinds of "users". Authorized licenseholders which does all setup themselves. Clients who just want to have a survey run, but still need a user (because the webapp has "User" as the top entity in a surveyenvironment.) Sometimes users in #1 want us to do the setup for them (which we offer to do). This means that we have to login as them. This is also how we do support: we login as them and then follow them along, guiding them. Which brings me to my dilemma. Currently our security is below par. But this makes it simple for us to do support. We do want to increase our security, and one thing I have been considering is just doing the normal hashing to DB, however, we need to be able to login as a customer, and if they change their password without telling us, and the password is hashed in the db, we have no way of knowing it. So I was thinking of some kind of twoway encryption for the passwords. Either that or some kind of master password. Any suggestions? (The platform is classic ASP... I said it was legacy...)

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• how can I parse and group/do stats on user agent strings?

  - by user151841

  I have a database that has the various user-agent strings of visitors to our site. I'd like to do a 'survey' of them to see what browsers our users are using, so that I can know what features I can use in future development. Is there a tool to parse and run statistics on user-agent strings, or a bunch of strings like this? Ideally, I'd like to see a hierarchical grouping of the stats. For instance: Opera/9.80 (Windows Mobile; WCE; Opera Mobi/WMD-50301; U; en) Presto/2.4.13 Version/10.00 Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.2.14912/1280; U; en) Presto/2.2.0 Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.2.13918/812; U; en) Presto/2.2.0 Opera/9.64 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X; U; en) Presto/2.1.1 Opera/9.60 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.2.13918/786; U; en) Presto/2.2.0 Opera/9.60 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.0.10992/432; U; en) Presto/2.2.0 I'd like to see 6 entries for Opera, broken down into 3 for 9.80, 1 for 9.64 and 2 for 9.60, and so forth for all browsers. Other dimensions, such as OS, would cross the boundaries of the browser version hierarchy, but it might be nice to see also.

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• Sync Framework Considerations for Smart Client app

  - by DarkwingDuck

  Microsoft Sync Framework with SQL 2005? Is it possible? It seems to hint that the OOTB providers use SQL2008 functionality. I'm looking for some quick wins in relation to a sync project. The client app will be offline for a number of days. There will be a central server that MUST be SQL Server 2005. I can use .net 3.5. Basically the client app could go offline for a week. When it comes back online it needs to sync its data. But the good thing is that the data only needs to push to the server. The stuff that syncs back to the client will just be lookup data which the client never changes. So this means I don't care about sync collisions. To simplify the scenario for you, this smart client goes offline and the user surveys data about some observations. They enter the data into the system. When the laptop is reconnected to the network, it syncs back all that data to the server. There will be other clients doing the same thing too, but no one ever touches each other's data. Then there are some reports on the server for viewing the data that has been pushed to the server. This also needs to use ClickOnce. My biggest concern is that there is an interim release while a client is offline. This release might require a new field in the database, and a new field to fill in on the survey. Obviously that new field will be nullable because we can't update old data, that's fine to set as an assumption. But when the client connects up and its local data schema and the server schema don't match, will sync framework be able to handle this? After the data is pushed to the server it is discarded locally. Hope my problem makes sense.

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• User Management: Managing users in user-defined "groups", database schema and logistics

  - by Kevin Brown

  I'm a noob, development wise and logistically-wise. I'm developing a site that lets people take a test... My client wants the ability for a user with the roll/privledge "admin" (a step below a super-admin) to be allowed to create users and only see/edit the users that they create... The users created in that "category" or group need some information that their superior provides. For example, I log in as a "manager", I have the ability to invite people to take the test, and manage those people. Before adding those people, I will have filled out a short survey about myself... Right now, the users that are invited will be asked some of the same questions as the manager. I'd like to cut down the redundancy by using the information put into the database by the manager and apply it to the invited users. How do I set up my database to work with this criterion? I'm a little confused about how to do this! Let me know if I can add more details... (This is a mysql and php app)

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• Panel not displaying while dowloading file

  - by James123

  I wrote download excel file in my code. If I click download button I need show ajax-load image (pnlPopup panel). But it is not displaying. I think because of Some "Response" statements (see below code). Download working fine, but simultaniously I want show loader panel too. <asp:Panel ID="pnlPopup" runat="server" visible="false"> <div align="center" style="margin-top: 13px;"> <asp:Image runat ="server" ID="imgDownload" src="Images/ajax-loader.gif" alt="" /> <br /> <span class="updateProgressMessage">downloading ...</span> </div> Protected Sub btnDownload_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) 'Handles btnDownload.Click' Try pnlPopup.Visible = True Dim mSurvey As New Survey Dim mUser As New User Dim dtExcel As DataTable mUser = CType(Session("user"), User) dtExcel = mSurvey.CreateExcelWorkbook(mUser.UserID, mUser.Client.ID) Dim filename As String = "Download.xls" InitializeWorkbook() GenerateData(dtExcel) Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-excel" Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", String.Format("attachment;filename={0}", filename)) Response.Clear() Response.BinaryWrite(WriteToStream.GetBuffer) Response.End() Catch ex As Exception Finally End Try End Sub

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• Group vs role (Any real difference?)

  - by Ondrej

  Can anyone tell me, what's the real difference between group and role? Ive been trying to figure this out for some time now and the more information I read, the more I get the sence, that this is brought up just to confuse people and there is no proper difference in this. Both can do the other one's job. Ive always used a group to manage users and their access rights. Recently, I've come accross an administration software, where is a bunch of users. Each user can have assigned a module (whole system is split into a few parts called modules ie. Administration module, Survey module, Orders module, Customer module). On top of it, each module have a list of functionalities, that can be allowed or denied for each user. So let's say, a user John Smith can access module Orders and can edit any order, but havent given a right to delete any of them. If there was more users with the same competency, I would use a group to manage that. I would aggregate such users into the same group and assign access rights to modules and their functions to the group. All users in the same group would have the same access rights. Why call it a group and not role? I don't know, I just feel it that way. It seems to me, that simply it just doesnt really matter :] But I still would like to know the real difference. What about you guys? Any suggestions why this should be rather called role than group or the other way round? Thanks to everyone.

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• Codeigniter: Library function--I'm stuck

  - by Kevin Brown

  I have a library function that sets up my forms, and submits data. They're long, and they work, so I'll spare you reading my code. :) I simply need a way for my functions to determine how to handle the data. Until now, the function did one thing: Submit a report for the current user. NOW, the client has requested that an administrator also be able to complete a form--this means that the form would be filled out, and it would CREATE a user at the same time, whereas the current function EDITS and is accessed by an EXISTING user. Do I need a separate function to do essentially the same thing? How do I make one function perform two tasks? One to update a user, and if there is no user, create one. Current controller: function survey() { $id = $this->session->userdata('id'); $data['member'] = $this->home_model->getUser($id); //Convert the db Object to a row array $data['manager'] = $data['member']->row(); $manager_id = $data['manager']->manager_id; $data['manager'] = $this->home_model->getUser($manager_id); $data['manager'] = $data['manager']->row(); $data['header'] = "Home"; $this->survey_form_processing->survey_form($this->_container,$data, $method); } Current Library: function survey_form($container) { //Lots of validation stuff $this->CI->validation->set_rules($rules); if ( $this->CI->validation->run() === FALSE ) { // Output any errors $this->CI->validation->output_errors(); } else { // Submit form $this->_submit(); } $this->CI->load->view($container,$data); The submit function is huge too. Basically says, "Update table with data where user_id=current user" I hope this wasn't too confusing. I'll create two functions if need be, but I'd like to keep redundancy down! }

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• How do I update a webpage with the progress of a server-side task?

