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• GUI device for throwing a ball

  - by Fredrik Johansson

  The hero has a ball, which shall be thrown with accuracy in a court on iPhone/iPad. The player is seen from above, in a 2D view. In game play, the player reach is between 1/15 and 1/6 of the height of the iPhone screen. The player will run, and try to outmaneuver his opponent, and then throw the ball at a specific location, which is guarded by the opponent (which is also shown on the screen). The player is controlled by a joystick, and that works ok, but how shall I control the stick? Maybe someone can propose a third control method? I've tried the following two approaches: Joystick: Hero has a reach of 1 meter, and this reach is marked with a semi-opaque circle around the player. The ball can be moved by a joystick. When the joystick is moved south, the ball is moved south within the reach circle. There is a direct coupling with the joystick and the position of the ball. I.e. when the joystick is moved max south, the ball is max south within the player reach. At each touch update the speed is calculated, and the Box2d ball position and ball speed are updated. NB, the ball will never be moved outside the reach as long as the player push the joystick. The ball is thrown by swiping the joystick to make the ball move, and then releasing the joystick. At release, the ball will get a smoothed speed of the joystick. Joystick Problem: The throwing accuracy gets bad, because the joystick can not be that big, and a small movement results in quite a large movement of the ball. If the user does not release before the end of the joystick maximum end point, the ball will stop, and when the user releases the joystick the speed of the ball will be zero. Bad... Touch pad A force is applied to the ball by a sweep on a touchpad. The ball is released when the sweep is ended, or when the ball is moved outside the player reach. As there is no one to one mapping between the swipe and the ball position, the precision can be improved. A large swipe can result in a small ball movement. Touch Pad Problem A touchpad is less intuitive. Users do not seem to know what to do with the touch pad. Some tap the touchpad, and then the ball just falls to the ground. As there is no one-to-one mapping, the ball can be moved outside the reach, and then it will just fall to the ground. It's a bit hard to control the ball, especially if the player also moves.

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• What's Old is New Again

  - by David Dorf

  Last night I told my son he could stream music to his tablet "from the cloud" (in this case, the Amazon Cloud).  He paused, then said, "what is the cloud?"  I replied, "a bunch of servers connected to the internet."  Apparently he had visions of something much more magnificent.  Another similar term is "big data."  These marketing terms help to quickly convey topics but are oversimplifications that are open to many interpretations.  At their core, those terms a shiny packages holding recycled ideas. I see many headlines declaring big data changes everything, but it doesn't.  Savvy retailers have been dealing with large volumes of data since the electronic cash register was invented.  But the there have a been a few changes to the landscape that make big data a topic of conversation: 1. Computing power has caught up to storage volumes. Its now possible to more thoroughly analyze the copious volumes of data retailers have been squirreling away.  CPUs are faster, sold state drives more plentiful, and new ways to store and search data are available.  My iPhone is more power than the computer used in the Apollo mission to the moon. 2. Unstructured data is everywhere.  The Web used to be where retailers published product information, but now users are generating the bulk of the content in the form of comments, videos, and "likes."  The variety of information available to retailers is huge, and it meaning difficult to discern. 3. Everything is connected.  Looking at a report from my router, there are no less than 20 active devices on my home network.  We can track the location of mobile phones, tag products with RFID, and set our thermostats (I love my Nest) from a thousand miles away.  Not only is there more data, but its arriving at higher velocity. Careful readers will note the three Vs that help define so-called big data: volume, variety, and velocity. We now have more volume, more variety, and more velocity and different technologies to deal with them.  But at the heart, the objectives are still the same: Informed decisions Accurate forecasts Improved optimizations So don't let the term "big data" throw you off the scent.  Retailers still need to execute on the basics.  But do take a fresh look at the data that's available and the new technologies to process it.  The landscape will continue to change and agile organizations will always be reevaluating their approaches.  You can just add some more weapons to the arsenal.

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• My Website (ports) Have Been Hijacked!

  - by ChrisD

  This is one of the scary problems that turns out to have a pretty easy solution. I tried to view one of my websites hosted by IIS on my primary workstation and the site wouldn’t render.   I checked IIS Admin and the site was there, but I couldn’t access it on either port 443 or port 80. In reviewing the event log I found the following entry: The World Wide Web Publishing Service (WWW Service) did not register the URL prefix http://x.x.x.x:80/ for site 1. The site has been disabled. The data field contains the error number I disabled the IIS Service (issued Net Stop W3svc from an admin command prompt) and then scanned for anything listening on port 80. C:\Users\cdarrigo>netstat -ano |findstr 80   TCP    0.0.0.0:80             0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING       3124 This confirmed that something had hijacked my ports.  I had another process that was listening on port 80 and it was preventing IIS from serving up my site.   A quick phone call to a friend taught me that the last number shown above (3124) is the process id of the process that's listening on the port.  So whatever process had PID 3124 had to be stopped. I scanned my process list, and determined it was, much to my surprise, Skype.  I exited the Skype application and restarted the IIS service, then manually restarted the web site.  This time, browsing to my site resulted in successfully viewing my site. So why was Skype listening on those ports?  A quick Google search revealed the answer: “Skype listens on those ports to increase quality.” really? “you might become a supernode if those ports are open.” No thanks.  I’m not sure how accurate those statements are, but I want to disable this behavior in Skype none the less. Fortunately Skype provides a configuration option to turn off this behavior.   Launch Skype and log in.  From the Tools menu, select Options Select the Advanced options and then Connection Uncheck the box Use Port 80 and 443 as alternatives for incoming connections Back to development bliss.

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• How To Disable Individual Plug-ins in Google Chrome

  - by The Geek

  Have you ever wondered how to disable useless or insecure browser plug-ins in Google Chrome? Here’s the lowdown on how to get rid of Java, Acrobat, Silverlight, and the rest of the plugins you probably want to get rid of. Disabling Plugins in Google Chrome If you head to about:plugins in your address bar, you’ll probably see a list of plugins, but won’t be able to disable them yet. What you’ll need to do is switch over to the Dev channel of Chrome, which gives you access to all the latest features—though you might be warned that sometimes the dev channel might be less stable than the release or beta channels. Ready to proceed? Head to the Dev Channel page, and then click the link to run the installer. You’ll be prompted to restart Chrome when you’re done. Note that Mac and Windows users can both run an installer to switch. Linux users will have to install a package. Note: Once you’ve switched to the Dev channel, you can’t really switch to the stable channel. You’ll have to uninstall Chrome and then reinstall the regular version. Now that you’ve switched to the dev channel and restarted your browser, head to about:plugins in the address bar, and then just disable each plugin you really don’t need. Plugins you can generally live without?  Java, Acrobat, Microsoft Office, Windows Presentation Foundation, Silverlight. These will be on a case-by-case basis, of course, but the vast majority of large websites don’t require any of those. When it comes right down to it, the only plugin that most people require is Flash… and leave the “Default Plug-in” alone too. Special thanks to @jordanconway for pointing out the solution. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Disable YouTube Comments while using ChromeHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default BrowserSubscribe to RSS Feeds in Chrome with a Single ClickAdd Notes to Google Notebook from ChromeAccess Google Chrome’s Special Pages the Easy Way TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi LocPDF is a Visual PDF Search Tool Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar

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• Tackling Big Data Analytics with Oracle Data Integrator

  - by Irem Radzik

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}  By Mike Eisterer  The term big data draws a lot of attention, but behind the hype there's a simple story. For decades, companies have been making business decisions based on transactional data stored in relational databases. Beyond that critical data, however, is a potential treasure trove of less structured data: weblogs, social media, email, sensors, and documents that can be mined for useful information.  Companies are facing emerging technologies, increasing data volumes, numerous data varieties and the processing power needed to efficiently analyze data which changes with high velocity. Oracle offers the broadest and most integrated portfolio of products to help you acquire and organize these diverse data sources and analyze them alongside your existing data to find new insights and capitalize on hidden relationships Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition(ODI) is critical to any enterprise big data strategy. ODI and the Oracle Data Connectors provide native access to Hadoop, leveraging such technologies as MapReduce, HDFS and Hive. Alongside with ODI’s metadata driven approach for extracting, loading and transforming data; companies may now integrate their existing data with big data technologies and deliver timely and trusted data to their analytic and decision support platforms. In this session, you’ll learn about ODI and Oracle Big Data Connectors and how, coupled together, they provide the critical integration with multiple big data platforms. Tackling Big Data Analytics with Oracle Data Integrator October 1, 2012 12:15 PM at MOSCONE WEST – 3005 For other data integration sessions at OpenWorld, please check our Focus-On document.  If you are not able to attend OpenWorld, please check out our latest resources for Data Integration.

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• Splitting an MP4 file

  - by Asaf Chertkoff

  what is the fastest and less resource consuming method for splitting an MP4 file? @Alex: it didn't work, i don't know why. see the out put here: asafche@asafche-laptop:~$ ffmpeg -vcodec copy -ss 0 -t 00:10:00 -i /home/asafche/Videos/myVideos/MAH00124.MP4 /home/asafche/Videos/myVideos/eh.mp4 FFmpeg version SVN-r0.5.1-4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al. configuration: --extra-version=4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1.1 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --disable-stripping --disable-vhook --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-swscale --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --enable-shared --disable-static libavutil 49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0 libavcodec 52.20. 1 / 52.20. 1 libavformat 52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0 libavdevice 52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0 libavfilter 0. 4. 0 / 0. 4. 0 libswscale 0. 7. 1 / 0. 7. 1 libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0 built on Mar 31 2011 18:53:20, gcc: 4.4.3 Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 119.88 (120000/1001) -> 59.94 (60000/1001) Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '/home/asafche/Videos/myVideos/MAH00124.MP4': Duration: 00:15:35.96, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 5664 kb/s Stream #0.0(und): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280x720, 59.94 tbr, 59.94 tbn, 119.88 tbc Stream #0.1(und): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16 Output #0, mp4, to '/home/asafche/Videos/myVideos/eh.mp4': Stream #0.0(und): Video: libx264, yuv420p, 1280x720, q=2-31, 90k tbn, 59.94 tbc Stream #0.1(und): Audio: 0x0000, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 64 kb/s Stream mapping: Stream #0.0 -> #0.0 Stream #0.1 -> #0.1 Unsupported codec for output stream #0.1 it says something about different frame rate...

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• Diving into Scala with Cay Horstmann

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  A new interview with Java Champion Cay Horstmann, now up on otn/java, titled  "Diving into Scala: A Conversation with Java Champion Cay Horstmann," explores Horstmann's ideas about Scala as reflected in his much lauded new book,  Scala for the Impatient.  None other than Martin Odersky, the inventor of Scala, called it "a joy to read" and the "best introduction to Scala". Odersky was so enthused by the book that he asked Horstmann if the first section could be made available as a free download on the Typesafe Website, something Horstmann graciously assented to. Horstmann acknowledges that some aspects of Scala are very complex, but he encourages developers to simply stay away from those parts of the language. He points to several ways Java developers can benefit from Scala: "For example," he says, " you can write classes with less boilerplate, file and XML handling is more concise, and you can replace tedious loops over collections with more elegant constructs. Typically, programmers at this level report that they write about half the number of lines of code in Scala that they would in Java, and that's nothing to sneeze at. Another entry point can be if you want to use a Scala-based framework such as Akka or Play; you can use these with Java, but the Scala API is more enjoyable. " Horstmann observes that developers can do fine with Scala without grasping the theory behind it. He argues that most of us learn best through examples and not through trying to comprehend abstract theories. He also believes that Scala is the most attractive choice for developers who want to move beyond Java and C++.  When asked about other choices, he comments: "Clojure is pretty nice, but I found its Lisp syntax a bit off-putting, and it seems very focused on software transactional memory, which isn't all that useful to me. And it's not statically typed. I wanted to like Groovy, but it really bothers me that the semantics seems under-defined and in flux. And it's not statically typed. Yes, there is Groovy++, but that's in even sketchier shape. There are a couple of contenders such as Kotlin and Ceylon, but so far they aren't real. So, if you want to do work with a statically typed language on the JVM that exists today, Scala is simply the pragmatic choice. It's a good thing that it's such a nice choice." Learn more about Scala by going to the interview here.

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• Finding work as a college student

  - by lightburst

  I'm a 3rd year CS student. I'm currently really, really, bored and tired of cheap school programming(I go to a fairly respectable(albeit not top) university in my country, but, really, it's not MIT) so I've been thinking about getting a part-time dev job for a long while now. I'm not some hotshot programmer or anything, but "Add/Delete XYZ class objects to list" or "Do this web feature/pattern in PHP" does get old after a few semesters. I also only learned(heard?) of programming when I entered college, so the duration of me being in contact with any code is short. I can't really apply as an intern as I have not accumulated the necessary credits yet to do that so I was thinking of selling myself as a part-time dev. I still need to go to school, and don't want to subject myself to living two lives. Plus, I think I'd have better chances considering my lack of things to write on the resume. The only language I know at heart is C (I've written several pointer-oriented stuff on my freshman year, which is apparently pretty leet(for some reason), or so Joel says. That sort of boosted my morale a bit) but I've worked with several other languages only for the sake of course work such as C#/Java/PHP/ASM. My only user-worthy project was a recursive quicksort simulator I wrote for class using GTK+ that used a textbox to output the progress. I also have not taken the compiler theory class yet, or my thesis. All that being said, I wonder if any legitimate software company(big or small) would hire somebody like me considering all that. If there are companies that do accept anybody like me, would I be doing programming or maybe just be a tester or something? Would anybody hire me as a dev at all? I know I don't have much(not even a degree) but what I lack in experience, I compensate with interest? I am less interested in websites and 'management' software(no offense or anything. also, most of the places here ONLY have those), and more into 'process driven'(I'm not sure how to call it) and system software. I have my eyes on a startup that sells basically an extension of Google Drive, but I feel like I'm too 'risky' for them. Oh, I'm also 19 if that means anything. We're not K-12 so kids go to college earlier than in the US.

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• Windows8, JavaScript and HTML5 - A good thing?