  - by Jim B

  Hi everyone, I'm working on a web project that takes the results from a survey type application, and runs them through a bunch of calculations to come up with some recommended suggestions for the user. Now, this calculation might take a minute or so, so I'd like to be able to give the user some update on it's progress. Obviously, the quick and dirty solution would be to put up a message along the lines of "Please wait while we calculate your recommendations" with a spinning gear type graphic. (or whatever, you get the point..). Once the task completes, I'd redirect to the results page. However, I'd like to do something a little more flashy. Maybe something along the lines of a progress bar, and even prompt the user with what's going on in the background. For example, give them a progress bar, with some text that says "Now processing suggestion 3 of 15; Multi-Vitamin" Any suggestions on how I could set this up? One way I'm thinking of doing it is to write the progress of the calculation method to the HttpContext, and slap up an update panel and timer that would show/refresh this info. I've also checked out maybe building a web service/method, and then poll that at some interval. Has anybody done something similar to this before? What worked for you? Thanks again! ~Jim

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• Find all radio groups which haven't been selected

  - by nickf

  I have a basic quiz/survey type application I'm working on, and I'd like to give the user a prompt before they submit if they haven't answered all the questions. All the questions are multiple choice using radio buttons: <div class="question"> Q1: What is the second letter of the alphabet? <div class="choices"> <input type="radio" name="question_1" value="1" /> A <input type="radio" name="question_1" value="2" /> B <input type="radio" name="question_1" value="3" /> C </div> </div> <div class="question"> Q2: Which out of these is a berry? <div class="choices"> <input type="radio" name="question_2" value="1" /> Apples <input type="radio" name="question_2" value="2" /> Bananas <input type="radio" name="question_2" value="3" /> Carrots </div> </div> <div class="question"> ...etc How do you find which groups haven't got an option ticked? Or at least, if there are any which haven't been answered? jQuery is ok, and even preferred.

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• Java Spotlight Episode 108: Patrick Curran and Heather VanCura on JCP.Next @jcp_org

  - by Roger Brinkley

  Interview with Patrick Curran and Heather VanCura on JCP.Next. Right-click or Control-click to download this MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the Java Spotlight Podcast Feed to get the latest podcast automatically. If you use iTunes you can open iTunes and subscribe with this link:  Java Spotlight Podcast in iTunes. Show Notes News Welcome to the newly merged JCP EC! The November/December issue of Java Magazine is now out Red Hat announces intent to contribute to OpenJFX New OpenJDK JEPs: JEP 168: Network Discovery of Manageable Java Processes JEP 169: Value Objects Java EE 7 Survey Latest Java EE 7 Status GlassFish 4.0 Embedded (via @agoncal) Events Nov 13-17, Devoxx, Antwerp, Belgium Nov 20, JCP Public Meeting (see details below) Nov 20-22, DOAG 2012, Nuremberg, Germany Dec 3-5, jDays, Göteborg, Sweden Dec 4-6, JavaOne Latin America, Sao Paolo, Brazil Dec 14-15, IndicThreads, Pune, India Feature InterviewPatrick Curran is Chair of the Java Community Process organization. In this role he oversees the activities of the JCP's Program Management Office including evolving the process and the organization, managing its membership, guiding specification leads and experts through the process, chairing Executive Committee meetings, and managing the JCP.org web site.Patrick has worked in the software industry for more than 25 years, and at Sun and then Oracle for 20 years. He has a long-standing record in conformance testing, and before joining the JCP he led the Java Conformance Engineering team in Sun's Client Software Group. He was also chair of Sun's Conformance Council, which was responsible for defining Sun's policies and strategies around Java conformance and compatibility.Patrick has participated actively in several consortia and communities including the W3C (as a member of the Quality Assurance Working Group and co-chair of the Quality Assurance Interest Group), and OASIS (as co-chair of the Test Assertions Guidelines Technical Committee). Patrick's blog is here.Heather VanCura manages the JCP Program Office and is responsible for the day-to-day nurturing, support, and leadership of the community. She oversees the JCP.org web site, JSR management and posting, community building, events, marketing, communications, and growth of the membership through new members and renewals.  Heather has a front row seat for studying trends within the community and recommending changes. Several changes to the program in recent years have included enabling broader participation, increased transparency and agility in JSR development.  When Heather joined the PMO staff in a community building marketing manager role for the JCP program, she was responsible for establishing the JCP brand logo programs, the JCP.org site, and engaging the community in online surveys and usability studies. She also developed marketing reward programs,  campaigns, sponsorships, and events for the JCP program, including the community gathering at the annual JavaOne Conference.   Before arriving at the JCP community in 2000, Heather worked with various technology companies.  Heather enjoys speaking at conferences, such as Devoxx, Java Zone, and the JavaOne Conferences. She maintains the JCP Blog, Twitter feed (@jcp_org) and Facebook page.  Heather resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, California USA. JCP Executive Committee Public Meeting Details Date & Time Tuesday November 20, 2012, 3:00 - 4:00 pm PST Location Teleconference Dial-in +1 (866) 682-4770 Conference code: 627-9803 Security code: 52732 ("JCPEC" on your phone handset) For global access numbers see http://www.intercall.com/oracle/access_numbers.htm Or +1 (408) 774-4073 WebEx Browse for the meeting from https://jcp.webex.com No registration required (enter your name and email address) Password: JCPEC Agenda JSR 355 (the EC merge) implementation report JSR 358 (JCP.next.3) status report 2.8 status update and community audit program Discussion/Q&A Note The call will be recorded and the recording published on jcp.org, so those who are unable to join in real-time will still be able to participate. September 2012 EC meeting PMO report with JCP 2.8 statistics.JSR 358 Project page What’s Cool Sweden: Hot Java in the Winter GE Engergy using Invoke Daynamic for embedded development

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• XNA Notes 008

  - by George Clingerman

  This week has been a rough one. I’ve been sick and then in some kind of slump for my afternoon coding sessions. It could be from the cold, could be I’m still tired from writing that Windows Phone 7 game development book (which is out now!) or it could just be I’m tired of winter and want some sunshine. All I know is that even while I’m stick, the XNA world keeps going along at it’s whirlwind pace. Below are the things I caught in between my coughing fits.. Time Critical XNA News: The 2011 MVP summit is almost here so pass along your feelings and thoughts so the MVPs can take them and share them with the team in person http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/76317/464136.aspx#464136 Dream Build Play - there’s no new announcement yet, but you can’t get much more to the end of February than this! http://www.dreambuildplay.com/Main/Home.aspx XNA Team: Dean Johnson from the XNA team shares an excellent way of handling Guide.IsTrialMode on WP7 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dejohn/archive/2011/02/21/calling-guide-istrialmode-on-windows-phone-7.aspx Nick Gravelyn tries a new tactic in deciding if there’s enough interest to develop a sequel or not. Don’t YOU want Pixel Man 2 to come out? http://nickgravelyn.com/pixelman2/ XNA MVPs: Andy “The ZMan” Dunn finally shares what he’s been secretly working on these past 4 months http://twitter.com/#!/The_Zman/status/40590269392887808 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg8Z0ZdYbvg&feature=youtu.be Joel Martinez lets developers around NYC know they should by signing up for Game Hack Day http://twitter.com/joelmartinez/statuses/41118590862102528 http://gamehackday.org/71fdk XNA Developers: Michael McLaughlin shares an XNA RenderTarget2D Sample http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/02/18/xna-rendertarget2d-sample.aspx Martin Caine starts a new series on Deferred Rendering in XNA 4.0 http://twitter.com/#!/MartinCaine/status/39735221339291648 http://martincaine.com/xna/deferred_rendering_in_xna_4_introduction ElemenyCy posts about his fun time with the IntermediateSerializer http://www.ubergamermonkey.com/xna/holy-bloated-xml-batman/ Ben Kane releases a narrated dev diary video for Project Splice. Let him know if you’d like to see more! (I know I do!) http://twitter.com/#!/benkane/status/39846959498002432 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EmziXZUo08&feature=youtu.be Jason Swearingen (of Novaleaf) posts his part 1 of Spatial Partitioning solutions http://altdevblogaday.org/2011/02/21/spatial-partitioning-part-1-survey-of-spatial-partitioning-solutions/ Brian Lawson of Dark Flow Studios shares what his been up to lately with lots of pretty screenshots and hints of announcements from Microsoft... http://www.darkflowstudios.com/entry/short-and-sweet-part-1 Luke Avery starts a new blog where he plans on making XNA tutorials for beginners (and he’s got a few started already!) http://programmingwithovery.wordpress.com/ Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): GameMarx Episode 10 http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/24/ep-10-february-18-2010.aspx Minecraft clone FortressCraft coming to XBLIG http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-23-minecraft-clone-fortresscraft-hits-xblig ezMuze+ starts an IndieGoGo fundraiser campaign to help fund their second game and get it onto even more devices! http://www.indiegogo.com/ezmuze Gamergeddon XBLIG round up http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/02/20/xbox-indie-game-round-up-february-20th/?utm_campaign=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter JForce Games loses their Ego http://jforcegames.com/blog/index.php?itemid=121&catid=4 XNA Game Development: @BallerIndustry reminds all XNA developers that the Maths are important ;) http://twitter.com/#!/BallerIndustry/status/39317618280243200 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjV3XDFsjP4&feature=player_embedded#at=106 @suhinini stumbles on an older but extremely useful post on XNA Content Pipeline debugging http://twitter.com/#!/suhinini/status/39270189476352000 http://badcorporatelogo.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/xna-content-pipeline-debugging-4-0/ XNA Game Development Workshops at Singapore Universities http://innovativesingapore.com/2011/02/xna-game-development-workshops-at-singapore-universities/ Indiefreaks announces that IGF v0.3 is out with Xbox 360 support, SunBurn 2.0.12 and it’s now Open Source! http://twitter.com/#!/indiefreaks/status/39391953971982336 @liotral announces a new series on properly designing a game http://twitter.com/#!/liortal53/status/39466905081217024 http://liortalblog.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/hello-cosmos/ Indies and XNA at CodeStock 2011 http://www.gamemarx.com/news/2011/02/20/indies-and-xna-at-codestock-2011.aspx Train Frontier Express posts about XNA Content Hotloading http://trainfrontierexpress.blogspot.com/2011/02/xna-content-hotloading-overview.html Slyprid announces a new character editor in Transmute http://twitter.com/#!/slyprid/status/40146992818696192 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKhFAc78LDs&feature=youtu.be The XNA 2D from the ground up tutorial series http://xna-uk.net/blogs/darkgenesis/archive/2011/02/23/recap-the-xna-2d-from-the-ground-up-tutorial-series.aspx Sgt.Conker posts a “Clingerman” (hey that’s me!) to stay relevant http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/02/posting-a-clingerman-to-stay-relevant/

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• How to reproject a shapefile from WGS 84 to Spherical/Web Mercator projection.

  - by samkea

  Definitions: You will need to know the meaning of these terms below. I have given a small description to the acronyms but you can google and know more about them. #1:WGS-84- World Geodetic Systems (1984)- is a standard reference coordinate system used for Cartography, Geodesy and Navigation. #2: EPGS-European Petroleum Survey Group-was a scientific organization with ties to the European petroleum industry consisting of specialists working in applied geodesy, surveying, and cartography related to oil exploration. EPSG::4326 is a common coordinate reference system that refers to WGS84 as (latitude, longitude) pair coordinates in degrees with Greenwich as the central meridian. Any degree representation (e.g., decimal or DMSH: degrees minutes seconds hemisphere) may be used. Which degree representation is used must be declared for the user by the supplier of data. So, the Spherical/Web Mercator projection is referred to as EPGS::3785 which is renamed to EPSG:900913 by google for use in googlemaps. The associated CRS(Coordinate Reference System) for this is the "Popular Visualisation CRS / Mercator ". This is the kind of projection that is used by GoogleMaps, BingMaps,OSM,Virtual Earth, Deep Earth excetra...to show interactive maps over the web with thier nearly precise coordinates.  Reprojection: After reading alot about reprojecting my coordinates from the deepearth project on Codeplex, i still could not do it. After some help from a colleague, i got my ball rolling.This is how i did it. #1 You need to download and open your shapefile using Q-GIS; its the one with the biggest number of coordinate reference systems/ projections. #2 Use the plugins menu, and enable ftools and the WFS plugin. #3 Use the Vector menu--> Data Management Tools and choose define current projection. Enable, use predefined reference system and choose WGS 84 coodinate system. I am personally in zone 36, so i chose WGS84-UTM Zone 36N under ( Projected Coordinate Systems--> Universal Transverse Mercator) and click ok. #4 Now use the Vector menu--> Data Management Tools and choose export to new projection. The same dialog will pop-up. Now choose WGS 84 EPGS::4326 under Geodetic Coordinate Systems. My Input user Defined Spatial Reference System should looks like this: +proj=tmerc +lat_0=0 +lon_0=33 +k=0.9996 +x_0=500000 +y_0=200000 +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +units=m +no_defs Your Output user Defined Spatial Reference System should look like this: +proj=longlat +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +no_defs Browse for the place where the shapefile is going to be and give the shapefile a name(like origna_reprojected). If it prompts you to add the projected layer to the TOC, accept. There, you have your re-projected map with latitude and longitude pair of coordinates. #5 Now, this is not the actual Spherical/Web Mercator projection, but dont worry, this is where you have to stop. All the other custom web-mapping portals will pick this projection and transform it into EPGS::3785 or EPSG:900913 but the coordinates will still remain as the LatLon pair of the projected shapefile. If you want to test, a particular know point, Q-GIS has a lot of room for that. Go ahead and test it.

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• Google, typography, and cognitive fluency for persuasion

  - by Roger Hart

  Cognitive fluency is - roughly - how easy it is to think about something. Mere Exposure (or familiarity) effects are basically about reacting more favourably to things you see a lot. Which is part of why marketers in generic spaces like insipid mass-market lager will spend quite so much money on getting their logo daubed about the place; or that guy at the bus stop starts to look like a dating prospect after a month or two. Recent thinking suggests that exposure effects likely spin off cognitive fluency. We react favourably to things that are easier to think about. I had to give tech support to an older relative recently, and suggested they Google the problem. They were confused. They could not, apparently, Google the problem, because part of it was that their Google toolbar had mysteriously vanished. Once I'd finished trying not to laugh, I started thinking about typography. This is going somewhere, I promise. Google is a ubiquitous brand. Heck, it's a verb, and their recent, jaw-droppingly well constructed Paris advert is more or less about that ubiquity. It trades on Google's integration into any information-seeking behaviour. But, as my tech support encounter suggests, people settle into comfortable patterns of thinking about things. They build schemas, and altering them can take work. Maybe the ubiquity even works to cement that. Alongside their online effort, Google is running billboard campaigns to advertise Chrome, a free product in a crowded space. They are running these ads in some kind of kooky Calibri / Comic Sans hybrid. Now, at first it seems odd that one of the world's more ubiquitous brands needs to run a big print campaign in public places - surely they have all the fluency they need? Well, not so much. Chrome, after all, is not the same as their core product, so there's some basic awareness work to do, and maybe a whole new batch of exposure effect to try and grab. But why the typeface? It's heavily foregrounded, and the ads are extremely textual. Plus, don't we all know that jovial, off-beat fonts look unprofessional, or something? There's a whole bunch of people who want (often rightly) to ban Comic Sans I wonder, though. Are Google trying to subtly disrupt cognitive fluency? There's an interesting paper (pdf) about - among other things - the effects of typography on they way people answer survey questions. Participants given the slightly harder to read question gave more abstract answers. The paper references other work suggesting that generally speaking, less-fluent question framing elicits more considered answers. The Chrome ad typeface is less fluent for print. Reactions may therefore be more considered, abstract, and disruptive. Is that, in fact, what Google need? They have brand ubiquity, but they want here to change accustomed behaviour, to get people to think about changing their browser. Is this actually a very elegant piece of persuasive information design? If you think about their "what is a browser?" vox pop research video, there's certainly a perceptual barrier they're going to have to tackle somehow.