  - by Albers

  Most of us have seen the Windows 8 news regarding support for native HTML5/JavaScript applications. The press has pushed this as a potential threat to the .NET developer community because JavaScript and HTML5 were called "our new developer platform". The press release refers to "Web-connected and Web-powered apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript that have access to the full power of the PC.".Microsoft has also been hush on details related to these comments. Before we buy the hype and start worrying about a world where we drop our Visual Studio licenses and buy DreamWeaver - let's think about how Windows 8 HTML/JavaScript applications would be implemented. The HTML5 spec offers support for offline applications, but this won't offer the OS-integrated experience the press release refers to. MS has to be planning a way to extend access beyond the traditional JavaScript feature set. Microsoft has a similar option today: HTML Applications or HTAs. They come close to required features, but HTAs need ActiveX or Java integration to provide the promised OS-level access. I'm guessing that Microsoft's future OS strategy isn't built on developers cranking out ActiveX controls or Java applets. So where is Microsoft headed? One possibility is that MS builds a new JavaScript framework from the ground up outside their current APIs. Another idea would be for Microsoft to add support for JavaScript as a first class .NET language using the Dynamic Language Runtime. A solution based on the DLR could be integrated into an HTA-like model to provide the promised access, along with the full range of features in .NET Framework. Security comes included in the Framework. And the work necessary to support this integration would tie in nicely with the effort MS has recently made providing better JavaScript and HTML5 support in Visual Studio 2010. As a bonus, a full-fledged JavaScript DLR implementation would allow single language web solutions across client and server (think node.js) and would appeal to developers who are familiar with JavaScript but have less experience with the Microsoft tech stack. We will all get a better picture after the Build conference in September. But in the mean time we know that Microsoft has a reputation for providing strong developer support. We might want to reserve our harshest judgement and consider that the press release could hint at new opportunities for .NET development.

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• Oracle Tutor: *** CAUTION to Word .docx Users ***

  - by [email protected]

  Microsoft released a security update KB969604 for Office 2007 (around June 2009) This update causes document variables within Word docx files to be scrambled. This update might still be pushed out via Office 2007 updates DO NOT save files as docx using MS OFFICE 2007 until you apply the MS hotfix # 970942 available here If you are using Windows XP with Office 2003 or Office 2000 and have installed an older Office 2007 compatibility pack, documents saved as docx may also cause the scrambled document variables. Installing the 2007 compatibility pack published on 1/6/2010 (version 4) will prevent the document variables from becoming corrupt. Those on Windows 2000 may not be able to install the latest compatibility pack, or the compatibility pack may not function properly. This situation will hopefully be rectified in the coming months. What is a document variable? Document variables store data inside the document, invisible to the user. The Tutor software uses them when converting the document to HTML and when creating the flowchart, just to name a couple of uses. How will you know if a document's variables are scrambled? The difficulty in diagnosing the issue is that the symptoms can take myriad forms. There isn't a single error message or a single feature that one can point to and say, "test for the problem by doing this." The best clue about the error is seeing any kind of string in an error message that has garbage characters, question marks, xml code snippets, or just nonsense. Such as "Language ?????????????xlr;lwlerkjl could not be found." It is also possible to see the corrupted data in the footers of the Word docs. And, just because the footers look correct does not mean that the document variables are not corrupted. The corruption problem does not occur in every document variable in the document, just some of them. Often it is less than a quarter of them. What is the difference between docx files and doc files? Office 2007 uses Office Open XML formats with .docx and .docm filename extensions. - Docx is an Office Open XML word document. - Docm is a macro enabled Office Open XML document. This means the file structure behind the scenes is quite different from the binary file formats used prior to Office 2007 such as .doc, .dot, .xls, and .ppt. Solution Summary: For Windows XP and Word 2007: Install the hotfix, or save files as *.doc For Windows XP and Word 2000 and 2003: Install the latest compatibility pack or save files as *.doc For Windows 2000 with Word 2000 or 2003, do not use any compatibility pack, save files as *.doc Emily Chorba Principle Product Manager for Oracle Tutor

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• 302: this blog will be closed

  - by preishuber

  After nearly 7 years I will discontinue blogging on this site. My resources are limited. You can reach my German blog which is used to support my customers. Looking back to a long an interesting journey ASP.NET by ScottGu That was the reason to attend this site and support Microsoft as much as I can. For that I was honored as ASP.NET MVP- thanks again. Meet Scoot several times. Great guy! Forums I have left NNTP forums a few years ago and now Microsoft closed it- It was my idea ;-) AJAX Was the wrong way- JQuery won the game IIS7 That is really a great plattform and the IIS team rules. I am sad that is so silent around that topic. ASP.NET after 2.0 Is no longer my world. I love ASP.NET and ASP.NET Server controls. I hate the discussion about how to follow the holy rules of MVC. Microsoft have dropped the goal to bring ASP.NET to #1 and accepted PHP is it. Facebook & Twittering Microblogging takes over a part of the blogging business. Shorter faster cheaper- or as SteveB mentioned - do more with less. Google Google is taking over the web. I am using Bing every time as I can but Google have more options. Sorry Microsoft you will loose that game. Apple That is not the biggest problem of Microsoft. the Ixxx takes over a small part but big money of the market, but the customers are not strongly linked. New wave new hype- Game over Apple. Silverlight My new home. I can reuse a lot of my skills and love the possibilitys. Silverligth will passing WPF-and strike Flash Windows phone 7 Also my skills fit. I just will use it for fun. I am not really satisfied about what I have heard from MIX. Guys from Redmond, I am sad to say you have been the best Smartphone OS and lost everything. The ADO vNext Story That will be the next mystic point. WCF, REST, JSON, ATOM and now OData. Nothing about SQL commands. LINQ, ORM is also not the final solution for multilayered disconnected async scenarios. Personally I prefere the OData idea and dislike the Swiss Army Knife (German Eierlegende Wollmilchsau) WCF. I am still in INETA Speakers board and I am glad to come to your user group. In all other cases you can hire me over ppedv AG. Good by and have good live.