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• Challenges and Opportunities to Drive Change in the Healthcare System Explored at America’s Health Insurance Plans Exchange Conference and Institute 2013

  - by elaine blog

  The program theme at the June America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Exchange Conference and AHIP’s Institute 2013 was Transforming Our Health Care System: Navigating and Succeeding in the New Marketplace.  Topics included care delivery transformation, innovation for a new healthcare eco system, Health Insurance Exchanges, the nexus of consumerism, retail and healthcare, driving value through improved operations and leveraging technology, data and innovation to transform care. Oracle participated as a sponsor of both conferences, signaling the significant investment and activity Oracle continues to make in helping health plans, providers and government agencies become more efficient and more relevant in the healthcare market place. AHIP is a national trade association representing the health insurance industry. AHIP’s members provide health and supplemental benefits to more than 200 million Americans through employer-sponsored coverage, the individual insurance market and public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.   AHIP advocates for public policies that expand access to affordable health care. Health plans are focusing on the Health Insurance Exchanges and the opportunities they offer to provide better access and higher quality healthcare.  With the opportunities come operational challenges to implementation and innovative technology solutions to consider.   At the Exchange Conference, Oracle hosted a breakfast symposium on “Strategies for Success:  Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market”. With Health Insurance Exchanges as catalysts for change, attendees learned about how to achieve integration within an Exchange and deploy new business strategies to support health reform initiatives. Discussion covered steps and processes to successfully establish and implement enrollment systems, quote to card activities, program pricing, claims billing, automated claims processing and new customer service tools. Piyush Pushkar, COO of Benefitalign, an Oracle partner that provides solutions to adopt innovative business models for retail, HIX, consumer-centric health plan and benefits administration, spoke on the state of the Exchanges in the U.S. and the activities health plans are engaged in to support individuals entering the healthcare system, including sales automation, member enrollment automation/portals and integration strategies with the Exchanges. The Oracle and Benefitalign partnership allows seamless integration between a health plan enrollment solution with the HIX individual market and allows for the health plan to customize and characterize the offerings available to the HIX that may or may not be available through other channels.  This approach can benefit the health plan through separation of interests, but also because some state-run HIXs require such separation. Janice W. Young, Program Director, Payer IT Strategies, IDC Health Insights, reviewed a survey of health plans on their investment priorities for this last year as well as this year.  She also identified the 2013-2015 strategies of go/get to market with front end and compliance investments; leveraging existing business processes and internal technologies; and establishing best practices.  Of key interest to the audience was a reform era payer solutions platform overview mapping technologies to support the business operations. David Bonham of the Oracle Health Insurance organization moderated the panel and spoke on Oracle’s presence in healthcare and products for payers to help them drive efficiencies and gain a competitive advantage in an ever changing market. Oracle serves healthcare stakeholders with applications such as billing, rating and underwriting, analytics, CRM, enrollment, and products for processing of health insurance claims including pricing and benefits administration, as well as payment of providers through alternative, non-fee for service reimbursement methods. Oracle in Healthcare….Did you know? More than 80 healthcare payers run Oracle applications. More than 300 leading healthcare providers run Oracle applications. 10 out of the top 12 fortune Global 500 healthcare organizations run Oracle applications. For more information on Oracle solutions for healthcare payers, please visit oracle.com/insurance or these individual solution pages: Oracle Health Insurance Components Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting Oracle Insurance Revenue Management and Billing Oracle Documaker Oracle Healthcare Oracle CRM Related Resources Webcast On Demand: Strategies for Success: Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market Strategy Brief: Executing on the Individual Mandate: Opportunities and Challenges for Healthcare Payers White Paper: White paper: Navigating Alternative Provider Reimbursement Models of the Future Strategy Brief: Enterprise Rating Agility Improves Payer Response to Healthcare Reform Podcast: Technology Implications of Healthcare Reform Don’t forget to keep up with us year-round: Facebook: www.facebook.com/oracleinsurance Twitter: www.twitter.com/oracleinsurance YouTube: www.youtube.com/oracleinsurance

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• wcf http 504: Working on a mystery

  - by James Fleming

  Ok,  So you're here because you've been trying to solve the mystery of why you're getting a 504 error. If you've made it to this lonely corner of the Internet, then the advice you're getting from other bloggers isn't the answer you are after. It wasn't the answer I needed either, so once I did solve my problem, I thought I'd share the answer with you. For starters, if by some miracle, you landed here first you may not already know that the 504 error is NOT coming from IIS or Casini, that response code is coming from Fiddler. HTTP/1.1 504 Fiddler - Receive Failure Content-Type: text/html Connection: close Timestamp: 09:43:05.193 ReadResponse() failed: The server did not return a response for this request.       The take away here is Fiddler won't help you with the diagnosis and any further digging in that direction is a red herring. Assuming you've dug around a bit, you may have arrived at posts which suggest you may be getting the error because you're trying to hump too much data over the wire, and have an urgent need to employ an anti-pattern: due to a special case: http://delphimike.blogspot.com/2010/01/error-504-in-wcfnet-35.html Or perhaps you're experiencing wonky behavior using WCF-CustomIsolated Adapter on Windows Server 2008 64bit environment, in which case the rather fly MVP Dwight Goins' advice is what you need. http://dgoins.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/64bit-wcf-custom-isolated-%E2%80%93-rest-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%9C504%E2%80%9D-response/ For me, none of that was helpful. I could perform a get on a single record  http://localhost:8783/Criterion/Skip(0)/Take(1) but I couldn't get more than one record in my collection as in:  http://localhost:8783/Criterion/Skip(0)/Take(2) I didn't have a big payload, or a large number of objects (as you can see by the size of one record below) - - A-1B f5abd850-ec52-401a-8bac-bcea22c74138 .biological/legal mother This item refers to the supervisor’s evaluation of the caseworker’s ability to involve the biological/legal mother in the permanency planning process. 75d8ecb7-91df-475f-aa17-26367aeb8b21 false true Admin account 2010-01-06T17:58:24.88 1.20 764a2333-f445-4793-b54d-1c3084116daa So while I was able to retrieve one record without a hitch (thus the record above) I wasn't able to return multiple records. I confirmed I could get each record individually, (Skip(1)/Take(1))so it stood to reason the problem wasn't with the data at all, so I suspected a serialization error. The first step to resolving this was to enable WCF Tracing. Instructions on how to set it up are here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms733025.aspx. The tracing log led me to the solution. The use of type 'Application.Survey.Model.Criterion' as a get-only collection is not supported with NetDataContractSerializer.  Consider marking the type with the CollectionDataContractAttribute attribute or the SerializableAttribute attribute or adding a setter to the property. So I was wrong (but close!). The problem was a deserializing issue in trying to recreate my read only collection. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa347850.aspx#Y1455 So looking at my underlying model, I saw I did have a read only collection. Adding a setter was all it took.         public virtual ICollection<string> GoverningResponses         {             get             {                 if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(GoverningResponse))                 {                     return GoverningResponse.Split(';');                 }                 else                     return null;             }                  } Hope this helps. If it does, post a comment.

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• Silverlight Cream for March 31, 2010 -- #826

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Andrea Boschin, Radenko Zec, Andrej Tozon, Bobby Diaz, Brad Abrams, Wolf Schmidt, Colin Eberhardt, Anand Iyer, Matthias Shapiro, Jaime Rodriguez, Bill Reiss, and Lee. Shoutouts: Cigdem has a post up about here MIX10 Interviewing experiences: MIX10 SilverlightShow Interviews Ian T. Lackey has his material up from his talk Silverlight SEO at the St. Louis .Net Users Group Not Silverlight but definitely WP7 cool, Michael Klucher reports that there are New Windows Phone Samples on Creators Club Online Tim Heuer posted a survey: What tools are the minimum to get started in Silverlight? From SilverlightCream.com: A RoleManager to apply roles declaratively to user interface Andrea Boschin also has a new post at SilverlightShow discussing the use of a RoleManager in WCF RIA Services to apply user roles to elements of the UI... good stuff, Andrea. Virtualization in Silverlight 4 RC Radenko Zec has a post out at SilverlightShow where he explains UI and Data Virtualization then gives some examples of their use in Silverlight 4RC, and some issues as well. MS Word Mail Merge with Silverlight 4 COM Automation Andrej Tozon has a post up at SilverlightShow that I missed in the rush of MIX10. He's doing MailMerge with COM automation and Silverlight 4... actually prett cool stuff and all the source! KISS and Tell - MVVM and the ViewModelLocator Bobby Diaz is blogging about a very popular subject right now: ViewModelLocator. He's not showing production code, but it's a thought... check it out. Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Validating Data I'm running behind, but Brad Abrams' next post in his series is about validating data in the business application. He also discusses setting up shared code validation. A One-stop Shopping XAML Namespace for Silverlight Client SDK Controls Wolf Schmidt at the Silverlight SDK has a post up highlighting the SL4 XAML namespace prefix. He starts with SL3 then demonstrates the feature's use in SL4. Binding a Silverlight 3 DataGrid to dynamic data via IDictionary (Updated) Colin Eberhardt has an update to his previous article of the same title. This one is a bug fix on an upgrade to SL3 and also an expansion of the previous post. Demo Apps from MIX10 on Windows Phone 7 Anand Iyer posted links to all the WP7 demos used at MIX10 and at least in the case of FourSquare, the source is on CodePlex. XAML Files for Location Visualizations in Silverlight and WPF Matthias Shapiro has graciously provided XAML for us for Silverlight and WPF for a bunch of different US maps... too cool, now we don't have to be asking 'where did you get that map?'... thanks Matthias! Theming in Windows Phone Jaime Rodriguez has a post up that deep-dives theming in general and demonstrates using it on WP7... end-user configurations and developer stuff. Space Rocks game step 7: Moving the ship It appears that in the heat of battle (blogging) I said Bill Reiss' Space Rocks game he's building is for WP7... obviously it's not, but it's a game folks... :) THis is Episode 7 and he's moving the ship now. SL4(RC) RichTextBox and Access Violation Lee has some code that looks like it should work for a RichTextBox in SL4RC, and it's throwing an error... see if you have a solution for him... or is it a bug? Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Q&A: Oracle's Paul Needham on How to Defend Against Insider Attacks

  - by Troy Kitch

  Source: Database Insider Newsletter: The threat from insider attacks continues to grow. In fact, just since January 1, 2014, insider breaches have been reported by a major consumer bank, a major healthcare organization, and a range of state and local agencies, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.  We asked Paul Needham, Oracle senior director, product management, to shed light on the nature of these pernicious risks—and how organizations can best defend themselves against the threat from insider risks. Q. First, can you please define the term "insider" in this context? A. According to the CERT Insider Threat Center, a malicious insider is a current or former employee, contractor, or business partner who "has or had authorized access to an organization's network, system, or data and intentionally exceeded or misused that access in a manner that negatively affected the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the organization's information or information systems."  Q. What has changed with regard to insider risks? A. We are actually seeing the risk of privileged insiders growing. In the latest Independent Oracle Users Group Data Security Survey, the number of organizations that had not taken steps to prevent privileged user access to sensitive information had grown from 37 percent to 42 percent. Additionally, 63 percent of respondents say that insider attacks represent a medium-to-high risk—higher than any other category except human error (by an insider, I might add). Q. What are the dangers of this type of risk? A. Insiders tend to have special insight and access into the kinds of data that are especially sensitive. Breaches can result in long-term legal issues and financial penalties. They can also damage an organization's brand in a way that directly impacts its bottom line. Finally, there is the potential loss of intellectual property, which can have serious long-term consequences because of the loss of market advantage.  Q. How can organizations protect themselves against abuse of privileged access? A. Every organization has privileged users and that will always be the case. The questions are how much access should those users have to application data stored in the database, and how can that default access be controlled? Oracle Database Vault (See image) was designed specifically for this purpose and helps protect application data against unauthorized access.  Oracle Database Vault can be used to block default privileged user access from inside the database, as well as increase security controls on the application itself. Attacks can and do come from inside the organization, and they are just as likely to come from outside as attempts to exploit a privileged account.  Using Oracle Database Vault protection, boundaries can be placed around database schemas, objects, and roles, preventing privileged account access from being exploited by hackers and insiders.  A new Oracle Database Vault capability called privilege analysis identifies privileges and roles used at runtime, which can then be audited or revoked by the security administrators to reduce the attack surface and increase the security of applications overall.  For a more comprehensive look at controlling data access and restricting privileged data in Oracle Database, download Needham's new e-book, Securing Oracle Database 12c: A Technical Primer. 

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• Are there too many qualified software development engineers chasing too few jobs?

  - by T Gregory

  I am trying to write this question in a non-argumentative way, but it is quite emotionally charged for some, so please bear with me. In the U.S., we hear constantly from CEOs that they cannot find enough qualified software engineers. In fact, it is the position of the U.S. government that demand for software engineering talent outpaces supply. This position can be clearly seen in the granting of tens of thousands of H1B visas, but also in the following excerpt from the official 2010-11 Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook: Employment of computer software engineers is expected to increase by 32 percent from 2008-2018, which is much faster than the average for all occupations. In addition, this occupation will see a large number of new jobs, with more than 295,000 created between 2008 and 2018. Demand for computer software engineers will increase as computer networking continues to grow. For example, expanding Internet technologies have spurred demand for computer software engineers who can develop Internet, intranet, and World Wide Web applications. Likewise, electronic data-processing systems in business, telecommunications, healthcare, government, and other settings continue to become more sophisticated and complex. Implementing, safeguarding, and updating computer systems and resolving problems will fuel the demand for growing numbers of systems software engineers. New growth areas will also continue to arise from rapidly evolving technologies. The increasing uses of the Internet, the proliferation of Web sites, and mobile technology such as the wireless Internet have created a demand for a wide variety of new products. As more software is offered over the Internet, and as businesses demand customized software to meet their specific needs, applications and systems software engineers will be needed in greater numbers. In addition, the growing use of handheld computers will create demand for new mobile applications and software systems. As these devices become a larger part of the business environment, it will be necessary to integrate current computer systems with this new, more mobile technology. However, from the the employee side of the equation, we often hear the opposite. Many of the stories of SDEs with graduate degrees and decades of experience on the unemployment line, or the big tech interview war stories, are anecdotal, for sure. But, there is one piece of data that is neither anecdotal nor transitory, and that is the aggregate decisions of millions of undergraduates of what degree to pursue. Here, a different picture emerges from the data, and that picture is not good for the software profession. According the most recent Taulbee Survey from Computer Research Association, undergrad degree production in CS and CE has fallen nearly 60% since 2004. (Undergrad enrollments have ticked up in the past two years, but only modestly). Here we see that a basic disconnect between what corporate CEOs and the US government are saying and what potential employees really think about job prospects in software engineering. So my questions are these. Who are we to believe? Is there an acute talent shortage, or is there a long-term structural oversupply in the SDE labor market? Can anyone provide reliable data on long-term unemployment among SDEs? How many are leaving the profession due to lack of work? Real data is most helpful. Thanks.