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• Partner Blog Series: PwC Perspectives - The Gotchas, The Do's and Don'ts for IDM Implementations

  - by Tanu Sood

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE 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-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:12.0pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6 {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:1; mso-tstyle-colband-size:1; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; border-top:solid #E0301E 1.0pt; mso-border-top-themecolor:accent6; border-left:none; border-bottom:solid #E0301E 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; border-right:none; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Georgia","serif"; color:black; mso-themecolor:text1; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6FirstRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:first-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:cell-none; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Georgia; mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:major-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Georgia; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6LastRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:last-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; color:#968C6D; mso-themecolor:text2; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6FirstCol {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:first-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6LastCol {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:last-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6OddColumn {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:odd-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-shading:#F7CBC7; mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:63;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6OddRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:odd-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-shading:#F7CBC7; mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:63;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE 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-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:12.0pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; 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mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Georgia; mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:major-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Georgia; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6LastRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:last-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; color:#968C6D; mso-themecolor:text2; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6FirstCol {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:first-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6LastCol {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:last-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6OddColumn {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:odd-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-shading:#F7CBC7; mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:63;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6OddRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:odd-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-shading:#F7CBC7; mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:63;} It is generally accepted among business communities that technology by itself is not a silver bullet to all problems, but when it is combined with leading practices, strategy, careful planning and execution, it can create a recipe for success. This post attempts to highlight some of the best practices along with dos & don’ts that our practice has accumulated over the years in the identity & access management space in general, and also in the context of R2, in particular. Best Practices The following section illustrates the leading practices in “How” to plan, implement and sustain a successful OIM deployment, based on our collective experience. Planning is critical, but often overlooked A common approach to planning an IAM program that we identify with our clients is the three step process involving a current state assessment, a future state roadmap and an executable strategy to get there. It is extremely beneficial for clients to assess their current IAM state, perform gap analysis, document the recommended controls to address the gaps, align future state roadmap to business initiatives and get buy in from all stakeholders involved to improve the chances of success. When designing an enterprise-wide solution, the scalability of the technology must accommodate the future growth of the enterprise and the projected identity transactions over several years. Aligning the implementation schedule of OIM to related information technology projects increases the chances of success. As a baseline, it is recommended to match hardware specifications to the sizing guide for R2 published by Oracle. Adherence to this will help ensure that the hardware used to support OIM will not become a bottleneck as the adoption of new services increases. If your Organization has numerous connected applications that rely on reconciliation to synchronize the access data into OIM, consider hosting dedicated instances to handle reconciliation. Finally, ensure the use of clustered environment for development and have at least three total environments to help facilitate a controlled migration to production. If your Organization is planning to implement role based access control, we recommend performing a role mining exercise and consolidate your enterprise roles to keep them manageable. In addition, many Organizations have multiple approval flows to control access to critical roles, applications and entitlements. If your Organization falls into this category, we highly recommend that you limit the number of approval workflows to a small set. Most Organizations have operations managed across data centers with backend database synchronization, if your Organization falls into this category, ensure that the overall latency between the datacenters when replicating the databases is less than ten milliseconds to ensure that there are no front office performance impacts. Ingredients for a successful implementation During the development phase of your project, there are a number of guidelines that can be followed to help increase the chances for success. Most implementations cannot be completed without the use of customizations. If your implementation requires this, it’s a good practice to perform code reviews to help ensure quality and reduce code bottlenecks related to performance. We have observed at our clients that the development process works best when team members adhere to coding leading practices. Plan for time to correct coding defects and ensure developers are empowered to report their own bugs for maximum transparency. Many organizations struggle with defining a consistent approach to managing logs. This is particularly important due to the amount of information that can be logged by OIM. We recommend Oracle Diagnostics Logging (ODL) as an alternative to be used for logging. ODL allows log files to be formatted in XML for easy parsing and does not require a server restart when the log levels are changed during troubleshooting. Testing is a vital part of any large project, and an OIM R2 implementation is no exception. We suggest that at least one lower environment should use production-like data and connectors. Configurations should match as closely as possible. For example, use secure channels between OIM and target platforms in pre-production environments to test the configurations, the migration processes of certificates, and the additional overhead that encryption could impose. Finally, we ask our clients to perform database backups regularly and before any major change event, such as a patch or migration between environments. In the lowest environments, we recommend to have at least a weekly backup in order to prevent significant loss of time and effort. Similarly, if your organization is using virtual machines for one or more of the environments, it is recommended to take frequent snapshots so that rollbacks can occur in the event of improper configuration. Operate & sustain the solution to derive maximum benefits When migrating OIM R2 to production, it is important to perform certain activities that will help achieve a smoother transition. At our clients, we have seen that splitting the OIM tables into their own tablespaces by categories (physical tables, indexes, etc.) can help manage database growth effectively. If we notice that a client hasn’t enabled the Oracle-recommended indexing in the applicable database, we strongly suggest doing so to improve performance. Additionally, we work with our clients to make sure that the audit level is set to fit the organization’s auditing needs and sometimes even allocate UPA tables and indexes into their own table-space for better maintenance. Finally, many of our clients have set up schedules for reconciliation tables to be archived at regular intervals in order to keep the size of the database(s) reasonable and result in optimal database performance. For our clients that anticipate availability issues with target applications, we strongly encourage the use of the offline provisioning capabilities of OIM R2. This reduces the provisioning process for a given target application dependency on target availability and help avoid broken workflows. To account for this and other abnormalities, we also advocate that OIM’s monitoring controls be configured to alert administrators on any abnormal situations. Within OIM R2, we have begun advising our clients to utilize the ‘profile’ feature to encapsulate multiple commonly requested accounts, roles, and/or entitlements into a single item. By setting up a number of profiles that can be searched for and used, users will spend less time performing the same exact steps for common tasks. We advise our clients to follow the Oracle recommended guides for database and application server tuning which provides a good baseline configuration. It offers guidance on database connection pools, connection timeouts, user interface threads and proper handling of adapters/plug-ins. All of these can be important configurations that will allow faster provisioning and web page response times. Many of our clients have begun to recognize the value of data mining and a remediation process during the initial phases of an implementation (to help ensure high quality data gets loaded) and beyond (to support ongoing maintenance and business-as-usual processes). A successful program always begins with identifying the data elements and assigning a classification level based on criticality, risk, and availability. It should finish by following through with a remediation process. Dos & Don’ts Here are the most common dos and don'ts that we socialize with our clients, derived from our experience implementing the solution. Dos Don’ts Scope the project into phases with realistic goals. Look for quick wins to show success and value to the stake holders. Avoid “boiling the ocean” and trying to integrate all enterprise applications in the first phase. Establish an enterprise ID (universal unique ID across the enterprise) earlier in the program. Avoid major UI customizations that require code changes. Have a plan in place to patch during the project, which helps alleviate any major issues or roadblocks (product and database). Avoid publishing all the target entitlements if you don't anticipate their usage during access request. Assess your current state and prepare a roadmap to address your operations, tactical and strategic goals, align it with your business priorities. Avoid integrating non-production environments with your production target systems. Defer complex integrations to the later phases and take advantage of lessons learned from previous phases Avoid creating multiple accounts for the same user on the same system, if there is an opportunity to do so. Have an identity and access data quality initiative built into your plan to identify and remediate data related issues early on. Avoid creating complex approval workflows that would negative impact productivity and SLAs. Identify the owner of the identity systems with fair IdM knowledge and empower them with authority to make product related decisions. This will help ensure overcome any design hurdles. Avoid creating complex designs that are not sustainable long term and would need major overhaul during upgrades. Shadow your internal or external consulting resources during the implementation to build the necessary product skills needed to operate and sustain the solution. Avoid treating IAM as a point solution and have appropriate level of communication and training plan for the IT and business users alike. Conclusion In our experience, Identity programs will struggle with scope, proper resourcing, and more. We suggest that companies consider the suggestions discussed in this post and leverage them to help enable their identity and access program. This concludes PwC blog series on R2 for the month and we sincerely hope that the information we have shared thus far has been beneficial. For more information or if you have questions, you can reach out to Rex Thexton, Senior Managing Director, PwC and or Dharma Padala, Director, PwC. We look forward to hearing from you. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE 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-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:12.0pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Meet the Writers: Dharma Padala is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has been implementing medium to large scale Identity Management solutions across multiple industries including utility, health care, entertainment, retail and financial sectors.   Dharma has 14 years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which he has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past 8 years. Praveen Krishna is a Manager in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  Over the last decade Praveen has helped clients plan, architect and implement Oracle identity solutions across diverse industries.  His experience includes delivering security across diverse topics like network, infrastructure, application and data where he brings a holistic point of view to problem solving. Scott MacDonald is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has consulted for several clients across multiple industries including financial services, health care, automotive and retail.   Scott has 10 years of experience in delivering Identity Management solutions. John Misczak is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has experience implementing multiple Identity and Access Management solutions, specializing in Oracle Identity Manager and Business Process Engineering Language (BPEL).

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• Antenna Aligner Part 5: Devil is in the detail

  - by Chris George

  "The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time and the last 10% takes the another 200%"  (excerpt from onista) Now that I have a working app (more or less), it's time to make it pretty and slick. I can't stress enough how useful it is to get other people using your software, and my simple app is no exception. I handed my iPhone to a couple of my colleagues at Red Gate and asked them to use it and give me feedback. Immediately it became apparent that the delay between the list page being shown and the list being drawn was too long, and everyone who tried the app clicked on the "Recalculate" button before it had finished. Similarly, selecting a transmitter heralded a delay before the compass page appeared with similar consequences. All users expected there to be some sort of feedback/spinny etc. to show them it is actually doing something. In a similar vein although for opposite reasons, clicking the Recalculate button did indeed recalculate the available transmitters and redraw them, but it did this too fast! One or two users commented that they didn't know if it had done anything. All of these issues resulted in similar solutions; implement a waiting spinny. Thankfully, jquery mobile has one built in, primarily used for ajax operations. Not wishing to bore you with the many many iterations I went through trying to get this to work, I'll just give you my solution! (Seriously, I was working on this most evenings for at least a week!) The final solution for the recalculate problem came in the form of the code below. $(document).on("click", ".show-page-loading-msg", function () {            var $this = $(this),                theme = $this.jqmData("theme") ||                        $.mobile.loadingMessageTheme;            $.mobile.showPageLoadingMsg(theme, "recalculating", false);            setTimeout(function ()                           { $.mobile.hidePageLoadingMsg(); }, 2000);            getLocationData();        })        .on("click", ".hide-page-loading-msg", function () {              $.mobile.hidePageLoadingMsg();        }); The spinny is activated by setting the class of a button (for example) to the 'show-page-loading-msg' class. Recalculate This means the code above is fired, calling the showPageLoadingMsg on the document.mobile object. Then, after a 2 second timeout, it calls the hidePageLoadingMsg() function. Supposedly, it should show "recalculating" underneath the spinny, but I've not got that to work. I'm wondering if there is a problem with the jquery mobile implementation. Anyway, it doesn't really matter, it's the principle I'm after, and I now have spinnys!

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• how do I get dual monitors to work properly in Ubuntu 11.10 on a Dell Latitude D630?

  - by wes cook

  I have spent a lot of time trying to get dual monitors to work on Ubuntu 11.10 on my Dell Latitude D630 (nVidia NVS 135m video card). - For starters, the System Displays settings app always only showed one unknown monitor, even though I had the external Acer monitor connected. - So I downloaded and installed the nVidia drivers. According to what I read I would need to only use the nVidia driver app (nVidia X Server Settings), so that's what I've done. (System Displays settings continued to only show a single monitor anyway). - nVidia settings app only showed on monitor until I changed the BIOS setting to use the onboard video for external monitor (not the dock video, which it was set to, even though I don't have a docking station). - The nVidia setting app now recognized both monitors. So, I setup the X Server display config as Separate X screen for both monitors. My laptop screen shows up as AUO 1440x900 and my external monitor as Acer E211H 1920x1080. - Everything seemed like it would work, but the external monitor was just a complete white screen. The external monitor was non-functional, even though sometimes it would show the background image - still nothing would show up over there. - So, I checked the Enable Xinerama box. - Now, after logging out and back in, the wallpaper extends to both screens but I get no taskbar at the bottom or top, no system menus, and I have to press the power button to restart or log off. - After experimenting with all the shells, the only one that shows the menus and taskbars when I log in is Gnome Classic. - This is pretty much the same symptoms as found here: How do I fix 11.10 GUI?. - So, I resign myself to the older shell. - Everything works fine until ... I unplug the external monitor ... this is a laptop after all. - Anyway, after doing some work on the road, I plug back in and I still see both screens and it's functional except, ... - Now, the laptop screen (with the taskbar and menu bar) has 4 black bars at the top that windows cannot cover. The top bar is the menu bar (with Applications, Places, the date and time and the system menu on the right). But the next 3 bars (the same height as the top menu bar) are empty and are just reducing the max size of windows on that screen. - See screenshot here: http://i39.tinypic.com/35d2kh1.png - So ... 1. How do I get rid of those extra 3 black bars? They're taking valuable screen space. 2. (less critical) How do I successfully use both screens in the Ubuntu or Ubuntu 2D shell?

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• 25 reasons to attend JavaOne 2012

  - by arungupta

  17th JavaOne is just around the corner, less than 3 weeks away! If you are still thinking about registering for the conference, here are my top 25 reasons to attend the conference: Biggest gathering of Java geeks in the world Latest and greatest content with 475 technical sessions/Birds of Feathers/Hands-on labs sessions (about 20% more from last year) Reduced number of keynotes to accommodate room for more technical content No product pitches, exclusive focus on technology (I can tell you that from my experience as a track lead) Sessions are divided in different in-depth technical tracks to focus on Java technology that most interests you Reruns of several popular sessions Experts and Practitioners-led HOLs and tutorials Rock star speakers, panelists, faculties, and instructors. Meet several Java Champions and JUG leaders from all around the world Engage with speakers and discuss with fellow developers in a casual setting with lots of networking space A complete conference dedicated for Java Embedded Extensive and fast-paced hands-on University Sessions on Sunday, learn while you are at the conference. You can register for Java University only or attend with the conference. Dukes Choice Awards recognize and celebrate the most innovative usage of the Java platform DEMOgrounds and Exhibition Hall provide extensive opportunities for networking and engagement with the biggest names in Java (dedicated hours on each day as well) Dedicated day for Java User Groups and Communities (GlassFish Community Event and NetBeans Community Day) Multiple registration packages to meet your needs Pay for 4 full conference passes and get a fifth one free Students and Bloggers get a free pass Geek Bike Ride with fellow speakers and attendees in a casual setting Greenest conference on the plane Enjoy different cuisines in the San Francisco city, take a trip to Alcatraz or Napa Valley or go running on the crooked street ;-) There are tons of tourist opportunities in/around San Francisco. Tons of parties during the conference, in the evening, late night, and early mornings. Don't forget Thirsty Bear Party! Pearl Jam and Kings of Leon at Appreciation Party Oracle Music Festival at Yerba Buena Gardens Grab the bragging rights "I have attended JavaOne"! Learn a new skill, build new connections, conceive a new idea and push the boundaries of Java in the most important educational and networking event of the year for Java developers and enthusiasts. With so much geekgasm going on during the 5 days of JavaOne, is there a reason for you to wait ? Register for the conference now! Grab your buttons, banners, and other collateral at JavaOne Toolkit. You can also send an email to [email protected]. And reach out to us using different social media channels ... As a 13 year veteran of the conference, I can tell this is some thing every Java developer must experience! I will be there, will you ?