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• Focus on Social Relationship Management at Oracle OpenWorld

  - by Pat Ma

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} 0 0 1 422 2408 involver 20 5 2825 14.0 Normal 0 false false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* 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-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:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Greetings from Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Today, we’re going to focus on Social Relationship Management at Oracle OpenWorld.?Social networking is touching all businesses today.  Customers are speaking about your brand right now on social media sites. Your employees are speaking to one another on social media sites. In an Oracle survey, 40% of consumers factor in Facebook recommendations when making purchasing decisions. Despite the rise of social networking, 70% of marketers report having little understanding of social media conversations happening around their brand. Oracle has invested in technologies that will help companies leverage social media technologies for their enterprise. Our suite of social products is collectively known as Social Relationship Management. Customers are using Social Relationship Management to get analytics to social media conversations around their brand, manage multiple social media channels while keeping their brand consistent, optimize internal workflows and processes, and create better customer relationships and experiences. In this example, using Social Relationship Management, a high-end national grocery chain is able to see that “Coconut Water” is trending in San Francisco. They are now able to send a $2-off coconut water coupon to shoppers who have checked into their San Francisco locations. This promotion further drives sales of coconut water in San Francisco. In another example, using Social Relationship Management, a technology company creates multiple Facebook pages and runs campaigns on them. These social campaigns are now integrated and tracked as another marketing channel in Oracle Fusion CRM. The technology company can now track and respond to a particular customer as he moves across multiple channels – without having to restart the conversation each time the customer contacts the company. Furthermore, the technology company can see in one interface what marketing channels – including social – is performing best for each promotion. Besides being a Software-as-a-Service solution, social is also a Platform-as-a-Service solution. The benefit here is that customers can extend the functionality of our social applications to suit their particular needs or create their own social application from scratch. During the Social Developer track, developers are learning how to use Java and other industry-standard programming languages to plug in social functionality to enterprise applications. To see how Social Relationship Management can help your business build better relationships and experience with customers, visit us on the web at oracle.com/social. There are a lot more social-oriented sessions left at OpenWorld. To view a schedule of the upcoming social-oriented sessions, go here.

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• BI&EPM in Focus June 2012

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  General News Thomas Kurian Discusses Oracle Exalytics, SAP HANA (replay | preso | press)  Accenture & Oracle Study: The Challenges of Corporate Financial Reporting  (link) Flash Demo: Oracle Hyperion Planning on Exalytics in the Public Sector (link) Flash Demo: OBIEE & Exalytics in Retail (link) Customers Italian Partner Alfa Sistemi implemented at Autovie Venete S.p.A. Integrates Business Intelligence and Performance Management to Improve Efficiency and Speed for Managing Public Works Projects (English version)  / Autovie Venete implementa un sistema integrato di Business Intelligence e Performance Management per migliorare l’efficienza e la tempestività dell’attività di Controlling di Commessa (Italian version). FANCL Gains 360-Degree View of Customers across Multiple Sales Channels, Reduces Reports by 75% Korea Yakult Improves Profit & Loss Analysis with Oracle Hyperion Planning and OBIEE Hill International Streamlines Forecasting, Improves Visibility into Project Productivity and Profitability Children’s Rights in Society Better Supports Organizational Mission with Advanced, Integrated, and Streamlined Business Intelligence Tools Profit: International utility Enel monitors the performance of global subsidiaries with Oracle Hyperion Applications (link) Profit: Charting a New Course: Korean Air gains altitude by leveraging its greatest asset: information (link)   Events June 12: Breaking Away from the Excel Add-In: Welcome to Hyperion Smart View 11.1.2.2 (link) June 13: Upgrading OBIEE 10g to 11g: Best Practices and Lessons Learned (performance architects) (link) June 14, The Netherlands: Strategies for Business Excellence, New Release of Oracle Hyperion EPM Suite (link) June 21: Comprehensive and Accurate Forecasting for Healthcare (link) June 26: What Exactly is Exalytics? (KPI Partners) (link) Webcast Replay: Is Your Company Able to Navigate Through Market Volatility? (link)  Webcast Replay: Is Hope and Email The Core of Your Reconciliation Process? (link) Webcast Replay: Troubleshooting EPM Reporting & Analysis 11.1.2.x  (link) Webcast Replay: Is your Organization Flying Blind when it comes to Understanding Profitability?  (link) Enterprise Performance Management Final Oracle EPM  Information Panel (CIP) survey on cost, profitability and performance reporting/scorecards is now OPEN (link) New on EPM Blog: What's Going on With IFRS? (link) How does Crystal Ball integrate with EPM Solutions? New collateral and demos on Crystal Ball Solution Factory!  (link) New Youtube Video: Business Case Analysis with Oracle Crystal Ball (link) Crystal Ball 11.1.2.2 is released! Grouped Assumptions in Sensitivity Charts, Data Filtering When Fitting Distributions and Parameter Edits When Fitting Distributions to name a few. Get full details from the online New Features Guide (link) New DRM Oracle-by-Examples now available (link) Support Blog: Hyperion Ledgerlink Sample Record and Windows 7: Now you see it, now you don’t  (link) Use Enterprise Manager FMW Control to Troubleshoot Oracle EPM 11.1.2 Family of Products (link) Business  Intelligence Whitepaper: Real-Time Operational Reporting for E-Business Suite via GoldenGate Replication to an Operational Data Store.  How Oracle enabled real-time operational reporting for its $20B services contract business with Golden Gate & OBIEE (link) KPI Partners ebook: Understanding Oracle BI Components and Repository Modeling Basics (link) “Getting Started with Oracle Endeca Information Discovery” video tutorials now available (link) Oracle BI Publisher Conversion Center: Convert from Crystal, Actuate, or Oracle Reports to Oracle BI Publisher (link) Oracle Fusion Applications: Monthly Partner Updates Webcast Replays to help BI partners understand how OBI, Essbase, BI-Apps and Fusion work together: More on Fusion CRM: Fusion Marketing More on Fusion CRM: Fusion CRM Sales Start-Up Packs and Expert Services for Implementation Partners Introducing the Oracle Fusion Accounting Hub Implementing Fusion Applications using Oracle's Composers Oracle Fusion Applications Co-Existence

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• Sweet and Sour Source Control