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• Strange rendering in XNA/Monogame

  - by Gerhman

  I am trying to render G-Code generated for a 3d-printer as the printed product by reading the file as line segments and the drawing cylinders with the diameter of the filament around the segment. I think I have managed to do this part right because the vertex I am sending to the graphics device appear to have been processed correctly. My problem I think lies somewhere in the rendering. What basically happens is that when I start rotating my model in the X or Y axis then it renders perfectly for half of the rotation but then for the other half it has this weird effect where you start seeing through the outer filament into some of the shapes inside. This effect is the strongest with X rotations though. Here is a picture of the part of the rotation that looks correct: And here is one that looks horrible: I am still quite new to XNA and/Monogame and 3d programming as a whole. I have no idea what could possibly be causing this and even less of an idea of what this type of behavior is called. I am guessing this has something to do with rendering so have added the code for that part: protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Black); basicEffect.World = world; basicEffect.View = view; basicEffect.Projection = projection; basicEffect.VertexColorEnabled = true; basicEffect.EnableDefaultLighting(); GraphicsDevice.SetVertexBuffer(vertexBuffer); RasterizerState rasterizerState = new RasterizerState(); rasterizerState.CullMode = CullMode.CullClockwiseFace; rasterizerState.ScissorTestEnable = true; GraphicsDevice.RasterizerState = rasterizerState; foreach (EffectPass pass in basicEffect.CurrentTechnique.Passes) { pass.Apply(); GraphicsDevice.DrawPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList, 0, vertexBuffer.VertexCount); } base.Draw(gameTime); } I don't know if it could be because I am shading something that does not really have a texture. I am using this custom vertex declaration I found on some tutorial that allows me to store a vertex with a position, color and normal: public struct VertexPositionColorNormal { public Vector3 Position; public Color Color; public Vector3 Normal; public readonly static VertexDeclaration VertexDeclaration = new VertexDeclaration ( new VertexElement(0, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Position, 0), new VertexElement(sizeof(float) * 3, VertexElementFormat.Color, VertexElementUsage.Color, 0), new VertexElement(sizeof(float) * 3 + 4, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Normal, 0) ); } If any of you have ever seen this type of thing please help. Also, if you think that the problem might lay somewhere else in my code then please just request what part you would like to see in the comments section.

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• Becoming a "maintenance developer"

  - by anon

  So I've kind of been getting angry about the current position I'm in, and I'd love to get other developers' input on this. I've been at my current place of employment for about 11 months now. When I began, I was working on all new features. I basically worked on an entire new web project for the first 5-6 months I was here. After this, I was moved to more of a service oriented role (which was still great, all new stuff for me), and I was in this role for about the past 5-6 months. Here's where the problem comes in. Basically, a couple of days ago I was made the support/maintenance guy. Now, we have an IT support team, so I'm not talking that kind of support, I'm talking more of a second level support guy (when the guys on the surface can't really get to the root of the issue), coupled with working on maintenance issues that have been lingering in the backlog for a while. To me, a developer with about 3 years of experience, this is kind of disheartening. With the type of work place this is, I wouldn't be surprised if these support issues take up most of my days, and I barely make it to working on maintenance issues. Also, most of these support issues aren't even related to code, they are more or less just knowing the system architecture, working with making sure services are running/getting started properly, handling/fixing bad data, etc. I'm a developer, so this part sucks. Also, even when I do have time to work maintenance, these are basically just bug fixes/improving bad code, so this sucks as well, however at least it's related to coding. Am I wrong for getting angry here? I don't want to really complain about it, but to be honest, I wasn't spoken to about this or anything, I was kind of just sent an e-mail letting me know I'm the guy for this type of thing, and that was that. The entire team took a few minutes to give me their "that sucks" talk, because they know how annoying it is to be on support for the type of work we do, so I know I'm not the only guy that knows it's not that great of an opportunity. I'm just kind of on the fence about how to move forward. Obviously I'm just going to continue working for the time being, no point making a bad impression on anybody, but I'd like to know how you guys would approach this situation, or how you think I should be feeling about it/how you guys would feel. Thanks guys.

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• What can a Service do on Windows?

  - by Akemi Iwaya

  If you open up Task Manager or Process Explorer on your system, you will see many services running. But how much of an impact can a service have on your system, especially if it is ‘corrupted’ by malware? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answers to a curious reader’s questions. Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Forivin wants to know how much impact a service can have on a Windows system, especially if it is ‘corrupted’ by malware: What kind malware/spyware could someone put into a service that does not have its own process on Windows? I mean services that use svchost.exe for example, like this: Could a service spy on my keyboard input? Take screenshots? Send and/or receive data over the internet? Infect other processes or files? Delete files? Kill processes? How much impact could a service have on a Windows installation? Are there any limits to what a malware ‘corrupted’ service could do? The Answer SuperUser contributor Keltari has the answer for us: What is a service? A service is an application, no more, no less. The advantage is that a service can run without a user session. This allows things like databases, backups, the ability to login, etc. to run when needed and without a user logged in. What is svchost? According to Microsoft: “svchost.exe is a generic host process name for services that run from dynamic-link libraries”. Could we have that in English please? Some time ago, Microsoft started moving all of the functionality from internal Windows services into .dll files instead of .exe files. From a programming perspective, this makes more sense for reusability…but the problem is that you can not launch a .dll file directly from Windows, it has to be loaded up from a running executable (exe). Thus the svchost.exe process was born. So, essentially a service which uses svchost is just calling a .dll and can do pretty much anything with the right credentials and/or permissions. If I remember correctly, there are viruses and other malware that do hide behind the svchost process, or name the executable svchost.exe to avoid detection. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.

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• Oracle's Integrated Systems Management and Support Experience

  - by Scott McNeil

  With its recent launch, Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g introduced a new approach to integrated systems management and support. What this means is taking both areas of IT management and vendor support and combining them into one integrated comprehensive and centralized platform. Traditional Ways Under the traditional method, IT operational teams would often focus on running their systems using management tools that weren’t connected to their vendor’s support systems. If you needed support with a product, administrators would often contact the vendor by phone or visit the vendor website for support and then log a service request in order to fix the issues. This method was also very time consuming, as administrators would have to collect their software configurations, operating systems and hardware settings, then manually enter them into an online form or recite them to a support analyst on the phone. For the vendor, they had to analyze all the configuration data to recreate the problem in order to solve it. This approach was very manual, uncoordinated and error-prone where duplication between the customer and vendor frequently occurred. A Better Support Experience By removing the boundaries between support, IT management tools and the customer’s IT infrastructure, Oracle paved the way for a better support experience. This was achieved through integration between Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g and My Oracle Support. Administrators can not only manage their IT infrastructure and applications through Oracle Enterprise Manager’s centralized console but can also receive proactive alerts and patch recommendations right within the console they use day-in-day-out. Having one single source of information saves time and potentially prevents unforeseen problems down the road. All for One, and One for All The first step for you is to allow Oracle Enterprise Manager to upload configuration data into Oracle’s secure configuration repository, where it can be analyzed for potential issues or conflicts for all customers. A fix to a problem encountered by one customer may actually be relevant to many more. The integration between My Oracle Support and Oracle Enterprise Manager allows all customers who may be impacted by the problem to receive a notification about the fix. Once the alert appears in Oracle Enterprise Manager’s console, the administrator can take his/her time to do further investigations using automated workflows provided in Oracle Enterprise Manager to analyze potential conflicts. Finally, administrators can schedule a time to test and automatically apply the fix to all the systems that need it. In the end, this helps customers maintain their service levels without compromise and avoid experiencing unplanned downtime that may result from potential issues or conflicts. This new paradigm of integrated systems management and support helps customers keep their systems secure, compliant, and up-to-date, while eliminating the traditional silos between IT management and vendor support. Oracle’s next generation platform also works hand-in-hand to provide higher quality of service to business users while at the same time making life for administrators less complicated. For more information on Oracle’s integrated systems management and support experience, be sure to visit our Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Resource Center for the latest customer videos, webcast, and white papers.

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• Music Notation Editor - Refactoring view creation logic elseware

  - by Cyril Silverman

  Let me preface by saying that knowing some elementary music theory and music notation may be helpful in grasping the problem at hand. I'm currently building a Music Notation and Tablature Editor (in Javascript). But I've come to a point where the core parts of the program are more or less there. All functionality I plan to add at this point will really build off the foundation that I've created. As a result, I want to refactor to really solidify my code. I'm using an API called VexFlow to render notation. Basically I pass the parts of the editor's state to VexFlow to build the graphical representation of the score. Here is a rough and stripped down UML diagram showing you the outline of my program: In essence, a Part has many Measures which has many Notes which has many NoteItems (yes, this is semantically weird, as a chord is represented as a Note with multiple NoteItems, individual pitches or fret positions). All of the relationships are bi-directional. There are a few problems with my design because my Measure class contains the majority of the entire application view logic. The class holds the data about all VexFlow objects (the graphical representation of the score). It contains the graphical Staff object and the graphical notes. (Shouldn't these be placed somewhere else in the program?) While VexFlowFactory deals with actual creation (and some processing) of most of the VexFlow objects, Measure still "directs" the creation of all the objects and what order they are supposed to be created in for both the VexFlowStaff and VexFlowNotes. I'm not looking for a specific answer as you'd need a much deeper understanding of my code. Just a general direction to go in. Here's a thought I had, create an MeasureView/NoteView/PartView classes that contains the basic VexFlow objects for each class in addition to any extraneous logic for it's creation? but where would these views be contained? Do I create a ScoreView that is a parallel graphical representation of everything? So that ScoreView.render() would cascade down PartView and call render for each PartView and casade down into each MeasureView, etc. Again, I just have no idea what direction to go in. The more I think about it, the more ways to go seem to pop into my head. I tried to be as concise and simplistic as possible while still getting my problem across. Please feel free to ask me any questions if anything is unclear. It's quite a struggle trying to dumb down a complicated problem to its core parts.

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• Suggestions for connecting .NET WPF GUI with Java SE Server aoo

  - by Sam Goldberg

  BACKGROUND We are building a Java (SE) trading application which will be monitoring market data and sending trade messages based on the market data, and also on user defined configuration parameters. We are planning to provide the user with a thin client, built in .NET (WPF) for managing the parameters, controlling the server behavior, and viewing the current state of the trading. The client doesn't need real-time updates; it will instead update the view once every few seconds (or whatever interval is configured by the user). The client has about 6 different operations it needs to perform with the server, for example: CRUD with configuration parameters query subset of the data receive updates of current positions from server It is possible that most of the different operations (except for receiving data) are just different flavors of managing the configuration parameters, but it's too early in our analysis for us to be sure. To connect the client with the server, we have been considering using: SOAP Web Service RESTful service building a custom TCP/IP based API (text or xml) (least preferred - but we use this approach with other applications we have) As best as I understand, pros and cons of the different web service flavors are: SOAP pro: totally automated in .NET (and Java), modifying server side interface require no code changes in communication layer, just running refresh on Web Service reference to regenerate the classes. con: more overhead in the communication layer sending more text, etc. We're not using J2EE container so maybe doesn't work so well with J2SE REST pro: lighter weight, less data. Has good .NET and Java support. (I don't have any real experience with this, so don't know what other benefits it has.) con: client will not be automatically aware if there are any new operations or properties added (?), so communication layer needs to be updated by developer if server interface changes. con: (both approaches) Server cannot really push updates to the client at regular intervals (?) (However, we won't mind if client polls the server to get updates.) QUESTION What are your opinions on the above options or suggestions for other ways to connect the 2 parts? (Ideally, we don't want to put much work into the communication layer, because it's not the significant part of the application so the more off-the-shelf and automated the better.)

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• How to access files on a drive from an older system, mounted in a new system?

  - by David Thomas

  I've recently built a new system, after a rather large physical injury was sustained by my previous system (a precarious balance, and gravity, were not a happy mix). Surprisingly the /home drive of that system appears to have more-or-less survived the trauma. However... I decided to use a fresh drive for / (and swap) partition(s), and another fresh drive for the new /home. Now that's working, I decided to install the old /home drive (that I had assumed until now would be entirely dead and without capacity for use) into the new system to recover the files and data (so far as is possible). At this point I've run into a snag: I have no idea how to go about this (with Windows it was relatively easy, the new drive would be the latest character of the alphabet, and go from there). With 'disk utility' (System - Administration - Disk Utitlity) I've worked out which drive it is (/dev/sda) but clicking on 'mount' produces an error: 1: helper failed with: mount: according to mtab, /dev/sdb1 is already mounted on / mount failed ...if it is mounted on / I can't see it. I'm also moderately confused by the disk (device /dev/sda) being referred to as /dev/sdb1. Any and all insights would be incredibly welcome (I've already voted for: Idea #9063: New internal hard drives default automount at Brainstorm). Edited in response to Roland's request for a screenshot of disk utility: Details (so far as I know them): 40GB disk is / and swap, 1.0 TB Samsung is /home 1.0 TB Hitachi is from the old system (and was the old /home drive). Output from sudo fdisk -l pasted below: Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000bef00 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 121601 976760001 83 Linux Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40018599936 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00037652 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 1 4742 38084608 83 Linux /dev/sdb2 4742 4866 993281 5 Extended /dev/sdb5 4742 4866 993280 82 Linux swap / Solaris Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000e8d46 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 1 121602 976760832 83 Linux

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• Cloud service and IM protocol advice, for a backend to group chat mobile app