  - by Tony Davis

  Most database developers don't use Source Control. A recent anonymous poll on SQL Server Central asked its readers "Which Version Control system do you currently use to store you database scripts?" The winner, with almost 30% of the vote was...none: "We don't use source control for database scripts". In second place with almost 28% of the vote was Microsoft's VSS. VSS? Given its reputation for being buggy, unstable and lacking most of the basic features required of a proper source control system, answering VSS is really just another way of saying "I don't use Source Control". At first glance, it's a surprising thought. You wonder how database developers can work in a team and find out what changed, when the system worked before but is now broken; to work out what happened to their changes that now seem to have vanished; to roll-back a mistake quickly so that the rest of the team have a functioning build; to find instantly whether a suspect change has been deployed to production. Unfortunately, the survey didn't ask about the scale of the database development, and correlate the two questions. If there is only one database developer within a schema, who has an automated approach to regular generation of build scripts, then the need for a formal source control system is questionable. After all, a database stores far more about its metadata than a traditional compiled application. However, what is meat for a small development is poison for a team-based development. Here, we need a form of Source Control that can reconcile simultaneous changes, store the history of changes, derive versions and builds and that can cope with forks and merges. The problem comes when one borrows a solution that was designed for conventional programming. A database is not thought of as a "file", but a vast, interdependent and intricate matrix of tables, indexes, constraints, triggers, enumerations, static data and so on, all subtly interconnected. It is an awkward fit. Subversion with its support for merges and forks, and the tolerance of different work practices, can be made to work well, if used carefully. It has a standards-based architecture that allows it to be used on all platforms such as Windows Mac, and Linux. In the words of Erland Sommerskog, developers should "just do it". What's in a database is akin to a "binary file", and the developer must work only from the file. You check out the file, edit it, and save it to disk to compile it. Dependencies are validated at this point and if you've broken anything (e.g. you renamed a column and broke all the objects that reference the column), you'll find out about it right away, and you'll be forced to fix it. Nevertheless, for many this is an alien way of working with SQL Server. Subversion is the powerhouse, not the GUI. It doesn't work seamlessly with your existing IDE, and that usually means SSMS. So the question then becomes more subtle. Would developers be less reluctant to use a fully-featured source (revision) control system for a team database development if they had a turn-key, reliable system that fitted in with their existing work-practices? I'd love to hear what you think. Cheers, Tony.

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• Best of OTN - Week of Oct 21st

  - by CassandraClark-OTN

  This week's Best of OTN, for you, the best devs, dba's, sysadmins and architects out there!  In these weekly posts the OTN team will highlight the top content from each community; Architect, Database, Systems and Java.  Since we'll be publishing this on Fridays, we'll also mix in a little fun! Architect Community Top Content- The Road Ahead for WebLogic 12c | Edwin BiemondOracle 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. A Roadmap for SOA Development and Delivery | Mark NelsonDo you know the way to S-O-A? Mark Nelson does. His latest blog post, part of an ongoing series, will help to keep you from getting lost along the way. Updated ODI Statement of Direction | Robert SchweighardtHeads up Oracle Data Integrator fans! A new statement of product direction document is available, offering an overview of the strategic product plans for Oracle’s data integration products for bulk data movement and transformation, specifically Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) and Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB). Bob Rhubart, Architect Community Manager Friday Funny - "Some people approach every problem with an open mouth." — Adlai E. Stevenson (October 23, 1835 – June 14, 1914) 23rd Vice President of the United States Database Community Top Content - Pre-Built Developer VMs (for Oracle VM VirtualBox)Heard all the chatter about Oracle VirtualBox? Over 1 million downloads per week and look: pre-built virtual appliances designed specifically for developers. Video: Big Data, or BIG DATA?Oracle Ace Director Ben Prusinski explains the differences.?? Webcast Series - Developing Applications in Oracle's Public CloudTime to get started on developing and deploying cloud applications by moving to the cloud. Good friend Gene Eun from Oracle's Cloud team posted this two-part Webcast series that has an overview and demonstration of the Oracle Database Cloud Service. Check out the demos on how to migrate your data to the cloud, extend your application with interactive reporting, and create and access RESTful Web services. Registration required, but so worth it! Laura Ramsey, Database Community Manager Friday Funny - Systems Community Top Content - Video: What Kind of Scalability is Better, Horizontal or Vertical?Rick Ramsey asks the question "Is Oracle's approach to large vertically scaled servers at odds with today's trend of combining lots and lots of small, low-cost servers systems with networking to build a cloud, or is it a better approach?" Michael Palmeter, Director of Solaris Product Management, and Renato Ribeiro, Director Product Management for SPARC Servers, discuss.Video: An Engineer Takes a Minute to Explain CloudBart Smaalders, long-time Oracle Solaris core engineer, takes a minute to explain cloud from a sysadmin point of view. ?Hands-On Lab: How to Deploy and Manage a Private IaaS Cloud Soup to nuts. This lab shows you how to set up and manage a private cloud with Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c in an Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model. You will first configure the IaaS cloud as the cloud administrator and then deploy guest virtual machines (VMs) as a self-service user. Rick Ramsey, Systems Community Manager Friday Funny - Video: Drunk Airline Pilot - Dean Martin - Foster Brooks Java Community Top Content - Video: NightHacking Interview with James GoslingJames Gosling, the Father of Java, discusses robotics, Java and how to keep his autonomous WaveGliders in the ocean for weeks at a time. Live from Hawaii.  Video: Raspberry Pi Developer Challenge: Remote Controller A developer who knew nothing about Java Embedded or Raspberry Pi shows how he can now control a robot with his phone. The project was built during the Java Embedded Challenge for Raspberry Pi at JavaOne 2013.Java EE 7 Certification Survey - Participants NeededHelp us define how to server your training and certification needs for Java EE 7. Tori Wieldt, Java Community Manager Friday Funny - Programmers have a strong sensitivity to Yak's pheromone. Causes irresistible desire to shave said Yak. Thanks, @rickasaurus! To follow and take part in the conversation follow/like etc. at one or all of the resources below -  OTN TechBlog The Java Source Blog The OTN Garage Blog The OTN ArchBeat Blog @oracletechnet @java @OTN_Garage @OTNArchBeat @OracleDBDev OTN I Love Java OTN Garage OTN ArchBeat Oracle DB Dev OTN Java

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• 2014 Conferences - JFokus, JavaLand & GeeCon!

  - by Heather VanCura

  There has been a delay in publishing these past event summaries from early 2014--JFokus in February, JavaLand in March, and GeeCon in May. As we plan for Devoxx UK next week, I found these summaries that did not make it past 'draft' stage.  We had some great successes with the first three events of 2014, a Java developer conference trifecta! Participation topics included Java, the JCP program overall and the Adopt-a-JSR programs.   First up in February was JFokus in Stockholm. The energy and talent in Stockholm is amazing and the conference organizers do a stellar job running it and welcoming the speakers of this event.  I enjoyed the city walk and speaker dinner, as well as many opportunities to interact with conference speakers and attendees, both during and after the conference hours. Reza Rehman invited me to speak during his Java EE 7 lab session about the Adopt-a-JSR program, and I gave a quickie session on the JCP and Adopt-a-JSR.  There was also a late night Birds of a Feather (BoF) session held jointly with Cecelia Borg, Martijn Verburg and Reza Rehman.  This was an interactive conversation with a focus on the Java EE community survey results and encouraging more community participation and collaboration in Java development.  The Java 8 keynote by Georges Saab and Mark Reinhold was also very entertaining,  I was sorry to miss FOSDEM happening the previous weekend this year in Brussels, but I hope to attend in 2015.  Favorite take home gift -- Lambdas cap! In March, the inaugural version of the JavaLand conference happened inside Phantasialand, an amusement park in Germany. Markus Eisele suggested having an Early Adopters area at the conference, which I was keen to implement. In 2013 at Devoxx Belgium we held some activities in the Hackergaren area around Lambdas and Java EE 7, so this was a great opportunity to expand on a more interactive conference format and Andreas Badelt from the program committee helped in the planning for this area.  Daniel Bryant and Mani Sarkar from the London Java Community led some general Adopt-a-JSR discussions and AdoptOpen JDK activities.  JCP Spec Leads, Anatole Tresch from Credit Suisse, leading JSR 354, Money & Currency API, and Ed Burns from Oracle, leading JSR 344, JavaServer Faces 2.2, attended to engage with conference attendees on their JSRs.  Favorite - Stephen Chin's roller coaster video. In May, GeeCon in Krakow was anther awesome conference!  The conference organizers were warm and welcoming and I enjoyed time getting to know the other speakers at the event. There was a JCP and Adopt-a-JSR participation session as well as a moderated panel session on Early Adopters.  We had an amazing panel -- Daniel Bryant, Arun Gupta, Tomasz Borek , and Peter Lawrey. The panel discussed the Adopt-a-JSR and Adopt OpenJDK program, and how the participants work together to get involved and contribute to both the Java SE and Java EE platforms.  If was an interesting discussion and sparked some new ideas on how Java User Groups in Poland and around the world can contribute in a significant and meaningful way to create better and more practical Java standards today and in the future.  Favorite take home gift - GeeCon mug!   These were some of the highlights of the events--looking forward to Devoxx UK next week.  I will publish these details tomorrow!