  - by Jonathan

  Overview I’m going to develop an app on Android and iOS. It will allow users to set up group ‘chat rooms’ and talk on chat rooms set up by other users. The service needs to be highly scalable, such that it could accommodate a massive increase in users overnight (we can only dream). Chat requirements The chat protocol used should be flexible: it should allow me to determine who can view/post on ‘chat rooms’ based on certain other factors, as determined by the first poster/creator of the particular ‘chat room’. It should also allow for users to simply install the app and begin using the service, after only providing a simple nickname (which could be changed later). Chat protocol plans Having looked around I think the XMPP protocol is the best candidate. In particular the Multi-user chat extension looks like what I’ll need. Would this be most suited to my requirements, or do you know another potential solution? Cloud service I have been deciding between Amazon Web Services, Google App Engine and Windows Azure. I’m coming to the conclusion that Azure will be best, as it is easier to manage than AWS (ease of scalability will be a key factor in the design), I think it may be less restricted than GAE, plus Azure will soon have toolkits to allow easy interfacing with both Android and iOS phones. Is this the decision you would have made, or would you recommend/look into other cloud services? General project philosophy I have only recently started looking into this project’s feasibility, and am no expert on any of its aspects. So wherever possible I will leave the actual implementations to experts, i.e. choosing a higher-level cloud service, using a well-documented plugin of a, proven reliable, group chat protocol etc. My background I have some programming knowledge from a computer science degree. Main languages I’ve used have been Java and Python, but I don’t want this to affect design decisions for the project. The most appropriate languages for the task should be used, i.e. I don’t mind learning a lot of new skills (my current programming levels are relatively basic anyway). Thank you Thanks for reading, and any advice you have about any aspect would be greatly appreciated :-)

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• `make install` fails apparently due to typo, but not in makefile: How to find and fix?

  - by Archelon

  I'm trying to install the fujitsu-usb-touchscreen drivers from here, on Kubuntu 12.04 on my new Fujitsu LifeBook P1630. (See fujitsu-usb-touchscreen on kubuntu 13.04 (64-bit) on P1630: `make` errors.) I downloaded the .zip file, unzipped it, and ran make in the directory thus created; this all worked as expected. However, when I run sudo checkinstall (which invokes make install), things go less well. On the first attempt the installation aborted with the following error: make: execvp: /etc/init.d/fujitsu_touchscreen: Permission denied make: *** [install] Error 127 I eventually resolved this by $ sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/fujitsu_touchscreen But although a second sudo checkinstall then does not give the execvp error, it still fails at a later stage, and the log (on stdout) shows this dpkg error: dpkg: error processing /home/archelon/fujitsu-touchscreen-driver/cybergene-fujitsu-usb-touchscreen-112fdb75b406/cybergene-fujitsu-usb-touchscreen-112fdb75b406_amd64.deb (--install): unable to create `/sys/module/fujitsu/usb/touchscreen/parameters/touch_maxy.dpkg-new' (while processing `/sys/module/fujitsu/usb/touchscreen/parameters/touch_maxy'): No such file or directory And, indeed, there is no /sys/module/fujitsu/usb/touchscreen/parameters/touch_maxy; there is, however, /sys/module/fujitsu_usb_touchscreen/parameters/touch_maxy, and this is presumably what was intended. But this incorrect filename does not appear in the makefile or any other file in the directory, at least not that I can find. Nor does it appear, as I discovered after running sudo checkinstall --install=no as suggested below, in the .deb package created by checkinstall. Where might such a typographical error be originating, and how would I go about fixing it? Edited to add: I'm viewing the contents of the .deb file with ark, Kubuntu's default tool. It contains only three files: control.tar.gz, data.tar.gz, and debian-binary. data.tar.gz contains the directory tree that appears to match up to the usual root filesystem, with /etc, /lib, /sys, and /usr directories. (Looking at other .deb files on my system, this structure appears to be typical.) Here's a screenshot: . (Full size.) Here's another screenshot showing that control.tar.gz contains three files, one of which is empty: . (Full size.) Here's the actual .deb file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/odwxxez0fhyvg7a/cybergene-fujitsu-usb-touchscreen_112fdb75b406-1_amd64.deb Edited 2013-09-28 to add: After reinstalling Kubuntu 12.04 again, this time recreating the /home partition (which, again, had been generated during an install of 13.04), I can no longer reproduce this error. I am still curious to know how the underscores got changed to slashes, but it looks as though nobody has any idea. It is perhaps also of interest to note that while I have still not successfully run checkinstall against this package, I have done make install; it requires the executabilization of /etc/init.d/fujitsu_touchscreen and the installation of hal, and the GUI freezes shortly after installation completes, and there is no particular new functionality afterwards that I have noticed, and the system can no longer resume from being suspended; however, this will be pursued elsewhere.

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• Is anyone doing "real" TDD with Visual-C++, and if yes, how do they do it?

  - by Martin

  Test Driven Development implies writing the test before the code and following a certain cycle: Write Test Check Test (run) Write Production Code Check Test (run) Clean up Production Code Check test (run) As far as I'm concerned, this is only possible if your development solution allows you to very quickly switch between the production and test code, and to execute the test for a certain production code part extremely quickly. Now, while there exist lots of Unit Testing Frameworks for C++ (I'm using Bost.Test atm.) it does seem that there doesn't really exist any decent (for native C++) Visual Studio (Plugin) solution that makes the TDD cycle bearable regardless of framework used. "Bearable" means that it's a one-click action to run a test for a certain cpp file without having to manually set up a separate testing project etc. "Bearable" also means that a simple test starts (linking!) and runs very quickly. So, what tools (plugins) and techniques are out there that make the TDD cycle possible for native C++ development with Visual Studio? Note: I'm fine with free or "commercial" tools. Please: No framework recommendations. (Unless the framework has a dedicated Visual Studio plugin and you want to recommend the plugin.) Edit Note: The answers so far have provided links on how to integrate a Unit Testing framework into Visual Studio. The resources more or less describe how to get the UT framework to compile and get your first Tests running. This is not what this question is about. I'm of the opinion that to really work productively, having the Unit Tests in a manually maintained(!), separate vcproj from your production classes will add so much overhead that TDD "isn't possible". As far as I am aware, you do not add extra "projects" to a Java or C# thing to enable Unit Tests and TDD, and for a good reason. This should be possible with C++ given the right tools, but it seems (this question is about) that there are very little tools for TDD/C++/VS. Googling around, I've found one tool, VisualAssert, that seems to aim in the right direction. However, afaiks, it doesn't seem to be in widespread use (compared to CppUnit, Boost.Test etc.). Edit: I would like to add a comment to the context for this question. I think it does a good summary of outlining (part of) the problem: (comment by Billy ONeal) Visual Studio does not use "build scripts" that are reasonably editable by the user. One project produces one binary. Moreover, Java has the property that Java never builds a complete binary -- the binary you build is just a ZIP of the class files. Therefore it's possible to compile separately then JAR together manually (using e.g. 7z). C++ and C# both actually link their binaries, so generally speaking you can't write a script like that. The closest you can get is to compile everything separately and then do two linkings (one for production, one for testing).

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