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• Automated Error Reporting = More Robust Software

  - by Laila

  I would like to tell you how to revolutionize your software development process </marketing hyperbole> On a more serious note, we (Red Gate's .NET Development team) recently rolled a new tool into our development process which has made our lives dramatically easier AND improved the quality of our software, and I (& one of our developers, Alex Davies) just wanted to take a quick moment to share the love. I work with a development team that takes pride in what they ship, so we take software testing rather seriously. For every development project we run, we allocate at least one software tester for every two developers, and we never ship software without first shipping early access releases and betas to get user feedback. And therein lies the challenge -encouraging users to provide consistent, useful feedback is a headache, but without that feedback, improving the software is. tricky. Until fairly recently, we used the standard (if long-winded) approach of receiving bug reports of variable quality via email or through our support forums. If that didn't give us enough information to reproduce the problem - which was most of the time - we had to enter into a time-consuming to-and-fro conversation with the end-user, to get scrape together the data we needed to work out where the problem lay. As I'm sure you're aware, this is painfully slow. To the delight of the team, we recently got to work with SmartAssembly, which lets us embed automated exception and error reporting into our software with very little pain, and we decided to do a little dogfooding. As a result, we've have made a really handy (if perhaps slightly obvious) discovery: As soon as we release a beta, or indeed any release of software, we now get tonnes of customer feedback through automated error reports. Making this process easier for our users has dramatically increased the amount (and quality) of feedback we get. From their point of view, they get an experience similar to Microsoft's error reporting, and process is essentially idiot-proof. From our side of things, we can now react much faster to the information we get, fixing the bugs and shipping a new-and-improved release, which our users rather appreciate. Smiles and hugs all round. Even more so because, as we're use SmartAssembly's Automated Error Reporting, we get to avoid having to spend weeks building an exception reporting mechanism. It takes just a few minutes to add reporting to a project, and we get a bunch of useful information back, like a stack trace and the values of all the local variables, which we can use to fix bugs. Happily, "Automated Error Reporting = More Robust Software" can actually be read two ways: we've found that we not only ship higher quality software, but we also release within a shorter time. We can ship stable software that our users are happy to upgrade to, and we then bask in the glory of lots of positive customer feedback. Once we'd starting working with SmartAssembly, we were curious to know how widespread error reporting was as a practice. Our product manager ran a survey in autumn last year, and found that 40% of software developers never really considered deploying error reporting. Considering how we've now got plenty of experience on the subject, one of our dev guys, Alex Davies, thought we should share what we've learnt, and he's kindly offered to host a webinar on delivering robust software with Automated Error Reporting. Drawing on our own in-house development experiences, he'll cover how to add error reporting to your program, how to actually use the error reports to fix bugs (don't snigger, not everyone's as bright as you), how to customize the error report dialog that your users see, and how to automatically get log files from your users' machine. The webinar will take place on Jan 25th (that's next week). It's free to attend, but you'll still need to register to hear Alex's dulcet tones.

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• Is there an easy way to type in common math symbols?

  - by srcspider

  Disclaimer: I'm sure someone is going to moan about easy-of-use, for the purpose of this question consider readability to be the only factor that matters So I found this site that converts to easting northing, it's not really important what that even means but here's how the piece of javascript looks. /** * Convert Ordnance Survey grid reference easting/northing coordinate to (OSGB36) latitude/longitude * * @param {OsGridRef} gridref - easting/northing to be converted to latitude/longitude * @returns {LatLonE} latitude/longitude (in OSGB36) of supplied grid reference */ OsGridRef.osGridToLatLong = function(gridref) { var E = gridref.easting; var N = gridref.northing; var a = 6377563.396, b = 6356256.909; // Airy 1830 major & minor semi-axes var F0 = 0.9996012717; // NatGrid scale factor on central meridian var f0 = 49*Math.PI/180, ?0 = -2*Math.PI/180; // NatGrid true origin var N0 = -100000, E0 = 400000; // northing & easting of true origin, metres var e2 = 1 - (b*b)/(a*a); // eccentricity squared var n = (a-b)/(a+b), n2 = n*n, n3 = n*n*n; // n, n², n³ var f=f0, M=0; do { f = (N-N0-M)/(a*F0) + f; var Ma = (1 + n + (5/4)*n2 + (5/4)*n3) * (f-f0); var Mb = (3*n + 3*n*n + (21/8)*n3) * Math.sin(f-f0) * Math.cos(f+f0); var Mc = ((15/8)*n2 + (15/8)*n3) * Math.sin(2*(f-f0)) * Math.cos(2*(f+f0)); var Md = (35/24)*n3 * Math.sin(3*(f-f0)) * Math.cos(3*(f+f0)); M = b * F0 * (Ma - Mb + Mc - Md); // meridional arc } while (N-N0-M >= 0.00001); // ie until < 0.01mm var cosf = Math.cos(f), sinf = Math.sin(f); var ? = a*F0/Math.sqrt(1-e2*sinf*sinf); // nu = transverse radius of curvature var ? = a*F0*(1-e2)/Math.pow(1-e2*sinf*sinf, 1.5); // rho = meridional radius of curvature var ?2 = ?/?-1; // eta = ? var tanf = Math.tan(f); var tan2f = tanf*tanf, tan4f = tan2f*tan2f, tan6f = tan4f*tan2f; var secf = 1/cosf; var ?3 = ?*?*?, ?5 = ?3*?*?, ?7 = ?5*?*?; var VII = tanf/(2*?*?); var VIII = tanf/(24*?*?3)*(5+3*tan2f+?2-9*tan2f*?2); var IX = tanf/(720*?*?5)*(61+90*tan2f+45*tan4f); var X = secf/?; var XI = secf/(6*?3)*(?/?+2*tan2f); var XII = secf/(120*?5)*(5+28*tan2f+24*tan4f); var XIIA = secf/(5040*?7)*(61+662*tan2f+1320*tan4f+720*tan6f); var dE = (E-E0), dE2 = dE*dE, dE3 = dE2*dE, dE4 = dE2*dE2, dE5 = dE3*dE2, dE6 = dE4*dE2, dE7 = dE5*dE2; f = f - VII*dE2 + VIII*dE4 - IX*dE6; var ? = ?0 + X*dE - XI*dE3 + XII*dE5 - XIIA*dE7; return new LatLonE(f.toDegrees(), ?.toDegrees(), GeoParams.datum.OSGB36); } I found that to be a really nice way of writing an algorythm, at least as far as redability is concerned. Is there any way to easily write the special symbols. And by easily write I mean NOT copy/paste them.

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